...about my mum.

[3Trees]

My mother is, in my opinion, a nightmare, some background...

she has extracted money from me for MANY things ove rthe years, since they "can't afford things" - One of my birthday gifts (Ie I used my birthday money) was to buy HER a washing machine, since she didn't have one, and just kept on about how awful it was not to be able to afford one. I have bought her expensive equipment because she has so BADLY needed it, only to see it gathering dust a few months later. She has left me in hospital for 4 months unvisited, becasue it was too far to come. She refused to come to my graduation as it was too expensive (£14 tickets) and is refusing to go to my wedding, again, as it is too expensive.

However, now she is hassling me becasue I told her to forget about a week visit myself and DS (3) had planned to them. The plan was parents come here on sunday, stay the night, on Monday we go to legoland, which is fairly near here, and from there back to them, in Wales. Stay the weeek and then they come back here on saturday, stay the night and we go to the Local country show on sunday.

(I don't drive btw)

FIRST they change the end saying they ahve to go on a bee keeping course on the sunday so can they drop us back on Friday, and go to the show on saturday. This meant we had to absorb the cost of the show tickets and replace them.

NOW they want to drive down on the sunday, drive us back to wales on the sunday then drive from wales to legoland and back on the minday ALL so that my 31yr old sister can come with them. (She DRIVES so don't know why she couldn't meet us at legoland on monday?)

AT that point I told them to not bother, as it's way too much travelling stuck in a car, usually with 4 adults, for a 3 yr old (especially one with issues, like his - ds is being assessed for ASD, I will be VERY surprised if he is not diagnosed - but parents don't believe in ASD, and think I am stupid for bothering to have him assessed)

I said that we'll take him to visit them after our wedding in October. Which they still can't afford to come to (despite all the driving all over the country, the holiday to Paris they just went on, etc etc etc) My mum won't even talk dresses and flowers with me.

NOW I am being guilted for ruining a family day out, for being unreasonable, and for not being flexible to their plans.

AM I being unreasonable?

No you are not being unreasonable. Very odd that she won't come to your wedding, and quite sad that she seems to have no interest in it. Also strange that you are expected to be the family taxi service. I don't blame you for saying enough is enough!

YANBU

Dunno what you're planning for your wedding but, assuming that you're not requiring them to pay to get to New Zealand or something equally expensive, the fact that she's not coming to the wedding would be the breaker for me!

Sounds like she's used to you doing what she wants and is now annoyed that you won't. Stand your ground

Legoland is near Windsor right? So she wants to drive from Wales to Windsor(ish) and back again on a Sunday and then do the same journey on the following day. That's fucking nuts.

I cannot conceive of a mother that would not want to share in the important landmarks in their child's life - graduation, marriage etc because these things would cost her too much money. I would sooner go into debt than miss out on things like this in my son's life.

YANBU. Your mum sounds like a fool and you will need to stay strong and believe in yourself because you have really got your work cut out there.

My wedding is abroad, so I can see the point of it being expensive, but the thing was that we changed the location, prior to the change it was not far from NYC, and my parents WERE going, becasue my SISTER wanted to go to NYC and they would have all gone together. We then moved it to Florida (it worked out better for us and ds) and now they are NOT coming becasue it's too expensive (we worked it out, it would have cost them £20 per person MORE to spend a WEEK in FL than it would to spend the 2 nights - plus the weekend we were paying for - near NYC - DP and I even talked about cutting out some of the extras we added to the day, and paying for them to fly out there, but, it didn't seem worth it for people who were not interested at all in any aspect of it) the BIG difference is that my sister has NO desire to go to Florida.

Thank you though, with regards to this, week, I wa starting to think is hould MAKE ds do all that travelling just so that we wouldn't be making them feel bad.