Perhaps no one will read this. It will be long and messy and probably full of self pity but it's been 18 months and I need to get it out.
Here's the context. My mum remarried my stepdad when I was 9, over then next 20 years he became increasingly emotionally controlling over the whole family and as a result became estranged from his own two children.
My brother and I (from my mum's first marriage) quickly intuited that we would need to 'fall in line' or we too would be 'cut or pushed out' as they had. It seemed as though we children were an inconvenience to them both. My mum always seemed happy with how things were and her domineering husband and would not hear a word said against him, even in private. As a result our relationship with her was very limited. The casual coffees and shopping trips that most girls enjoy with their mothers didn't happen. We weren't close despite my desire to be. My brother would phone and my stepdad would claim my mum had gone to bed - even at 6pm on an evening.
When I had my two children she wasn't really there for me either. When all I wanted to do was cry and tell her how hard I was finding it or even ask her advice she wasn't there. I assumed it was him. She took a week off work to 'help' me after my second child had been born as I'd had a c-section and my oldest child was still very dependant and couldn't walk (and I couldn't lift him!) and stayed a couple of hours a day before heading home because she 'felt sorry' for my stepdad at home on his own. Bear in mind please this is a man who had taken voluntary early retirement and was by his own admission 'loving it' - he is young and healthy and didn't need her, but I did.
Fast forward. She meets someone at work and begins an affair. This is happening whilst my grandmother (her mother) who my brother and I were extremely close to is in hospital ill. For what it's worth my mum has always had a difficult relationship with her own mother.
My husband, children and I go on a disasterous holiday with my mum and stepdad for a week. It's clear their relationship is strained and my stepdad takes all his frustration out on us, shouting at me one evening and booking flights home early for him and my mum.
When we return my mum leaves him and moves in with us. She uses his terrible behaviour toward me whilst we were away as an excuse to leave him. She doesn't tell him the truth which is that she is leaving him for another man.
We invite her to live with us and our children whilst she gets sorted. She's with us for 12 weeks in a too small house. I don't ask for anything from her, it's nice to be able to help. I am secretly over the moon to at last have some time with her but she spends all her time texting her new boyfriend like a teenager. She doesn't help with the children or even really act like one of the family (as you might expect a grandparent to do), it's like having a stranger living with us.
One evening we're having a couple of glasses of wine whilst I cook our evening meal, the children are in bed. Out of the blue she mentions that whilst she was with my stepdad that they had altered my grandma's will (she is still very ill with little hope of recovery at this point). She tells me that originally we had been left a small lump sum but that the will had been altered so that the money would go directly to her with the understanding that she would then give it to my brother and me. She says that my brother is useless with money (true) but that in the event that the will will as executed she would pass mine on to me and think of a way of giving my brother his so that he would spend it on something 'worthwhile.' My husband is there during this conversation so hears it all - she is very clear 'I will give you this money when the time comes.' I'm a bit shocked - it's strange to be thinking about the will of someone who is still alive, and I just KNOW in my bones that this scheme was concocted by my statepdad who would have had NO intention of passing any inheritance on to us.
I'm still thinking about this a day later when I tell my brother everything my mum has told me.
Fast forward 8 weeks and my grandma dies. I write my own reading for her funeral and stand up to read it, managing not to cry. My mum brings her new boyfriend and they sit giggling and holding hands like they are on a date.
About 5 months later and my mum and her boyfriend have got a flat and I now barely hear from her at all. Its almost like when she was with my stepdad again and I'd always assumed it was him that prevented us from having a relationship. I have to accept that she is one of those people who puts 'everything' into their relationship and doesn't value her family as much as I value mine. I couldn't go months without seeing my children or knowing if they were ok.
We meet to have a family meal for her birthday and I mention to my mum that we (including her grandchildren aged 3,3 and 18 months) haven't seen her in 3 months. She genuinely doesn't seem bothered.
The conversation we had in my kitchen all those months ago isn't mentioned again but unbeknownst to me my brother asks her one day - he rings and says 'snowboarder tells me that you are intending to give us some money from grandma's will.' He and his wife are thinking about finally buying a house (they've rented for 10 years) and wanted to know whether they would be receiving any money to put towards the deposit. She tells him 'snowboarder is mistaken... I never said that. You and she were NEVER in the will and there is no money for you.' He presses her saying 'well, she says you had a conversation where you said the will had been altered but grandma was clear about her intentions' and my mum tells him I must be lying (!)
Fast forward 18 months and here we are. My mum claims this conversation didn't happen as I remember it, that we were NEVER originally in the will and that she does not have any money to give us and will not give us anything. The inference is that she and her new boyfriend now need any money they get to build their new lives together.
From the point where my brother challenged her she completely cut us both off. We met up with her once to discuss it and she just said we were attacking her and was very defensive. She can't hear any criticism at all - her view is that if anyone so much as asks her to explain she is being 'bullied.' She feels very much at home being the victim. I don't know what she's told her new boyfriend but I suspect we are not painted in a very favourable light.
I have not seen or spoken to her although I did send her a text message telling her that we were both hurt and devastated and that she has treated us disgustingly. She has not even tried to explain. There's been no phone calls, no letters. She sends birthday cards to my children and doesn't even put a note inside. Nothing. My two children (now 4 and 3) don't even remember her and I spend a lot of my time depressed and tearful.
I don't care about the money. I don't really need it. I only ever wanted a relationship with my mum. BUT - I can see that she is willing to rip off her children for the sake of a small amount of money. Money, after all that her mother had wanted us to have and that my brother at least really could have done with to help buy his family a secure home. This also comes hot on the heels of 20 years of feeling like she didn't love my brother and I enough to have a 'proper' relationship with us.
The only way forward I can see is if she admitted the conversation took place and apologises but she won't and I can't forgive her without an apology. I just feel utterly betrayed and heartbroken and have no idea what to do.
I can see no way at all out of this.