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