Who is in the wrong here. 16 hour argument.

[zebraprintxmasdinner]

Please someone give me some clarity as my mother is draining me and been carrying on this disagreement for 16 hours.

Bus strikes in local area, mum has to get to work for 8:30am, my partner has a car but had a GP apt at 9am, I text my mum and said I will get her an uber to work save her walking as she is 67, she refused plenty of times so I just left it. She couldn’t have had a lift off my partner as he needed to leave for his gp apt.

She has been in a foul mood with me, saying how hard work it was to walk, I said she should’ve took my offer of an uber, she responds with a tirade of how she wasn’t even offered a lift off me, she does me favours all the time etc etc and how her friend at work would’ve gave a lift if she had known.

This has been going on since yesterday. Please can someone clarify if I am the Arsehole of the year or not.

It's nothing to do with you at all and I don't see why she felt it was your responsibility to get a functioning, working age adult to their job.

Tell her to piss off and get back to you when she's done with her sulk. Ignore until then.

The irony of it all is it was her that told me about the strikes

Not everybody has 2 cars I guess

She is an odd one. In this scenario she’ll have told people at work we have a car, glossed over that she was offered a lift and refused, refused a paid for taxi in order for people to think I’m the biggest selfish cow

My mum is strange. She likes being a victim, enjoys people feeling sorry for her if that makes sense

This is insane. Why are you involving yourself at all whatsoever in your mother's work commute? She should be sorting it out herself, what with her being a grown-ass adult and all. YANBU.

How do arguments like this (though personally I wouldn't call it an argument, I'd call it her enjoying an artificial grievance) with your mother normally resolve? Does she just carry on until she's bored or finds a new beef? Do you ever feel you win?

I really do not understand why anyone has suggested what you could have done differently. Or why anyone thinks that getting your mother to work is your responsibility. Or your partner’s. She’s an adult with all her faculties.

I am 60. I work. It’s my responsibility to get myself there. Not anyone else’s.

No she’ll carry it on until I just admit defeat and apologise
She did it when I was little, just going days without speaking to me for stupid things until I begged and pleaded.

'My mum is strange. She likes being a victim, enjoys people feeling sorry for her if that makes sense'

Sounds like she expects you to be a mind reader too. I have a similar mother and my God yes, it is extremely draining

She won't change, or at least not for the better. You won't ever get anything right in her eyes, nothing is ever enough. It's sad and horrible, but can be quite liberating when you get your head around it

This may sound very weird, but you sound quite enmeshed with each other and very involved in each other's lives. Given the sort of person she is, it doesn't sound healthy. How would it feel to take a step back, be a bit less available? Make a reasonable suggestion and if she doesn't like it, try to live with her disappointment, and refuse to carry on the argument?

But the key thing - she won't change, and it is not your responsibility to look after your mother and anticipate her needs like she is a child

So at best she's a drama llama and at worst she's a narcissist. Tell the miserable bitch to do one. 16hrs of nastiness because she didn't get her own way is control freak behaviour, designed to make you drop your plans and do what she wants next time to avoid a repeat of it. Life is too short for this shit. Stop running around after her, popping in here to ask if you've bent over backwards far enough and start living your life like an autonomous human being, understanding that you're not responsible for your mother or for fixing any problems that occur in her life.

Tell her that you want the attitude to stop because you tried a few solutions so she didnt have to walk,and that was her choice.
Repeat about her choices and not expecting you to be a mindreader or to be in two places at once.

Please look up narcissistic mothers. My mother is exactly the same and it took me years of banging my head against a wall to realise that this was the reason she did x, y and z.

She sounds like a desperate attention seeker.
Tell her to start streaming on TikTok with the rest of them!

Are you my sister? My mum does things like this.
Once I had bought her tickets to a concert for her birthday. On the day of the concert my car broke down. I offered multiple different options as to how we could get there (bus, taxi etc) but none of them were good enough. We ended up not going. She then told everyone she knows that I had refused to take her to the concert I’d bought her tickets for and she’d missed out on her birthday present.
It’s fucking tedious. I’ve got more thick skinned about it all now. I just let her have her tantrum.

I don't see why this was ever your problem to solve. She's a grown adult who presumably is capable of holding down a job and therefore should be able to arrange her own transport. If she asked you for a lift and you explained why you couldn't, that should have been the end of the conversation.

So she was an abusive mother. And you feel you have to look after her now/have any kind of relationship with her now because.....?🤷

Hint - you don't. You don't owe her anything, including your time and company. If she can't behave reasonably, why bother.

("Because she's my mum 😭")
Yeh. And she'll never, ever be the mother you want, need or deserve.

You're grown up now. She's an abuser you no longer need to appease in order to survive.

Hate to say it but have you considered that your Mum ticks the boxes for a covert narcissist?
My own mother is one, and let me tell you, you can not and never will “win” an argument against them.
I had my suspicions from your first post but after this comment about her playing the victim, I’m pretty convinced.
My advice is to realise that you will never do the right thing by her ever, she will always be the hard done by victim, and she is always going to remind you of everything she has ever done for you/be a martyr.
None of it works on me now, I’ve learned to just shut it down as soon as she starts.
Not everyone will have seen this side of her though, so a word of warning that once you set up these boundaries she will have even more ammo for speaking badly of you and gaining sympathy from others.
To answer your question though - you absolutely are in the right by offering the Uber and leaving it at that - but in her eyes unless you put her front and centre of everything all the time, you will never be doing the right thing by her. She will drain the life from you if you let her.

My mother was like this, it's depressing to have to deal with, you'll never be in the right and she's too old to change.
In your shoes I would leave her to it, disengage and enjoy the peace.

This isn't on you, if you can't drive then, I'm not sure what she was expecting you to do. Your DP shouldn't be expected to chauffeur her around when he has pre planned appointments to get to and she could have asked her colleague who was presumably heading that way to get to work herself.

She sounds impossible! I don't really see why you were offering to get an Uber at all!

For a normal adult, it should have gone like this.
Mum: OP, any change your DP might be able to give me a lift tomorrow as there is a strike?
OP: Sorry, we can't as DP has a medical appointment.
Mum: No problem, I'll try someone else/get an Uber/walk.

It's not your responsibility to sort out the travel arrangements of a working adult!

How long is the walk anyway??

My DH is nearly your mum's age. He wouldn't dream of expecting someone else to look after his journey for him!

This is ex what I would do. Starve it of oxygen. I would not be listening for crap from a grown woman who is perfectly capable of sorting her own transport. I would have a wee Google of enmeshed relationships op and see if it speaks to you.

She sounds extremely draining. I think you just need to 'grey rock' her and not feed her drama.

She wouldn’t ask for things. She doesn’t ask then moans that no one offered
She offers things and then moans if anyone accepts. It’s like a merry go round

Why on earth are some posters suggesting that OP's partner should have driven her to work early and then driven himself to his doctor's appointment.

There's a bus strike on and traffic is going to be horrendous. If OP's partner had done that the charges are he would very possibly have missed his appointment

OP's mother is a grown women, unless she has significant health issues she should be perfectly capable of getting herself around. OP offer to get her an uber, which given that she knew there was a bus strike she should have organised herself if she didn't want to walk.

She sound awful frankly OP.

I wouldn't rise to her desire for arguments. Just leave her to argue with herself and get on with your life.

If she contacts you or comes to your home and tries to keep the arguments going just tell her you haven't got time for it at the moment and cut the call or shut the door, whichever is appropriate.

As you say, this sort of behaviour is draining. You don't need that sort of thing in your life. Refuse to engage with it.

I just need to say this: 67 is not 'old' and dont get tricked into her convincing you that she is 'elderly' and therefore making you feel obligated to do stuff for her on that basis. She's not 90.