To tell my Mother that she has brought it on herself?

[2littlegreenmonkeys]

Well okay maybe I didn't put it as blunt as that but still...

My 29 year old brother cannot function without Mother doing EVERYTHING for him. He does not have SN! He bought the house next door to mum and dad because he wanted his own space, but mum goes into clean and tidy, she does all his cooking and washing. She even feeds, waters and walks his dog FGS!

He doesn't even know what direct debits he has coming out of his bank and how much money he has in his bank and needs to ring mum to see if he can get money out or use his card!!!! He cannot even do his own CV FGS. Mother did it and put her contact mobile number on it so she can talk to any prospective employers I pointed out to her that no employer is even going to consider him for a job if they have to go through his Mother FGS.

My brother is not working at the moment so has time to do all these for himself but wont as in his own words 'he cant'.

This is just the tip of the ice burg and there is so much more 'back story' and history in all of this.

I have just had mum on the phone ranting and raving about my brother that she is sick of it all and that he should be able to do. This is a regular occurrence. I kinda just felt a bit exasperated at her when she phoned. I am struggling at the moment (Mental health) My DC's are at that age where they positively love to wind me up lol and I just cannot cope with my mother right now.

So I told her that maybe if she didn't do everything for him he would learn and then she would not have to.

Needless to say Mother put the phone down on me and wont talk to me when I rang and spoke to my dad to see if she was okay.

Your mum sounds increasingly stupid and negligent in the way she has raised your brother. Having a joint account with your adult son to avoid him accepting any responsibility is stupid.
I'd have no respect for her, or your father who sounds overly passive in not stopping this nonsense.
Emasculated men and castrating women sound like the norm in your family.
You've done well to escape it and choose a man who doesn't want mummied or walked all over.

GiddyPickle, she doesn't see what she does as abnormal or wrong. She thinks it is normal and that all men are like this with their mums. It's odd as my dad wasn't with my nana, & DH isn't with MIL. There is no other man I know personally like this other than my brother.

I think just wants to play the martyr and get sympathy but it doesn't work with me, well not anymore. I have put up with it for years. I have my own family I cannot find the time for my mum moaning about something that is her own fault.

I just cannot get mum to SEE IYSWIM, she doesn't want to, she always has a 'but, that is because of this' up her sleeve.

I learned (sp) like everyone else had to lol, just do it and learn from any mistakes.

Solooovely, that is just how my mum is with my brother. I love my mum to bits but she exasperates me.

There is no chance in hell I would have wound up with a DH behaving like my brother does. I am not that kind of person, I don't baby my babies I certainly wont baby my DH.

I have just remembered a sentence that my mum came out with after my SIL had had my DN, it made my blood boil and still does to this day. She said 'How can he (brother) be expected to look after a baby at night he has work in the day time' I was flabbergasted, I said to her 'just like my DH does, just like my dad did just like you did, because that is what you do when you have a baby' her response 'well he didn't want the baby' I had to leave and walk away or I honestly think that mum and I would have fallen out big time that day.

Gawd my family are completely messed up aren't they

Whose isn't?!

True, very true

2littlegreenmonkeys - there are quite a few men like this. I personally know two of them and one is my BIL.

My DW goes bezerk about it but never says anything to MIL.

BIL lives with a woman but phones his mother every day. He visits whenever he is passing and MIL sits cuddling him whenever he is at their house. I mean he is a 40 yr old man. He has a degree, drives a truck on intercontinental journeys, he is a qualified bookkeeper, has two children and has lived away from home so is independent but DW says she is sure he still takes his washing home and MIL gladly does it.

He is a nice generous man and I like him a lot but it really really annoys the woman he lives with. She complains to DW about it and feels he is less in his life than MIL. Not sure what the solution is really.

Sons and Lovers was not just a novel by D H Lawrence. Its a description of a very complex relationship. I bet if your parents move to a new house your brother will follow them in some way and it is definitley your mother's fault.

See every MIL thread on MN for details.

TYPO: '... and feels she is less in his life than MIL.'

Hmmm, sounds like their inheritance will take care of him when they die.

And not you!

I agree with Madam. You're not going to change your brother, mum or the situation in general. You can only stop listening to it and therefore hope it annoys you less. Good luck though :)

I suspect your mum enjoys the role and also enjoys moaning about it. This may offend - apologies - but some psychologists would describe this sort of deskilling and keeping another individual reliant on you as a form of abuse.

Easier said than done of course, but I vote for the approach of not letting her moan to you. It serves no purpose. Likely nothing you say will go down well but if changing the conversation or specifically saying you don't want to hear about it anymore doesn't work, could you turn it back on her and ask how she thinks he can learn to do in the future? Though you've probably tried this.

Good luck anyway

I completely agree with what all of you are saying and I will deffo be taking the 'I don't want to hear it' stance.

No chance in hell will I be the one looking after my brother once mum and dad are no longer here. I will move away before I will let that happen. I want to move to Durham, and think we might eventually. Hopefully before the girls start school full time. Just need to get DH on side lol, I am sure he will though.

Let my brother stand on his own two feet.

It is a form of abuse.

My mother did it to me and my sister. Complete with the moaning about how much she had to do/martyr complex. One of her sisters does it with her (adult) son. You can see it going back in their family.

I now have nothing to do with my mother (or the rest of my family) as she didn't appreciate it when I tried to get her to stop.

I have many stories of the things my mother has done to try and keep me completely reliant on her.

TheArmadilo, what did you mum do when you tried to get her to stop? If you don't mind me asking?

First of all it was a lot of generally piling on the pressure and ignoring me when I said 'no' and doing it anyway especially stuff that concerned ds. So e.g. she'd make him a meal when I said we were going home so I'd have to pick it up adn take it off of him or she'd get a new activity out for him. It was infuriating.

Then she got nastier as I got more determined. She used to phone me up and call me names (failure, disappointment, how I'd let them all down throughout my life etc etc). She loved to tell me what a nasty person I was as well. How selfish I was. How I made her do all this stuff for me and never appreciated it.

There was another incident where they had my ds for an afternoon and refused to return him (we got him back the next day). That was to prove a point I think that they could do as they liked.

Finally after my dad had a go at me adn then put the phone down on me for refusing to visit them when we all had swine flu I had had enough tbh. It wasn't a major incident just the final straw.

There was other stuff as well - the constant screaming and shouting, the inability to talk to anyone as anything other than shit they had scraped off their shoe and stuff from my childhood, especially teenage years.

TheArmadilo that sounds awful. I recognize some of what your mum did with you what mine does with me. Scary that so many mums (and dads) can be so alike

Sounds like you did the right thing cutting her out of your life. Good on you.

Armadillo and Monkeys - I am at both your stories. That's awful.

As Armadillo says, it's a form of abuse - it's not about kindness, but maintaining power and control. Not so different from lots of abusive partners who say they're controlling with money etc 'to look after' the person they're abusing. All you have to do is check what happens when you refuse their 'kindness' to see what's really going on.

I bet you anything that if your brother really tried to strike out on his own all hell would break loose.

Manatee that is what I think, mum will just loose it and hell will break loose if he tried to break away from it all. Although I still maintain that he prefers it this way TBH. If he didn't he wouldn't have bought the house next door to them.

YANBU Dear fucking god Does your mum still wipe his arse for him too?

Some things need to be said, this was one of them. Your mum's probably mad at you right now because deep down she knows your right.

Yes he will wont he MadamDeathstare (love your name)

Families are rather exasperating aren't they!!

i am no doctor- but it sounds like they are both getting something out of this behaviour- does your mum work or anything.

sounds like she needs to be needed and he is just having an easy life. my db lived at home until he was 26- my mum did all his washing and cooking, she eventually gave him the deposit for a flat.

me and my sister (both younger than him) left home at 19, never asked for a penny and never looked back, funnily enough we did our own washing and cooked from 14.

it does sound extreme though!