AIBU to withdraw support from my difficult elderly parents?

[Wandawandswanda]

My dad has forever been controlling and emotionally abusive. I was never close with him and he was often absent emotionally and used control to get his own way. I think my mum was always aware of this but would say she had nowhere to go or any means to support herself if she left. (Both her parents died when she was 20). I always wished they’d divorce and wasn’t generally happy as a child.
fast forward to now, she has basically become a carer to my dad as he’s 25 years older and 95 this year. She’s become very short and angry as a result and often appears that way when we message and speak but I just ignore it as it’s too late now I believe. Aibu to think I should withdraw too as I still feel in a way like I should support them and they have this hold on me…

Your daughter is your number 1 priority @Wandawandswanda You don't want her to be more involved with them than she has to be.

They are adults and presumably still have mental capacity if they are still bullying you. They need to pay for and source their own care.

Don't feel guilty for backing away and leaving them to it. They made their choices when you were a child. They both chose to prioritise your fathers temper.

Don't you dare feel guilty. 💐

Do not go and live with her. Do as much as you feel willing and able to do long term.
Get yourself in to the cockroach cafe thread in the elderly topic. You will find support/way forward on there. Plus also sounds like you need to look at the they took me to stately homes thread as well

My Mum died last month after a long battle with cancer, so I'm aware I'm posting from a very emotional place. Me, my Dad and a wonderful friend nursed her and although it was hard, it was also a privilege and a joy because she was such a wonderful, joyful, funny person.
Everyone on the thread writes from their own perspective, rooted in their own relationships. As the PP said, your parents made their choices, and with whatever limitations there were on those choices. Now you have your choice.
You get to choose what your priorities are. Perhaps if your mother had had more freedom of choice she would have chosen to prioritise your well-being in a different way - getting you away from abuse.
You can choose that. You now have the freedom to get away from emotional abuse for you and your daughter, and to be able to show her what healthy priorities and relationships are. If your mother wasn't strong enough, you can be.
Do what you need to do to be a joyful mother for your daughter.

You'll get a lot of guilting messages telling you that you need to be kind to your mother. You don't. She has her life and you have yours..She enabled your father's abuse of you, you owe her nothing whatsoever.

Whatever you decide @Wandawandswanda do not move in with your mother or let her live with you. You can care about her without caring for her.

No actually I’m not involved at all with him and any type of care except visiting occasionally

She’s got a very hard life going on. It would be unkind to just abandon her now.

Stop guilting the OP. The mother had her chance to dump her husband. She chose not to take that chance. Actions have consequences.

So you’d like to withdraw messages and speaking in the phone to your mum. Is that right?
No judgement there btw.

I think that’s extremely harsh.
The mum had no family support, married Vut with a massive power imbalance (see the difference in age) and in a world that didn’t as easily as now accept a woman wanted to leave.
Judging people fir what they did 30, 50 years ago according to our standards now is never going to be fair.

But more to the point, divorcing the man doesn’t mean the OP life would have been perfect anyway (controlling, abusive men don’t take well to be left and are likely to use ther children to control the mother and/or just control them) . And if the OP was hurt by the father actions, HER FATHER is responsible for it. Let’s put responsibility where it belongs.

I would try pointing it out first and see if she will tone it down. You haven’t said how she is upsetting you specifically, other than she sounds angry…. Try pointing that out to her “Mum, you sound angry, is everything okay?” Maybe she can articulate who or what she is angry about, you won’t feel attacked. Then you can say, “Well, I’m sorry about that. Anyway, have you seen Jean/Jim lately? How’s the dog etc?” But sounding angry is probably her frustration at her situation and she’s not necessarily angry with you. If she turns it on you, then you can go from there.

I do a fair bit of voluntary community work that involves dealing with very vulnerable people. It is pretty time limited in its nature, I’ve been shouted at, spat at, threatened with broken glass as part of this work so it is not for the faint hearted.

I treat difficult relatives the same way I do people I work with in the community.

I’m all theirs, very empathetic and caring for a very short period of time that I’m going to spend with them. I’ll put up with a fair bit from them to keep the peace (obviously nothing like in the voluntary work but my focus is deescalation not relationship building that ship has sailed) but once I’m gone from their eyeline, they don’t cross my thoughts until the next time and they are definitely not my problem to fix.

Could you start applying similar internal strategies with your parents? Don’t take on their problems, be nice and kid and empathetic for manageable periods of time and completely write off the normal parent child relationship in both directions because it is not possible with that level of dysfunction.

I find it really helpful.

I think put the history aside a moment and ask yourself if you've made that as an assumption. It's possible she's unwell or bothered about something else.

Can you not just say, "mum, I've noticed you don't seem yourself at the moment. Do you want to talk about it?" If necessary, taxtfully expand on how it is making it difficult to have a relationship with her and the consequences of not being able to support her if it carries on (tactfully!)

Creating a child doesn't give you a golden ticket to being cared for irrelevant of your behaviour when your old.
Try and keep your mum she needs you but you owe nothing.

It must be very hard for them to be suffering like this, maybe try to get your mum out for coffee or something occasionally. Try to let any harsh remarks wash over you-people going through health issues/ageing aren't always responsible for what they say, and supporting the ones who made us-while understanding that their lives and circumstances might have made them act in different ways-is important.
Helping people at this stage in their life can be like dealing with toddlers, they say/do a lot that's challenging, but you should do your best for them and not blame them.

It really is not just “this”.

Sounds like the OP has had a lifetime of emotional labour towards her mother. Who mothers her? Who was there when she was abandoned?

OP look after yourself. Mother yourself. Look after yourself.

Put own boundaries in place. You don't have to abandoned her. She doesn't have the right to be shitty to you. Although I can understand why she's like that.
You certainly don't have to give up your life and move in with her.

A lot of PPs are saying that the mother has clearly had a difficult time herself with this man, and I'm sure that's true, but I'm not sure why the OP has to take on all of that psychological burden to support her. Why does she have to be the rock? Why does she have to bear the brunt of choices her mother made decades ago? The OP didn't choose any of this and now she's somehow expected to look after her mother - who isn't actually even very elderly - regardless of the effect on the OP, who has a child of her own?

People rarely expect this sort of thing of men, I've noticed. It's always daughters who are expected to be saintly towards parents they never chose and who made them miserable.

Being a care can be HORRIFIC

While that may be true, the OP still doesn't owe her mother anything.

Yes absolutely this

Start by giving yourself a bit of a break - respite. Then see how you feel.

There are "third ways" like organising some cleaning or other support, helping them move somewhere smaller, helping with certain things and not other things. You do need to put your own oxygen mask on first etc, but at the same time if she has changed it may be because she is not coping so there is an element of considering whether it's a sign that more support needs to go in, rather than taking it personally and walking away. Which is not to say, for a moment, that you should roll over and just endlessly take whatever vitriol she throws at you.

They can keep hinting. Doesn't mean you have to do it. My concern would be that after your dad dies your mum decides it's her turn to have everyone dancing on her and your life would be hell.

This is just cultural. You see the same dynamics play out in relationships where parenting isn’t equal, ah but you can’t expect men to do anything for any number of reasons but wives, mothers and daughters should be saintly, rise above, be the bigger person. It is all part of the same issue.

The cold hearted selfish people are OP's parents.