"Its not your problem"

Empathy need not entail useless worry (not meant unkindly), I think.

I have made mistakes in the decoration of my house but did not expect relatives to share my disappointment, I just changed it. I agree with your DD, " it is not your problem".

I sympathise with your DD Atqui. I have hated the carpet in my living room from the day it was laid twelve years ago!!! You can't help feeling for a DD when it is such a big purchase, and you know you will have to live with it. The sample of our carpet looked so good too. We have a large room and the carpet fitter had to make a join right down the centre. Noone else notices, but I know it's there. Hopefully we will be downsizing next year when DH retires, and I will be able to move away from it.
To disguise our carpet, I arranged the furniture into a square with the corner sofa along two sides and put a lovely rug down in the middle, that way I don't see too much of the carpet.

We had almost the whole of the ground floor and stairs carpeted in a colour that looked great in the showroom. When it was laid it was a lot paler than I remembered, but it matched the sample - it was just that the large expanse looked different. I have got used to it (but not to having to keep it clean - the bit near the front door seems to show every footprint)

Your DD will get used to it, and she has an excuse to splash out on some nice rugs to cover some of it up. You are right to feel for her, but try not to actually worry about it - worse things could have happened.

Oh, of course you feel it for her. I would too. In fact I would probably be offering to have the lot redone for her. Ridiculous, but there. Their happiness is our happiness.

Me too jingl (I seem to be making it a habit to agree with you today )

I sometimes worry (there I go again) that I allow my children's problems to affect me too much and try too hard to put things right. After all, they are adults and I shouldn't need to protect them from every minor disappointment. I can't help trying to do it though. Not that an expensive mistake over a carpet is exactly minor but then it's not life threatening either. I would feel exactly the same as you Atqui but I'm not sure it's healthy for us or for them

I agree with jinglbellsfrocks.

However, on an app I have which is designed to improve emotional strength and lessen worrying, the point is made that it might be possible to sympathise, offer whatever resources you have to help, but not be overly emotionally affected and that this does not mean you don't care.

I sometimes play the app in the middle of the night when my worrying about the family is at ita worst and find it quite a comfort.

Perhaps try to come up with an idea to minimise the disappointment. Colour can be used to great effect and the introduction of another colour could completely change the look of the carpet.Just what, exactly is the problem with it? Does it not match the furnishings or curtains [that is a problem because curtains are just as expensive to change as a carpet]. My living room is all done in an ivory shade which now doesn't go with the fashionable greys around at the moment; however, I am going with a slightly grey toned carpet next week, and hope that it doesn't clash too much. Perhaps, in your daughters case, a new picture on a wall with a dominant colour [eg red] that takes the eye away from the carpet might help...or Annie Sloaning some of the furniture to again distract the eye. Which doesn't solve the worrying problem; whenever I decide to live myown life, let them live theirs and stop worrying about them they seem to have a problem that results in my activating the worry gene again .

My DH is always saying 'it's not your problem, let them get on with it' when I am mithering about someone in the family's problems. My DD's house needs a complete refurbishment and I was so upset for them when they had another disaster in the house that I persuaded DH that we should give them some money to help. They spent the money on anything but the house. I was not happy. Sometimes 'let them get on with it' is the best advice (although not easy).

I would feel the same as you Atqui. Having experienced the disappointment of spending a lot of money on carpetting that, once laid, I didn't like much, I too would feel upset for my children if the same thing happened to them. I expect you know it's not your problem but nevertheless you feel for your daughter. It's like when people say "don't worry" - as if a person purposely sets out to worry about something.

I don't know quite what the answer is. Perhaps you could try and find some advice on the internet as to how to minimise the impact.

We feel our children's disappointments as keenly as we feel our own. But just as we have to get on with it, so do they. She might grow to like the offending carpet or she could sell it on Ebay - obviously at a loss, but it can be done. Empathising is not the same as worrying. Worrying is unproductive.

We all do it. I would not be tempted to replace it but I would feel sorry for them. I am sure most of us have made really bad interior design mistakes in the past.

My worst was some absolutely ghastly hall wallpaper and yellow paint in my hallway in 1977. My only excuse is that my judgement was clouded by being in early pregnancy with my first child.

I wouldn't feel quite the same as most posting on here. it's a small disappointment and life is made up of them, we have made the same mistake ourselves in the past.We can't put right every mortal thing our grown up children do and I don't think we should try.You can sympathise of course, but that's all.

Actually, now that I have done more than skim read the other posts, I see that most are saying sympathy, but that's all.Making mistakes is part of growing up and learning.

I do so empathise with you Atqui. I don't think we ever stop wanting to sit them on our laps and kiss it all better. No, of course it's 'not your problem', you know that, but it doesn't stop you feeling her disappointment and wanting to make it all better for her.

Am with rosesarered...in the great scheme of things its an annoyance. A sense of perspective is perhaps required. Its a carpet, the colour is wrong...just treat it as a design challenge and be inspired to work out an inexpensive answer.

We moved into a beautiful house built by the owner...a builder....it was just what we needed at the time except for one dreadful feature. A huge modern stone fireplace that was rather brutal in design and of a strange greenish grey colour that dominated the room. For weeks I squinted at it trying to come up with a solution and eventually I realised that a very strong colour on that wall would detract from the colour. After a couple of tester pots I found a deep matt wine colour and duly painted the one wall. Success, it softened the whole room and allowed us to enjoy the very expensive fireplace without being annoyed by its colour.

As our children grow and make their own lives we do need to teach ourselves to stand back from some of it. Answering the phone to a distraught crying daughter only to find it was all about a delivery going wrong, taught me that I had to ration my involvement and let them grow a bit tougher. I will sympathise over such things but I will try not to take on the emotions....its just too exhausting, selfish maybe but sometimes we have to save it for the big stuff.

Is the carpet in one room or all over the house?

I do agree HildaW that if a child of mine rang in tears about a delivery going wrong, I would by sympathetic but not overly upset. However, buying carpet and underlay and having it fitted can be a very expensive business and the thought of having to live with a carpet that you don't like for perhaps several years is upsetting.

Like*jingle*, if I could afford it I would offer to replace at least the carpet in the area/room which is most lived in.

She may already be saying that it isnt too bad after all?

I must be a member of the 'tough love' brigade because I doubt I'd offer to pay for a replacement. Somewhere along the line learning to make choices that are potentially expensive and need careful thought is all about growing up.
My daughter has explained to me at great length that they have thought long and hard about replacing one of their cars with an electric one. They live near suitable facilities and will use this car as a 'city' car. It comes with generous Gov subsidies and after doing their sums very carefully its, as far as they can see, more cost effective than replacing the clapped out small car they have with a conventional one.
Now if this turns out to be an expensive mistake then OH and I will certainly not be offering to buy another car.

I can't believe all this fuss over a carpet. Just get used to it and get over it.If this is all you have to worry about I envy you !

Greenfinch

I don't think Atqui was saying she was worried; she was saying she was upset that her daughter was disappointed.

I'm sorry if you've got a lot of worries in your life at the moment and I can understand your point that, in the grand scheme of things, this particular issue is fairly trivial. I don't think it was necessary, though, for you to be so snippy about it.

Apologies. I was not getting at Atqui at all. It was just that the whole tone of the thread is very materialistic and I am just not that sort of person. I am sorry if I came across as rude. I should have kept my mouth shut.

Tell us your worries Greenfinch. You obviously have heavy ones.