My mum is 80 in fairly good health but has no friends. As her and my dad were inseparable and did everything together but sadly he died two years ago. DB still lives at home with her. We all live fairly close by. I live about a 10-15 min drive from her, my sister and niece live less than a 5 minute walk away.
Anyway DB works part time and mum moans on the phone that she doesn’t know what to do with herself and her time when he is at work (for 5 hours), its hard to fill her time in and keep herself busy, you don’t know what its like, I get very down, he (DB) takes me to X supermarket several times a week (he waits in the car while she goes in) its just to get me out of the house because I don’t get out much and get so down etc. She doesn’t drive I have made lots of suggestions and he she has a local community centre who do things for the elderly less than 100 yards from her front door.
I work part time, have a house to run, have teenage children, I have a health issue and DH has cancer. I try and see my mum once or twice a week (try and make an effort to take her out once a week), if she will let me for a couple of hours to either a cafe, a garden centre, to town to visit an older family member or similar) just to try and brighten her day and I also phone regularly about 4-5 times a week to see how she is, ask if she wants anything etc.
Anyway, I am somehow the black sheep of the family as I don’t visit as often as my sister or niece who will both each visit her at least 4-5 times a week (my sisters visits can last for between 5 min to an hour and coincide with a visit to the shops which is near my mum or a walk) and my niece visits for several hours at a time sometimes on her own and sometimes to hang out with her BF.) I decided not to play those games or try to compete for my own MH as nothing I do is ever good enough. My GF on my mums side was the same playing people off against one another and my mum usually came off worst.
My mum did very little for me growing up and I kind of fetched myself up once my younger brother and sister came along. When I had my children just over a year after niece was born (she was too busy with my niece to bother much with either of my two) so my children aren’t close to her.
Anyway yesterday I phoned my mum to ask if she wanted to go out with me for a coffee today and I said I would phone and let her know what time in the morning (today). I rushed around food shopping and cleaning and I phoned her just after 10 this morning to say I would pick her up just before 12 as I had to be back home for X man coming at 2. She said its good of you to offer but I won’t bother I’ll just leave it for today thank you I haven’t long had my breakfast you carry on and get your jobs done. I was looking forward to seeing her but she often does and says things like this and you end up feeling like she is doing you a favour by agreeing to come along. I am working the rest of the week and we have DH’s family coming at the weekend so I won’t be able to see her which she knew about. But even when I try and make time for her (not just popping in to see her for 10 minutes on my way to or from the shops or on my way home from a walk) like my sister my efforts are often rebuffed and are never good enough. I don’t know why I bother and bet my niece has said she might pop round at some point today and that is enough to have my offer brushed aside. My brother, sister, mum and niece are all very close and I am always treated like the outsider. She once told me she felt much closer to my sister than me as she was more like her than I was.