Last year, my mum's long-term partner suddenly announced he was leaving her for another woman and has now married this woman. My mum is in her late 50s, had not worked for several years, and they still have a mortgage to pay. Her former partner has continued to pay the mortgage, most of the bills, and give my mum money to live on. This seems strange to me but I can only assume he is doing this out of guilt; I know he won't keep paying all of this forever. I am very worried about this.
My sisters and I have done everything we can to help her. We helped her find a job in a shop (part-time, min wage) and keep offering to help her find a better paid one. We've been on the end of the phone for COUNTLESS long conversations. I've offered to help set up/come with her to see a mortgage advisor, go on viewings for smaller properties etc to try to help her become financially independent before her ex pulls the plug. Her car was old and eventually became un-driveable so my sister lent her £2,000 for a deposit to get a car on finance. We all regularly invite her for dinner, or take her out for the day, and make a real effort on her birthday etc.
Despite all this, my mum is so nasty to us. It was my 30th birthday recently and I organised a family meal at a local restaurant where she's driven many times before. The day of the meal, unbeknownst to me, she asked my sister for a lift, even though it was in the opposite direction for her. My sister said no. We arrived at the restaurant and there was no sign of my mum, she wasn't answering the phone or replying to texts, so I was getting worried. Eventually, an hour into the meal she text me saying she could not afford to come [note she does regularly get manicures and new clothes...]; then sent another message saying she didn't feel confident driving there. She later said she couldn't have come anyway as she'd had a drink so couldn't drive.
Tonight we have our uncle's birthday party. She has asked me and my sisters for a lift so she can have a drink. We have all said yes, but then she asks if we will be staying until the end. All of us having really tiring, busy lives and have all said we don't know; I've also been having a lot of issues with headaches and migraines lately and I've said it really depends how I'm feeling on the night. She tells us we are being very unfair. We've told her the choices are drive yourself and don't drink, drink and pay for a taxi home, or get a lift with one of us at whatever time we go home. She's now saying the stress of worrying how to get home has caused her a migraine so she's not going and is blaming us, saying she was really looking forward to the party. She is also saying we are all being very unfair to our uncle if we don't stay until the end because he's spent a lot of money on the party!
She constantly tells us that she has spent a large part of her life raising us and therefore it's time for us to do things for her / that we should be paying her back etc. Don't get me wrong - I have huge respect and appreciation for her raising us, but it's like she feels our lives should revolve around her entirely.
She makes us feel guilty for going on the occasional holiday, and for having nice homes of our own (that we work hard for). I can't even consider the idea of working abroad for a bit (which I've always wanted to do) because she says it would be nasty to move away from her. She continually sends us messages saying we don't care about her and that she's obviously a bad mother, posts things on Facebook strongly implying that we are awful kids, often tells us she's going to die soon anyway so nothing really matters (she's 57 with no major health issues). She will quite often send a string of concerning messages then turn her phone off so we are left trying to get hold of neighbours to pop in and check on her (or drive over ourselves if we can).
I really don't know what to do with her anymore. I'm beginning to wonder if she's got Borderline Personality Disorder because when I read the description of that it sounds so like her. As I mentioned, I'm getting a lot of health issues myself at the moment which could well be due to stress, and the biggest stress I've got at the moment is her. I can't just cut her off because she's my mum and I'm genuinely quite worried about her, but I honestly don't know what to do.