Caring for one’s parents may stem from love, but carrying the responsibility alone can eventually become overwhelming.
A woman recently opened up about the emotional and financial burden she has been carrying as the youngest and only unmarried child in her family.
While her siblings have started families of their own, she has gradually become the main person supporting their mother.
Became the family’s main financial support
According to the woman, her mother has not worked for many years, leaving her to cover most of the household’s daily expenses.
She never questioned the arrangement as she believed taking care of her mother was part of her responsibility as a daughter.
For years, she rarely kept track of how much she had spent or how much she had sacrificed.
However, she recently began feeling as though she could no longer cope with the pressure.
Mum frequently asked her to travel together
The woman shared that her mother often talks about getting older and wanting to see more of the world while she is still physically able to do so.
As a result, her mother frequently hopes that she will bring her on more overseas trips.
In fact, the woman has already travelled to several countries with her mother over the years, allowing her to experience things that many others her age may not have had the opportunity to enjoy.
Despite this, the requests have continued.
The woman admitted that she sometimes feels as though turning her mother down would make her an unfilial daughter.
Felt the responsibility was placed 100% on her
As the pressure continued to build, she began questioning why the responsibility seemed to fall solely on her when there were several children in the family.
She also wondered whether being unmarried had led everyone to assume that she had fewer commitments and should therefore contribute more.
“Why does it feel like everything I’ve done is still never enough?” she wrote.
Although she understood that her mother had no ill intentions and simply wanted companionship, the woman said she had her own struggles, responsibilities and dreams too.
“I’m also someone who gets tired. I have my own life, my own pressures and things I want to achieve.”
The woman admitted that years of silently agreeing and rarely saying no may have caused her family to view her sacrifices as something to be expected.
She stressed that she was not refusing to care for her mother, but has now come to understand that being a filial daughter did not mean she had to give endlessly at the expense of her own wellbeing.
For now, she remains unsure how to balance caring for her mother while protecting herself from becoming increasingly overwhelmed.
“I don’t want to disappoint my mother, but I also don’t want to feel like I can no longer breathe.”
She ended her post by asking others in similar situations how they learned to care for their families without losing themselves in the process.
