How to care for the people you love, even when they don’t listen to you?
By: Growing Up The Wrong Way
Tags: Mental Health, Relationships, Family, Healthy Lifestyle, Love

Photo by Scott Broome on Unsplash

There is this culture around us in the movies or when we talk to people i.e. to take care of the people you love no matter what? And what nobody tells you is this “no matter what” is really fucking difficult. It makes you pull out your hair, curse, cry, drink, and a hundred other things to cope up. It makes us more frustrated day in and day out when the people we love are going on the wrong path —their mental or physical health is worsening and they still won’t listen to us. I know how you feel, I went through the exact same journey with my parents.

After my sister got married, my mother didn’t have someone to talk to all day. So, when my mother became more quiet and sad. My dad followed her lead since he didn’t have his happy wify to talk to every day. And slowly they became lazy, didn’t do exercise and ate whatever they wanted. According to me their health was deteriorating so I tried convincing them to do something about it.

I thought a good son might push their parents to a healthier lifestyle, so they can be with him for a longer time. These are the few things which I tried: 1. Scared them with the idea of dying early without having to see their grandkids. I know this was kind of evil of me. But they started eating healthy and exercising for 2 straight weeks. But then this idea ran out of juice since everyday routine required foundational change in their habit which was more challenging for them. 2. Then I made my parents excited about Gym. I send them to one of those hifi gyms where you can see muscular sweaty guys and girls. I was thinking by seeing other fit people, it might bring in the required foundational change for my parents. Well after the first day, I saw my parents getting all ready to go to the gym on time. It felt that I was seeing kids getting ready to go to playschool — so ready and excited. And they use to come back talking about new songs they heard in the gym. Sadly when gyms got closed due to COVID they stopped.

I failed. So, tried again. Failed….. 4 years later. Now, I have learned something new — I was putting my standards on them. I wanted them to be healthy, I wanted them to exercise and meditate. They never wanted it since they’re happy in their life. I was judging their happiness on my terms and thinking they were sad. I was breaking their walls and pulling them into something they didn’t want. And when they didn’t listen to what I thought a good son was doing, I got sad and frustrated.

Do you know what worked for me? I stopped telling them what to do. Just by making this small change, I saw my parents happier whenever they spend time with me now. Even I was a lot happier since I didn’t have any expectations from them. Remember the harder you try to change your loved ones, the harder they’ll resist. By not putting my standards or what I wanted them to do, saved me a lot of my mental capacity. I have started focusing on myself so I can help my loved ones more when they need me.

I hope this helps someone who is going through a dilemma on how to help your loved ones when they don’t listen to you.

Let them be and let them know —

I am here for you.