My [31/F) parents (early 50's M/F) used to be my best friends, but now they annoy me beyond capacity

I feel like such an asshole saying these things, and it’s hard to articulate exactly what’s bothering me so much - but I will try. For some background, I have always had a good relationship with my parents. When I was in my early to mid 20’s, I absolutely LOVED hanging out with them. We would eat, have some cocktails, go to movies together, invite each other to gatherings with our friends, talk about work and other adult life things… it was great. I felt like we could just be close friends, although I still respected them and looked up to them.

Then, about 4 years ago - they decided to move back to our hometown, a few hours away. All of our extended family was there. Relatives were growing older and dying off. My parents wanted to be able to spend time with them, as well as their own siblings and younger nieces/nephews. I was sad when they moved away. From then on, I would see them several times per year (maybe once every other month) for a few days. Either they would visit me, or I would visit them.

At first, everything was great and we enjoyed our visits together. But slowly, over time, I found myself getting irritable after being with them for more than a day or two. I felt like my parents were changing in ways that are hard to explain. They were just overall annoying due to a combination of little things. Like being really loud all the time, especially in restaurants - even in movies. It literally pains me to be in a confined space, like a car, with my mother because she’s so loud and… I don’t know, squawky? If we’re watching TV, my dad can literally not go 5 minutes without talking. Every time an actor comes on screen, he’s like “Oh! That’s so-and-so from whatever.” He seems to want to stop and talk about things that are happening in the show/movie nonstop. We just have to pause 20 times for him to say whatever. He is also extremely expressive in his reactions to shows/movies, even in movie theaters. Things like “Whoa! Shiiiiit. Oh my god! Ahhhh!” get really embarrassing in a movie theater. My mom will just straight chit chat through a movie in a theater, completely clueless. I know this is a lot of emphasis on movie theaters, but going to the movies as a family has always kind of been our thing - so it is a pretty frequent occurrence. They were never like this before. They always taught my sister and me to respect our surroundings and not be a nuisance to others. They were the parents who would actually supervise and discipline their kids in the grocery store, taught us spacial awareness, and other basic manners. People always complimented our family, as we were very well-behaved and polite children.

Other than general annoyances, I’ve found there are things about their lifestyle that I just don’t respect. My dad makes close to $300k per year, and my mom has usually held part time jobs just to keep her occupied. There is no reason they should not be very close to retirement, if not already there. But lifestyle creep got them hard. They insist on having a new car every 1-2 years, have always lived in nice homes that were way too big (especially with no kids around), and always have new electronics. They are insanely wasteful, especially with food. They will just buy a truckload of groceries without any plans for what to actually do with it all (like meal planning)... then just eat out for two weeks straight. There are things they *have* to keep around all the time - like sandwich stuff and salad stuff, milk, cereal, etc… even though they hardly ever end up consuming them. To them, these are just basic “staples” that would be weird not to have. They are still shopping like they have two kids in the house. Whenever I visit them, I find loads of expired food in their pantry and freezer. They are always throwing things out. And they never check to see if they already have something before just grabbing more at the store.

I have also come to realize that while I considered my parents progressive when I was younger, they have really not caught up with the times when it comes to being politically correct. They use offensive terms that have fallen out of grace in the past decade or so. When my sister and I will try to correct them, and gently explain why it is considered offensive now, they will agree not to use the terms - but they don’t seem to be really understanding or agreeing that it’s not ok. More like they just shut up for a while to appease us.

Their memories are really going downhill too. They tell the same stories over and over, with hardly a day in between. And they don’t remember the things I tell them about my life - which is upsetting, and it’s exhausting having to recap things all the time. I would rather just not tell them things anymore, which makes me sad. They are only in their early 50’s… it doesn’t seem normal that their memory would deteriorate this rapidly at this age. They seem to remember everything else just fine. It’s only life stories that they repeat a million times, and forget mine. Even when I try to have meaningful conversations with them, they seem to have lost their depth. Everything we talk about is so surface level now.

Another asshole thing for me to be annoyed by - my mother acts and dresses 10-20 years older than she actually is. She used to keep up with the times concerning general style, hair, makeup, clothing etc. But that came to a halt about 15 years ago for some reason. Her hair, makeup, and clothing are god awful. I wouldn’t be so judgmental about it if I thought that this was just her quirky style, but she seems 100% oblivious. To each their own or whatever, but it also stresses me out because my mom is trying to find a job now - and being that I have been a professional recruiter for 10+ years, she is always asking me for advice on her resume, interview prep, etc. She just peppers me with these questions randomly all the time. And I don’t know how to tell her that her general appearance and the way she carries herself is off-putting to the types of companies she is wanting to work for (mostly tech companies). I work for a popular major tech company, and have plenty of colleagues her age or older. They are miles apart. She also thinks she is waaaaay more qualified than she is, because of experience she has from 20+ years ago, and doesn’t understand the market at all. She is also frozen in time regarding her basic computer/tech skills, but I guess that is fairly common. She tells me about interviews that she’s been on and how she answered their questions, convinced that she absolutely NAILED it - and I’m just cringing hard at everything she says. She gets defensive with critical feedback, so I just don’t say anything.

There’s a million other things that bother me about them that I could list here, but then we would be here all week. To wrap it all up, they just seem overall kind of… unintelligent, and annoying. Recently they have moved back to my city and live just 20 minutes away. A few years ago, that would have been the happiest news ever. But now, my tolerance for them has dwindled to the point that it only takes about an hour with them before I want to jump out of my skin. I know it’s normal to an extent for your parents to be knocked off some kind of pedestal when you become an adult yourself, and I’m sure there’s some of that going on here. But I also feel like they have just genuinely changed. I don’t know how things are so different now after just a few years. I feel like such an asshole for thinking of them this way, and I feel like I’ve lost some of my best friends at the same time. I feel like delivering criticism on these things would just be nitpicking at who they are as people, which doesn’t seem fair to do being that they are generally good natured, generous, and self-sufficient. These are all things that would just seem like endearing traits on their own, but when combined as a whole - it's practically intolerable. I don’t know if I just have to deal with grieving the loss of my best friends or what. Is there any way to get them back?

TL;DR; My parents used to be my best friends, but hey have changed and I have changed. Now they annoy the hell out of me, but they're not actually doing anything "wrong." I am grieving the loss of my prior relationship with them. Is there a way to get it back?

Submitted July 23, 2019 at 08:34PM by PrincessBabyMuffin https://ift.tt/2YoH9F2