So bitter about mum

[Stars25]

I know this is terrible but the bitterness is eating me up inside. I and some close friends have lost a few good people over the last couple of years. People who’ve really been kind and lovely people. Meanwhile my mother is an ungrateful and mean woman who has brought no joy to anyone. All she can do is bitch and moan. She has never had any friends, insists she doesn’t need any and tells me she’s bored yet wont do anything to change this (ie volunteer, coffee morning etc) She moans about money, despite never working since she was 19/20 (she’s 64 this year). She’s literally had everything handed to her on a plate by my father who saved and worked hard all his life to provide for her. (He passed away 10 years ago but all she can do is moan about him). She has lived mortgage free all her life in the house he bought and all bills have been covered by his savings . Meanwhile I have worked hard, gone to uni, scrimped and saved to get a mortgage etc. Now I’m worried about my own old age (when will we have paid off the mortgage, will we have state pension, will my workplace pension be enough, I don’t earn enough to save lots into savings if at all) It makes me so bitter because everything I’ve got in life is through work. She moans about her life but all she does is use my dad’s money to buy several packs of cigarettes every week. She literally does nothing at all and I just get so angry that she’s wasting my dads hard earned money. I feel her life is such a waste and it’s making me so bitter because I wish she just wasn’t here anymore. She brings no joy to anyone and it’s so hard to see her. I’m an only child so have to bear all this alone. I also worry because my dads money will one day run out and she won’t get much, if any, state pension. I won’t be able to afford to help that’s for sure and I feel angry again that this should fall on me.

I consider whatever comes into my household as equally mine. It’s hers, just as if I passed away everything would go to my DH. Thats not abnormal at all. Her personality is a different thing.

I also worry because my dads money will one day run out and she won’t get much, if any, state pension. I won’t be able to afford to help that’s for sure and I feel angry again that this should fall on me.

Seriously don’t worry about this. She owns her own home, she will get state pension in 2 years. If her savings run low, she will get pension credit. This will be a good income for, she will be fine. When she’s too old to live alone, her house can be sold for care home fees.

She literally does nothing at all and I just get so angry that she’s wasting my dads hard earned money.

It’s her money now. Your dad was happy to provide for her so why waste emotion on resenting her for it?

OP if you don’t like or understand her and her life thats one thing but don’t resent her for spending money how she chooses or you will end up bitter and not too different.

Either see her less but without the bitterness or don’t see her. As well as not seeing her money as hers could you not be misunderstanding her friendships maybe they are disinterested or have pulled back or maybe they aren’t massively close.

I am almost your mums age. I have only recently discovered that whilst I have a few friends they are really almost all only fair weather friends.

OPs mum would have been about 20 in 1985....hardly the 1950's when women stayed at home waiting for their husband to come back from work!
I was born in 1983 and growing up I didn't know any women that didn't at least work part time.

Exactly. I was born in 1976 and my mum worked full time when I was a child. She worked nights, my dad worked days. My Nanna lived next door and picked me up from school the 3 days my mum would be sleeping until 4pm. This woman could have worked when her DC grew up. It frustrates me too when I see people who have not worked in years, so I get it.

Obviously a lot of SAHM’s here who won’t agree with you, but your mum sounds entitled and ungrateful and it grates on me when I see people who complain non stop but have it so good. My mum is a glass half empty person and it can be draining.

I get where you are coming from op. It's hard to bounce back from being raised by a negative ungrateful parent, their negativity and anger can become your inside voice if you let it. Your mother sounds lazy and entitled from your post and now your dad isn't around to care for her she's bitter and takes it out in everyone else. But as others have said you've really got to dissociate yourself from her and try not to become too bitter about it.

It does seem strange that she's never worked.

If I were you, I'd leave her to it

Go low contact, see that as your "revenge".... she isn't going to change and being so bitter about her, is only hurting you

I was born in 1979 and my mum didn't work until I was 10. We didn't have much money but there was no such thing as breakfast clubs or after school clubs and my dad worked shifts so she had no choice. The majority of my class and neighbours had stay at home mothers for similar reasons.

Op can you re-frame these feelings in your mind? Instead of focusing on your resentment, be grateful that you have had the opportunity to become well educated and to live a full life in the work place and aa a contributing tax payer.

When your mum complains about being bored, just tell her calmly that it is not your responsibility to keep her entertained! And tell her there are a thousand volunteering opportunities, hobby groups, and interests available to her and not partaking in any of them is her choice. The university of the third age is one option.

Have you considered that she might be depressed if literally all she does is sit and smoke? Maybe she needs a gp visit?

Or she may have a hidden mental or physical health issue that stops her from fully participating in society eh pelvic floor problems or anxiety and lack of confidence?

Your mum may be a little young to qualify yet but here are details of Help the Aged’s befriending service:

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/services/befriending-services/

Also op, I doubt you would write a post like this if you were happy and content with your own life? And had fulfilling things going on that you can look forward to? Do you think you could be depressed too? Do you think you need to expand your range of activities too?

I know it’s not easy when everything is so costly but there are lots of hobbies available free via the internet?

Going forward, you are perfectly entitled to take action and put boundaries in place with your mum so that you go lc with her in future. That would probably be a more honest and freeing response than seeing her more regularly in this awful state of resentment.

@Zanatdy without your Nana they might not have been able to? And so is it too difficult to imagine families not being able to?

She sounds like a very difficult character and I think you're scared you're going to have to support her in some way when she's older. You won't. That's a fiction created by you in your own head.

Reduce the number of times you answer her calls or speak to her to a number you can manage, once a week/fortnight/month? As soon as she starts complaining just tell her you're not interested in any negative talk and you're hanging up. You need to start setting a higher standard for your relationship: she's 64, she's not too old to learn and neither are you.

Last but not least, why are you wasting time and energy on being eaten up with envy over what she's had financially? A few people get lucky and it all drops in their lap with no effort, many others work hard but are relentlessly battered along the way by redundancy, ill health, bereavement etc and don't ever recover. It's just life, it's not fair and never has been.

I’m 66 and don’t know any one of my generation who stopped working at 20! Some took time off when children were young or went part time but we all worked and contributed financially to the family. I think those people saying it wasn’t unusual for women not to work are thinking about my mother’s generation, she’s 88.

She might not be a nice person, but she is spending her own money.

Yes, I suppose it is quite unusual that op’s mum has never, ever, had a job. There could be a reason behind that, that op does not know about? Some husbands don’t want their wives to work and discourage it. Some people have hidden educational issues such as poor literacy and numeracy skills. Maybe she is just lazy?

It’s odd that someone would place themselves in that situation deliberately though; not ever having had friends or wanting or seeking them out? I’ll get flamed for saying it but maybe op’s mum is neurodiverse?

It’s a little unfair of op to criticise her mum for not working or volunteering now though. After a lifetime of being at home, her mum is hardly going to change as she has very few skills to offer an employee, or bring to a volunteer position, if she’s never used a computer, or a till, or worked in a team.

Maybe op should encourage her mum to get a pet like a cat or a wee dog? Dog-walking the same routes every day can become quite sociable. And animals often bring good people in to pet owners’ lives?

Maybe your mum has MH problems? It sounds like she has lived an isolated miserable life and you don't know why (the reasons). What you can do is to not engage with her. Send her a letter once a week so her negativity don't bring you down.

Pointless response. You've cherry picked one element from the whole post.

It’s her money, op. Not your dad’s any more and not yours. Being bitter about her spending it will only harm you- it won’t stop her living her
life. You honestly sound in the opening lines as if you wish her dead so that you can have what she has. This is not a healthy way to be.

Maybe step back a bit if you don’t get on. Focus on your own life not feeling resentment about hers. Seeing a therapist might be helpful.

Your finances are nothing to do with your mum OP, and her finances are nothing to do with you. If she asks for money you will obviously need to say no you don't have it to lend.

Someone doesn't need to be kind, volunteer or have a wide circle of friends to deserve to live. We all have the same right to life even if we choose to be miserable or moany.

I think you are being unreasonable, but I mean that with understanding, because it is SUCH a hard situation to extricate yourself from. I have been there. I have been consumed by the bitterness. It's no way to live, giving her all that power over your reactions and feelings.

I think it's for your benefit if you withdraw from her. You don't owe her anything. You can't change her. So put yourself first, always. Either suddenly or gradually, whichever works best, hopefully with therapy or something to help you along the way. Don't tell her stuff, if it backfires later. Don't arrange to see her if you don't want to. Don't give her room in your adult life to opine on anything. Amd it works both ways, don't judge her. Don't presume that it has to be so black and white. She is who she is.

Sometimes to save ourselves we have to really cut things back to the bone and only surround ourselves with situations that aren't damaging us. Your struggles and achievements aren't worthless, just because she's done it differently. You're not her, so what is to be gained from comparison? Even if you know her inside and out put, you can never truly know her reasons for any choice she's made.

And actually, there's nothing wrong with what she's done with her life either, we are all different, it really doesn't matter how she spends her own time. She's allowed to do what you view as nothing. Maybe that's all she can cope with. It doesn't matter, the whys. You're an adult now but it's still painful, and somehow still seen as weird in society to distance from a mum, even if they are toxic. So you must prepare yourself for that if you want less of her on your life.

But if you know for sure she just cannot be what you need, you can also make a choice not to be stuck, as you seem to want her to make that same choice... Set yourself free.

The OP said her mum turns 64 this year, so she must have been born in 1961 and became an adult in 1979. Born in 1961, not 1931 or 1941. I'm a bit baffled by the comment that many women of her era didn't work. I get that the mum might have had to stay at home for a few years when the OP (and any siblings she might have) was a young child, but never to go to work at all even when her child was older strikes me as odd and unusual for a woman born in the 1960s and raising a family in the 1980s/1990s.

OP, it sounds like you get nothing but negativity from your relationship with her, so I think it'll do you good to step back, go low contact, and focus on your own life. The resentment is only going to eat you up otherwise, and it's not going to make any difference to the choices your mum makes.

At least a third to one half of op’s post mentions earnings, mortgages, money and savings. Op explained that her mum having everything handed to her on a plate is one of the main reasons for her resentment. So InvisibilityCloakActivated‘s response is rather pertinent actually.

Great posts too from KnoblesseOblige (love the nn!) and Winter2020.

It's a shame your mum is so disagreeable, but you can deal with that by spending less, or no, time with her. Her finances are not your business and if you look around you, it is very obvious that there is no correlation between being financially comfortable and being a 'deserving' person.

What are the other elements? OP feels like her mum is spending her dad's money. OP wants the money. OP doesn't enjoy her relationship with her mother and wishes she was dead. What else did I miss?

This.

OP you're coming across much like you describe your mother.

OP I get it. My MIL is the same, as miserable as sin, no interests, no purpose and everyone is out to inconvenience her. I think her complaining and victim status is a way of no one asking anything of her. If she's always got a problem or feeling ill or being inconvenienced in some way, the default response is to give her attention and not ask anything of her.