to ask what's the most selfish thing you've ever heard is?

[RuggerHug]

I know we’ve had the cheekiest request/brass neck, most pretentious and a few others here, and while they’re shocking in how some people can think, let alone say, them out loud they do generally make for giggles after the initial WTF shock wears off. So can anyone think of the most selfish thing they’ve ever heard of that they’d like to share? I only remembered this one recently and I was honestly stunned into silence at the time because I didn’t believe I’d heard it right.

Years ago, friend who was a bit of a princess. No real other friends(became obvious why). Met up and she had known I was worried about something. Told her what and I got this response, all in one stream of talk.

“OMG that’s wonderful news howl laughter you Mum just has cancer!!!I was convinced you were going to say you were pregnant and I was thinking how self-absorbed of you because I wouldn’t have anyone to go out with or drink with, and you’re my best friend and how could you DO that to me? OH THE RELIEF,hahahahaha, promise you won’t ever do that to me!”

Once I got my jaw off the floor I convinced myself it must have been a nervous panic way of saying “we’ll go have a drink whenever you’re stressed about it all”. I wasn’t.I can laugh about it now and DM ended up being fine. Anyone else got anything like this they can laugh at now?

I can barely believe the casual cruelty and unspeakable selfishness of some people.

For all of you who have been hurt, abused and taken advantage of by the very people who should love you the most

The scene: I was in hospital after my 55 hour labor with my son at home, which resulted in fetal distress and an emcs, then my baby was immediately whisked away and I didn't get to see him until the anesthetic was worn off six hours later, and he spent the next week in the hospital nursery on oxygen and an IV. My spinal anesthetic was inserted incorrectly initially and took four ungodly painful attempts to work, all while I was having transition contractions.

For a bit of background, I'd also suffered recurrent pregnancy loss in the past and very great difficulty in TTC.

My mother was on the opposite side of the country for the birth (I'm in the US, so this is a formidable obstacle). I phoned her as the anesthetic was starting to wear off, before I'd been able to go see the baby, as something to do while I waited that ungodly long six hour timespan.

She literally didn't ask how I was. Or how the baby was. She didn't even end up having any idea he was on an IV and oxygen until later!

What did she want to talk about instead? How she had done a bit of spring cleaning during the day and that her back was aching.

It was all I could do to keep my laughter down until I'd said a quick goodbye and hung up the phone -- then it all burst out, and I couldn't stop giggling. DH asked what had happened, and I said, "This is the story I'm going to tell people about my mother for the next fifty years, when they ask why our relationship is complicated at best."

I saw someone here on MN the other day call someone "a bit Elevenerife -- if you've been to Tenerife, they've been to Elevenerife." That's my mom, through and through. She also insisted on telling me the next day that her labor with my sister, in spite of lasting about 18 hours and her having an epidural from hour 8 onward, was much worse than my labor. How would she have known, not having been there for mine? Who knows, but she's absolutely certain it was.

This ones not as bad

DH was very poorly, never got to the root of it - some infection somewhere. Became ill, rushed to hospital, nearly died, loads of antibiotics.

Came home, lovely GP signed him off for minimum 2 weeks to rest.

MIL had a fit as we wouldn't drive up (5 hours) for a visit as DH had 'time off work'.
When pointed out he was ill - she had a cold...

A very new friend confided in me about how a 15 year old boy had touched her (without consent) when she was 11. I was the first person she'd ever told, and I think she told me because I'm a survivor of child abuse and rape (as she knew, before we became friends).

For several months she relied on me for huge amounts of support. I had a job and caring responsibilities and was battling depression and recovering from cancer, , but was spending hours supporting her, every day. She wouldn't rely on anyone else. Over time I managed to gradually wean her onto slightly less support from me, and getting some professional help and talking to some other people.

When she was back to a fairly normal way of coping, the exhaustion of months of hardly any sleep, and no emotional rest, caught up with me. I ended up hospitalised with depression and exhaustion.

She cut off contact. No visit, not even a card. I tried to contact her to say that she mustn't worry that I would expect lots of emotional support from her, but that I'd really like to hear from her, even just to say hi. I received a message back via a mutual acquaintance, that she wanted some space to look after herself.

Well dammit, I'd been wanting space for months, but every time I'd suggested I have even one evening with phone switched off etc, she'd cried and said she couldn't cope. To say I felt used doesn't begin to cover it!

I once turned up at my Mother's house. Shaking, distressed, I had an abusive partner and lots of problems and I needed to let it out.
I looked up and at some point realised my sister was there too visiting my mum and I was in such a state I just let it all out with her sitting on the sofa watching me whilst I poured my heart out to my mum - I was so obviously mentally unwell and distressed.
After I stopped talking she just looked at me coldly and said " right I'm going to get some shopping" and walked out. Even my mother was shocked at how unfeeling she was. She didn't comfort me in any way. She's always been like that but that time it really hurt me and I never forgot it.

Twenty minutes after arriving back on the ward following my c-section (IVF/ICSI baby, very difficult pregnancy and born 8 weeks premature) my mother flounces into my room, dumps her handbag and shopping bags on my bed (indescribably painful) flops down onto a visitors chair and announces...

I have had THE most awful day!'

WombOfOnesOwn - I have the same mother! My previous post is just the tip of the iceberg.
If you haven't already, Google 'Narcissistic Mothers' you'll probably find your mother ticks as many of the boxes as mine does, especially when it comes to their 'martyrdom'.

My dad died 4 years ago, very suddenly at home in very unpleasant circumstances. He was 54. I was 5 months pregnant with DD and me and my DB are next of kin. My brother's wife was due her first baby any day and lived 300 miles away (dad lived about 90 miles from me) and he doesn't drive so I took care of all the arrangements. Going to his house to clear it, organising the funeral, speaking to the coroner, letting family and friends know etc. It was around Christmas time as well - there's obviously no perfect time to die but everything seems to shut down at a Christmas, so everything took a few more days than it should have (coroner's report etc) and it's an awful time to deliver bad news.

The funeral was organised for the New Year and TBH it's all a massive blur. Dad was single so I took on all the arrangements. My mum lives abroad and they'd been divorced 26 years so she didn't come for the funeral.

My mother is difficult to say the least at the best of times, and I thought dad dying would bring out some compassion for me in her. Nope. We spoke often round that time and she actually said at one point "I can't believe you haven't asked how I feel about your father dying. He was my husband you know" they were married for 3 years in the 80s and barely spoke once they parted ways.

She took the biscuit the day before the funeral though. It was taking place in the place I grew up, which is where dad grew up. Mum said "While you're in Hometown tomorrow you couldn't pop and see Cathy could you" (Cathy is mum's friend from my home town who mum knows i actively dislike) "just because her grandad is really sick at the moment and bless her she's completely grief-stricken and could use some comforting and I know she'd like to see your bump"

It's the only time in my life I've told my mum to fuck off. And added that I'm busy being at my own father's funeral so sorry that I can't be someone I don't like's human prop. She was very indignant and couldn't understand why I was so upset.

A few months ago she said "do you not feel guilty that you didn't spend more time with your dad before he died? I would if I was you."

Bitch

All these are horrifying.

I had a "friend" who always seemed more interested in my family, who are very minor aristocrats.

She was always hinting at being invited to my family home, even though I told her that it is very dull.

In the end, I invited her to stay,

Soon afterwards, my dad had a nervous breakdown and my parents split up for six months.

It was horrendous, but she gave me no support at all and was put out when I told her that I had to cancel her visit as my mum wasn't up to it.

After six hideous months, during which I was treated for depression, my parents got back together after long and protracted discussions.

All she said, when I told her that my parents had resolved the situation, was "I could have come to stay after all".

A year later, I got engaged and she clearly saw my wedding (at ancestral pile) as a networking opportunity.

Didn't invite her or contact her again.

My wedding was a quiet, family affair with no one who would have interested her.

It's a shame, because I thought she was a genuine friend.

Years ago I rang a number from the classified ads in the paper for an adult dog that needed rehoming.
I asked the chap why he was rehoming his dog and he said " Well I've bought a new puppy so I'm fed up of my old dog now"

Some - actually most - of these are horrific.

My sister cut me off for 2 years because I didn't want to move closer to where she lived (literally that was it. I felt I should have had a free sleep with her husband/involve her in a pyramid scheme thrown in considering what my punishment). Also abused me horrifically before she cut contact. But I don't see that as selfish but more as damaged.

I worked with a guy who had gotten a paper round from the age of 8 and other jobs too. worked constantly through his teens, saving everything. His mother told him she'd bank the money for him. When he went to get the money at age 18, about to go off to college, it was gone. She had simply spent it. They weren't poor, she didn't need it to put food on the table, she just spent it.

My parents are from a culture where sons and DILs are expected to look after the son's parents as they grow old. My father was very physically and emotionally abusive to my mum and us kids. My mum did all the legwork to ensure his parents (who lived abroad) were taken care of, because he couldn't be bothered to do any of it himself. My selfish grandparents, who knew perfectly well what hell our home life was, once demanded that she must stay with him because otherwise what would become of them. I will never forgive them for that.

My raging narcissist of a mother when I told her I probably had breast cancer, "Oh well, I'm not going to worry."

Cheers, Ma

CherryChasing, are we sisters? This is exactly how my DM behaved when my DF died, even though they were divorced and she'd spent 20 years raging about his inadequacies.

Wow some of these are awful - I can't believe people like these exist!!

Ex boyfriend's mum shut herself in her room, besides going to work, and hardly spoke to anyone for a week after he announced he wanted to go to uni. He left school and had worked for a couple of years while still living at home. Found out from his sister the mum was upset at him because it meant without the rent he was paying they'd struggle to continue paying off their brand new car. She was a bitch.

Cigars to be fair though...why should your DH's brothers not have their inheritance just because you and your DH had made your home in it?

This is a problem for many families when one sibling lives with a parent who then leaves the kids equal shares.

I can never work out what the resident sibling THOUGHT would happen when their parent died.

Urgh, absolutely my aunt. She's one of those people who always has to have the attention on her. She's 8 years older than my late mum was, and she took it upon herself to get up during my parents wedding and start singing. (She can NOT sing but thinks shes a pro, auditioned for BGT, honestly wondered why she didn't get through)
When my mum graduated from a course, she took over the professional photos the photographer was taking, telling him what pics to take that she wanted, whilst telling everyone at the ceremony how she'd just auditioned for BGT.
She was a teacher for minority kids, eventually working in a school with kids who were too disruptive for a normal school. She complained constantly how much she hated it and wanted to quit but wanted her pension. Cue my mum suddenly being diagnosed late stage terminal cancer completely out of the blue. It took 2 days to get hold of said aunt to even tell her because she wouldn't return calls. Then, instead of spending her free time visiting her dying little sister, she was spending her evenings and weekends going out on lunch dates with friends, shopping trips, nights at the cinema with her husband, etc. After my mum passed she got signed off from the job she hated on the sick after faking depression. She spent her days happily going out shopping, lunched with friends, theatre nights etc, she absolutely 100% was not suffering depression. In the last 6 and a half years since my mum died she's made out to everyone she knows that she's been a major support system for me and my sister, when the truth is she hadn't texted me once. In that time i've seen her 5 or 6 times maximum, on the rare occasion i've been well enough to make it to family parties.The very first text contact was 3 months ago, because there was a new tea shop she wanted to visit and she didn't have anyone else to go with without having to wait. Every single time i've seen her in person, she's never asked me how i am, or anything about me or my life. She has a routine where she goes to each person in turn, tells them all about the latest holiday she's been on, how great it was, what holiday she's got planned next, how much fun shes having being retired and going on lunch dates, shopping trip,s the cinema etc whenever she wants. Then she complains about every illness or ache she's had, expecting sympathy. Once she's run through everything she gets up, and moves to the next person. My mum asked her in the past don't brag to me like this, because i've been housebound for almost 12 years now, i can't go on holidays, cinema dates, shopping trips etc, and that its really upsetting and frustrating having my nose rubbed in how great her life is. She didn't listen. After she did it none stop at the tea shop back in august i avoided her texts wanting a repeat, because the only reason i went in the first place was to see her grandaughter. (cousins 23 year old daughter, were close as kids and hadn't seen in a few years) Her son (cousins dad) just got revealed to be a wife beateer who was having an affair behind his wifes back, whilst shes been battling a brain tumour, and a lot of complications following the surgery. Aunt used her bank account for her son to steal all the money out of cousin and his wifes bank account, whilst telling her (only person in my family to support me since my mum died, shes an absolute sweetheart) she was dead to them, cousins homewrecking bit on the side and her kids were their "family" now and she was nothing and never contact again. Furious, i text her, told her i never want anything more to do with her, she'd been insensitive and ignorant of my situation whilst being a really arrogant an selfish person and the way she treated me and cousins wife was disgusting, and my mum would have thought so too. I've now had to change my phone number after my gran and my mums other sister both decided it was their place to get involved and ganged up on me with vile name calling texts, even got a voicemail off gran calling me a lying little bastard, didn't listen to the rest of the message. So, i'm now NC with my entire family bar my dad, sister, and my cousins hopefully soon to be ex wife, but hes refusing the divorce because he doesn't want to accept the official reason will be his unreasonable behaviour for cheating and walking out.

When my DM was terminally ill she got a card in the mail from an acquaintance saying she hadn't been to visit her because "she couldn't bear to see such an active vibrant woman brought so low."

Granted mum did look like a concentration camp survivor as she was so ill, but she was devastated.
Dad threw the card in the fire but it still infuriates me when I think of it.

Wow, really sorry for how long that post ended up being. Also meant to say cousins daughter is also pregnant and adamant her and baby will always be my family regardless, so i have everyone i need.

Now i'm on a roll remembering other selfish things that aunt did. Like complain about her FIL spending his OWN hard earned money in his last years because it was "Cutting down her inheritance"
She's also recently announced how she's not willing to put her own life on hold to help look after my gran whose had some periods of bad health and may be in the beginning stages of dementia.
My mum, both aunts and a group of their friends used ot go away for a weekend in the lake district each year at the BnB one of their friends owned. One year awful aunt insisted they changed the weekend it was planned for to be the weekend after because she had something on that weekend and wanted to do both. Changing the weekend meant TWO of the others couldn't go but she insisted on it because it was what she wanted.
When i was 14 right before my MH downward spiral me, my parents and sister were finally financially able to go abroad on holiday. (We missed out on all the foreign villa holidays my mums 3 siblings and their families went on each year because my parents earned much less and couldn't afford it) My mum was going over to book it and my dad suggested inviting my gran because it might be nice for her to get away. Aunt happened to be at my grans when my mum asked her and she invited herself along, dad had no idea til mum got home after booking and told him aunt was coming (he has always majorly disliked her, now hates her and absolutely did NOT want her there) She made the entire holiday about where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. One day we were cutting it close to get back in time for dinner (all inclusive) and she insisted on taking the little train back instead of a much faster bus. We got there JUST in time before the buffet restaurant shut but my dad wasn't allowed in as he had shorts on. By the time he got changed and got back, the buffet had been shut, thankfully me and Dsis had made him up a plate. Every meal though it was "YOU get the table and i'll go get my food"
All my childhood holidays were big mums side family get togethers in a rented house in wales, but every year she dictated that too. She was "On holiday" so didn't get out of bed til 11 and didn't want to go anywhere til gone 2pm, and everyone fell in with her, so we ended up doing a lot of stuff just as me Dsis and Ddad.

God, these are awful, and make mine pale into beyond the pale. to you all.

Ex best friend wouldn't decide until the day of mine and DH's wedding if she would attend, (teeny affair, registry office and dinner in a lovely hotel, paid for me and DH), she was my Maid of Honour. Sad face on the morning of DH's and my wedding, because a relative of a distant relative had died. Happy face proceeded when DH and bought meal and wine for all. She didn't even chuck a bit of confettii or rice, or offer to buy one drink for either of us.

Mother - the year when DH died, she rang me to tell me what an awful Christmas she was having, because father didn't eat much of the meal she'd slaved away at . She's invited me up for the "festivities" this year. I have declined.

I could go on, but reckon we have the makings of a TV mini series here. If only "Tales of the Unexpected" still existed!

paid for by me and DH. Damn you insomniac spelling!

My mother's older sister was asked if she would like to come and visit when my dad was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Her response was: "Oh no, I don't DO illness."

Never mind that my dad had been endlessly kind and helpful to her during the 35 years he was involved with my mother.

And sure enough, we didn't hear another peep out of her until after my dad died. Then she turned up six weeks after the funeral wanting to know when my mother be going on holiday with her to a very exclusive location (for which she expected my mother to pay for both of them) as they apparently both needed to look for new wealthy boyfriends!

When told no, she sniffed and asked if my dad hadn't left very much money. Because of course, that could be the only reason to refuse such a scheme. Ugh.

Oh shite...when I started this I thought it would be a 'but we can laugh at it now' kinda thing. I think I just brought up a load of bad memories instead so sorry for everyone who has posted, this are horrendous!

I had been nc with my parents for 3 months when I was 18. I had been taken to hospital following an overdose. My dad stood by my bedside in tears, my mother took one look at me and turned on her heels saying to my dad 'you sort her out I've got the other two to look after'