Guilt about adult grandchild/grandparent relationship
I (32F) having been feeling a lot of guilt recently about my relationship (or lack of relationship) with my maternal grandmother (80sF).
Backstory: As a child, I always felt like I had a good relationship with her. She and my grandfather lived around an hour and a half away and would come to various band concerts and school activities, holidays, and other random weekends. When my grandfather passed away about 10 years ago, my grandmother moved closer to us (less than 10 minutes from my parents and about 30 minutes from me) and my mom would initiate near-monthly gatherings. There were a lot of gatherings that would end in my grandmother getting upset about something innocuous that was said and shutting down (silent, snippy, just generally in a bad mood that would be incredibly awkward and uncomfortable for the rest of us). This went on for quite awhile, to the point where none of us really wanted to spend time with her because it just seemed like it always ended in her being upset. Again, nothing mean or rude was ever done or said towards her, but she must have found something offensive or didn’t like the attention not on her. Over time, I’ve learned some history from my mom about her relationship with my grandmother. They always had a bit of a strained relationship, which I was never privy to as a child. The combination of natural aging, potential dementia/Alzheimer’s signs (although not diagnosed), and the already strained relationship with my grandmother ended in a huge blow up fight between my mom, my uncle (her brother), and my grandmother and we have not had a gathering with my grandmother since (it’s been about 6-7 months since that happened). My mom is still in contact with her as she assists with taking her to appointments, running errands, and just generally helping her with household tasks, but it seems a lot of these interactions end in some sort of fight. While my grandmother has never done or said anything particularly bad to me, I have been present when she’s emotionally shut down and just knowing how she treats my mom has put a negative light on how I see her. I do still feel some guilt that I have not reached out to her in months and have not actually seen her since Christmas (about 10 months ago now), as I have been letting my mom decide how she wants to proceed with the relationship. I have a much closer relationship with my mom and while I don’t think spending individual time with my grandmother would cause some kind of rift with my mom, I just want to support her and tend to be on her side more than my grandmother’s.
Has anyone else had similar experiences? How did you navigate feelings of guilt when cutting someone out of your life/not initiating gatherings or communication? If my grandmother reached out to me or showed any interest in maintaining a relationship, I would be willing to try, but she has never initiated anything of the sort. All interactions were basically filtered through my mom and now that their relationship has become more and more strained, the interactions just don’t happen.
To an outsider, my grandmother seems like a lovely and sweet person and she really is nice to other people (my in-laws, for example), so I think that’s also what’s making it difficult to grapple with. I think I’m considering other people’s opinions of why I may be “abandoning” this perfectly lovely older woman. Any thoughts or perspectives I’m not considering?