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Elderly parents
Original poster

How to deal with aging mother when there is no (healthy) relationship?

36 replies

Asabat · 05/07/2025 17:13

I am a bit stuck as to how to proceed with my largely estranged mother at the moment. We are v low contact but currently quite jolly in emails, but I am very very cautious about what I tell her and how much we are in touch. I have not seen her in person in 10 years as last time we met I was so upset and freaked out by her and it was affectiong my kids. She is a strange and difficult person, possibly with a personality disorder and was very difficult and abusive mentally and occasionally physically when I was a young teen. She has a very odd relationship with the truth which I still find destabilising. I moved out at 13 to live with my Dad and step mum, who have been wonderful, because she was so unstable and cruel.

She is 80 now and has reported heart and breathing issues in a couple of recent emails. She lives in some kind of sheltered housing - not really sure, but I guess is dealing with the various health issues of being 80. She has been on her own for a long time and seems to cope.

I feel awful and I don't know what to do as things get worse. Not caring and supporting a parent as they age and ail feels cruel and is not like me at all, but I cannot get more involved with out sacrificing my mental health. Interactions with her always descend into toxicness - with her wanting more, rewriting history, distorting reality and then slips into being awful to me - I have tried in the past. It sounds so nebulous and melodramatic, but she has the most terrible effect on me. Writing this I feel sick and anxious already. Distance and low contact has been the only thing that I have been able to cope with over nearly 30 years. It was bad enough that I don't take her calls because they were so difficult and upsetting. She has not had my mobile number till I gave it to her yesterday.

I see so many good and loyal daughters on here looking after parents in all sorts of difficult circumstances and with complicated relationships, but I can't do it. I can't get involved in her life and help. I don't like her, I am scared of her but I feel huge guilt about just leaving her to her life. I knew this was coming eventually, but I just don't know what to do. I feel awful and guilty, she was a terrible mother, but she is now a vulderable elderly woman with health problems and entirely alone. There is no reconcilliation to be had and not much point, she doesn't understand and also she doesn't actually know me at all and has never really tried to, and beyond a very superficial level really doesn't actually care. Do I owe her care?

There is obviously a great deal more history to our relationship, and realistically she hasn't asked for anything yet. Is it enough to just check in a bit more regularly and I guess, wait till crisis point? I am scared she will call whether to chat or with emergency news. Please don't say. "but she's your mother" I have been told that my whole life, but that is exactly the problem!

OP posts:
Original poster
Asabat · 05/07/2025 18:56

Oh god, thank you all, am having a bit of a weep, but with relief. These replies are so helpful to hear from people who get it. But this: "She was who she was as a mother, but this is who I am as a daughter." - is my problem.

As I get older I understand her difficulties (with hormones, with her place in the world, with the breakdown of her relationship with my father) and I feel like she wasn't evil, just inadequate and unsupported, but but as a child I couldn't be the one to solve that (though god I tried).

I think though that I need not to borrow trouble by anticipating crisis, and I have to keep reminding myself my perception of the world is not hers, so I always suspect she is less bothered thatn I would be. I will continue to do teh infrequent updates and check in, but try not to offer more. When crisis comes, if it does, I will deal with it then.

OP posts:
Orchidacea · 05/07/2025 18:11

@Asabat I think the thing I cannot reconcile is that leaving her to cope on her own is not who I am.

I know people who bite the bullet in this situation, saying: "She was who she was as a mother, but this is who I am as a daughter." Not sure if that resonates with you at all, but I thought I would pass it on.

Smoothout · 05/07/2025 18:04

Please don't say. "but she's your mother" I have been told that my whole life,

by whom?

because these people you should also be estranged from

unsync · 05/07/2025 18:04

You don't need to leave her on her own. If she's in sheltered accommodation, there will be a manager who will oversee residents' needs. If she isn't, should anything happen, ASS will swing into action. You may be contacted in this case, you are permitted to decline to get involved. https://www.ageuk.org.uk/ is a good resource for all things 'aged people'.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk

AcquadiP · 05/07/2025 17:44

"But she's your mother" is a statement issued by people whose mother was anything but toxic/narcissistic/violent/emotionally abusive/emotionally distant/disinterested. Furthermore, it's almost incomprehensible to them that a mother could treat her child or children in such a way because it goes against everything that motherhood should represent.
My mother was very similar to yours from what you describe, OP. I would say you have been very generous having any contact with her at all. She's in sheltered housing and she's managed to get to 80 even though she's been alone for most of the time. There are wardens that look after the residents. I would advise you to leave it to them and just continue with low contact. It really isn't worth the damage to your MH to do any more than that. And please don't feel guilty. Your mother has made no effort to repair the relationship with you over the last 10 years. Nor has she looked to increase the level of contact with you. Perhaps, this is as much contact as she is capable of?

Smoothout · 05/07/2025 17:38

She has not had my mobile number till I gave it to her yesterday.

that was a mistake op. A big mistake

don’t make another one

Smoothout · 05/07/2025 17:37

She sounds truly ghastly

Does she ask to see you?

I would keep my head down op

she failed you as a child. Don’t be sucked in after you’ve been out of it for a decade

thepariscrimefiles · 05/07/2025 17:35

She was never a proper mother to you. In fact, she was so bad that you had to stop living with her in your early teens. There is no obligation on your part to increase contact with her. It will add very little to her life but will ruin yours. It isn't worth it. Keep your distance.

There are lots of good and loyal daughters on here who have been pushed to breaking point and whose elderly parents are entirely unappreciative about the sacrifices their daughters have made to support and care for them. Don't be one of them.

thedevilinablackdress · 05/07/2025 17:35

First of all, you are assuming there will be a crisis or help needed. Maybe there won't, especially if she is living in sheltered housing or similar, other people or mechanisms may be in place to deal with this.
Second, no-one 'knows what to do', forget that idea.
Third, and most importantly, please do not feel you have to make yourself ill over someone who showed you very little care throughout your life. You don't deserve that, not do the people around your who do care for you.

Original poster
Asabat · 05/07/2025 17:28

I have had a few rounds of counselling which have been very helpful and yes it looks like I am due again now as it bubbles up again. I think the thing I cannot reconcile is that leaving her to cope on her own is not who I am and feel awful, but at the same time, I cannot help her without such huge cost to my own stability.

OP posts:
PermanentTemporary · 05/07/2025 17:21

You don’t owe her a thing.

Beung in touch with her at all is very kind and grown up of you. I wouldn’t underestimate the benefit to her of an occasional email. It may be all she can really cope with as well.

Do you need to check in more regularly? Why?

If you’ve ever had some therapy, why not have some more now? You could do a piece of work to develop some responses to particular requests or situations, so that you don’t end up sucked in to a much bigger role that isn’t possible or advisable.