Won't give long history, but have a poor relationship with my mother. She lives alone as my father died 20 years ago. I live about 45 mins drive from her and my sister lives 3 hours away. My sister invited her for Christmas, but she didn't want to go because my sister is vegetarian and she doesn't like my sisters dogs. She then moaned a great deal - christmas was boring and my children were too old for Christmas (they are in their late teens). My sisters 3 children are much younger, so i said that Christmas is about the little ones and said that she should go. She then said she didn't want to drive. My sister looked up trains and we coordinated to drop off and pick up. Mum then refused to go on the train as she didn't want to carry her bags. So it ended up my sister picked her up by car and DH and I went to collect her. At one point mum said that it would be good if she got the flu then she wouldn't have to go anywhere for Christmas. Or she wished for snow for the same reason. At my sisters ( when we'd driven down in crap traffic) at the lunch table I got a load of abuse from mum saying I had no empathy. I have such a feeling of doom. My mother does many things to cut herself off from the world - eg she won't go abroad, she refuses to go to large cities, she won't drive in the dark, she won't drive on motorways. I just feel that I'm going to get to the point where I'm running round after this woman who I find it very difficult to care for due to how I was treated as a child. As time goes on, I find it harder to care for her because the things she says and the choices she makes are so different to what I stand for.