LIFE SUCKS

Many of us did in that era.

What did we baby boomers do to give our children the idea we would keep being parents to them so long? I mean actually parenting them well into their 30's and 40's? Why are we not allowed the cut off point that we allowed our parents? I left home as a teenager and worked and provided for myself. My parents are two of my best friends - even now and I'm 58. But they were let off the providing-for-me hook well over 40 years ago.
I fell pregnant and got married, in that order, at 17. Many of us did in that era. I have been a mother for 40 years and a grandmother for 22 years. Why does it have to be such a drama to be a baby boomer parent and grandparent? Why does it have to be so painful? Why am I still fully answerable to my children, and wait, my grandchildren too?
I was faithful to my first (late) husband and he to me(I believe)even though I only married because of the baby we had coming(he was wanting to get married). We had 2 more babies and raised them in rapidly changing times. I conducted myself in an honorable way for 37 years of marriage, until he died in a terrible car accident. There had been many times I wanted to flee the marriage and stayed for the children and then the grandchildren. And we, having softened and endured, were better at the end of our marriage than during most of it.
Our family had been very close. But at his death we shattered apart.
I have re-married as I knew no other life. My husband is a darling and we are happy. But the shattering of my and my late husband's family dominates our existance. He was a bachelor 2 years my junior and tries so hard to cope with the dramas. How do I find the way to be released from the regular emotional crashes that still dominate my life? How do I achieve the right to be an adult who has raised her family - and move on?
I love my babies and grandbabies but I spent most of my life in a relationship that was mostly held together for their sakes. They adored their Dad and Poppy. And I adored him too in my own way. And his loss to them breaks my heart. They can't understand how I could re-marry so quickly. I've tried to explain, but they can't see it through the eyes of looking at me as if I was once a 'person' and not just a parent and Nana.
My 2 oldest grandchildren have little or nothing to do with me now. One believes she actually hates me. How can someone hate you when you were at her birth and each step in between, supporting and even providing for her? Will my other grandchildren abandon me too? Did I stay in an often unhappy and painful relationship for those 37 years to feel like this now?
Do I deserve to be an individual? Or did I relinquish that right when I fell pregnant? If so - many of us did in that era.