Hitting rock bottom- family troubles

[Hereforthekickz]

I need to get my feelings out as I am really struggling at the moment and don’t know what to do.

I am 50 with 1 DD and happily married to a wonderful man.

I don’t have a great relationship with my family and haven’t for years, especially with DM.

I have a half brother who lives miles from me and he has recently stopped talking to me. He is a lot older than me and we are very, very different. I don’t feel comfortable around him and he is difficult to get along with but we have distance so it was bearable. He has stopped talking to me because I didn’t download a communication app on my new phone and he was trying to contact me about our DM. He didn’t try and contact me any other way until he sent me a number of rude and hateful messages via IMessage to tell me that we needed to communicate through our DM only in future.

I was upset by this but I am not sure I want a relationship with him because of how he makes me feel. We have naturally grown apart.

My relationship with my DM isn’t great. She is 80 but is very independent and lives close by.

I have already had to put emotional distance between us because of her toxic behaviour. I know where this comes from. She doesn’t have anyone apart from me and she feels alone. I have my own family and she feels that she has out lived her usefulness. I empathise but I can’t be what she wants me to be. She displays some very concerning behaviour such as:

manipulating
using guilt to get her demands
falling out
blame
etc

Move forward to 5 weeks ago……

My FIL passed away suddenly. We are grieving and it hurts.

I agreed to take DM shopping and we had a huge argument.

It started because she told me my DB didn’t want any kind of relationship with me. She said she thought he was in the wrong but she agreed with him on one point - that I didn’t answer my messages in a timely way
or at all. She said that “whilst we are chatting” she had to say that when she sends her 14 year old GD some spending money, it would be nice to get a phone call from her and not a text.

I did the one thing I shouldn’t have done - I told her I didn’t necessarily agree!!! It all came out….

She doesn’t see her GD as much as she wants - this hurts but she doesn’t feel she should have to make any effort to call her.
She had such a strong bond when she was young and now nothing. She has outlived her usefulness. She might need her one day!!!!

She didn’t know I had a week off work in Oct for the school holidays and I never called her (I did visit her the Saturday before and the Saturday after). She was poorly and I didn’t know because I didn’t call.

It is not her job to call me-I am the daughter.

All the times she has listened to me when I had problems and I don’t bother calling etc.

I don’t do anything nice with her and never say sorry or admit I am wrong.

I tried to assert myself and needed her to know sthat I am struggling with things at the moment. I am crying out for my DM to comfort/support me I guess!

Just After my FIL died she made comments about how much inheritance we will get and how we can “have as many holidays as you want” and when I called her the night he died she just turned the conversation around to her and how she thinks about her own death at night when she is in bed. It feels like she is jealous??

She told me she isn’t coming to me at Christmas as she only sees me on 1 day and then she is alone all Christmas.

The list goes on and on and on….

My DH is furious and has told me that I have to stop this behaviour. I should be going for lunch today with him and my DD but I can’t get out of bed and he is shouting and saying I am letting her win!

I don’t know what to do as I can’t go no contact because of the guilt I feel.

I am in such a mess because all these years of this behaviour has messed my head. I am so frightened to change the narrative.

please help

That was my reply to Tonia16.

Reply function doesn't seem to work?!

Yep, sounds just like my Dad.
Emotionally detach, OP, view her as an elderly person who needs your help, but don’t try to win her love or approval, because you never will.

You don't think OP's mum making an implied threat to kill herself if she doesn't get what she wants is in any way problematic??

@HamBone yes it sounds similar to your situation.

I feel that I do everything I can to support, listen, I constantly check in on her, every day or so by text and I try to call or visit once a week. Not always possible but I always have her in my mind. I work full time.

I will not feel guilty for what I do as I know I do my best. I don’t like to spend a lot of social time with her because of how she is. I have tried taking her out, we have holidayed together in the past but it’s always been difficult. She has no friends at all because she has fallen out with them. She says she doesn’t want friends when I make suggestions because I know she needs someone other than me.

@Hereforthekickz

Until you are willing to make changes nothing will get better.

you mum and brother will never be who
you want them to be. Never.

You need to accept that first and then decide how you want to move forward.

You have to detach now for the sake of your MH. It's not going to be easy but you have to do it. You really have no choice in the matter and as much as you would like it to be different the cold hard fact is it isn't and never will be. Unfortunately, you have to face this fact.

@NImumconfused
You don't think OP's mum making an implied threat to kill herself if she doesn't get what she wants is in any way problematic

No I don't see it as anything more than hyperbole. She isn't seriously threatening to kill herself. (She said herself that she is thinking about her own death, so obviously not wanting to do anything to bring it about).

She doesn't sound particularly warm or caring, but in my view that's no reason to minimize contact with her.

Tonia 16. Even if it's not serious it's manipulation and your interpretation of not serious may not be the OPs.

And even if the mother's threat to kill herself is real or not, it's a bloody horrible thing to do to your child!

I can't agree, especially not in the context of other behaviour described by the OP, but I'm possibly influenced by the fact I have a family member who has been actively suicidal, and says similar things.

@Tonia16 do you think that is normal then?

It is a way of trying to control the narrative. Would you say that to your children?

I would never, ever dream of telling my DD that if she decides to move house 1 mile away from her that I would need to consider moving a 3 hour drive away to live with her sibling. Why would I not be happy for her. The move would have had no bearing on our relationship. Everything would have stayed the same!

Its because she was not in control!

No I wouldn't say that it's normal or in my own experience, but I do see it the OP's reaction as wishing to validate her own feelings. She wants to minimize contact with her mother and is looking for people to say that she is right to want this.

The OP needs to detach herself from feeling hurt or guilty, and carry on seeing her mother as she is already doing.

Not all mothers are warm and caring, and yes, some are manipulative, but I still don't see this as a valid reason to go low contact with her.

@NImumconfused It’s horrendous, controlling behavior, my Dad also regularly talks about suicide.

That’s why the OP has to emotionally detach. As @Tonia16 says, she’s never going to get the mother she wants.

The above example is just one of many. The same with the text she just sent. She had to have the last word, the last ounce of control.

I sway between feeling sorry for her, full of guilt and questioning myself. I can’t work out if it’s me or her. Am I a really bad person, a bad daughter that’s not doing her duty. But sometimes I have clarity. I hear my friends talk about their relationships with their DM. Mine isn’t the same. My DM can be wonderful and I think “oh it’s me that’s the problem” and I get excited about our relationship.

This never lasts and it’s not long before she is showing her true colours again. Then I get disappointed and I am back to square one.

When my DD was young my Mum looked after her. She told me she was struggling looking after her because I was a shift worker. I reassured her that it was fine and managed to get a childminder for the following week (they were all booked up but a friend said she would help us). DM went mad and there was a horrible argument. It was all because she didn’t want to stop until after Christmas which was weeks away. I had to get the childcare when it was available or risk having no one.

She swore and called my DM some nasty names. She said things about my MIL(who has now passed away). She then refused to speak to me for around 3 weeks.

just another example

I love how easy it is on MN, to say "just go NC". As if that happens in normal (ish) families. I can't even begin to try to go NC with my elderly Dad - he would ring and ring and ring, until I answered, or call the Police to report me as abducted. 😂

This is unfortunately, what old people are like, ime. Their world becomes so small that they can't seem to see beyond what they themselves are having to deal with (loneliness, illness, the inability to deal with an ever changing world around them). It's not personal.

My Dad treats me and my sibling like his own personal assistants. He seems to forget that we work. Some days are ok, other days he might call 20 times :

Can I put his lottery on?
Can I do his weekly on-line shop?
Did I remember to put his lottery on?
Can I order him some underwear?
Can my sibling (who lives closer) come over with a chocolate bar?
Can sibling bring cash over?
Can sibling come and empty his bin?

This is despite having carers in 4 times a day.

It is what it is. Just harden up. She needs you, and I daresay this will only be for a few more years. Hard I know.

You definitely need to be there for your DH right now, that's for sure.

Good luck with it, I know it's hard!!

Don't spend time with people who you don't like and who don't like you. That is, don't be a martyr, just ignore your mother!

Like it's just that simple!😆

What do you want to do, @Hereforthekickz ?

As @Tonia16 has commented, it sounds as if you want approval to go low or no contact with her. Is that the case?

@HamBone Yes, very difficult to deal with, I'm sorry you're going through similar.

@Tonia16 Just because people are old, doesn't mean they shouldn't have to take responsibility for their own behaviour. If OP's mum is unkind or manipulative, she can't expect her daughter to just put up with it indefinitely just because she gave birth to her. Old age is not carte blanche to treat other people badly.

I don’t want everyone to agree with me. I guess I already know what I need to do to feel okay.

I have tried to go LC but if I am honest, it wasn’t really LC. I still contacted her almost daily.

I am finding it all very difficult because when you have had years of manipulation and guilt, you can’t think for yourself. I can’t make a decision. Not even to benefit my family. I am so entrenched and emotionally entwined with her.

I don’t even know how to reply to her text or if I should. I don’t know how to deal with this at all. I just want to run away.

You are the only one with the power to change things. If you truly want to change things you'll leave the 2 poison idiots to their own devices. As I am such a disappointment as a sister and daughter I'll leave you to it and invest my time with my family that love and appreciate me.
You do nothing, nothing will change. You're a grown woman and you wouldn't take your treatment from a stranger, even more reason not to take it from your mother.
No point in repeating the same cycle and expecting a different outcome.

@Hereforthekickz maybe check out the Stately Homes thread on the relationships board, lots of people on there who will understand where you're coming from.

@CollagenQueen I wish my DM would call with a list of things to do.

My DM refuses every offer of help but as soon as I don’t offer, she uses it against me. “You didn’t ask if I wanted to go shopping so I went and struggled in my own”

My post above about her saying she will go to my DB for Christmas because she only gets to come to my house on Christmas Day and then she is lonely. What a load of horse shit! She is invited on New Year but doesn’t want to come which is fair enough. She also knows that she can come whenever she wants. I am always at home at Christmas. She always comes to the pan to just before Christmas too. She just needs to be able to keep me under control and this is how she does it. Making sly comments to make sure I feel guilty. Make sure I know that I could be doing more and that I am not quite achieving.

Whatever you decide long term, I’d definitely let her go to your brother’s for Christmas.

Have a couple of days off from the drama, OP, don’t respond to her text right away. When you do, be breezy about Christmas - “That sounds like a lovely plan,” etc.

Don’t mention the supermarket argument at all, you know that she’s just riling you up. She could’ve used a card to pay for a taxi if she wished.

@HamBone she actually has Apple pay on her phone. She maybe 80 but she is very, very capable. When she walked off she shouted “I will get a taxi home”!! This is what I mean when I say she tries to guilt trip.