My father died over nine years ago. In his lifetime I'd have said I got on better with my mother.
My father was very withdrawn and could be angry and violent. Looking back it seems entirely possible that some - though not all - of his difficulties were caused by high-functioning autism which meant he was unequal to being an engaged husband and parent.
My mother worked very hard to - in her eyes - keep the family together and had a very difficult time caring for my father in his final illness. His selfishness meant he made huge demands on her. Out of a feeling that it was right to support her I took her to see my father in the hospice at the end of his life. When the end was very near, I also slept in the private room they had moved him to so that he didn't die alone. On the next day - which was his final day - I was the one sitting with my father when he died. Other family members who'd come earlier had gone by then.
This was the first time I had been with somebody when their life drew to an end.
I had initially expected that my mother, when she came to the hospice, would ask me if I was okay. One part of my mind very quickly understood that she would be dealing with the loss of her husband, so that her feelings as a wife would be at the forefront of her mind. Any wish to check if I was alright would come later. In fact the only emotion she seemed to show towards me was a flicker of anger - when I greeted her I was a bit unsure whether I was meant to ask her to see the nursing sister first or take her straight to my father. I think she felt I was - somehow - in the way.
To cut a long story short I spent some months trying to be a good daughter to my bereaved mother, and listening during that time to accounts of how difficult parts of her marriage had been. However, I spoke about the fact that I too had found him difficult, she would cut me off and tell me what a good father he had been.
She has never once asked me what I felt about him or thanked me for trying to support her - and him - at this time.
I am angry and hurt, though I also in the last year or two begun to think that my mother has 'something missing'.
I just wondered whether other people had experienced something similar. That feeling that the death of one parent has, in a sense, led to a feeling that both parents have been lost.
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Relationships
Difficulties with Widowed Mother
HostofDaffodils · 14/11/2016 06:27
I don't know why people are giving you a hard time. It sounds to me as if you have done everything expected. I also have a DM (and DF) with "something missing" - my DC are old enough for me to know that her continued selfishness and self absorption in her relationship with her own DC is not the norm, but it is a part of her personality. Your DM sounds similar and your father's death has just highlighted what was already there. I don't have any words of wisdom except to say that it's shit to have a parent like this and being an adult doesn't stop it hurting. 
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I think you've been given a surprising lack of support / understanding on this thread Host.
"Accept what happened and move on with your own life." Yeah, it's that easy!
I, too, felt that I lost my mother when my father died. My mother turned into a demanding, selfish, critical, unsympathetic shrew when my father died, and got worse and worse until her own death a few years later 
. On one memorable occasion she screamed at me that it wasn't fair that my husband was alive when hers was dead....
My husband was 34 years old at the time.
She used to turn up unannounced at our house at all hours of the day and night; refused to go to counselling; rang me or visited me every single day to talk about my dad and never once asked me how I was doing (I'd lost my dad, was caring for my young baby AND my childlike mother, and had gone back to work after maternity leave a month before dad died - this was back when maternity leave was only 6 months - so life was tough for me too, not as tough as for her, but still tough).
It was as though all her motherly feelings had been wiped out with my dad's death.
I'm an only child. I did everything I could to support my mother after my father died, as did my DH, while friends and cousins / aunts etc drifted away once the funeral was over. Yet nothing I did was enough. Mum wanted me to replace my dad, and do everything that he had done. She would ring me at 3am to tell me that she needed me to go round and fix something in her house. Or, if I was at work, she would turn up at reception and ask to see me. It was horrendous. She lost all sense of perspective. She was unwilling or unable to show me any motherly love. I needed time and space to grieve for my father, yet my mother needed the opposite, and demanded all my time and emotional energy. She stifled me. A year after he died, I had a breakdown. Mum's response: "when are you going to get better, I need you to do Xxx for me."
Btw she was only 63 years old, and in very good health, when she was widowed.
I remember having a conversation with her about an acquaintance whose child had sadly died.
Me: "there's nothing worse than losing a child...."
Mum: "no, losing your father was worse."
I still can't forgive her for that, TBH.
I can't forgive her for choosing to stop being my mum.
If my DH dies before me, I will do everything in my power to reassure my children that I understand that they are grieving, and that I love them.
Being widowed does NOT justify ceasing to be a parent to your children. Of course the grief is different; when you lose your partner, your whole life changes and there is a gigantic, lonely, scary void where they used to be. But you are a parent for life. Your children are still there.
So - OP, I understand.
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