Futility and guilt in relation to my family

I can't help feeling a sense of futility with regards to what has happened in my family all these years.

Despite all my mum's efforts at trying to keep the family intact and create an atmosphere of peace and harmony, she and my dad have not really had any personal growth. They have not developed the soft skills of navigating each others' beliefs, of developing empathy, tact and understanding. They are still stuck in their old frameworks of beliefs about each other, which invariably colours all their experience with each other. They have not learnt how to grow out of those limiting frameworks.

But it is clear that they have long since grown out of each other. Yet they still have to be together as that is what they decided to do. That itself is a courageous decision, yet sad at the same time as that same decision has stifled their growth as individuals all these years.

Is it worth it? Bravely remaining in a relationship of this nature, but in the end sacrificing your personal growth and value fulfillment?

They stayed in the marriage all for my sake, because they wanted to give me an intact family unit and a safe place to grow. That was my role, to provide them the motivation to stay together and give them an opportunity to grow together. The sense of futility and guilt I have comes from knowing that while they stayed together, they did not grow together. In that sense, I feel responsible for having caused their personal development and fulfillment to be stifled and less than it could have been.

Futility. Guilt. These are on my mind now.