Bit of a weird one really.
I had a really strained relationship with my mother as a child, she had a few mental health issues which lead me leaving home when I was 13. We didn’t see each other for some time after she tried to commit suicide when I felt and there was a family dispute over the reason for it being me leaving. The only reason I left is because I was that miserable at home I wanted to end it myself, the leaving was a last survival tactic to get out. Fast forward a few years I tried again with her, she was worse by this point mentally and I offered to move in with her and help her – she took offense to this, called me a cheeky bitch and said she never wanted to see me again.
I had my first DD when I was 21, and after I got pregnant our relationship started growing again. My DD is 7 now and she has a great relationship with her nan. My mum offers to help out with the school run a lot, I heavily reply on her for childcare and pickups as I’m in full time employment. We’ve helped each other out money wise when we have both been in need, and we have both lived at each other’s for a few months when we have been transitioning between homes etc.
The problem is she’s still not a very nice woman at all and will lie at every chance she gets (shes good at it as well.) She frequently steals form my home if she childminds. It’s not major things, but she will be sure to swipe a bag of half my toilet rolls, coffee ,anything basic etc. She does not work due to her health so she is often struggling with money but when I confront her about it and ask if she has seen things which are missing she will flat out deny it. For example, I bought two of the comfort intense fab cons a few month back, and when I was running low on the first I went to look for the second to find it missing. I asked if she had seen it – she said no. A few days later I go to her flat to find her busy cleaning – my bottle of comfort on the top of her dresser in the living room. I know for a fact she won’t spend on anything like that it is rare she buys fab con at all, and I know its only fabric conditioner but it’s not cheap and it’s still a cost on my shop!!
She’s stolen money off my ex-partner as well whilst cleaning – going through his drawers and ripping a bag clean open – no attempt to sneak it - with change in it (only coppers and a few silvers). She’d swiped half the bag. My partner at the time noticed and confronted me about it, you can imagine my embarrassment that my own mother would steal off my partner! She was less than remorseful when I asked her about it too with responses like ‘its only coppers he’d not going to miss it’ and ‘well he’s got a full time decent job, I need it more than he does’ like she genuinely believes she’s done no wrong and she’s entitled to it!
She’s such a mass of destruction as well, whenever she has been at my home I’ve found glass on the kitchen floor from a glass she’s smashed but has hidden in the bin and would never admit to and not cleaned up properly (it was my DD that told me about it the next day!) and a few week ago I found my front room window key bent to snapping point in the lock, which snapped as soon as I tried to get it out like she’d been ragging it about). Its constant damage, things going missing and me thinking I’m going crazy.
She uses me as well, but because she’s so helpful with my DD I feel like I can’t blame her for it or say anything. She constantly pestering me for money ill get a text every week saying she cant afford electric and she’ll text me three times asking in an hour or for days straight and if I dint reply I always get ‘its okay ill just sit in the dark until Friday…’ trying to make me feel bad. She always gives the money back in the timescale that she says but when I ask her again what the money is for she will say that my brother is struggling with money too (he earns more than me, never contributes to the bills and they live together!) and she needs food in the house for his dinners, which is fair enough but the day after he’ll have gone and bought himself a sports car or a new bike or something ridiculous!!
Im being taken for an absolute mug and its embarrassing! Im so fed up of it all ive been lying to her saying Ive lost my bank card because I don’t want to fund his ridiculous lifestyle!. A new one is that shes been asking to borrow my vaccum cleaner as she doesn’t have one but I wont get it back for weeks and when I do get it back I will literally have it for a day or two before she asks again and its been like that over the summer. So not only cant I vac my carpets half the time, I have bought myself a vac and without even realising she owns it now too!
My DD absolutely adores this woman and as much as Ive wanted to cut ties with her, I just cant do that to DD. I’d be screwed without that school run help as well. Ive never written this to anyone either it feel weird to get it all out but I am just so fed up with the lies and the using and how pester and ‘not normal’ she is its upsetting.