To think this is an awful way to break news

[LetMeInYourWindowohohohoh]

DM messaged me and DB a few days ago asking if we were free for a family call this weekend to discuss something. DB said he wasn’t going to be available, so asked what the call was about. DM refused to say. DF has had serious health issues and a few years ago came close to dying. DB asked if we should be worried and DM said that nobody was dying but we needed to speak with all of us together. We said we were free right then and there but DM said she was on her way to bed. We suggested Friday but she said she was going out, so DB has now rearranged his plans so we can all speak tonight.

I’ve been trying and failing to put it out of my mind, as knowing DM it could be life-altering news (good or bad), or something relatively trivial. She doesn’t always consider how what she says or does affects the people around her. Our family was enmeshed when I was growing up, so I have quite firm boundaries now. The cynical part of me feels manipulated, as it seems obvious that DB and I would’ve spent the last three days obsessing over what the news could be and assuming the worst.

YABU - big family news should be discussed with everyone present and DM has done nothing wrong in how she’s organised it

YANBU - it sounds like DM has been insensitive and there are more tactful ways this could’ve been arranged.

@RideMeSidewaysWasAnother1 To be totally honest I actually had a little chuckle at that suggestion. He’s a very steady and supportive man and our family unit is so far removed from what I grew up in.

@PlasticOno Over the course of 3 years DF had 7 strokes and two heart attacks. One of these almost killed him and it was a series of flukes that are why he is still alive today. It was natural we would be thinking health related.

From the update, it sounds like a sensible plan, but in this family there would probably have been an email or WhatsApp all round. No need for the drama and needlessly worrying people.

@Redshoeblueshoe thank you. I think I really need to consider my options because the situation as it is doesn’t work for anyone.

Why do think its bad news? Probably wants to sort out wills or something
And she needs you all together

Maddy the OP has updated about what it was.

OP I'm sorry, that's so manipulative of your mum. Keep those boundaries up

There was a thread on here last week complaining that news had been given over a text, I've been in the position of having to break bad news and there doesn't seem to be a correct way. Maybe, a little empathy for the one tasked with breaking news wouldn't go amiss.

15 years later, the words of my aunt still haunt and anger me, that I gave her the news of my mums imminent death harshly... There was zero consideration that I was rocked to the very core, in freefall and trying to accommodate my dad, my kids, everyone else whilst trying to process the news myself.

I’m sorry about the way you were treated when your DM was dying. That’s obviously wrong and your aunt should have been more understanding.

The issue here is that this wasn’t bad news. The OP’s mother caused 3 days of worry and upset in regard to not particularly important information it turned out her DF had casually mentioned in passing to her DB already.

Deliberately implying there is a major issue when there isn’t in order to feel important / be the centre of attention / deliberately cause upset (or whatever reason the OP’s mother had) is a completely different issue to how actual bad news should be passed on.

But, it depends on how it's viewed. The OPs mum was giving the news that a holiday home was being sold, one that probably holds a great deal of memories of previous visits. It's being sold due to her and her husband coming to terms with their own future and she may be feelinga great deal of loss and fear about the future, the only implication is that its important to her, and this to her is an issue. My point was about empathy with the bearer of the news, and not the recipient and the news is subjective, the OP may feel that its nothing, but clearly the mum does. It's unfair to completely disregard her feelings and to suggest that she is being manipulative on purpose.

I get that, absolutely, and why it would have been your first worry, but your mother had specified ‘no one was dying’, and when she didn’t want to discuss it there and then because she was going to bed and refused another time because of going out to dinner, surely that was a fairly clear signal that it wasn’t health-related?

That's how I'd have taken it.

And as a chronic anxiety sufferer I know it would still have made me anxious just because of the 'unknown' but would have felt reassured by the statement 'no-one is dying' and the lack of urgency on the part of DM is was likely it was all okay.

I don't think the DM was manipulative on this occasion or in the wrong but clearly the OP has all the history so it felt different to her.

@LetMeInYourWindowohohohoh i know you said the discussion wasn’t about POAs, but it might be time to talk about them with the medical history of your DF.

Unacceptable behaviour in the beginning, sympathy for the way you have been treated.

'Can we have a call about the overseas property at the weekend please' or similar would have been appropriate.