difficult mother / adult son relationship - any advice pls?

[awana]

Hello, can you advise? My friend's son is openly angry with his mother. Refuses to talk to her, or rages at her, shouting and causing arguments, even though she takes his daughter a couple of days during the week and on the weekend. He regularly receives financial help from her, although he's mid 40's and a ft working professional himself. He is also angry at the idea of his brother receiving money for help.

He now wants her to give him his part of his inheritance whilst she is alive. Understandably she is a bit concerned about handing several hundred thousand over to him, especially as she's an oap and can no longer work. If she has care needs that will be another significant consideration that he is seemingly unaware of. However it is causing even more arguments and he obviously feels he deserves this money.

She does want to help him as he's now got a child as they are still stuck in rented accommodation.

However, from my view on the outside, it's obviously a deep rooted issue within the relationship that I am caught in the middle of. She's not been a perfect mother, (his dad died when he was a child) and has found it difficult to cope after her husband's death. He is obviously really suffering and it is awful to see him in so much pain.

However much I think about it though, I can not get my head around it, and I'm finding difficult to support them both. Can any wise mumsnetters advise at all on how to help them both? Many thanks

I’m sorry but he sounds like an appalling bully. Asking for money when he earns full time, angry all the time, using mother as a babysitter, wanting a huge chunk of an ‘inheritance’ when his mum is still alive - what kind of person is this?

I have no sympathy with him at all and cannot see any ‘pain’ from your post on the situation. He sounds aggressive, demanding, entitled, and worse.

The mother should get outside support, and should not, on any account, give in to his demands. She is in a very vulnerable position. Please dissuade her from taking any financial action AT ALL until she has spoken to a solicitor (very important that she does that)

This sounds like co-dependency to me. She is allowing him to behave like this for some reason. My friend's brother also wanted his inheritance while his parents were still alive but his mother just thought what a horrible son she had raised and never for a moment considered giving in to him.

If she does give him his inheritance though, what happens to her other son? Would he want his too and she'd be left with nothing?

He’s a bully and whatever unresolved issues has contributed to that doesn’t make his behaviour excusable. Handing over huge sums won’t change the underlying issues and won’t put a stop to his sense of entitlement or need to punish. Your friend has a choice, continue with this toxic dynamic or belatedly assert some firm boundaries.

My DB also wanted his inheritance while DM is still alive. He is a massive bully & useless with money so convinced himself that he was entitled to it. She said no.

I'd tell your friend to practise being angry, outraged and difficult with this son of hers. He's projecting all his nonsense on her because a/ he can and b/ she won't stand up for herself. She needs to feel the rage, express it and show him a side of herself that might just shock him into behaving like a decent grown up.
Additionally, it would make her feel better too. Sometimes, it doesn't work being agreeable, passive, a 'not rocking the boat', type.
Rock the boat! Tip the bugger over if she can.
If that doesn't work, advise her to sell up, spend the inheritance on an expensive cruise and send him some postcards from very exotic locations. He'd get the message...

Thanks all. I was wondering if I had written a too biased account which is why you were on the side of the mother. You certainly reflect all I feel about the situation! I don't really understand why her son is behaving in such an aggrieved manner tbh, and wonder if his anger about his mum has somehow been distilled into what he can get out of her financially. I can't see any other reason for it, but now the issue of projection has been mentioned, I can definitely see it. Coyoacan, I can also definitely see that there's codependency going on and having researched it further after your comment, I see that that extends to lots of her other relationships, including a tenant who she treats as a son who is allowed to dictate her other tenants in the house (!) . I will definitely talk to her about protecting her own interests and improving her relationship with him by being more assertive. Thanks all for your advice, much appreciated x

Perhaps she needs to move any money to more inaccessible accounts.

Obviously ‘No’ is a complete sentence but it may help with saying this.

I think the whole guilt thing is at the heart of this. I have a couple of friends who forever feel guilty about mistakes they made (as we all do) when their children were growing up. Unfortunately this just feeds into their children never growing up enough to accept responsability for their actions as an adult. This is the magical belief that I would have been perfect if it weren't for my mum. So all his hatred and disgust for his own actions gets projected onto his mother.

Coyoacan- you have perfectly described a friend of mine & her son.

Thanks for all your insights. Guilt is definitely the cause of this imbalance in relationship, and I don't think any amount of money will resolve the issues. I really appreciate you all helping me (and her) with this. All of you must be brilliant therapists to have deducted so much from the few paragraphs I wrote! Hopefully my improved understanding of the situation will help prevent a potential disaster... thanks again

I was angry with my dad like this tbh

Not proud of it but I’m uncomfortably aware it was there.

She’s getting something from this dynamic too. Is she a bit of a victim/poor me type? Or a professional martyr?

If she reallt genuinely wants to change their relationship she has to set boundaries and stick to them. She could start by refusing to babysit if he talks to her rudely. Yes she’ll miss out on seeing her granddaughter but it’ll give her leverage.

I think a lot of mother/son relationships are like this to some degree, my own included! I do catch myself pandering to my son in a way that i don’t to my daughter and have to be mindful to keep that in check.

There’s been a few threads on here in the same theme lately too, Irish mammy one springs to mind.

You say 'he is obviously really suffering' i say he is obviously really bullying!! Shocking behaviour.mum needs to wake up a bit...any chance he has power of attorney?

I find it bizarre that he views himself as having an "inheritance". My dad's money is his own. If he decides to spend it all on cruises and carers and fine wines that's up to him. My pension is to look after me when I'm old. At the moment we give our young adults kids what money we have but I see our job as enabling them to stand on their own feet financially. When I get to retire I intend to enjoy myself.