OP I really feel for you. Your mother sounds very much like mine and I would urge you to look up info about mothers with Borderline Personality Disorder.
It’s very easy for people with ‘normal’ mothers to tell you to just turf her out - while they’re right, of course, having a push-me-pull-you mother like this is incredibly complex. And the guilt you feel, however misplaced, is real.
As the child of a mother like this you have to be ready for affection while at the same time being prepared for attack, and you never quite know at any given moment which one you’re going to get. It’s exhausting. It would be so much easier if they were all one thing or all the other, but when you have a mother like this you feel guilty for not liking the ‘bad’ mother when the ‘good’ mother is there, and feel guilty about the ‘good’ mother when you don’t like the ‘bad’ mother when she’s there. It’s so hard and my heart goes out to you.
A big turning point for me was the way she treated my children. It’s insidious, for years they were exposed to a bit of her behaviour here, a bit of her behaviour there, and I handled it as best I could, like you are. But there was a big turning point on a holiday with her a few years ago when she behaved so badly towards me in front of them ALL the time, and consequently they were exposed to this toxicity in such a dose, that something snapped. My children and their feelings and their mental health had to come way before hers. Obvious to anyone with a ‘normal’ mother, but when you’ve been forced to be co-dependent with this kind of mother your whole life sometimes it takes something more drastic to make you see how abnormal this relationship is and how much you need to protect your children from it.
Now our boundaries are very clearly laid down to her. She still doesn’t usually ‘get it’, I’ve made peace with the fact she never will, she’s hard-wired and it’s not going to change even with any amount of therapy at her stage of life. But it works better for us. If she criticises something - which is a lot of the time! - we calmly and firmly explain that this is how we do things in this house. If she continues we tell her we’re not going to engage with this and ignore it. If she kicks off we remove ourselves and the children by either asking her firmly to leave or by taking them out or away from the situation. If she plays the hard done by sympathy card we ignore it.
Cutting her off is not an option. She’s my mother, it’s too hard. And elderly, with all the guilt that brings and also, like you, all the fast-forwarding to more guilt when she dies. The guilt is ingrained from years of this behaviour, try not to let it beat yourself up too much. Finding a way to have a relationship with her where at least you and your family can stay healthy, even if she can’t, is the way forward that’s worked for us.
We’ve had a chat with our children about her and have done since that turning point a few years ago. They were five and seven then and we did it in an age appropriate way: ‘you know how on CBeebies/CBBC they talk about looking after your mental health? Well Granny doesn’t look after hers and that’s why she behaves like she does. We feel sorry for Granny that she doesn’t look after her mental health but her behaviour isn’t acceptable and we don’t have to put up with it.’ Maybe a similar chat could help? We reiterate it with them regularly so it’s all out in the open with them and they have a better and more healthy understanding of what’s going on.
If your husband can join the calling out that helps too. A united front helps to deal with her and also sets your children a good example. And therapy has helped me a huge amount, helped me understand the dynamics and put in healthier ones.
I wish you a lot of love and strength over the next few days and going forward xxx