The one thing my husband tells our children and any other young person who askes is this, “Move at least 3 hours from both sets of parents.” I have to say I agree.
Lest you think we hate our parents, let me set the record straight- we don’t.
But, with that said, if parents are close at hand the process of leaving your family of origin and creating your own, new, nuclear family will be greatly thwarted.
I had an overbearing mother and my husband had an over bearing father.
To be clear, neihter was overbearing because they hated us. They loved us dearly. The problem was that they both thought that they knew what was best for us but they didn’t agree on what that was.
So there Tony and I were caught in the middle. This created a lot of stress on our newly born marriage. We hadn’t been “grown” long enough to be comfortable with not doing what we were told by our parents.
I can’t really figure out why either thought we needed to be told what to do. I mean we were all of 19 and 21!
Can you blame them? I am still weighing in heavy on my 19 and 21 year-old children’s lives. They were just being parents and we were just being children.
And that was the problem, we needed to stop being children and be adults.
My second daughter did what her dad said. She left Canton and moved to Galveston TX, 5 hours away, with her new husband. She said that even though we weren’t the meddling kind of parents, she would have continued to depend on us instead of her new husband. The distance caused them to forge a tighter bond faster.
So, do yourself a favor, put some distance between you and your parents so that you can become one.

This is really true, at least for awhile. It’s true even if not married. The distance helps the transition to the next stage of life for both parent and child from the parents roll as fixer/manager/caregiver and chikd from dependant/needing of care and oversight. The parent child relationship must change once adulthood is reached and can be difficult on both but the parent releases and child learns independence, what works and doesn’t for themselves. In the end, we become peers and best friends, supportive adult family members.
Moving from child to adult is not an easy transition. I have much more grace for my mom now that my children are moving into adult children
Omgosh, you are so right! And I have found grace in the eye’s of my own children too. 💕