To go no contact with my mum?

[kindredsp]

I’ve not spoken to my mother for several months now and haven’t responded to a couple of texts and emails she’s sent since. The last time I spoke to her, I told her I wanted some space from her and to leave me be, with a very clear explanation as to why. I have since heard through other family members that she’s saying that I’m blanking her, that I’m denying her access to her grandchildren and that I have insulted her, and quite frankly I’m pissed.
Our relationship is very complex and I won’t bore you with too many details. But the straw that broke the camels back was when we decided to move away to a cheaper part of the country to gain some financial stability with a small mortgage (first time buyers with a limited deposit).
She then offered us 150k so we could stay local to her and still have a small mortgage. We said no originally as there’s always a condition or catch to her “help”, but eventually she wore me down and I accepted.
We house hunted, put an offer in for an incredible house, and had it accepted. The dream of living in an area we loved in a house we loved really was intoxicating.
Then she withdrew her offer. No real reason was given, other than that she couldn’t access that kind of money (she obviously originally said it was easy for her to access). I was so emotionally invested in the move that I persuaded my husband to go ahead with the purchase anyway despite it totally maxing ourselves out affordability wise. So we moved.
We’ve lived in our house for 5 years and money has been horribly tight. We love the area and the house, but we’ve literally lived month by month saving nothing. We have no money to live, just meet the basics. It is not the financial stability we were looking for. Add a pandemic, cost of living crisis and now the end of our fixed rate, we’re tighter than ever before.
We work our arses off and we’re missing everything. We can’t live, we can’t enjoy ourselves, we hardly see our children. It’s miserable and so stressful and the whole situation has put a huge strain on our marriage.
My mother breezes in and out with zero remorse for what happened. As far as she can see, we’re close by with a roof over our head so what’s the big deal. The last conversation I had with her was just as we were remortgaging and coming to terms with our monthly rate going up by a few hundred pounds. I said that if she’d let us make our own decisions we’d be in a financially stable position now and able to ride the spiralling expenses much better. She said she was only trying to help and had no idea it had put us under financial stress. She said we shouldn’t have bought the house if we couldn’t afford it.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, especially when you remove emotion from it. If I could go back I would have absolutely not bought our house. I would have reverted to the original plan. But at the time house prices were shooting up, we’d wasted 6 months on a fools errand and were about to be at a point where moving elsewhere wouldn’t have been the financial break we’d hoped for anyway and we’d still be stuck in rental today most likely.
But here we are. She hasn’t apologised for what she did. In fact, she said she couldn’t even remember how much she’d promised us. It feels like it was just a tactic to stop us from moving away so she could still see her grandchildren rather than allow us the freedom to make our own decisions.
I felt proud of myself for finally speaking up about it and her response also made me realise that I don’t want her in our lives. But now she’s telling everyone that I’ve insulted her (I haven’t), but I have stopped her seeing the grandchildren because I’m not seeing her myself and I am ignoring her messages because I asked for space the last time we spoke. So am I the AH?

How do your kids feel about not seeing your mother, @kindredsp ? Do they miss her or not bothered?

As everyone has said, sell up and get on with your life. You may feel differently towards your mother once you're no longer living hand to mouth (equally you may not). But don't let her influence any of your future decisions.

Your mother behaved really poorly by pretending to have access to money and offering it to you in order to convince you not to move.

It sounds like she purposely wanted you to get invested into a local property knowing fully that she would never be able to help you purchase it but hoping that you would still go ahead with buying the house.

It is incredibly manipulative of her and you will never be able to trust her again.

Yes, you and your husband decided to buy the property regardless, but that does not change the fact that your mother behaved appallingly.

As suggested by others, consider selling this house and moving away as you initially planned and put some distance between yourself and your mother.

Your mum is a dick. She knew exactly what she was doing and you fell for it because that's how you keep her happy.

Move away from this toxic relationship and start enjoying your lives. You can't control what she says about you but you can stop letting it control what you do.

If the move means you can have more time with your family then I think it's a no-brainer.

@yogasaurus Where did you pluck this information from?

Put the house on the market, don't tell your mother so she doesn't have a chance to manipulate you to stay. Move far away and enjoy the rest of your life

Nope, not at all Hollywood or good intention on both parties.
my dd went NC with me for years. It was resolved after 10 years. It caused me huge mental health issue, him less so but nonethe less his actions in NCing me did not make him happy or move on. Sadly his rage at me was displaced rage for my mother who was dead.

I learnt techniques of crucial conversation through work, then determined to use it to repair my relationship..it was bloody hard work, over a few years to build back trust. But we did it mostly, and learnt a lot about who we really were along the way.
sadly he now has dementia, I am glad we made peace with each other

I also left an abusive ex. Used methods to achieve divorce amicably and cheaply.

We all have crosses to bear- you are very naive if you think people get through life without immense struggles. . NC makes the crosses that much harder to drag around on our backs. In some cases it will be best in end to NC, but it seems that in some cases, like the Op, she is searching for solutions or she wouldn’t post, and it’s very clear they both have their own differing narrative on what happened.

Ah, so you’re a parent a child went no contact with. Makes so much more sense now.

@SatsumaNightmare I think she means dear dad, not daughter. She is the child in her scenario.

If that’s the case, fair enough, I retract my previous statement and apologise. However, I stand by what I said previously. It’s nobody else’s place to tell OP whether she should or shouldn’t be going NC. Her situation is unique to her, and I feel it’s deeply problematic to make sweeping statements about ‘family.’

Do u think she is going to change? I suspect not from what you say. I’d sell up. Your children want happy parents and this situation you find yourself in seems to have made you very unhappy.

🤣🤣🤣meow!

She sounds like a narc your mother saying she could help then she can't and then she couldn't remember but she didn't give you anything at all. I understand why you still made the move due to this situation even though it's left you in this financial problems. You and your hubby will need to think about what's best for you and yours

Its disappointing that it fell through but you can’t blame her for your choices. Sell up

Your mother clearly lied and tried to keep you in the area despite not having that kind of money. Maybe she didn't think you'd fall for it so she quickly backed out just before you sealed the deal. That was your opportunity to quickly pull out of the deal. However, even if I had pulled out, I would still have been really disappointed with her and would not be able to trust her again