Appalling behaviour-dressed up as old age-it has to be addressed

[BlueLegume]

Hi all, having followed and contributed to several threads on ‘Elderly Parents’ I want to thank so many of you for helping me look at my/our situation. I won’t name check you just yet but you know who you are. This thread is not to be unpleasant about the elderly who are having a hard time. It is to address a very honest point that my parents have always been difficult. Impossible to discuss anything important with, always known better and having watched them alienate good decent people I am angry that they made no effort in life to do anything other than fun stuff for themselves and now expect me and my siblings to pick up their mess. It seems so many middle aged people have fallen foul of these ‘war babies’ as my mother still refers to her and Dad. Yes I accept they were born at the end of the war and they will have had to live in a post war country. For our mother that is all she talks about. She doesn’t accept they had the boom years post war which she has photo evidence of living it large in the 50s and 60s. She was an incredibly authoritarian mother yet after a few drinks would party all night. Always a case of do as I say not as I do. Now as I approach 60 I am wracked with worry and anxiety because she now ‘can’t cope’. It’s ruining life . I have all the therapy theories and have shared much of it. That said I am mad at the fact I am still dictated to or it feels so by her. Father is in a nursing home after a lot of denial that was what he needed. She will not have any help in the house so it is all falling to us. We are broken. My own family are fed up and rightly so. Selfish as it sounds I did not retire to look after a very unpleasant woman who has never liked me. I appreciate that sounds very bitter.

Nope - was half expecting it really. The carer sounded really lovely when we had a conversation about mum's needs last night. But after meeting mum, she texted to say that there was too much smoke (I could have sworn she said last night that as a smoker herself it wouldn't bother her) and the house needs too much cleaning.

Back to the drawing board then...

@Septoctwed @BlueLegume

Funny that you both mention the conversations. My DP and I have a sort of bingo card when we go to see her.

Points scored for:
The response to 'how are you?' being 'don't even ask'
Something racist like 'Did my Morrison's phone ordering, the bloke was useless - you could tell from his accent that he wasn't English'
Something misogynistic 'well she looks like a slut dressed like that'
A 20 minute monologue on the latest book she's reading (I don't need to read any of the Agatha Raisin books now)
Something about immigrants
Something about 'Enoch Powell was right'
Something about young people today don't know how easy life is for them (when she walked out on my dad he literally bought her a house outright)
Something bitchy about the neighbour - who has only done her very best to help my mum
Something about her 'best friend' and her 'imagined' ailments (they're all in her mind apparently)
Then as we're leaving - are the kids okay?

We try to visit without the DCs now as her views are so offensive.

@JessiesHuman absolutely. No filters - but never have. Bravo to the bingo - I actually think my mother can only converse in cliches. ‘You’ll be the death of me’ and a recent gem to me - who has heart disease - ‘I thought I was having a coronary’. She has no issues with her heart - at all .

Oh goodness, this is familiar!
My mother used the ‘bad heart’ card so often. Usually if she wasn’t getting her own way.
”I’ve got a pain in my chest” was a regular line when I stood up to her. Used to use it in public too to try and get favours or jump the queue and get everyone fussing around her.
She was always on about her ‘heart tablets’ when they were just standard BP medication.

Talking of ‘virgin purity’, an aunt of mine (one of those PITA types who ‘always speak their mind’) chose to remark immediately after my mother died, ‘Of course, it was common knowledge when she got married that she wasn’t a virgin.’

The aunt was NINE at the time!

Needless to say we were disgusted that she chose to make such a remark at such a time. Not that it was ever any of her business, anyway, but it wasn’t true. I was long grown up when my mother once told me that she was very much in love with DF and would have slept with him if he’d asked (it was early WW2 so who knew whether he’d ever be back) but he never did.

Reading between the lines, I’d guess that the child-aunt had eventually wondered why DM wasn’t wearing a white dress in the wedding photos (DM had always regretted it, but it was wartime and she didn’t have enough coupons) and DM’s elder sister (they had never really got on) gave the ‘not a virgin’ explanation, while knowing full well that it was down to wartime/lack of coupons.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas there seems to be a lot of mothers with similar traits. Interestingly my mother has no real ailments and never has had - which at mid 80s is remarkable. She has always been a situation based hypochondriac when things weren’t/aren’t going her way or she senses that she has just gone too far behaviour wise. Her menopause seemed to go on for about 30 years, I kid you not. When I was about 18 and new to working she was forever ringing me at work to describe in detail her symptoms around ‘the change’. There were no mobiles so she was coming through the landlines and when colleagues asked if it was important she would launch into her menopausal symptoms as if it was a matter of life and death. As for the ‘coronary’ comment she has used that inappropriately forever and when I had real issues with my heart she told me it was self inflicted because ‘you have always done too much exercise’.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER spot on! Your Mum and Dad sound lovely. Unfortunately my mother fits the bill of your aunt to a T.

@BlueLegume thank you for the thread. Reading some of these posts makes me think I would have some of your mothers under my patio 😅 I’m fairly recently NC with mine after being woken up by posts on this board and declining to sign her LPOA. The predictable campaign of victimhood is in full swing, she can wear herself out. FIL is the male version of some of these mothers, it’s frankly unbelievable some of the crap he comes out with. Solidarity and gin to everyone 🍸

@SockFluffInTheBath

@itwasnevermine I'm afraid that's why I have no sympathy over the WFA because for every 1 person who could really do with it - ( and yes I think the limit should be set at 20k household income) there are 5 moaners who have plenty of cash - but feel entitled . if they still rent and have no other income apart from state pension and even a small private one that keeps them under UC limits - they will still get it. If they own outright and it's really that tight, cut down from 4 holidays to 3 or draw down a bit on your house equity and stop moaning- my 26 year old working son flat sharing in London with one other and paying bills struggles a fair bit and has little in the way of assets but he doesn't get it - why should someone with £80k in bank plus various pensions and a £350k house owned outright get it when he doesn't. By the way my 84 year old father in law feels the same- he genuinely doesn't know one pensioner who really really struggles if they were being honest-but he knows plenty of very mean ones who pretend they do

I bet some of these comments sound familiar. I reckon I could have ticked every one from my own mother!

FULL HOUSE!

I'm just going to take one - body weight insults!

I'm 6 inches taller, fitter and stronger than she has ever been. That does not convey a moral superiority or deficiency it's just the way it is.

I find it rather hypocritical that you start a post hating on your mum for hating on everyone!

I have written posts before about how the generation that were young in the late 1950s - mid 1970s were the most selfish and indulged ever, which has led to the crumbling of society since. What do you mean by “young in the late 50s - mid 70s”? Because surely that covers all of us on this thread, in our 50s to 70s, doing our best for our elderly parents.

or do you mean “young adults”?

@mm81736 more than happy to understand? Some of us are tired.

@mm81736 I think you have missed the point. I am not ‘hating’ on my mother - I am pointing out that at nearly 60 having spent a lifetime trying to please her I have realised I am not the problem as she has always told me I am. This forum is so we can vent utter frustration at where we have found ourselves when we have had difficulties with relationships with parents.

This forum is so we can vent utter frustration at where we have found ourselves when we have had difficulties with relationships with parents. Sadly at least one poster has used it to cast aspersions on all people in a particular age group.

This sounds exactly like my inlaws and they even said the words "we will never be a burden" while being a massive burden to DH who's an only child. When he told me what they'd said we both stood and just blinked at each other in astonishment for a second. They are the reason he won't retire as they'll just seep into any gap in his attention that retirement brings. They call him constantly - his dad shouts, his mum cries, to get what they want.

They're in their 90s and they've been talking about moving from their large, detached, 4 bed with huge garden for about 30 years! We accepted it's never going to happen about 20 years ago - it's all talk to keep the attention on them and occupy DH's time.

They mentioned our DC’s weight just this week. If they say anything to her directly I'll explode. She's a perfectly healthy weight! I tend to keep my distance as I have enough going on with my own mother, our adult DC and grandchildren, not to mention work.

My husband had been such a devoted son, totally mired in the FOG, but even he has had enough and said recently he won't grieve when they pass. What a sad way to go out of this world, with nobody grieving your passing.

Blimey, that's an eye opener, that's MIL!

@BarkingAtTheSea again another post I could’ve written. Posters suggesting we are being unkind towards these parents really need to walk a mile (or 60 years) in our shoes. Has your DH used https://outofthefog.website/toolbox-1/2015/11/17/fog-fear-obligation-guilt? It is very helpful.

This is a support board for people with difficult elderly parents. Creating a post to ask for support and help from others in similar situations isn't hypocritical.

I shall be so upset when my friends parents die. We've done school runs together, carol concerts, caught up in the supermarket, they always ask after my kids. At some points I spent more time with them than her.
I will always be grateful that I've had all sorts of people in my life that my kids have seen me embrace as trustworthy adults.
I can't talk to my friend about not grieving the death of my father because she will never understand the guilt or void that comes from obligation rather than genuine love.
I do welcome this space. My friend can find lots of support in real life, including with me. People can emphasize with getting care in place but the more upsetting side, not so much.

Good news though, I've cancelled my weekly phonecall on the grounds that I did 46 minutes earlier in the week hearing about the sudden death of a distant relative.
Sunday feels a lot happier!

My late Dad was born in 39' & my Mum in 44'. However I'm not your age, I'm now 40. So they're pre-boomers ('silent' generation).

My Mum is now 80 and I know exactly what you mean OP. I'm severely disabled and a widowed mother to a child with special needs and yet there I am, several times a week doing things for her in her house when my own home is desperate for organisation & decorating etc. My DC & I have lived in a new build for 5 years and it's still in as new condition in more rooms than not.

My fit & healthy older brother (44) does bugger all, so it's down to me to mow her lawn (whilst mine is 4ft tall) whilst doubling my pain meds to do it and suffering for 3 days afterwards. It's down to me to paint her walls, to build her new furniture whilst sat in a wheelchair. It's down to me to vacuum her home. Today I have to go and hang her new curtains and I can barely stand up straight at the moment.

I don't have any friends (common with disabled people. People generally don't like to be seen with us) and as my parents had us both when they were in their 40s (selfish fuckers), there's no other living family remaining on either side. So absolutely nobody to help me! Not that I'd ever expect much help. I'd just love to have someone to help carry old furniture down my stairs for me or to mow my lawn. Nope. Have to do it myself.

I don't mind helping my mum occasionally but it's every few days and she only ever pays any interest in mine or DC's life when she wants something.

@DoNOTShakeItOff I'm so sorry- that's awful - will she not accept outside help or pay for a handyman or gardener or has it not been suggested?