To think this is an awful way to treat your recently widowed mother

[user1485342611]

My friend's father died a couple of months ago and her mother is understandably heartbroken. They had been married for over fifty years.

My friend lives a two hour journey from her mum and works full time but travels down as much as she can. She lives in a one room flat and has had her mum up to stay a couple of times but it's not ideal. She went to stay with her mum for a week in May and plans to do the same in Sept when she's due more holidays.

Her brother lives closer and is married with 3 kids. He and his wife are teachers and will be finishing work for the Summer in a couple of weeks. Their plan is to spend their entire holiday in a holiday house in Cornwall that they inherited cum bought out another relative's share a few years ago. My friend asked him if they would have their mother along for at least a couple of weeks of the holiday as it will get very lonely for her on her own, and my friend will only be able to get down at weekends. Her brother has said no, he and his wife are knackered after a school year and he's also had to cope with losing his dad so they really need these few weeks away 'as a family'.

My friend is really upset and I think her brother is being horrible.

AIBU.

I have changed a few details to ensure no one is outed, but this is the general gist of what is happening.

@Squidgee you shouldn’t have to justify yourself.

Those of us who have been through it understand.

This is weird. I think YABU, there is nothing to say that that mum actually wants to go anywhere. I was once pressured into going away after suffering a bereavement, it was the single worst thing I could have done, it just prolonged everything and made me feel so much much worse. I would never recommend that anybody went away after being bereaved unless it absolutely came from them.

Your friend should have started by asking her mum what she wants, not trying to get her to leave her home.

He sounds like my brother. Slightly different situation. My mother needed a care arranging for her in the last year if her life and despite the fact that my mother doted on my brother and his family, helped them out with childcare and money on a frequent basis - all the care was left to me. As was all the funeral arrangements and dealing with the will (which he was the so,e beneficiary of btw). The reason, I don't have children, he does. Therefore, in his eyes, I had no responsibilities ,y life and time is less important and I could be our mothers unpaid skivy.

And it appears there are some of the same sort of people on this thread. Well fuck you. I hope your kids dump you in a care home at the earliest opportunity.

I did all that, Squidgee, and more.

When you are an adult child, doing things from arranging the funeral and all the administration (elderly people often lose financial acumen and things are mostly online now too) to sorting through a parent's possessions are just What You Have To Do. Well, I suppose you don't have to, but to resent it and make a tally of stuff you've done... it's just life. People die. And it's going to happen all over again anyway when the widowed parent dies.

I@m disabled. I have loads of stuff wrong with me. I'm due to go to get an x-ray done that the doc referred me for on Friday. I am off work today to get the dogs cut and thought I could go and get my x-ray but no, father needed attending to and someone to talk at so I sallied over to him today and sat like a lemon listen to him tell me how lonely he is and how terrible his life is and how he never sees anyone.

I know he tells people that I never see him and I do nothing for him. I offered him today to go for coffee to the local coffee place. He doesn't want to. I offered to cut his grass. He doesn't want me to. All he wants to do is have me sit there and talk at.

I can't cope with much more I really can't. I need a break from him.

IrmaFayLear

So those that are being called "vile", "selfish" and "should be put in a care home by their kids" (para) shouldn't be able to defend themselves as it puts them in a bad light cos they clearly "resent" what they have done and have to "tally"it up.

some people are never happy.

Duck, you should stop
Why haven't these people got any friends, can't they join something.
A death does hit hard but eventually life goes on, there is lots of help, it shouldn't all be on one daughter

Squidgee, yes that is what people do for their families.

Duck, are you a healthy able-bodied person with a holiday house that you are about to visit for an entire six weeks? If not, nobody is criticising you because you are living with an entirely different set of circumstances.

Also nobody is saying that any of this support should last indefinitely. But it's only been eight weeks. She will need support for some time yet, while she comes to term with it, but not forever.

We don't know anything about the brother.

My brother's friends think I'm entirely able bodied, because it's not for them to know.

I am going on holiday with DP for two weeks - tis a make or break for our relationship but why would someone who is friends with my brother know that either?

In my experience, having started the support with the best of intentions and for the best of reasons, it is impossible to stop without being called all the bad ones.

So I need to get my head around this to make a decision:

DF must have passed away in May, it was in May that your friend took a week to be with her mother. (Assuming it wasn't too far off when df died).

Since then she has visited eow? So 4/5 times in 8 weeks?

• Assume she would have taken time off to grieve the loss of her father regardless
• Assume she would have visited her mother in the 7 week period perhaps 1/2 times?

Realistically she has visited possibly 3 more times than she would have if he hadn't passed away? And her dm has visited her x2?

I am the child that visits dp. I do it regularly, and when I say regularly 5 times per week minimum! If my siblings who visit perhaps eow were to say that I was selfish for having a summer holiday break and not taking dp (either) with me I think I would be a little bit miffed and ready for a break. I don't mow the lawn, fix the tv or do shopping for them unless requested to so lord knows what my siblings think when they turn up and the grass hasn't been cut......

Anyhow, they also know how much time I spend with them, chatting to them, watching telly with them, reading the papers with them, going through groundhog day every day with a parent who has a very poor memory. They know how exhausting it is, and they are the ones that go away with them.

If I were your friend, I would see September as an opportunity to go to a neutral place/ holiday destination with dm and spend some quality time with her in a different setting.

If the dm is still 2 months in, she might not really want to go away with a happy young family and some of their friends. A few weeks is not a huge amount of time and your friend would only have visited twice if the dbro had been around?

Its all speculation as we only have a slightly "changed" version of the truth told to a friend rather than from the horses mouth :)

Taking the post at face value, as mn tends to do, he is a selfish shit.

Yes he might have a big long list of extenuating circumstances that op doesn't know about, that his sister doesn't know about, that his mum doesn't know about - unlikely, but maybe.

His mum's needs, in these first few weeks, are still more important and those of you saying you've done it - as have I - haven't said a single thing to make me feel differently.

I don’t quite get the people who say that if you are there day in day out, you are entitled to go away for 6 weeks on your own for a break.

The reality is, if you are the type to do the daily visits, you do it for tour parents because they need it, and it would just not feel right to then dump them for 6 weeks

I did the every day visits for 2 years. I shortened a 4 day holiday so that I could visit on day one and day 4, and made sure someone else could visit on the 2 days I couldn’t

This brother is just swanning off!

Selfish!

How do you know that much about their financial situation? Are you really the sister OP? I have no idea about any of my friends' siblings' financial situations etc!

If you really are a friend, then I think you need to take a step back. It's weird to be this invested in someone else's family issues.

On the face of it, I agree the brother seems selfish-

However, as others have said, you don't know everything about the dynamics of the situation.

One of my aunts moved in with my grandmother (along with my cousin and her partner) for a while between houses. It strained their relationship a huge amount, and I think it was even worse for her partner and my cousin. For a while afterwards, they just both needed a break from each other. Stuff like that can irreparably damage family relationships even when it looks like one has done the other a favour.

For his children, it may be their first experience of death and they may be really struggling with it. Because of this, he may feel having his mother there wouldn't help them much.

If he'd have to ferry the mother too and from Cornwall twice- presumably leaving his wife and children there without a car? I know this sounds like a small effort for his grieving mother, but in a lot of places in Cornwall, being stranded without a car even for 24 hours at a time would just be shit. Obviously most people would cope but maybe his wife and children are being difficult about it and he doesn't have the strength to argue with them?

Maybe he feels emotionally and mentally exhausted right now, and in a few weeks will feel differently?

FWIW, I do accept that the caring burden often falls on women- but in my own extended family, I have also seen sons do a lot. One of my uncles lived with my dad's mum for years when she was a widow with dementia.

If it's not your family, and not impacting on your life, then why get so wound up about it?

Yanbu. Of course he deserves a break, but 6 weeks is a huge chunk of time, way more than the usual fortnight people aim for. He could compromise in some way and not stay quite so long if he doesn't want the DM to come.

My friend gets down every second weekend doing a two hour journey by train each way. She can't go down the other weekends because she's on call at her job. She's also used any annual leave she has to be with the mother and had her up two of the weekends she was on call. The mother has an open invitation but because she knows it means my friend sleeping on the sofa she keeps refusing. These posts saying she's selfish are ridiculous. What more is she supposed to do?????

There is nothing weird about thinking the mum might like go to Cornwall. She actually said a couple of things to my friend that made her realise that she was hoping she might be asked, and that has really upset my friend.

She also asked her brother if there was any chance he could do four weeks in Cornwall and be around the first week and last week of the holidays and she'd get down her two weekends and it wouldn't be so long for the mother without family. But he said 'no'.

He shouldn’t have to change his holiday though and if the Mum wants to go then she needs to ask. Or the sister should say to the brother that the mother has asked to go. At the moment nothing seems direct enough. I still don’t see an answer as to what the brother actually does because at the moment they seem to be doing similar amounts and he is entitled to a holiday with his own family.

Oh don't worry User. Some people on here would argue that black was white. I think its obvious to any rational reader that your friend is doing the very best she can given her circumstances. Of course you would expect the sibling that lives and works nearest the mother to be around more regularly. That doesn't mean he's not selfish to just abandon the mother for six weeks knowing full well it's not possible for his sister to he around during the week or every weekend. But some posters seem to think it should be some kind of business arrangement and as long as he's fulfilled his bit then he doesn't have to Care what happens after that. Also some posters are going on as if this is something that's going to be required for years instead of a few months while the mother gets back on her fee.

Your friend isn't there 12 out of 14 days OP. Her brother is.

Most elderly parents who’ve lost their spouse are not abusive arseholes, but people who are experiencing a seismic change in their lives and struggling to cope. That may be temporary, or it may last for the rest of their lives.

If I were the parent and I thought my child was noting every visit and itemising every job done and then justifying their resentment on the internet i’d rather they left me to stew in my own juice.

And I have walked a mile - probably about 50 miles - in other posters’ shoes. To think of being sour about sorting out my father’s clothes... streuth.

He obviously needs/wants a break.
He isn't selfish IMHO

What if the sister needs/wants a break as well and decides to disappear for the next six weeks also?

Brother is NOT bu OP. And you know it. Stop trying to justify the selfish behaviour of (you) the sister.

Or actually OP... are you the Mum?!

Guys OP is the Mum. She has to be. She wants to wedge in to her Son's holiday.