Ok, I’m sharing this here because I can’t think of another place for it. I’m also not asking AIBU because my MH isn’t good and I really don’t want to be flamed. I just want to share this.
So,
My mum lives 200 miles away in a place that was once a village but has now been consumed into the town. Despite that, it’s still called The Village, and house prices are higher because of that. My mum is quite controlling and manipulative, for example using health as a weapon for many years. My sister lives nearby, and plays a big (sometimes unwilling) part in her life. Having suffered a fair bit as a child/young adult, I headed for the hills once I started university. My relationship with her is now quite good, thanks to said 200 miles, though she is still manipulative given the chance. She lived until recently alone in my childhood home, and her will always said that my sister and I would inherit joint shares. About 18 months ago, she started talking about how difficult life has been in the big house, and how she wanted to move, but couldn’t bear to leave her friend in the village, etc. This led up to her telling me that her friend’s house was up for sale, with an integral granny annexe, and she soooo wished my sister could buy it.
Eventually, she asked, with a great deal of arm twisting and emotional blackmail for me to give up my half of the inheritance so that she could sell her house, my sister could do likewise, and they could then buy her friend’s house so that she could be happy forever (and my sister would be able to buy a £500000 house). Basically, I could always say no, but then I’d be responsible for her misery forever.
So I agreed, my sister and her (inherently decent and honest) husband said that should they ever downsize, I would retain a share of any sale, and the house went on the market. My sister sold hers and moved in on a temporary basis and they waited for Mum’s house to sell. After a year, of trying to sell it, and regaling me with endless tales of how difficult life selling a house is, the house is now almost sold. Sadly her friend’s house is off the market, so they are buying another. Nowhere near the effing village. In town. With no bus to the village, and hence her friends. And no mention at all of sharing any equity in the new house. And loads more stories about how hard it all is, that is really becoming stealth boasting. Not asking how my family, children or DW are. Not asking how DSD is coping after her second suicide attempt in three months. Not asking how DW is after a miscarriage. Not asking how I’ve been dealing with being off work for three months trying to hold it together. I’m really pleased you’re getting a new house. I’m happy for you in loads of ways. I’ve been on half pay. I really don’t want to hear about how you spent £1000 on some tables and shelves. I don’t want to hear about your stress when I worry whether DSD has just slept through her alarm, or she has taken another 100 paracetamol. I don’t want to hear about the new car you were ‘forced’ to buy with the house equity when my motorcycle needs a new back tyre which I can’t really afford but I can’t get to work without it.
I’m not really pissed off about the money I’m not going to inherit. It was never mine anyway. Mum wasn’t duty bound to leave it to me and it’s hers to do as she wishes, but she did ask me to give up my share. I did fantasise about being able to buy a house one day (mental heath issues and credit ratings are sometimes mutually exclusive), but there you go, and my sister will earn every single square millimetre of that house looking after my mum.
I just want them to stop rubbing my nose in it, even if they don’t mean to.