I posted a thread about this a few months ago, for those who didn't see it this is the short version.
I was given up for adoption when I was a baby, along with my older brother. I found my birth mother when I was 17 and have had a very turbulent relationship with her since. She had another 3 children after we were adopted who stayed with her and she seems to have done quite well with her relationship with those children and seemed to be in a pretty good place financially, she owns several properties, a few businesses, drives nice cars, etc.
Up until January my relationship with her had been pretty good for 2 years, I'd become accepting of what I felt was pretty rubbish behavior on her part ( not sending my children birthday cards, saying she would come and see them and then just not turn up, not messaging or calling for months at a time then just picking things up as though everything was fine). I just put this down to her being like that, accepted I couldn't change her and just took the relationship for what it was.
Two years ago I was diagnosed with a severe illness and went downhill quickly, there was an experimental treatment I could have abroad that I decided to go for that had a price tag of just over 50k. She all but insisted on giving me 10k towards it (we were short of that amount but would have figured it out, put it on a credit card or took out a loan). I offered to pay it back at least 3 or 4 times over the following months and every time she said no, she'd wanted to help and she was so glad I'd gone ahead, etc, etc.
My DH and I are fairly comfortably off, I have my own company and he has a good job, we could have paid the money back quickly if she had wanted it but she said every time that she did not.
My treatment went very well and towards the end of last year I decided to invest more money into my company and expand, my mother was aware of this and had even visited some premises with me and had discussions with me about my future plans.
A year after the treatment, out of the blue she messaged and said she wanted it back. After a lot of thought I decided not to, I was angry that she was rewriting history, trying to say that conversations that we had in front of other people just hadn't happened (conversations where she had absolutely insisted she never wanted it back), annoyed that she had made such a song and dance about being the hero to friends and family and was then expecting to be able to call it in at any time of her choosing. I suppose I felt it was the tip of the iceberg with her treatment towards me, her inconsistency, being there for me and then trying to take it back when it had meant so much to me.
Anyway she then said she'd be taking me to court, I got legal advise and was told she would almost certainly be unsuccessful (we had sent messages where I had thanked her for this money and she had said it was a gift). Nothing more had happened until yesterday...…..
She called me for the first time in 4 months and I honestly thought she was ringing to say sorry for how she had handled the whole situation. But no, she was ringing to tell me she had decided I could share it with my siblings and I am now supposed to give them all 2k. I told her I wouldn't be doing this, the money was gone and spent on the treatment over a year ago. I told her she didn't get to change what conversations had taken place and she went crazy, told me she could change any conversations she wanted to, then came out with some really awful stuff about not being my mother, she'd given me up because she didn't want to be and all sorts of other terrible things.
I'm so upset now, I feel like she's trying to manipulate the situation so my siblings will now be upset with me. I spoke to my brother yesterday who thought she was mad and told me to keep his share. Not that I can keep it anyway, it was spent over a year ago on the treatment.
AIBU to not give them all 2k? As far as I'm concerned the money was given for a purpose and spent on that, the money is long gone and any money that I would now give would be different money. The 3 children who my mother had after my brother and I were adopted have had a good standard of living throughout their childhood and even now into early adulthood (they've been bought cars, been on expensive holidays, one has lived rent free in a property our mother owns for over a year). My brother and I have never received any gifts of any significant value, aside from this money and I feel like I'm justified in saying no, they've had a lot more than 10k spent on them and I don't see why I should.
Sorry, that was a lot longer than I thought!