My mother is guilt-tripping me

[PrincessPears]

My mother is 65 and in ill health due to a lifetime of excess. Her own parents are in their late 80s and in ill health due to being old. I live 2.5hrs from them all, I am an only child and I have a busy job and a young family. I am not particularly close to any of them due to my upbringing.

My mother is currently unable to help out with her parents and is guilt-tripping me daily because she thinks I should be doing more to support them. When I reach out, my grandmother does not want me to visit because she finds DC too much.

AIBU to think my mother needs to back off?

Your grandma doesn't want your help and don't have capacity to do so. I think in the circumstances you can tell your mum that she needs to back off and stop trying to offset her feelings of guilt by making you do the caring she can't / won't do herself.

You wouldn’t be unreasonable if they lived 10 minutes away, but a 5 hour round trip and they expect you to pop over???

This is exactly it - she feels guilty she can’t help, so is trying to pass the guilt on to me.

My grandmother has full mental capacity and the money to pay for help if she wants it. The solution is not me driving for five hours because she’s struggling to change the sheets.

If you are fond of your grandmother you can support from afar if she needs and wants that.

Yes she does need to back off - and you need to tell her that.

Don't take it on. Lessen contact if needs be, or literally disengage and leave a conversation every single time she tries the guilt tripping.

Your mum is maybe priming you to be her carer also, via trying to get you to do it first for your grandparents.

The most I would do is ring adult social services in their area and see if you can get the ball rolling. Old people can often afford help but are too proud/stubborn/scared to- but you're not a therapist, you can't change that mindset. Adults with full capacity make their own decisions, sometimes they make bad ones.

But you can change how you deal with your mum. Google the "grey rock" technique, it might come in handy to bat her off.

And I'm sorry it's this way. It's a shame they didn't treat you well enough to be able to rely on you in later life, but again, you didn't choose your childhood nor have any control over how badly they treated you, so you can make your own way now with a free heart. Perhaps some therapy, if you feel especially guilty or cornered.

We are not close and never have been. Due to my mother’s terrible lifestyle choices when I was young, she and my grandmother would regularly cut each other off for periods of time. I think their relationship is based on guilt and obligation and it’s all quite toxic.

I find my mother’s behaviour and attitude frustrating. She doesn’t take accountability for her actions and is now reaping what she’s sowed in terms of health and relationships. She’s increasingly needy, both emotionally and physically. It’s sad, but I don’t have the mental energy or time to be her sole source of support like she wants.

Forgot to add- not sure if you've experienced this, but sometimes friends/other family members can be very judgemental of you for not rushing to help the poor elderly dears.

Never forget that those judgemental people didn't experience your childhood, they don't share that flawed relationship with your elderly relatives and mother, and they don't get to have a say in what extra stresses you choose to not take on. It hurts but you must ignore anyone who tries to make you feel shit for trying to preserve your peace. It's not their business.

Thanks @LamonicBibber1 i think your analysis is spot on. Maybe some therapy would help but I am a little afraid to open Pandora’s Box. Since becoming a mother myself, I’ve realised how bad she was.

My DH sometimes implies I should do more for her, but he has only known her for the past ten years, not when she was in her full-blown drugs and alcohol eras.

A family member was the same when her Mum was seriously ill. She felt extremely guilty and passed that on to others trying to manipulate and dictate others input to her mother’s care.

It was a very difficult time and all we learned was to keep a significant emotional distance from her going forward and to do our best for the person who was ill. Nothing about how we were engaging with the ill person changed because we were already doing our best by her in the context.

My DH sometimes implies I should do more for her, but he has only known her for the past ten years, not when she was in her full-blown drugs and alcohol eras.

In my experience people with relatively “normal” experiences and perhaps maybe lacking a bit in understanding and empathy project how they think families should behave on these situations but actually that just shows up their ignorance about seriously dysfunctional families and their own empathy issues perhaps.

I suppose she does, but the fact is she's not going to change her behaviour based on what you think she "needs" to do, let alone a bunch of mumsnetters. Having a bunch of people agree that your mother is unreasonable won't help you. The only actions you can control are your own, so I think you just need to decide what you will and won't do, communicate it clearly to her, and then stop caring what she thinks / feels / says about it - or at least act like you do, and live with the guilt or the annoyance of her complaining or whatever. Grey rock it until she gets it.

I feel like my mother wants to pretend we have a functional family now because it benefits her, and especially will do as she gets older. The truth is I don’t want to have significant involvement in her elderly care, but as she has absolutely nobody else I feel like I’ll be stuck with it.

Since I moved out at 16 I have seen her every few months and this is a fine level of contact for me.

I think you’re entirely reasonable to do whatever you choose. Even if you desperately wanted to help your options are limited by distance and practicality.

I think you should put some energy into putting DH right though, because his inability to see why you feel as you do might rear itself in other ways in future.

@Thisseasonsdiamante was talking about your DH reaction, but you replied to talk again about your DM.

You need to sit down with your DH and have a long talk with him about precisely how awful it was with your mother, how crap your childhood was, with examples describing exactly what happened on several occasions.

Then tell him that what you need from him is support to help you break away from her and let go of your past, not subtle guilt-tripping.

Tell her you offered and Gran does not want you there so she needs to back off and shut up now.