Bollocks. Pressing 'send'.

[Imbroglio]

Wrote a number of therapeutic emails tonight. Deleted them. Thankfully.

Then after a bottle of wine wrote one last nasty one liner and hit 'send'. Bollocks.

It was deserved [I think]. Cat now among the pigeons. But Bollocks Anyway.

It was to my SiL. She has had loads off my mum, including holidays, money for the house, money for the children. All fair and above board, no more than waa given to me..... plus her engagement ring. My mum's engagement ring from my dad. Fair enough, thinks I, at the time.

For context, my brother got my dad's signet ring when he died, gifted by my mum, not left in the will. Again, Fair Enough.

My SiL is an only child so will get 100% from her mum when the time comes [irrelevant I know...].

My brother (my only sibling. Her husband) told me a while ago while we were sorting out my mum's house that his wife wanted to 'pick through' my mums jewellery. This was while my mum was losing her battle with dementia and didn't know which way was up. My mum is still alive. My brother has taken possession of the jewellery box.

I have never been given any valuable jewellery or any other special tokens from my mum or my dad and its too late now. I will never experience the 'this is for you..' moment.

For info, my mum is now in a care home near both our houses, my SiL rarely visits, and I've been given a lot of shit about my mum from her.

My email asked my SiL if it was true she had asked to 'pick through' my mums stuff.

I'm a bitch.

Well that's OK. it was your Mum. don't worry about it.

OK so no further communication from him re my mums jewellery so I've emailed to say the next counselling is not working for me (poor progress, counselling diverting from the original purpose, negative impacts on my well-being).

Just had a message back trying to draw me back in, saying he doesn't understand what has gone wrong between us blah-di-blah, doesn't want it to be the last session.

I just want to scream. What is he getting out of this? Meetings have been horrible for me, with his main agenda appearing to be about saying how awful I am.

He sounds fucking awful tbh. Why would he be desperate I'll continue something that's making you miserable? You're right to stop counseling I think.

Unbelievable that he still hasn't answered the question!?

Do you ever speak face to face? surely it would be cathartic to just have it out in "real life". (& not with crap therapist)

We have had several raging arguments over the last few years, by phone and face-to-face. They are dismal and unproductive.

It sounds as though he is continuing the abuse of you during counselling
I would also phone your counsellor up and their boss and discuss that issue
As is said on here all the time, counselling doesn't work with an abusive participant.
If he really wants to continue ue that then ask the counsellors to reccomend individual sessions first and try again. But first you want your jewellery back
Can you get another member of the family to go with you to his house and collect it

Yes I agree about the counselling.

I didn't want counselling but it was something he wanted and I felt that I should give him a chance to have his say in a contained space, and also get a few practical things sorted out. My best hope was agreement over our shared responsibilities.

Now I'm saying I've given it a chance and he wants me to either carry on (presumably the way it has been to date, with him assassinating me in every session), or come up with another solution. No thought of how he might improve things.

No relatives to help in this situation.

IMHO you have "given" enough. I would tell him No, & to go & bully someone else. It is all his way. There is no common ground, he doesn't want to share or compromise on anything. He is Toxic.

Leave him to his echo chamber. He can still go along and him and the counsellor can nod sadly in agreement about how unreasonable you are.

He'll soon tire of it though without you being there to undermine.

IMO too. Since we started I've had nightmares, poor sleep and anxiety.

the councillor sounds crap to me (or just good for him) drop it, & drop him, he is only making you unhappy

Did he pick/does he know the counsellor? Just a thought.
Don't engage in his fkwittery any longer. Your only communication with him needs to be,
"Return Mum's jewellery ASAP, or I shall report it as stolen."

I organised it.

He loves to complain but if anything needs to be done he disappears. And then more often than not complains about the result.

Oh and it wasn't anyone I knew either. I went through a national relationship counselling organisation.

knock on his door, say 5 concise words. "I came for the jewellery box". What is he going to do ? say No ?

Of course he's going say no. And probably turn it into a blazing row.

What would happen to your mum if you just stepped back from everything and your only involvement was that you visited your Mum?

You have those few items that mean something to your Mum, perhaps for your sanity you need to draw a line under everything else going on related to the situation and accept you cannot change the outcomes?

Op. Your brother is fucking HORRENDOUS. He is working towards his own agenda. The fact he can't or won't rather, answer a simple question means to me, he is deliberately trying to avoid the issue. You've caught him out and he hates losing face.

Unless you can get someone neutral to manage on behalf of your mother's estate, and from a WILL, you have a fight on your hands. Even if you don't want anything, your brother is a complete shit head and trying to do a character assignation.

Detach from his toxic emotional nonsense.

Your DB and SIL are thieves, pure and simple.

Your DM is still alive, her jewellery is HER property. If they take any of her property they have committed a criminal act and you should report them to the police.

Is there any power of attorney in place for your DM? Even if your DB has a legal obligation to act in her best interests he certainly cannot take her property for himself!

If no POA in place you should see a solicitor to see about getting a Court of Protection order appointing you her Deputy. Your DM needs someone to protect her interests.

Maybe speak to the person in Adult Services at your DMs local authority who is responsible for overseeing her care and tell them what your DB is up to? If you don't know who this is the care home should be able to tell you.

What your DB is doing is very serious and your DM needs to be protected.

Golden, it doesn't sound like there is much left to save. B has already had the decent furniture etc.

Thanks for all your support.

Legally there is no reason why he shouldn't be safekeeper for my mums valuables. They still belong to my mum, and he is her son. However, she is beyond saying what her wishes are so unless there is something in her will so it'll come down to deciding this between ourselves when the time comes.

There is something not 'right' about his stonewalling, when he could simply take a photograph of what's there (if he's worried) and hand it over. I would be OK if he asked to hang on certain items if they are important to him, but he's not giving me any choice.

And while this is going on he's sending me emails saying he cannot understand what has gone wrong and how much he wants us to be on speaking terms. His email is quite creepy. He says:

"I think you need to think extremely carefully about this being in any sense a “last” event, you need to rework this as “first” positive steps that give us hope for a friendly future".

wtf?

Feeling really wobbly today as this is coming up very soon.

It's very creepy and you know what? I'd he writes rubbish like that he must be thinking like that....totally illogical and confused or not confused and spouting bullshit as a smokes screen.

How much in terms of £ are we talking about here? Because I think for your mental health, you need to think whether it's worth your involvement in this situation.

I think you need to cut contact with him completely. Or at the very least keep it to the absolute minimum. No more emails! And definitely no more "counselling" (not proper counselling because the "therapist" is clearly shit).

"rework" bla bla bla, what is his first language? Bullshit ?
I would just call it all a day now.

He seems to think it's my responsibility/duty to feel differently about him, while his behaviour stays the same. And yes I think he does think like that!

Legally we share responsibility for our mother so he does have rights. However, I look after everything. The relationship effectively broke down when my mum became ill so everything has been a huge battle. Now that she's safe in her care home the important decisions have been made, by which I mean the decisions which affect her quality of life.

So I reduced contact, but I still had to communicate certain things, which either elicited a demand to meet up (with no attempt to resolve the query any other way) or were ignored (usually the ones where I asked him to do something!).

The reason we are in counselling is because this had left me in a really difficult position, with him telling friends and family that I wouldn't speak to him and he didn't understand why, and hinting darkly that I should have my Power of Attorney dissolved because of this. So I set this up on the basis that we needed to talk about how we take care of these joint responsibilities.

BTW In counselling he has now agreed to 'let' me carry on looking after my mums finances and administration 'because it means so much to me'. This was because I told him that if he wanted to dissolve the POA he should stop threatening me and go and see a lawyer.