Mum wants me to visit grave

[Mumstruggles]

When I was a little girl I would visit my nans grave with my mum every Christmas but now I’m all grown up, I have decided that I don’t want to go anymore as my mum gets morose and I just don’t want to be around it. How do I tell her that I have decided that I no longer want to visit? My mum can be a force to be reckoned with by the way, if she doesn’t get her own way!

Unless there is a big backstory going on about your bad relationship with your mum, it seems churlish to the extreme to not accompany your mum once a year to visit her mother's grave. Of course she gets 'morose' - she is grieving for her mother. One of the things about being 'all grown up' is that we sometimes do things we don't enjoy, to help and support others around us.

Depends a bit on context. Is this a recent bereavement?

I stopped going once I was an adult. It was such a miserable experience in the freezing cold mud. The relatives concerned had died years before I was born so it's not like it was a recent bereavement or anyone I'd known or who had known me.

But I'm not close to my "D"M which is an additional factor.

Once she no longer had an audience for it, she stopped going herself despite physically easily being able to get there and hasn't mentioned the dead relatives for years now!

Why don't you want to visit granny's resting place once a year

Unless there's a physical difficulty getting there eg a wheelchair user who wouldn't be able to get there if you don't take her?

Look on it as a Christmas gift to your mum
PS I usually weep at Mum and dads graves and they have been going well over 20 years you do not know what it is like visiting your parent's grave until you have to

Just don't go.

It might be easier if you make excuses not to be around rather than having a confrontation about it - presumably there are other options for her to go rather than you accompanying her? Or is there anything else you can suggest like looking at photos or similar?

My sibling died when I was a young teenager and my parents spent a lot of time at the grave. Fair enough, but it also came with quite a lot of dramas about flowers (my parents kicked up a fuss as they claimed one lot were stolen when they had actually blown away and the puppy dug up another lot that were growing in our garden) and various other grave related episodes. They also used to remark on me not wanting visit.

I found it very upsetting because I was stuck with it at the time and found it deeply unhelpful to make the grave a focus of my grief. Fair enough if some people do find it helpful, but not wanting to go is just as valid. It's crappy parenting to try and force kids into going on grave visits and I'm not surprised you don't want to go as an adult - I don't either.

Honestly...it's once a year, I'd just suck it up and go.

Wow that's cold.

What's the backstory here?

Is there something key you are not sharing about your relationship with your mum or grandmother? Because otherwise going once a year, to support your mum, is really not a big deal and you should absolutely continue to do it.

Unless there's some enormous backstory whereby she is abusive etc. then it would be really shit of you not to go with her. What's the actual point of sustaining any family relationships into adulthood if you don't support each other, do things for each other sometimes and show interest in things that are important to each other? Visiting a grave once a year is not a big ask at all.

I absolutely disagree with many people here. You have your own life, OP. You are completely free to stop going, so do so.

You could perhaps go with her once more at a more uplifting and less busy time of year (summer?) and then explain to her that you won’t be going at Christmas again.

I’d try to pick a completely random day for your last visit. Not a birthday, not Mother’s Day, not a date that can be picked on to become the new date for going.

Does your mum only visit once yearly ? Perhaps she needs you for support .

It's completely, entirely, unquestionably fine not to want to go. Bigger question is whether your DM is reliant on your support in order to attend.

All mums are a "force to be reckoned with" - thats the very definition of a mum 😀

First post nailed it.

When you say ‘all grown up’ - how old are you?

I think 'all grown up' is an Americanism. UK would just be 'grown up'.
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong!! But it comes up a lot in Anne Tyler novels.

Op mentions on another thread she's got grown up children, iirc, and she's been doing the visits since she was a small girl. Which is a long time to provide emotional support by doing something you don't feel comfortable with.

I think the having to do it as a small child is more relevant than some replies are taking into account. I'm guessing it was upsetting for OP as a kid and the capacity to keep supporting her mum is lower than it would be if she'd only had to deal with things as an adult.

It's difficult to explain and I know I'm projecting but, from subsequent family bereavements where I got pushed into a support role again, it felt like the emotional energy, reserves and patience just weren't there to deal with the same behaviours over and over.