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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think this level of over- protection is ridiculous.

108 replies

ScottishJo31 · 24/08/2019 17:35

My auntie ( single parent ) has two daughters... eldest is 31, youngest is 24, both still live at home. My auntie does everything for them, all their washing, ironing, cooking, shopping and even cleans their bedrooms.
The girls are NT with no health issues. One works part time one doesn’t work at all... she never has. The oldest has had boyfriends and has a social life whilst the youngest does everything with her mum and rarely leaves the house without her. My auntie works full time and has a number of friends, her friends have been encouraging her to go for weekends away and she has always refused.. however last weekend she went to a spa weekend but she ended up cutting the trip short as she was missing her daughter and was crying because she had left her overnight for the first time!!!

I am absolutely flabbergasted and don’t think the dynamics are very healthy at all. She expected my mum ( her sister) and me to sympathise and got upset when we said she has to cut the apron strings for all their benefits... she is now refusing to speak to us!!! Were we wrong to share our thoughts with her?

OP posts:
Mummyoflittledragon · 25/08/2019 08:09

This absolutely is your business and your aunt is abusing her daughters to satisfy her needs.

Can you talk to your cousins? The youngest sounds to be completely in the fog and happy to be codependent and abuse her situation. I would therefore have a chat with your eldest cousin and talk about your life, how it’s going and how she sees her future. If you make it two cousins going out for a drink or something rather than ‘a talk’.

iano · 25/08/2019 08:12

I agree that your aunt isn't the victim here. Your cousins have been conditioned to accept her smothering.
Can you contact the cousins and focus on taking them out of the house, discussing life skills etc

BikeRunSki · 25/08/2019 08:20

What happens when the aunt dies?

Zaphodsotherhead · 25/08/2019 08:30

I have a few friends who are bordering on this level of mollycoddling. One is breaking away, but only because she has recent remarried and is now finding her adult children's level of dependency annoying (mostly because her new husband is objecting to her leaping up to wait on them at every moment), the other whose son is ASD but has been taught absolutely nothing about the real world by a mum who wanted to protect him from everything (and is now becoming slightly annoyed by his dependency...).

Could either you or your mum manage to have a word with your cousins alone? Eldest sounds as though she is rightly preparing to leave, but the younger needs help to get out as she would from an abusive marriage. She doesn't know any different so it will be very scary for her not to have her mum as a front line defence.

However your aunt needs to be prepared for both daughters to fly the nest and it sounds as though she's doing everything in her power to stop that happening (including guilt by tears...)

OtraCosaMariposa · 25/08/2019 08:35

Agree with others, this isn't about being over protective. It's about being downright weird.

A woman crying because she is leaving her adult daughter overnight for the first time at 24 - Jesus. That's just a whole other level of batshit crazy. However it's not hard to see why the adult children are the way they are when they have a mother who has fucked them up to such a massive extent.

OtraCosaMariposa · 25/08/2019 08:40

Oh and we have a similar situation in our extended family. Two adult children, one working and one not. Both in their mid to late 20s. The older one doesn't drive, won't take lessons. So her mother or father gets up at silly o'clock to drive her 45 minutes to work when she starts at 6am. Couldn't possibly get the bus. Everything done for her. Doesn't have a clue how to do things like use the washing machine or pay bills. Parents still pay her monthly phone bill while she spends her wages on clothes like a teenager.

Other daughter is about 22, left school at 16 with no qualifications. Parents say she struggles with anxiety although has never been seen by a GP or formally diagnosed. Stays in the house all the time, gets up when she feels like it, goes to bed when she feels like it, plays a lot of Xbox, again mother and father running around after her, dancing to her tune, refusing to address the issue that this person has done nothing with her life for 6 years and is rapidly heading for a life doing fuck all.

What it all boils down to is that the parents have no life outside their children. Unfulfilling jobs. No friends. No social life. No hobbies. No interests in going places or seeing things. So all they have is their children and if they up and left, they would be completely lost.

SconeofDestiny · 25/08/2019 09:05

That is so sad to read.
I know someone via work who stayed at home until their mid-thirties, then bought the flat next door to her parents. When her dad was dying he told her she had to look after her mum so she moved back in with mum when her dad died. She’s in her mid fifties and has now sold both flats and moved into a sheltered housing type complex. The sort where you buy the flat but pay towards communal facilities inc. an on-site warden.
She is physically fit and healthy so has no need for warden support but told me it was because she was getting old. (!!)
She’s never had a boyfriend, has very few friends and is completely risk averse. She still goes on a 1 week holiday by coach to the same place she went to with her parents, the exact same week every year. She’s terrified of making decisions so always asks someone else for their opinion before doing anything.
Her dad facilitated this sad existence by telling her she was responsible for looking after them when she was younger.
I look at her and think what a wasted opportunity for living. Sad

angell84 · 25/08/2019 09:07

Yes it is overdependent.

Saying that, in Spain and Italy - it is normal to live at hone until you are forty. So it works for some families

EleanorReally · 25/08/2019 09:17

If you insist it is your business op, speak to the daughters, explain it isnt healthy for anyone.
invite the mother out on her own

JinglingHellsBells · 25/08/2019 11:03

@EleanorReally have you read the thread? These are the OP's cousins, and she became involved as her aunt spoke to her and her mum about it. her aunt has not stopped speaking and is sulking.

If that doesn't make it her business, what does- in your opinion?

EleanorReally · 25/08/2019 11:05

jingling,
did you read my post?

EleanorReally · 25/08/2019 11:05

op you can do it, as can your family.
dont need strangers to advise

EleanorReally · 25/08/2019 11:10

Write a letter, put it down in writing your fears and concerns about their lifestyle

MrsKittyFane1 · 25/08/2019 11:14

Agree their relationships sound codependent.
Neither daughter is married and they don't have DC of their own so remain in their bubble at home.

I know several women who have 'flown the nest' technically (they live with their husband and have their own DC) but spend every waking minute either on the phone to or with their mother. It's not something I'd do but it's not uncommon.

EleanorReally · 25/08/2019 11:25

Were we wrong to share our thoughts with her?

was your question op.
no,
hopefully she will come round, some of your words struck home no doubt

BarbariansMum · 25/08/2019 11:30

Co-dependency, it will end badly. We had a similar situation w my father and brother. For years I was told to "mind my own business ". Guess who's being expected to pick up the pieces now it's all fallen apart, though?

BarbariansMum · 25/08/2019 11:31

And the 24 year old may well be enjoying her life now, but when she's 40 or 50 something, has never worked, and her mums health means she can no longer keep her, she may be very bitter.

EleanorReally · 25/08/2019 11:31

my bil never left home
when my step f died, i was advised to leave home as i had planned, warned about the possibility of never being able to leave. my dm made her own life.

goodwinter · 25/08/2019 11:35

If it works for them, what business is it of yours?

There's no way it's "working" for these women who've been brought up towards learned dependence and now cannot function as adults because of the deeply unhealthy dynamic their mother has created.

goodwinter · 25/08/2019 11:36

And the 24 year old may well be enjoying her life now, but when she's 40 or 50 something, has never worked, and her mums health means she can no longer keep her, she may be very bitter.

Absolutely. They have both missed out on early adulthood and all the experiences, knowledge and life lessons that brings. It's awful. I don't think it's an instance of "different strokes" like a PP said!

goodwinter · 25/08/2019 11:37

Saying that, in Spain and Italy - it is normal to live at hone until you are forty. So it works for some families

Well, yes, there's nothing wrong with intergenerational households. This situation is a whole other thing! Most parents wouldn't cut short a trip after leaving their 24yo overnight for the first time.

Bookworm4 · 25/08/2019 11:39

@angell84
In those cultures, the adult DC work and have a life they don’t hermit away unaware of life.

Witchinaditch · 25/08/2019 11:43

I know this isn’t really the point but how does the younger daughter justify not working? I’m fascinated by people who are able to but choose not to work I just don’t understand it!

perpetuallyperplexedbylife · 25/08/2019 11:54

Codependent and highly damaging. It's a form of abuse by your aunt.
I have a colleague like this. 32, lives at home with mum and dad. She is dropped off and picked up from work (never learned to drive), dinner is on the table at 6 every night. She doesn't pay rent or do anything like cooking, cleaning, laundry. Never had a boyfriend, goes on holiday to the same place every year with her parents. Dresses in clothes that my 80 year old aunt would dismiss as frumpy. It's no life.

Flude · 25/08/2019 11:57

Meh.

I moved back in with my parents for a couple of years. They did everything for me and I was well and truly pampered; my extended family probably thought it was weird but I was actually going through an insanely stressful time and needed my family. It really was no one else’s business as the agreement was between us and our parents only.

Stay out of it.