DM's reliance on me - what to do?

[Loopyloo745]

I’m really concerned about my DM, that she doesn’t seem to be coping and how much she relies on me/needs me to do for her.
This has been going on for years but at the moment, she’s really struggling with a recent bereavement as her DH (who was terminally ill) died recently. She has been very dependent on me for years, dating back to when she was with my DDad (who treated her very badly) and has leaned on me a lot emotionally since I was a teenager.

I’m struggling a lot to deal with it myself, as it feels as though I need to think for her constantly as well as do so much for her. I’m struggling with my own MH, but I feel I’m having to suppress it and try to hide the fact I’m struggling because she needs so much support/so much done for her. I need to start on Sertraline soon, but I’ve been delaying because I can’t be out of action with the side effects of starting it right now. I don’t know if she realises that I’m able to be around and help more than most people would be, but I’m starting to feel that this is at a cost of me having my own independent life. I couldn’t even imagine being able to have a relationship/DC of my own when I’m spending so much time doing things for her and supporting her. I stay with her a lot as it is, but when I don’t, she seems to really struggle to cope without me being there.

I’ve repeatedly asked her for years to speak to someone about how she’s feeling/seek help/talk to her GP and consider trying medications, but she’s says she’s tried, these things don’t work and that’s that.

She is completely coherent (as in not lacking capacity/losing her faculties, if that’s the impression I’ve given.) I think right now she is struggling terribly with grief, but she has been very reliant on me for years and years.

Some examples of things she’s asked me to do very recently, or I do on a regular basis include;
⁃ Arranging her grocery delivery, working out what she needs (even if I’m not there), deciding what she’s going to eat for the next week and ordering it for her.
⁃ Dealing with all her paperwork
⁃ Paying her cleaner
⁃ Arranging repairs in her home
⁃ Dealing with everything to do with her DH’s death
⁃ Dictating fairly simple emails for her to send
⁃ Sorting out the probate for a relative who died over a year ago, but it got left
⁃ Dealing with the council and council tax for her relative’s house
⁃ Printing things
⁃ Sorting out returns labels for things she wants to send back
⁃ Sorting out her car insurance

These are just some examples, but in total, I spend hours every day doing things for her and I really need a break.

I don’t know what to do, I can’t leave her to cope on her own as she has no one else, but I feel I’m getting to breaking point. As well as the every day stuff, she gets so upset so much of the time, cries easily over little things and it’s very difficult to cope with 24/7. It feels selfish of me, but I wanted to be able to have my own life for a few years before she gets to the point of being elderly and frail and really needs my help.

Please, if anyone has any advice or has been through a similar experience, I would be so grateful to hear from you.

DMs behaving badly and you need to cut loose, easy to say. Your needs are at least equal here,and you’re ill. Get support, withdraw. Saying no gets easier with practice.

Seems like she might control you with the subconscious but constant threat of anger and/or tears so that you walk on eggshells and try to not to trigger her so you meet all her demands. And this has been proved to you with her emotional outburst after you initiating a calm discussion - her flipping out is to shut you up to maintain the status quo and imbalance of power in your relationship.

This is likely a very long held pattern since your childhood.

V bizarre that she was leaning on you emotionally when you were just a teenager.

Look more closely at her character, behaviours and how she interacts with others in close relationships.

Good on you LoopyLoo - that's a great start! Hopefully with a few days/weeks without your help she will just get on with the things she should be doing anyway, and get used to doing them herself. It's great she has friends she can ask if she needs to, so you can have a totally guilt-free rest from her demands. Try not to think about her too much!

I know she denied it when you spoke to her, but maybe she was just being defensive. Hopefully she'll have a think about what you said and realise she's being unreasonable. Good luck xx

If you're concerned about her not eating properly because she doesn't like cooking well that's her choice. A lot of people don't like cooking but they still have to do things they don't like. Don't let her guilt trip you into doing things she is very capable of doing and learning.

My mum would be the same if I let her but instead I distance myself completely and have stopped going to her house. Every time I'm there she asks me what shall we have for dinner and then talks it through with me how to cook each item (even though she is perfectly capable when she is alone) and tries to get me to do things for her by refusing to do them or saying she can't do those things. If I just ignore her or don't jump in to her 'rescue' she just gets on with it herself. The way I see it is if I am capable of doing it then so is she just remember when you first learned to do online shopping- you weren't born with that knowledge, you had to learn to do it by yourself too so why can't she?

The most recent thing my mum did to me was to say that her phone charger had died and she wouldn't be able to get in contact and she put the sentence with a question mark on the end. I almost jumped to her rescue because she was taking care of my daughter for the weekend and lives in a village and then I said to her- well you'll have to go and buy one then and left it at that. and then she went and bought one despite constantly telling me she can't go into town often to get certain food items because 'she doesn't like going far'. Well so what? Lots of people don't like doing lots of things but do you see your mum coming and rescuing you from things you 'don't like doing' or haven't learned how to do yet? Nope, no one is rescuing you so why do you need to rescue someone else that has the same human abilities that you do?

OP I understand you totally. When my dad died my mum dropped to bits too,She even one day had me drive a 20 mile round trip from my house to hers to post a letter for her,,talk about final straw! So I set about getting her oprganised,I arranged all her bills on direct debiot so she didnt have to worry about a thing there. I printed out her weekly shopping list and just reused that every week online it took 10 mins and it was delivered on same day week in week out if she didnt let me know she wanted anything special it was the same.Very much like training a toddler I repeated everything until it became routine for her, I also enlisted some of her friends quietly to ask if they could check in when i needed a break and if jean was off to the supermarket she would ring and say to my mum did she need anything etc..the relief was huge and people were more than happy to help but didnt like asking as if to be seen to be interfereing so they were glad when I asked,No i wouldnt shoot off if the fridge was broken or the grass wanted cutting but mum would have a list of numbers for a gardener a plumber and electrician to hand to ring herself..it took me time but each job i didnt do couldnt/wouldnt do she had a back up so I would so so sorry mum i am at work page 2 pf your book has all the numbers in it you need ring.I sort of forced independance by equiptting her with all she needed.Its the tiny niggly things that annoy and take time and get on your nerves so I spent my time reaserching all she would ever need to cover any eventuality and then handed it over to her.Its working fine, She very much resisted at first then came the guilt then the tantrums but I just kept repeating ,,,you want the grass cut ring dave his number is on page 2 did you forget? I feel for you so much been there still there sometimes but not as much these days,

My MIL is like this. I don’t really have any useful advice, I’m afraid, but wanted to let you know you’re not alone and you’re really not being unreasonable to want it to stop.

Like your DM my MIL has a busy social life (even now over Zoom!) and until she retired a few years ago had a fairly intense and senior job that she was good at and enjoyed. She really doesn’t need someone to sit with her through all her emails, change her light bulbs, check over all her bills to be sure she’s paying the right amount. And yet...

It has got a bit better over the years and she saw her GP about depression a couple of years ago which helped. But she still offloads a lot of her thinking onto DH or me, still expects someone to sit with her while she goes through any paperwork she’s received. Yesterday she texted me to say that a number she didn’t recognised had called her and she didn’t answer and they didn’t leave a message, what should she do. I don’t know!

She is a very anxious person and I think at some level she doesn’t think anyone would want to spend time with her unless they were helping her or she was helping them. Which really is not the case. I genuinely like her and when she’s not in helpless mode she is a really interesting, kind, fun person. And then she’ll feel a bit worried about something or feel left out and suddenly there’s a new ‘help how do I replace this light bulb, it’s a funny shape’ crisis.

I’ve always felt limited in what I can really do because she’s not my Mum. And like I said, it has got a bit better over the years. She used to want someone to spend half the weekend with her ‘helping’ and would call every evening to ask for help on things, it’s less now. She still needs a LOT though and it’s so tiring, and when you push back you get “oh I know you’ve talked me through this before you know what I’m like, I’m a daft old lady, I can’t understand it” (or if it’s DH, full-on “sorry, I’m such a useless mother to be such a bother for you” guilt-tripping).

But as she does get older and it’s clear that at some point in the next few years she is going to start needing some real help, I’m getting more and more frustrated by how much of my marriage I’ve spent doing things for her when she didn’t actually need it.

You have been used for years.

Whatever she did for you as a child, was her job as a mother.

She has and is using you.

Your life sounds utterly miserable.

You are the only one who can improve it by stepping away and stop ans6your phone.

Just let her get on with it.

I bet she will be just fine.

Users usually are.

And if not, it's not your responsibility to do everything for her.

She sounds incredibly selfish.

The way she just reacted when I tried to have a very diplomatic conversation to say I can't manage to do everything she needs was hurtful though

Unfortunately that's the way it often works; pulling back was never going to go down well and it's probably only a matter of time before the "health emergencies" start

This isn't going to get better, so it comes down to a choice; either you power through it in order to make a life for yourself, or accept that you'll be her drudge until she dies

I wish there was some other choice, but sadly that's the hard reality of it

This sounds exactly like a friend if mine who now has her DM living with her moved in a few years ago after selling her house to downsize to something smaller and closer and still hasn't 'found' anything suitable. Totally reliant on my friend and now getting health issues so she feels guilty even contemplating trying to get her to leave. Been like this since her husband died when my friend was in her 20s. As a result my friend never married or had children and unlikely to now she's 50.

Your situation, like my friends, is highly enmeshed and unhealthy. I would suggest therapy for you organise your thinking and start some strategies to put distance between you. It breaks my heart to see my friend swallowed up with the responsibility of her parent. She just can't see where she starts and her mother begins and won't contemplate counselling. Do something now to ensure you have your life.

Could you suggest she moves into a retirement village? There’s some lovely new modern ones being built. They have hairdressers on site and organised entertainment. Plus if there are any problems they could deal with it. It sounds so nice I wish they made them for my age group!

My Grandmother was like this with my Aunt . It contributed to my Aunt's divorce and it got worse after that . My Grandmother ended up living to 99 and my Aunt never had a life of her own . She was living with her mother for several days a week even when there were carers involved eg she wouldn't let carers toilet her . You do need to crack down on this now and it seems you have made the right steps . Don't feel guilty . My ex MIL was unable to put petrol in the car when my FIL died. There's a saying that the old will climb on the shoulders of the young to keep living at their expense .

Thank you so so much again to everyone who's replied. I'm sorry for all the stress everyone else has faced too, but it is very reassuring to me right now to know I'm far from alone. I thought there'd be other people out there who'd experienced the same but when no one you know IRL can relate, you start thinking it's just you.

Thank you for everyone's kind comments and it's made me realise I'm going to spend the rest of her life like this and one day, I'll wake up and realise I forgot to live mine and I never built my own. For example, yesterday I didn't speak to two friends I'd agreed to (and hasn't spoke to for a month) because I was dealing with something she asked me to and then felt so utterly drained, I couldn't have sounded normal on the phone.

At the moment it's turned into she's sorry that her grief is so hard for me to deal with/be around, she's only struggling sometimes, people she knows who've been widowed have told her they struggle to function, so everything about how she is feeling is normal.

The problem is, this isn't just recent, it goes back years and I've explained to her I have no issue with dealing with the legal/business matters. It's time consuming and would probably be equivalent to a part time job, it's just the extra every day stuff, the repeated panics and stresses that have to be sorted out "now" and the things as simple as deciding for her what she's going to eat that I can't cope with on top of it. She also seems to be forgetting that I'm not very well myself. I'm physically disabled and have some quite severe MH problems, which is the reason I'm not working a FT job, having a full life and am able to actually be around.

As Pps has said - this is just the start and it will get worse as she gets older. I really have to step back because nothing is going to change.

My sister does my mothers shopping, she got fed up with oh I forgot to put x on the list and whilst not say anything expecting my sister or nieces (never my nephew ) to just pop back and get it.

I live in different country so can't help out (at the moment) so I paid for an upstairs Alexa and downstairs Alexa, my sister put the app on her own phone and created a shopping list.

My mother now says Alexa add bleach to my shopping list or whatever is required.

If Alexa isn't instructed that X Y and Z are required, they don't get purchased and there are no second trips, she soon grasped it despite swearing blind she couldn't possibly.

Would this help at all ?

OP I think you're doing far too much and whatever you take on you will find more gets piled on top. You tried to say something and look at the reaction you got. From the fact this is so long term rather than coming from the recent loss of your DSDad I think you've been treated as a useful idiot for a very long time. Please look up enmeshment. I think you'll see a lot of details that look very familiar to you. Your DM seems to think she comes first and you're an extension of her rather than an individual with your own life. The fact it sounds like your own health is very poor makes it even worse that she puts so much on to you.

At the moment it's turned into she's sorry that her grief is so hard for me to deal with/be around, she's only struggling sometimes, people she knows who've been widowed have told her they struggle to function, so everything about how she is feeling is normal.

Wow she really is a gaslighting manipulative character isn’t she - what guilt tripping - that’s a first - blaming someone else for not dealing with someone else’s grief.

You need to conserve and protect your own precious MH now.

Her’s is perfectly robust as she is able to be assertive, entitled and demanding (ignore any crocodile tears) - her emotional resilience was built on the back of you. She has built and maintained her social life and busy career before retiring.

It’s highly likely that her leaning on you and the demanding enmeshment has caused or at least strongly contributed to your own MH issues.

As we get older it’s sometimes harder to bounce back from stress so it’s very important that you prioritise your MH - by removing stressful and draining experiences (reducing exposure to difficult people) alongside building in restorative experiences with radiant people.

In the short term I like the “sign posting” approach suggested by @lazylump72 - just keep referring her on to someone or somewhere else. So with her grief point her to the services of Cruse. Let her seek and pay for expert / professional support for admin, shopping etc - I bet she will suddenly find she is capable once you stop picking up after her and the £££ fly out the window.

She seems to have trapped you in her FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) which she dispenses to confuse, disorientate and control you.

It’s v sad that you missed out talking with your friends.

My DM ended up on antidepressants and BP medication running round after my GM. My GM then died aged 89' and my mum followed her only 6 months later at 69 in an accident.
Please change things for yourself. Your mum being upset or unhappy about something is not the worst thing in the world. She's not your boss.
You have a choice and you will live your life as a result of the choices you make.

Show her how to do an on-line shop. Write down every step she needs to take to do it, and sit with her while she has a go for the first couple of times. Most supermarkets do very palatable ready meals if she doesn't fancy cooking.

It would be completely fair to say you will only be dealing with her DH death related things and is she needs help with anything else to ask her friends because you are drowning and unwell.

She can like it or lump it. She has many friends that she can text or phone instead of you.

Awful that you didn't get to chat with your friends.

There isn't a bother on her with the manipulative shit she's spewing.

@RandomMess
@Sssloou

Great advice above.

You need to read up about FOG - fear obligation guilt.

Your Mum sounds like an emotional vampire or someone that seeks/creates co-dependent relationships. She has failed you as a mother because her emotional needs always come before hers.

Thank you pps, I do really agree with @RandomMess @Sssloou and all of you. I do feel that her needs appear to come first and I'm perceived as primarily a support/extension, not a person with my own life. The enmeshment is definitely something that resounds with me.

Some of the suggestions are really good, especially the Alexa shopping list. That's something I might do myself! But the problem is, I show her/I write very clear instructions and I still get a frantic message or call telling me that whatever it is doesn't work, or it's broken and I have to do it for her. Or she tries to do it, gets in a mess somehow and I spend ages trying to fix it.

I was just trying to get a bit of peace and relax so I had ignored my phone for a while. She contacted my DDad (who isn't her late DH), who she hates and started saying she was worried about me because I'm not coping with her grief. He tried to be diplomatic and said that I am very happy to help with business/legal matters, but I'm finding the everyday life admin on top of it all to be too much, that I was very worried about her and thought that it might be best if she talked to someone external about her grief, to help her try and process it, as it's affecting her so badly - to the point of not being able to function. She got angry with him and said he was accusing her of having MH issues (something she doesn't seem to want to accept that I have and I freely admit to having because I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of - I'm determined to get the help I need and to keep trying until I do).

This is one of the problems I keep finding - if I ignore my phone for a bit to get some peace and quiet, she starts contacting my DDad, who she's been divorced from for years and doesn't even like, who's just trying to get on with his own life. He accepts that he hurt her badly in the past and doesn't like to see her suffering, but he's got every right to life his own life now.

Let her contact your Dad. He can clearly handle it and is backing you up. He may get to the point where he tells her to stop harassing him - he needs to learn to grey rock "DD is fine she is just busy".

Carry on being too busy to answer her calls, take back the power and call her once a week.

If you dropped dead what would she do?? Find some other mug, so let her do it whilst you are alive. She is going to tantrum and treat her like the toddler she behaves like, ignore the bad behaviour and don't reward it.

Then your dad needs telling to ignore his phone too.
Return the call a day or two later, then extend further. Make her wait. Give her the number for the local age age concern who can approve recommended handymen etc. Make sure she has social services number. The local cab company, gardener, etc.Get bills paid by direct debit and auto renew. Start to step away.
Let her be angry. It doesn't matter that she is you know, despite how she's trained you.

OP,

This is just more manipulation.

She shrouds it in concern for you.
It's not.
It's pure bullshit.

She is just showing you that she will not accept that you may want some soace and she will try and shame you into contacting her.

You need to accept that she is a very controlling bully that has used you for years.

Let her call who she likes.
If they contact you just tell them that your mother cannot accept that you have your own life.
Do NOT reward her for contacting your father.

She is a user.
She doesn't care about you.
She is determined that you are her life skivvy.

You are the only one who can change the dynamic.

This is one of the problems I keep finding - if I ignore my phone for a bit to get some peace and quiet, she starts contacting my DDad, who she's been divorced from for years and doesn't even like, who's just trying to get on with his own life. He accepts that he hurt her badly in the past and doesn't like to see her suffering, but he's got every right to life his own life now.

She will stop contacting him when it doesn't get her a reaction from you. He doesn't have to answer her calls either, don't worry about him, he will be fine. Sounds like he has the measure of her as well.

She was perfectly competent doing all these tasks before, she can do them again as well. Just ignore the majority of asks.