Why has she made a promise she cannot keep? I feel so let down.

[ChildishGambino]

What do I do now?

DM has decided she isn't sure about looking after DD two days a week, despite offering consistently over the last 13 months. (I gave her the 'adult me' response and said it was fine but I've been upset most of today.

Adult me
Yes, worry about yourself and make sure you have enough time for you and to relax. It's not set in stone and never was. You're not responsible for my daughter, we are. It's fine. Your brother has just died and I will make sure you get to the funeral, fucking miles away, the day before I'm due to go on holiday. I understand you're not feeling great so I'll bring you over some lovely food and my baby for a hug.

Child me
Are you fucking joking? I work 2hrs away and was relying on your help. You moved to be near my sister 10+yrs ago and now I have moved here to be near my family you are not interested, despite taking up three days a week of my maternity leave, every week. I let you have those because you live alone and you are lonely. I had an EMCS 5 months ago and last week you asked me where the teabags are - so you've not been helping at all, have you? Nope, pop over for a free lunch and fill your days up. I'll always be there, bringing you food when you're ill. My sister has an amazing job and a cleaner and you still do her washing for her as she regularly runs out of clean underwear and her children's shoes don't fit unless you replace them.

Thanks for leaving me in a hole.

I'm calling the nursery tomorrow to see if I can have extra days but AIBU to feel fucking put out and like I've moved closer for nothing?!?

I think that we build images of ourselves in our heads which doesn't always tally with other peoples.
You say you love helping people but you love helping but assumed it was appreciated and that you were respected for doing it/ giving up your time.
Really move back. Dont assume that DGMs want to spend time with their delightful grandchildren. Apart from the occasional visit (because small DCs are exhausting not because they aren't delightful).
Your position in the family has left you feeling an overload of responsiblity for everyone's happiness. Possibly due to how your DM acted (maybe she constantly complained about her hard life as you grew up).
Try to stop 'saving' people and ONLY do what YOU actually want to do because YOU enjoy it, absolutely NOT because you think that person needs it or because you think you know better than them what they need or that it is your duty as a DD/DSis.
if you are like me it will be like a weight off your shoulders when you do this

Agree with the comments about moving closer to work. Why do you have to move into your sister's house while she goes to Glastonbury?

Commute is horrendous for no payback. Move.

Also if she's used to sounding all that time with you she'll want to continue it after you've gone back to work. It will just all be condensed into your precious weekends off so you'll have no family/down time at all. Move.

My family do this a lot.

My mother kept offering over a number of years to give us some money from various house sales to help move house, we declined and declined and declined. Until we really needed the help and asked to take them up on it, and got eye rolls, tuts and sucked teeth and the money lent with a very quick repayment time. But still lots of chat since about how much they like being in a position to help us.

Offer to have kids for a day a week so I could look for work, I resist and resist as am not used to help. Then think, why not, the kids would love it. So speak to mum, get the same sucking of teeth and implication that I am being very unreasonable and asking a lot.

Mother wants to have my easier child a day a week so I can work. Says will alternate children so childminder has other days. Get established in routine, then says doesn't want to do it as will feel tied down in summer. Childminder can't take them both so I have to change jobs. Now spends a lot of time telling me how much she misses having them, her days aren't the same, she feels 'redundant', and they now want to take them both a day a week to 'give me a break' anyway. Just not when it actually helped me work.

All that sounds ungrateful, but it is massively emotionally exhausting to be mad to feel unreasonable for accepting help that has been offered/pushed. We have now accepted that they enjoy offering and feeling good about that. But don't actually want to do it. So we now play the game and say 'ahhh, thanks so much, that's so kind of you to offer' and never take them up on it. Everyone wins. 😂

I assume you're renting where you are. Just upticks and move to somewhere you would prefer to be. Had you known before what you know now you would never have moved there.

Similar happened to me too... would be curious to know how my parents see it from their POV. While I was looking for work after mat leave they said they would have DD three days a week. Which turned into three afternoons a week but with driving distance for them. We moved ten minutes away from them to be closer and they moved half an hour away within two months (house had been on the market for 4 years, so not just us, bad timing I guess). Then they asked if we could look into a CM instead. So they have gone from saying they would have DD 3 days a week, to having her one afternoon every two weeks, only when they suggest and when they fancy it. (Afternoon being 16:30-18h when I get home from work). DD goes to nursery full time 5 days a week, and CM til I get home. 35 weeks with DD2 and they are talking about what days they will "have her". Its not for a while yet, but come the time I am just going to say thanks but no thanks to avoid disappointment and budgeting fails again :(

Get to the Stately Homes threads. Your mother is using you and it's happening because of your FOG - fear, obligation and guilt. There's a better way than this and you can find it with help. You can unlearn this behaviour and have a life free of her BS. I wouldn't take her to the funeral. I'd say something came up. But then, I probably wouldn't be talking to her at all anymore.

When my mum was standing in my kitchen a few years ago having a go at me about all sorts of completely ridiculous stuff that was 'upsetting' her, I realised that no matter what I do, she will always be unhappy with me and will always think I am a crap daughter.
It was a really liberating moment.
I now do I exactly what I want and the outcome is the same - she is unhappy with me. As opposed to me busting a gut to be kind to her - and her still being unhappy with me.
Only taken me 50 years to work that one out! But I'm free now.. freeeeeee.....

YANBU.

I've always been aware that my sister gets far more support than me, but I always wanted to help DM because it's "the right thing to do".

After a and extremely odd confrontation with her about the way she treats DH and I differently, I've realised that I'm never going to have the relationship with DM that I want, because that emotional involvement doesn't exist on her side. Therefore I don't need to do all her online purchases, or help her with her phone/laptop, or counsel her, when she has no interest in my life at all.

It feels like crap right now, but my mental health and my own family have to take priority. I'm not my mother's personal assistant/psychologist here to attend to her on demand.

Same goes for you. Yes, you will feel like crap because you've been programmed to believe that not obeying your DM makes you a bad daughter. That's not true. You're an adult and your "partner" and "parent" labels take priority over your "daughter" label.

Good luck

You're an adult and your "partner" and "parent" labels take priority over your "daughter" label.

I was just about to post the same thing! You need to change your focus. Put the three of you (you, DH, DD) ahead of the rest of the family.
I'm curious about DH's family and especially MIL - they've not been mentioned yet.

You've done your best but now you need to put yourself first.

How on earth are you going to do a two hour commute?! You'll be exhausted. You need to move closer to work for starters. Get DD into nursery somewhere near work/your new home.

From now on, book your Mum in around your other commitments. If you are fed up of giving her lunch every time then book her to come over at 2pm and tell her you are out to lunch beforehand. If you don't expect her to help (which she won't) you won't be disappointed.

I felt a bit similar to you. Circumstances aren't so marked but I'm always the one who is seen as capable and doesn't need help. I help my Mum but I just care less. She can make subtle passive aggressive comments but I just ignore them. I very often don't even reply. I just change the subject. Your Mum doesn't want to have your DD but she will soon be complaining that she never sees her when you are back at work. You just need to ignore her.

Interesting how no-one seems to have picked up on this from the OP:

The annoying thing is that she said she wasn't sure and when I pointed out that she'd hardly ever see DD if she went into nursery for 3 days (DH is having her one day and me the other) then she'd hardly ever see her she said she'd think about it.

Your mother may generally be badly behaved but you are not without fault. You seem to have manipulate your mother into making a decision she really wasn't sure about, which she is now pulling away from.

agreed, OP whilst you are in a pickle, I honestly think to play victim 100% wont help

I am tired working full time, and I am in my 40s! your mum is 72 and is still working. who the fuck wants to work, and do childcare aged 72! did this not even occur? its not the same as "helping with the washing!

I am not having a go, but try and see that the dynamics meant she made a promise that she really should not have made

let her rest! and do you own thang

Well obviously if she made a firm agreement it's annoying that she's changed her mind. I suspect the idea of it was more appealing than the reality of 2 days hard work a week. It is a big ask for someone in their 70's. My parents/in laws are much younger and all in good health and I'd be happy if any of them ever offered to babysit even 1 time. Eldest nearly 11 now so I doubt it will happen.

I had the opposite of this, was told to never expect her to ever look after my DCs. Funny how she then had my sisters' children most days and frequently overnight 'to give them a break' 😕
Bitter me? Yep, it rankles even many years later. When I was blue lighted into hospital haemorrhaging from a mc she complained bitterly about my 12 month old DD being 'dumped on her'. When I came home three days later after multiple transfusions and two operations she complained about DD being mobile and not staying still (she was in her early 50's).
Now she wonders why she didn't see more of my DCs......

Apologies for not RTFT, but maybe she wanted you closer for her benefit, for company, rather than for your benefit, for help with childcare.
Is pretty shitty to making such a substantial promise and then back track - perhaps she had forgotten how much work a small child is when she offered and now that DC is here, is regretting the offer?

I just felt really sorry actually that your mum let you down.
Have you asked her why she has backtracked?

It's crap when people are flaky but it's really, really crap when mothers are flaky.

My mum isn't perfect (who is) but one thing: she absolutely does what she said she would do. Always, without fail. My ex's mother is atrocious at vague waffly emotionally blackmaily promises that never turn into anything. I feel for him because as an adult it's annoying but when you think that this was the person who was the biggest influence of his childhood, it just seems really super crap.

We had two physically demanding dcs in preschool day care and were paying a fortune for it. exMIL was always bleating and whining about how childcare didn't need to be expensive, could be kept in the family, she would love to be there for them, etc. She has never worked a day in her life and had no idea about what it is to be reliable. Things keep coming up with her friends needing help with their animals and suchlike crap. she really has no idea. Basically sometimes she doesn't feel like doing things. And doesn't have any clue that people at work can't drop everything because she doesn't feel like showing up where and when she said she would. But of course they do drop everything, because they have to, because she has let us down.

Now I am separated from ex and it is a massive relief that my childcare arrangements are expensive but reliable and professional. He can carry on being messed about by her on his time as long as he wants but I am having nothing to do with her.

Difficult for you but did you really never have any doubts about someone aged 72 who still works 3 days being able to spend 2 days childminding? Was the reality discussed seriously? Sounds like a non-starter to me.

The thing that absolutely leaps out of your post for me is that there are two issues here. The first is about the practicalities and the unreliability, and there's both an adult 'you' and a younger, more child-like you responding to that. But then there is a deeper, second issue around love. You feel that your sister and her family are better loved than you; that the greater help meted out to them is an indication of their superior value in your mother's eyes. I'm guessing there's also an adult 'you' responding to this, and a very hurt child-like you as well.

As someone who has an inkling of how the latter feels I would say this: do not underestimate the hurt that you (as adult and as inner child) feel about this. It can be a very corrosive thing. It's important to explore and deal with it, as a separate issue from the practical one.

I haven't RTFT but I'm sure plenty of people will say YABU however I'm not one of them. I had the same thing done to me by my mum - offer a days child care, even start doing it, and then realise she can't despite many, many, many conversations about it prior. It's really fucking frustrating, especially when you've planned around it.

I also have similar issues with how my mum practically gives my sister the world, and I'm an after thought - "Fan, do you want me to baby sit soon? I'd be happy to" "that'd be lovly mum if you don't mind, how about Thursday evening?" "I'll have to check with your sister first, she might need me to have the kids". Grrrr.

Your Mum expects more from you because you've proved you can do more.

You are more able to cope, so if you are expected to cope when others arent, if you also aren't coping, then you are the only one who's not managing to do what they could do...

Step away, you won't change your Mum's view of you by continuing to put her needs first.

Sit down with your DH and think what's best for you both and your DD, stop giving your extended family a say in how your life and time is filled, they aren't bringing any help to your family unit so their opinions don't get a vote.

Do not waste all your family time running round after your Mum so she can see your DD so that your Mum doesn't have a concequence of turning down doing childcare.

Don't be available to her - fill your time with things you want to do and make your Mum learn she has to fit round you. She has clearly learned if she wants to be part of your sister's life it has to be on your sister's terms. It would be possible for you to do the same.

Good advice from Invisible kitten