to be very upset by my mother's behaviour?

[Sonearyetsofar]

My dh and I have been renting for the last 2 years, due to not being able to afford the area that we want to live in.

Of course we'd love to buy rather than rent, but accept that finances are what they are, and like the house we are renting.

Anyway for the last 2 years my mother on a nearly weekly basis has moaned about the fact that we were renting and not owning our own home.

4 weeks ago she said she has the cash to give us effectively our inheritance early, and she would give us the difference to buy a house in this area.

3 weeks ago we found a house we loved, I asked her to come and see if she was happy with it. She loved the house, came back to our house, proceeded to tell the kids (who up until this point were in the dark about moving), how wonderful the house was and how much they would like it.

She told me to sort our mortgage out. We've done this in principle. She then phoned tonight and asked what was happening, and I said it's moving, but we need to know how much she is inputting. She said that she wasn't putting any money in and we'd have to fund it ourselves.

I am gutted, my dh is angry she's built our hopes up, and we've now got to tell the kids we can't afford it.

I honestly can't work out whether she does it out of spite, or whether she says things and thinks they are true at the time and then forgets she's said them, or whether she's some sort of amnesia where she forgets what she agrees to.

I can't believe any mother would go out to upset her daughter/grandchildren so much intentionally.

[skybluepearl]

that is very mean of her! fancy building your hopes up like that! Did she explain why she changed her mind?

[Sonearyetsofar]

No she made out that she was never offering money, and why on earth would I think that she was doing something like that.

[justinhawkinsnavalfluff]

What a bitch! I'd make her tell the kids!

[Pandemoniaa]

Does she have mental health issues? Only I cannot imagine that anyone could behave like this without some sort of underlying psychosis.

If not, this is such a cruel thing to do and particularly unforgivable to raise the hopes of your dcs only to renege on what you'd reasonably assumed was a promise to help.

[izzywhizzyletsgetbusy]

How is your dm placed financially? Does she have the werewithal to provide whatever sum is needed to enable your purchase?

[Sonearyetsofar]

The frustrating thing is she can, it's not she can't it's that she won't. She chooses not to.

I've no problem that she wants to keep her money, I do have an issue that she offers it, then takes it away.

She did this to me years ago when I was 19 and a single parent, she found a holiday for my child and I, said I should book it and she would pay, I did, and then she said why would she pay, she's not going. And I had to pay for a holiday I could ill afford. 15 years on - she's got me again.

She's not old (mid-60s). I wish she did have dementia or similar then I would be able to blame the illness, rather than her.

[CurrySpice]

How odd and upsetting :(

[redexpat]

Oh that's awful. YANBU.

[faeriefruitcake]

remind her that you'll be choosing the home she goes into...

[Dexifehatz]

Disown after telling to keep the fuck away from your family.

[Avocets]

Perhaps she likes to control you. She sounds horrid anyway.

[izzywhizzyletsgetbusy]

I suggest you visit your dm on your own and ask her, very calmly, why she chose to get your dcs hopes up if it wasn't her intention to provide the sum you need to get on the property ladder.

As she has form, in future you're best advised to take anything your dm says with a large pinch of salt.

[Elibean]

Regardless of why she's doing it, its cruel - and abusive, IMHO. She may be acting out something that was done to her, she may have all sorts of issues of one sort or another, but the important thing is to unhook from the hook she puts out if she does this sort of thing repeatedly....pull back, protect yourself.

I'm so sorry, it sounds hugely painful and frustrating. I have a dear friend whose mother did very similar things - friend has changed her expectations of her mother over the years, and doesn't get hurt anymore, but her mother hasn't really changed. When she's not happy, she causes pain to those around her, especially her daughter

YANBU at all.

[squeakytoy]

I think you may need to look on this as a blessing in disguise.

Supposing you had gone ahead, taken her money, bought the house, and then she had demanded it back. It sounds as though that could easily have happened too.

It was very cruel of her to dangle this, get your hopes up and then change her mind.

[TheFrogs]

Does she drink? My mum promises us all sorts of things when she's arseholed (which is pretty much every night after 7pm)...they never happen of course.

[Takitezee]

Are you sure it wasn't a genuine mix-up? I don't understand how you could have known what price range house to look for if you didn't know how much she was going to give you.

[LesserOfTwoWeevils]

How horrible. I can imagine how let down you all must feel, especially your poor DCs. I don't have any helpful advice, sorry, just wanted to send sympathy.

[LolaRennt]

Squeaky has a good point, you dont want to be indebted to this woman, I think you should leave her out of your lives. What she did was vicious to you and your children, and you say she has done it before too? if she has no mental health issues I can't imagine she "forgot".. maybe she thought it would get you to sort things out..but either way lying and toying with you is cruel. I would genuinely keep her well away- and tell her why.

If she had thought it and told you and then forgot... she would clearly still be in the mind that you should get her help and not be nasty about you asking? Do you see what I mean? The fact that she was nasty about it means she never felt that way. You can forget saying something but the feeling never changes

[Spuddybean]

My parents do this. or did. until i stopped agreeing to their 'offers'. They offered to pay for my wedding (i did not ask). They chose the venue - way out of our budget. Met with us and the venue and requested the full works, canapes and champagne on arrival etc.

Dad chose the place so he and his mates could play golf locally and it was all geared around them - we weren't bothered as they were paying..right?

My DP and i paid the 1k deposit and when the rest was due they laughed and made out they had never said anything of the kind. then came excuses, why should they pay if DP's family weren't (er cos they couldn't afford it and didn't offer in the first place) etc.

Now when they offer anything - no matter how much i need it i just say no thank you. Even when they do pay for something they lord it over me and it just isn't worth it.

if i were you i would be cross but learn from it if you can.

[QueenStromba]

Spuddybean - that sounds a bit like my father. He said that he would pay for my university under the caveat that I didn't live with my mother at the time and suggested the university I went to which was hundreds of miles from where my mother lived. About a term in he decided not to fund me anymore and one of the things he bitched about was that I went to a university which had expensive living costs. This of course made it all the more fun for me to work my way through uni, if I'd gone to the uni near my mum's place it would have been a walk in the park because I would have only had to work in the summer holiday. I'm glad he did it though because I got a degree from a much better university than I would have gone to if I knew I was going to have no financial help and I realised what a wanker he is so don't waste my time speaking to him anymore.

[levantine]

You poor thing, that is very cruel of her.

I agree with the others, I think you will need to start to distance yourself from her.

[exoticfruits]

It is so cruel, but I think that you are better off independent-imagine the hold it would give someone of her personality if you were beholden to her.