So I guess I really have to get it off my chest, it has been eating me from the inside for more than a month. I would like to hear similar stories and how you have dealt with it on a practical and also psychological level.
I am 43 and have always had a not too good relationship with my parents. Mum and dad are both high achieving individuals, dad engineer and mum professor in maths. All my life I hated this subject ( and physics), barely passed every year and was constantly ridiculed for it. I have two sisters who did better, especially the middle one. After high school I went to study abroad (Italy), finished law school there. They never contributed to my studies financially, I was working and studying, even though my sisters were all the time jealous about me “ having a nice time in Italy” . Around the time that I was 36 I returned home for a short visit, I was in a very bad place, just out from a 3 years of emotionally abusive relationship and stupid me thought that I will find some kind of understanding at home. One day my mother took me aside to talk about “the family’s finances “ , the situation being: she and my father own three apartments, two of them are of equal value and the third one three times more than the others. She was saying that she would like to leave the most expensive apartment to whoever of us has more kids. That time I didn’t really pay attention to it as none of us had kids, but being the oldest one and having no relationship possibilities on the horizon I felt really hurt. I just said to her that I think everything should be divided between us three equally. Fast forward to now at 38 I married the love of my life and last year we had our little miracle boy. My youngest sister also had a baby around the same time. Middle one ( mummy’s favorite) still unmarried , childless and living with boyfriend. Last year dad was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer. This year my baby and I traveled home for two weeks ( husband stayed behind because of work) to be with grandfather for a while. In this two weeks my father needed an other operation during which they discovered an other tumor which is unfortunately inoperable. So basically that’s it, I don’t know how long he has left at this point. While I was at home and processing this news my mother cornered me again and wanted me to sign papers in which I am giving up my rights on the two apartments with the highest value and accepting the lowest value. When I said that I won’t sign it she got really mad and started ranting about how I already have a very good life ( yes, I married a dentist who is working extremely hard) and she admitted that my father also would like to sell everything and divide it equally, but she doesn’t agree with that. She called me a calculating person and other names. From what I understand she wants to leave the biggest property to my middle unmarried, childless sister who is an ‘artist’ living together with an artist and basically they said to my mum that they don’t want to make a mortgage because than they would be bound to it for the rest of their lives. Me and my husband have a mortgage since we are married like every adult person in the world who are responsible for themselves. For the rest of our stay mum was horrible with us down to point of calculating even how much peaches my baby ate per day, my husband wanted to buy us tickets to get back home but I decided to stay until my dad got out from the hospital, I didn’t want to agitate a basically dying/ very sick man. One day my baby being a toddler was walking around and picked up a piece of paper, on it a least of the last three months of expenses ( my mum was always very disorganized)and I was surprised to see the names of my two siblings and their partners. Basically to cut it short between the four of them in the last three months my parents gave away something like 2000 € paying bills like telephone, dentist etc… I was totally shocked. I always new that I wasn’t the favorite one, but in the last years I thought that at least I had their respect for making for myself a good life without any help. My mum calls me calculating but my baby didn’t receive anything not even for his birthday. I don’t even care about myself. The last month since we are back home with my baby has been particularly painful and hard. My husband wants me to forget about everything and not to care as my health is more important. And I agree. It’s just that I am overcome with bitterness about everything: my mum never really loving me, my dad dying and my child remaining without a grandfather. Almost everything going to my middle sister who upon hearing that my father has to have a colostomy bag said and I am quoting: “ his life is not worth living anymore “. My friends are saying things like “yeah this is the story of king Lear all over”… yeah my rational mind knows everything, but still at night I am lying awake thinking what did I do wrong and what can I do now…. Has anyone been in a situation like this? How did you deal with it?