Dm took all the food for my kids!

Just ignore the troll. Their bridge must be down for repairs.

She’s evil and batshit.

She's a top grade CF (unless there's a back story here). So she's now saying she charges you that much for babysitting her grandchildren for 3.5 hrs - tell her she's far too expensive and you wont be using her again for sure. Seriously - she's deeply unpleasant.

OP I'm so sorry, you've been massively let down, you are doing brilliantly just keep going.
Of course you don't feel like dealing with the whole mum situation right now.
For now can you do an online shop to keep you going this month, and don't contact or reply to your mum for a while. Give yourself some headspace to think about how you will deal with her in the future. People like that suck all the oxygen from a room so you can't think straight. Take a break from her drama.
In a week or two, you can think about whether your life would be better with her out of it.
You might want to come back to this thread then too, there are some very good suggestions for how to deal with her, but I don't think now is the time, I think you said earlier you don't have the bandwidth. I get that. You have enough going on.

You can do this, you ARE doing it.

This isn’t something you should need to justify.

Simple answer is, in my experience anyway, butchers aren’t open beyond 5pm unless they’re a butcher counter in a supermarket - and, in a lot of cases, they’re closed long before that!! So, if you work office hours, the only chance you get to go in a butchers is lunchtime (if it’s close enough) but then you have the issue of where do you store a month’s worth of fresh meat until the end of the day; or, as you do, wait till the weekend and go in on a Saturday - which doesn’t help when you’ve nothing in to replace the meat you were relying on for this week!!

Nor should you have had some of the shitty answers you’ve got here from people just because you haven’t explicitly said “I told ‘d’M that I need her to give me the money immediately so I can replace the meat at my
convenience and her reply was that I was having a laugh and that it was her ‘reward’ for doing me a favour by coming over for a couple of days”

💯⬆Perfectly said!

@Littlechesnuttree You and your DC deserve so much better than the treatment you are getting from your mother. Sometimes, we need to "make" a new family, when our own is too toxic for happiness.

She knew, she is clearly just selfish. I would think twice of asking for her help again as she sounds more trouble than shes worth sorry OP x

"ive clearly asked her for the money to which she basically said consider it my fee for babysitting all weekend, by that she means the 2 hrs on the weekend when I had a lie down and the 1.5 hrs Friday evening after school"

So what she means is she stole it from you.

Once she's telling you to "consider it her fee" which you didn't agree to, it's now direct theft.

I would just cut her off if I were you.

She's more drama than it's worth.

You really have had the 💩shoveled at you recently! Your NAADH can sit on it and rotate.

You are doing great handling all that has been dumped on you and you will get even stronger as time goes on.

Hang in there and some Un-Mumsnet {{HUGS}} to you and your DC.

wow! That sounds so difficult. New job, shitty husband, and your “helping” mother.

I understand why you did not have the bandwidth to insist she pay you back / engage with her. Sometimes it just is not worth the energy.

I will however say this: after she made the comment about babysitting, gas etc. you (apparently?) didn’t respond but let things go. That’s completely understandable but will probably lead to your “D”M assuming that you agree with her reasoning. That’s not a good precedent.
So if you have any bandwidth left, I’d tell her the following:

”I don’t pay my family to visit me or my DC, relationships aren’t supposed to be transactional. I do not have the money to replace this meat, which means that your grandchildren will go without unless you pay me back. I hope you’ll make this right.”

”your grandchildren will go without because you won’t replace what you took” should be all you have to say on this matter.

and if she doesn’t repay it you would tell her on her next visit “your grandchildren went without because you didn’t replace what you took.”
No engagement with any of her other arguments. there is nothing else to say on this matter.

Why on God's little green apple earth would you allow your mother to come visit again? She can take the "money" she spends on petrol and the charge for babysitting her own grandchildren and helping her daughter and stick it up her...assumption that she can do what she wants and whine her way out of it.
I mean, who does that? No one with decency.

Of course you have undue stress. A lot is caused by the woman you call mother. Next time she has a break-down, panic attack or makes an empty threat, tell her you'll miss her and hang the heck up.

Seriously, if there was ever someone to go NC with, it would be her and she certainly would not be welcome back into my house after the newest BS move she pulled and the gaslighting she did after to excuse herself.

I am so sorry you are having so much stress. It cannot be easy to suddenly need to become the "be all" for the family with zero support. I hope you can get into a rhythm that works for your family and a bit of outside support that will not increase your stress levels. Wishing the very best to you and your DC. 🌹🌻

This is the perfect response to what your mum has done to you and your DC.

"(this happened before about dealing with a bathroom repair, I couldn’t sort as had a baby and she spiralled and became ‘suicidal’, parentheses is because of course she’s not actually suicidal but you deal with screaming and a mental break down on the phone that you (me) caused) it’s exhausting" Although having read your reply here I wonder if you have become used to her behaviour and that's why you have not really been blunt with her about her behaviour. because she has successfully made you think about HER behaviour rather then continuing to use your narrow bandwidth you have a the moment with everything else you have going on at the moment.

Loving the typo 😂😂

Of course dogs can eat dick breast!

I like this message. No manipulation. No emotion. Purely factual. I am so sorry your mother is doing this. There are some very knowledgeable mumsnetters knocking around, who can help you to keep boundaries up with your mother. The key now is to no longer engage with her or her histrionics. Any phone call etc met with ‘Are you going to transfer the money to me now?’ Her ‘bla bla bla, suicide, me, bla, how could you treat me like this, bla’. Response ‘I haven’t called you to talk about you. I am talking about the food you took from my family. Are you going to reimburse me and transfer the money.’ Etc and if you get nowhere, disengage. ‘Ok we have nothing further to discuss. I will speak to you another time. Bye.’ Disconnect.

I can understand you feel you’re being attacked on all fronts. Your mother really is despicable and no longer deserves your engagement.

Edit - to add. I’d probably remove the ‘I’m sorry, but’ in the post as she will take the sorry as capitulation or some kind of apology rather than softening the message.

Depending on the ages of your children I would be tempted to tell her to pick them up from the train station. As all their food is there she needs to have them for a month.

I cannot believe, well I do believe, but I don't know how someone does something like that. Not to their grandchildren.

The only time I've gone in someone's fridge / freezer was to fill it after I had stayed with someone for a week.

I know my advice is different to everyone else’s but if you can afford it, chalk it up to experience. If you can’t afford it that’s different of course.

But it’s not worth the headache and stress and emotional upset it’s causing you.
Your mum is obviously pretty self involved (mine is a little similar and I know she would lash out too, probably get the hump and then try and make amends in some way).
I hope your mum reflects over the next couple of days that she has made your life harder at what is already a difficult time and makes amends to you.

I hope she has her good points and that she is there for you in whatever way she is able to be in the future.
Best of luck and take care.

Crikey! Some of the replies on here are so vicious. Sorry to hear this OP, I hope your mother sorts it out and then you can put up some firm boundaries. Sending you a virtual hug.

Tell your mum she's not coming back until she rebuys it all and apologises profusely.

My mum wouldn't be invited back if she did that and I'd make sure she'd know exactly why.

Oh @Littlechesnuttree this sounds so awful. You're going through a really hard time.
I think you show incredible resolve to be sticking with your work probation while you navigate your husband leaving you and your mother stealing from you. I hope your employer sees your strenth.
You don't have to have your mother back to stay with you in three weeks if she's only going to drain your emotional (and financial!) resources.

Simples... Ask her to transfer the total amount - 80 - to your account before you go shopping or her grandchildren will not eat.

Next time she visits have some dry dog food on hand (just in case) and make sure your mother knows that she is to bring all dog food for her dog or not bring the dog.

Don't have her dog to visit ever again if your DM doesn't transfer the money.

She's killing her dog slowly, then. Dogs should eat raw meat and raw bones. Cooked meat and no bone content = unhealthy dog.