Context:
One older brother with wife and two young boys. Me single mum with teens. Dad died 30+ years ago. Mum remarried and widowed again 4 years ago.
Mum, 82, now living with her twin 2 hours from where my brother & I live. I've written about this before. It's a delicate situation as Twin is very strong minded and my mum is very wobbly. She is anxious about everything (especially money, although she is fairly well off), has falls, and memory problems. Twin has been horrible to me throughout, eg has prevented me from coming to my mum's hospital or GP appointments (she actually changed an appointment so that I couldn't attend, meaning that my mum had to wait extra time for some test results she was worried about), has told me my mum's health 'is none of my business', and has told me that she has disliked me since I was a little girl. I have POA and look after mum's money, tax etc, but Twin recently swept my mum off to her lawyer and told the family it was because I didn't want to be involved any more (!!!). Luckily I found out and am now in direct contact with the lawyer.
I know my mum feels a bit pushed around by her sister but on the whole she is reasonably happy, is well looked after, and is pleased that I am looking after affairs. I think she has finally realised that her sister has a bit of a 'thing' about me.
So. My brother.
He is a bully. Example - when my mum was 80 I suggested my brother might organise her 80th party (I would have done it if he was too busy but I was not well so it made sense to ask him on this occasion). Previously we had split the cost of her 70th party so I expected to do the same, and we could both afford it. He organised an expensive do. Then he made her pay for every penny of it, even though I was expecting to pay half and my mum was feeling wobbly about money. She often phoned me up in tears about it, saying she had asked him to cancel. He refused to cancel, or to pay, and he refused to let me pay for it 'in case it made him look bad'. It was at a private club where he is a member so not so easy for me to just pay. We had several rows about it but to my eternal shame she paid in the end. The party was for people we all knew so I'm sure they all thought he was a top bloke for organising. She was badly shaken by being forced.
I took that as a warning about what he is like, and since then I have been very guarded around him.
Then we had to work together to sell her house. He made a huge fuss about having no time and being far too busy, so I did most of it. His main concern was what to do with the cash when the house was sold. Mum may have expensive care needs in the future and also has a very cautious approach to money, so I have taken a conservative approach.
He, on the other hand, wanted to access most of it to start a new enterprise, which involved tying money up in property and included him being 'compensated' for his time. He wasn't interested in what I thought, brushed aside my questions & objections, shouted at me several times, and refused to even consider that my mum didn't want to do this. She froze. I booked a meeting with a financial advisor to move things on a bit and he ruined the meeting by ignoring the advice, pressing his idea, and continued to press the idea after the advisor had left. My mum was so distressed she couldn't speak or look at anyone. I ended up leaving. Eventually, a relative spoke to him and he gave up his idea.
He behaves as if nothing has happened. Twin has been able to use the incident against me (not sure what has been said but there is some definite frostiness with other family). He knows I am furious with him because I told him how upset my mum was and that this awful episode has also made me ill. So since February we have been virtually no contact and his wife has also told me not to contact her because I told her we needed to acknowledge what had happened before we could move on.
He has just turned up on my doorstep with no warning, with his children and some Easter eggs for me and my teens, all smiles, no hint of apology or 'peace-making'. I didn't have any eggs for them so that was disappointing for his young children. Now he can tell everyone he came to my house with Easter eggs and I was rude and that his children were disappointed that I didn't have anything for them. I don't care about him any more but I do care about my nephews.
What do I do?