Feel like I'm going to have to wait for mum to die so I can live

[Paperwhite209]

Just that.

We lost my dad coming up five years ago, I was on here back then. I took time out to care for him and mum afterwards (also because I was pretty broken with stress etc.)

Have been back working out of the home for 2.5 years now. Stepped up at work last year (in responsibility, not pay) - since then pressure on the area I work in has increased by about 30% and whilst I was a full time assistant to my predecessor, my assistant splits their time between me and another department so it's incredibly stressful and difficult to keep up. I also work a second job (same employer) so do at least one 13 hour day a week; no back up domestically or supporting mum, and studying with the OU for the last 18 months to try and get a better paid job so I just have to do the one.

I have been unwell on and off for the last 4-5 months with an endless stream of viruses, my mental health is crap - I'm overwhelmed, exhausted and feel guilty, hopeless and complete failure all the time.

The light at the end of the tunnel was my plan to relocate and downsize. I would half my mortgage, be debt free and be able to work a normal job and have the time and energy for hobbies and a social life. I've had to pull out of an evening course and a weight management programme recently and am on the verge of parking my studies as with being ill I just haven't been able to keep up. I hate leaving the house when I'm not working and have no energy for anything other than TV and doomscrolling when I'm at home.

However, this move would be 200 miles from my mum. She is 86, has several health niggles but is physically and mentally able to look after herself. Emotionally however she is very needy and not above manipulation, emotional and financial blackmail/control tactics. I've suggested she moves with me (to her own place/assisted living) but she won't for the sake of the two close friends and 'fancy man' she has here.

Now I'm starting to get the ball rolling with plans to move she has ramped up the emotional blackmail and is already making my life hell. I know it will get worse if I go - there will be dramas every five minutes the necessitate me hooning up and down the motorway.

I could downsize where we live currently but it's about so much more than that. I'm 50, I want a totally different lifestyle. My home town has changed over the years in ways I don't like and although I've lived here since childhood I've never really felt that I fit.

I don't want to wait anymore. Every summer for the last several years I've come back from visiting the place I want to move to and though 'maybe by next spring I won't have to factor mum into the decision' but every year we're in the same boat. I do love her and there is good in our relationship but I am exhausted and burnt out and I just want to move forward and make a better life for myself.

I was in tears down the phone to her this morning about how exhausted and unwell I feel, and all I got was a lecture about how everything might go horribly wrong if I move and a threat of being cut out of my remaining inheritance (she's already changed her will to reduce my share to 50% which is one of the reasons I want to move - I need to safeguard my financial future as best I can as I don't have a pension).

I don't know what I want from this massive rant - I've been in tears all day, feeling totally trapped and like I may as well give up any hope of living life for myself - if it wasn't for my daughter, I'm not sure I'd even want to keep trying at the moment,

@SockFluffInTheBath That's exactly how I was back at the beginning of December...had no idea how I would get to Christmas.

Then I went down with a horrible virus, off work for six days, ended up in A&E as coughing up blood (I'm asthmatic so the extra lung inflammation set it off). Got over the worse but was still having chest pains over the first half of the Christmas break.

Felt ok from about NYE onwards - back to work on a 13 hour shift last Monday, Tuesday evening horrendous aches and chills then cold symptoms which in and of themselves weren't too bad. Tested Thursday night and I've now got Covid. Managed to go in on Friday but the cough has kicked in with a vengeance over the weekend and with everything else it's just finished me off.

I am pleased your Mum has the AA and can pay for carers/taxis etc. I do hope you move and find time for you. I am just about to estrange my 88 year old aunt because she doesn’t appreciate me at all. I live 350 miles away, and out of a feeling of duty to my late Mum, I’ve spent 26 years trying to tolerate her selfish behaviour. I go to see her by coach every May, we arrive late on the Friday. I was taking her and her neighbour for her birthday lunch on the Sunday. I phoned her to ask if she’d like to go for dinner with me on the Saturday and she said ‘isn’t it included in your coach trip price’. I sat with all the other coachees in that hotel that night with my aunt five minutes up the road. Never again. On the Sunday we met for the lunch at the restaurant, and I’d organised a birthday cake. When the waiter bought it out my aunt turned to her neighbour and said ‘oh thank you’ - awkward for the neighbour. Not spending any more time with her, she doesn’t appreciate me at all.

@Salome61 god that's really crap.

Mum is pretty independent, just needs a lot of company/attention.

She has a lovely retired neighbour who she sees every week for coffee and he'll give her lifts and pick up a bit of shopping for her if needed, but he's having some health issues atm so I think that's unsettled her a bit.

My friend A was in your situation but made the wrong choice, having succumbed to emotional blackmail. She forfeited her independence, agency, home, career, physical health, quality of life.
She died just after her mother who had lived 29 years longer than her.
A would tell you to run and don’t look back. Feel no guilt, just as your mother doesn’t.

A’s mother just wanted company and attention too.

@Peelingvegagain this is one of my biggest fears.

I turned 50 last year and it's really changed my perspective of what I want out of life going forward.

I'm also very conscious that my health, weight/fitness, wellbeing and finances are all not where they should be.

Theoretically I could make changes without moving, but practically I'm caught in a vicious circle of never having enough time/money/energy.

Moving from the SE to North Yorkshire will reduce my outgoings by at least £300 a month and I'd be debt free and have some money to put behind me in savings. Even earning the same as I do now in real terms I'd be £600 a month up. Plus there's so many things I want to do and places I want to explore up there...hiking, foraging, join a gym (which would be affordable!) and the National Trust, maybe look at doing craft fairs to supplement my main income or just to self-fund my hobbies.

When I think of my future up there I feel so excited. When I think of staying here I feel like just giving up and crying.

@Paperwhite209 you really should move

My situation is that my mother is very lovely, but I simply cannot cope with how long it's going on

I've just been over there today, she's round the corner, for what was potentially an emergency with health. It's difficult to cope with for a lovely person who I do love. What it must be like if somebody isn't very nice I cannot imagine.

I think you should just move. It's very hard to face up to it, but they could live a lot longer. It's awful to think about. I'm going to be 50 this year and I was expecting to be out of the woods absolutely years ago. But no.

In fact, I've watched her go through the stage of wanting to die and now she doesn't. Which is good because obviously nobody wants their mum feeling like they want to die. But I was completely unprepared for her to live so long - to be honest, the same was true of my dad and he died seven years ago.

I try not to think about it. I see her a lot. But when I'm not there, I just try really hard not to think about it. I used to post on the elderly Parents board but I don't anymore because it's better not to focus on it when you don't have to.

I actually just was scanning here thinking "do I need to rant about yet another emergency which I thought could be the final phone call and isn't". So I'm replying to your post instead! Hope you don't mind me sharing what happened today.

I really sympathise, I don't particularly want a long life but while things are better than they were a couple of years ago - I had a nervous breakdown - I genuinely think she may outlive me and that seems terribly unfair.

OP, just move. Don't discuss it with your mother, just do it.
And, until then, cut down on the visits and phone calls.
It's not your job to look after her, and your own needs must come first.

@EmeraldRoulette

I can totally relate to your post.

My parents both lost their fathers when they were children and my grans died within a year of one another when I was 6/7 and my parents were in their early forties.

I have absolutely no frame of reference for ageing parents. I adored my dad but caring for him through the pandemic whilst trying to keep mum - who was stubborn, squeamish and totally in denial - on an even keel, nearly killed me. There is simply no way I can do it again (nor do I want to).

I hate myself for feeling like this - the 'fgs when will it end?' - but it's so relentless and as one gets older and starts to feel it, really frightening.

@Paperwhite209 honestly lovely, you have got to do this move. For your finances, your health, everything. You'll be a shell when she's gone otherwise.

My DGM is mid 90s. Refused to move near DF and SM, refused to move near us because my DM lives nearby who she hates. She's a 3hr drive away from me, 2hrs from DF. The consequences are, none of us can care for her. She stayed where she wanted to be - fine, so that meant a cleaner, gardener and now daily care visits from paid carers. I visit 1-2 times a month, although in a recent crisis that was more frequent before we got her into rehab care and then had homecare in. She fought every step, and I've had pressure to move closer, even spend every other week staying with her away from my own family, but we had to stay strong and say no. DF was poorly, which actually helped because he wasn't pressuring me to give in and I was at all the meetings and I just kept repeating, ad nauseum, "no, that doesn't work for us", "no, we can't do that". She had no choice in the end, and she's managing fairly well now at home with the support. We do distance stuff like online shopping, ordering prescriptions, I tend to liaise mostly with social care when rockets need putting up backsides, as I work in healthcare myself and they can't fob me off, and don't they know it now after the last few months!

It can work. Your mum may not like it, but it's workable. She has choices. She has money, she can spend it on the support and help she needs. Don't spend your life working, scrimping and skivvying. This precious life is far too short.

@CrazyGoatLady

Thank you

You have a dream and a plan. Now is the time for fulfilment.
Relish the excitement. Wake up each morning thrilled with the prospect of your future.
Banish the dread. No one knows how long these situations can last but you can take control, unlike A who was trapped.
Move to North Yorkshire. Live your life to the full.

It’s a no brainer, Paperwhite.

@Paperwhite209 yeah I hear you

I feel as if I spent the whole of my 40s looking after elderly parents. I'm slightly in denial about turning 50, I think partly because I did not realise my life would be on hold for so long. While strictly speaking it was from age 42. It does feel very unfair. But then I see people posting who are in their 60s and looking after elderly parents and I think well that situation wouldn't be great either!

you've obviously really thought about the move and quality of life. My mum is 87 and she is in better health over the last couple of years. You really don't know what's going to happen. So I think you've got to move and just assume that she's got a lot more life ahead of her.

And it's time for you to go and live yours.

I partly moved to be near my mum, but also I wanted to leave London - I'm really happy in the area now and I avoid going to London as much as I can. So the move worked out - and it just so happens that where you want to live, it's not near your mum - so other arrangements have to be made. Your life can't keep being on hold.

Make the move.
Suit yourself but just don't advertise what you are doing to your elderly mother. It is the anxiety of change that is worrying her.
Move and keep working remotely. And buy a small campervan.
Sometimes you could be down near your mother and helping her out and mostly you could be at your new place.

My elderly parents always understand when I say I'm helping out my children and grand children so your mother might too. Make the move but explain it like it is not all about you.

That makes a lot of sense. I think
just keeping quiet, getting on with my plans and keeping her in the loop only on a need to know basis would probably reduce the aggro for me and anxiety for her.

I'm hoping to find a remote working job so I can be flexible about visiting and obviously if the shit hit the fan I'd do my best in whatever way I could.

She'll just have to get her head round that being enough.

I think that’s the best plan. We are putting our house in the market without telling her. We’ll wait until we have sold to break it to her. She has lots of friends and aren’t close anyway.

My mum had similar with my GM. My GM died at 89 and then my mum was killed six months later in a car accident in her 60’s.
The wants of someone at the end of life don’t trump those of others in the prime of theirs. Quite the reverse.
Tomorrow is not promised. Go live you life.

@DemonsandMosquitoesi’m so sorry to hear that. That’s just so tragic.

She has 2 friends and a fancy man. She’s not alone. Live your life and start learning how not to be manipulated.

Be careful pushing yourself so much. Your body is giving you warning signs.

I know that guilt can be corrosive, so, I’m not saying this lightly.
But, you’re young, and these are the best years of your lives, especially when your outgoings will be much lower.
It’s not right that you have to sacrifice your own life to keep your mum happy.

I hope you’re ok, @Paperwhite209, I’m sure this is a very difficult burden for you.

Are you actually going to be less stressed by moving away ? Could it just be that you spend a good chunk of the next 5 / 10 years running up and down the motorway to
sort out your mum? How about trying to improve your QoL within the current location .

I do agree that you should try to put yourself first , ai just wonder whether being in Yorkshire is the right way to do it .

I agree with everyone else, you need to prioritise yourself and your health, both physical and mental. Think of your DD, she needs her Mum.

Make the move, do it quietly until it comes time to tell her you are going. She knows this is your plan so it isn't like you are springing it on her. She will of course call you out on it but you can just say well you weren't supportive so why would I talk to you about it?

I moved 3 hours away from my parents and my Mum said I will miss you terribly, no guilt, no emotional blackmail. My siblings remained close by. We eventually moved back within 40 miles of my home town. That is what a supportive Mother would do, support you in your life.

North Yorkshire is beautiful, visualise yourself there, start putting everything into place for the move and get support from any friends you have nearby.

Live your life and focus on your health and resits the guilt trip. A move will also help you sort out your financial situation.

Your mother can get help from carers in her owm home (that's what my neighbour does and she is 95) or if she can no longer live independently look at care homes.

She has had 86 years of life making her own choices and you also need to be able to live yours.

Never sacrifice your life for a potential inheritance. Also your mother will need to use this money for her care.

Were you under another name on the cockroach thread , your story sounds very familiar ? If it is you , you've had this desire to move for a long while now but your mum has always had a hold over you .
Please think about yourself , it's time now especially as it is having a big impact on your life .
I also wonder if you are a little scared of taking that decision to do it ?
I get that , it is scary at the beginning , but I did it and I'm very risk avoidance but my life is better for taking that jump . Do it .

Move, please move. Tell your mother as little as possible about it and only when you have to.