Adult child/parent relationship

I’d love to hear your advice on having a better relationship with one’s parents.

I’m in my early 30s and have two young children. My parents live in the same town, and we at minimum have dinner together once a week.

My relationship with my parents is not what I wish it were. It is strained for a number of reasons. My father can be abrasive and impatient, and he did not spend much quality time with me when I was growing up. Conversations with him usually involve him telling you about things he has been learning, and it’s usually a monologue. If you try to converse he usually disagrees in some way. Frankly, it can be unpleasant. I have so much guilt for the way I feel about him.

My mother is sweet, but she isn’t much for conversation. She shows her love almost exclusively through gifts and acts of service. She has had a difficult time switching from child/adult relationship to adult/adult relationship.

The personality issues aside, there is this ongoing conflict regarding church. My dad is a pastor. He and my mom want me and my family to attend their church. (It is the church I grew up in.) My husband grew up in a different Christian denomination, and I have become more comfortable with the theology of his church. Before getting married we agreed we would go to both churches as long as my dad was the pastor, as the service times did not conflict. Recently the schedule changed, and now they conflict. I have landed on an every-other-week schedule, but I don’t ask my husband to come with me to my dad’s church, as I don’t want him to miss his church, and I feel it would be inappropriate to allow my parents to control my husband. This whole situation causes tension in my family, although it is mostly unspoken.

In your book, you talk about family visions. I feel so guilty that I am not fulfilling my parents’ vision for our family — to be deeply involved in ministry together with them. I also have read Henry Cloud’s book Boundaries and feel uncomfortable that I’m not holding good boundaries with my parents. I shed tears about this situation on nearly a weekly basis.

How does an adult child help the relationship in general, and what would you advise regarding this specific point of contention? Am I wrong for choosing to attend another church?

If this question is too unrelated to TSG, I’d love to simply hear about what you do to promote good adult child/relationships.