M28. My parents just won’t leave me alone or give me my space and it’s getting mentally exhausting
M28 living in Bangalore. I’m currently with my mother and father at my parental home in Delhi for a few weeks as I’m on work tour. In the same house currently it’s of course worse, but even when I’m away alone at my own place, it’s hardly any better.
Me and my parents are very different people and that’s where the problems mostly start. Their opinions, preferences, lifestyle, etc. are very very different to mine. That aside, it’s very normal to distance and be different from your parents once you’re an adult, but sadly they think otherwise. They themselves moved out of their parental home in their early twenties and hardly had any parental influence or micromanagement from their parents, but for me they think otherwise.
I keep a light stubble beard but they want me to be clean shaved. This has been going on for at least 6 years now. Whenever I do a trim, they would always bring it up that it’s not what they like and not what others will like etc etc. “We have just one expectation from you to be clean shaved and you can’t do such a simple thing for us?”. Just the way they look at me after any trim is extremely disgusting, not to mention the comments that follow.
They want to know absolutely everything that is going on in my life. I don’t like to share certain things with family, even with friends, but they would constantly keep pushing and stalk me, ask others around me what’s going on, etc etc. I would constantly be asked to tell where I am throughout the day, even come on video call as proof to show where I am, etc. They’ll also constantly expose certain things about me to multiple people around that I want to be private. Recently I was in an evening office event in Bangalore where I was not able to answer my phone the whole evening as we all kept our phones in our bags. When I reached home around 11 PM, I noticed 19 missed calls. I dropped them a text saying that I was in an event today and will call them tomorrow. Next morning at 7 AM, my uncle and aunt who live in Bangalore far away from my place, suddenly turn up at my door, saying that my parents asked them to visit and check on me as I did not answer the phone the whole evening and they got worried. I live in a 1BHK alone and obviously there are certain things around in my house when I’m alone that I do not feel comfortable others seeing, such as my multivitamins, sports supplements, my laundry basket, or other things etc. I’m pretty sure nobody living in a 1BHK will be ready to let someone in without preparation or knowing someone is about to come for a visit. It was so uncomfortable for me but somehow I managed to instead go outside with them to talk rather than let them inside. This has now made me very paranoid about my space that someone can come into my house at any given time, and being a 1BHK I can’t always be prepared and clean things up for someone else abruptly.
Whenever I’m sick, I genuinely need my space and peace for good recovery and good rest. I have mentioned this since childhood but they just don’t leave me alone even as an adult. A while back I had a normal flu and at night I locked my room as usual after dinner, and told them on call to let me rest peacefully as well as texted them. A while later for some odd reason they overreacted and kept spamming me with calls. I picked up and said please let me rest, and on text I literally wrote “Leave me alone please. Good night” like at least 3 times. I ultimately had to switch off my phone due to the constant pings, but then they started and kept banging my door even after I told them to let me rest. They then proceeded to break through the back window of my room, open the curtains, and get inside. Not only it was obviously super uncomfortable and surprising for me having my room suddenly breached, but also it further irritated and worried me as they were exposing themselves to the flu as well by deliberately coming close to me. I was simply trying to have a peaceful sleep, but then they also started insisting for me to take medicine for a simple flu, go to doctor, this that etc etc. I managed to sleep after 4 AM that night due to all the chaos.
I’m 28 currently and I have made it very clear that I do not want to get married right now. It’s my personal choice and I don’t want to be influenced by anyone. They constantly keep bringing up girls, which is still okay and understandable I can deal with it, but it is their uncomfortably close comments that bother me. They talk about sexual things, intimacy, emotional needs, etc etc. which I genuinely do not feel comfortable hearing. Dating/marriage is something I take very privately but they openly talk about even the private aspects. The more I try to distance myself, the more they keep pushing into my space, thinking that I’m going away or going quiet because I have some issues going on or that I’m lonely this that etc etc. I appreciate their affection and care and I do the same within ethical limits, but they don’t see that line and in overdoing and being overprotective they make things worse than being not cared about at all.
If they know I’m on the road riding my bike, they would constantly keep calling me every few minutes telling me to “ride carefully” and get angry and worried if I don’t answer the phone. I obviously cannot answer my phone multiple times when I’m on a bike, and I’m pretty sure I can live peacefully without hearing “ride carefully” every 10 minutes. They want me to share live location also if I’m travelling, and also they’ll go on maps and tell me to take a different road because they think the other one is more riskier etc etc. I obviously don’t openly share whenever I’m travelling riding my bike, but obviously they’ll know it few times and when they do, it’s impossible to have a normal concentrated ride and it’s in fact more dangerous constantly getting distracted with a ringing phone in the pocket.
There is no end to controversial comments. If rarely I do answer back saying that something bothers me, I’ll be replied to with “This is why we raised you? To be treated like this after everything we’ve done for you?” etc etc. If I say something about someone that bothered me, they’ll go “You’re weak. Learn to face the world” etc etc. “Fine we will never talk about anything to you again. You don’t understand a parent’s concern” etc etc. Then they won’t talk to me for several days and keep a disappointed face. There’s absolutely no end to drama. They just don’t give up breaching my space and boundaries all in the name of “we care about you” and I genuinely don’t know how to make it stop. Every single day they think and even tell to my face “You haven’t seen the world you’re too innocent and not experienced” etc etc. “We have seen the world we know everything” etc etc.
I genuinely don’t know what to do and it’s now strongly affecting my peace, my health, everything, as well as theirs. As we grow they need to slowly distance themselves but at least in my case it's going the other way as I feel every year they keep getting more and more invasive. The stories I have shared above are just few of many incidents that have happened, and the ones who have experienced similar can imagine what it's like overall. More recently, they have been telling me "We are planning to relocate to Bangalore so you can live with us". I subtly gave a hint that I cannot and their instant response was "You don't want to live with us? What have we done to deserve this? Are we bad parents? Why wouldn't you want to live with us?" and also got slightly emotional and teary. I genuinely am drained with all this now and don't know what to do.