Anyone regret not improving or maintaining poor quality relationship with 75year old mother

[ResetFuture]

I'm 50, but feel like a teenager around my parents. It's unhealthy and not likely to improve. I can't imagine a healthy clearing the air conversation.
I reread a letter from Precovid, 2020,from my mum, it's all about my brother the golden child and her and how I've let them down. After that I quietly went low contact, COVID helped that physically, so a weekly phone call, odd WhatsApp messages. I avoid telling them too much.
With another relative they have just visited, first time in years.
I feel quite cold, quite removed from them. The anecdotes shared were a bit negative but I'm now hypersensitive so can't be sure. They had stretched their weak current knowledge to save face in front of relative.
Moving forward, how do you handle the next few years?
Send cards (a big deal, raised in the letter) ?
Keep phone contact but visits minimal. ?

Anyone regret not trying to improve an older parent / child relationship.

I regret keeping it to some extent. Golden Child wasn't going to do the eldercare hard yards so ...

I'm 47. My mother is 71 and I haven't seen her for 10 years. I tried to improve the relationship pretty much my whole life but she couldn't see me as anything other than a burden on her life and the child she'd been cursed with instead of the one she wanted.

I'm assuming she's still alive because I haven't heard otherwise. I shan't be attending her funeral when she does.

I don't regret cutting contact with her nor not still trying.

Do what is right for you.

I had a difficult relationship with my mother. A therapist diagnosed her as narcissistic. I went very low contact with her.

She died suddenly when she was 86. Once the shock wore off, I just felt relief and all the angst over her behaviour mostly went.

I do still examine my own behaviour to her in her last years, and sometimes still need to justify it. But on the whole it stays at the back of my mind.

Watching with interest.

Op they dont change. Mine is 80. Its ok for now but all about her. I agree low contact. I can only do so much at wends like most of us we all work/have our own families.

I'm in the middle of this at the moment. I'd like to be a better child, but I'm not sure the basis of our relationship is strong enough for that. It's difficult, and I question myself constantly.

Don’t go there why bring this negativity back into your life I ditched toxic family 15 years ago including sister. Even though on my own soon I won’t be going back what have her critical stuff again over my dead body, been there don’t that never again.

I worry about the example my behaviour gives to my teen girls.
But they picked up on my mum's weird cruel behaviour towards my rather poorly dad - ignoring, talking like he couldn't hear, repeatedly voicing her frustration at their limited lives blamed on his illness.
Part of the reason I don't phone much is because she puts calls on speaker and then loudly voices the dull , awful life she is forced to live due to my dad's limitations.
I also don't like my dad! That relationship has not evolved from a demanding respect and deference due to him being a man and older.

My younger brother even calls me number two, so the dynamic is pretty open.
I suspect he will try to shrug off any future care duties.

We (and our parents) are about the same age, OP, and the behaviour of our parents isn't miles apart. Fortunately, mine moved away several years ago, and it has been much easier to have barely any contact. I like it!
The key was to accept fully that there was never going to be a happy ending. There is no option which will magic up loving parents, or create some interest in their only grandchildren. I will probably always regret not having good, loving parents, but I didn't get that kind, I got something else altogether!
What I have needed from them over the years is something that they just don't have to give me. I'm sure they think that I'm mean, spiteful and selfish, but I'm actually okay with that. Once I recognised the pattern of our relationship, it became much easier not to get pulled back in.
I find it's better to concentrate on the loving family I have created for myself. My children are happy and bring me such joy. My husband adores me and his (huge, supportive) family are more than enough to replace what was never present in my birth family. I have this and I enjoy it, rather than focussing on what I don't have and never will.

Some people shouldn't have kids. My parents are/were two such examples.

My Dad did the decent thing and died a few years ago but my Mum could potentially live another 15 years.

I sacked her from her position of My Mother last year.

I'll be 300k down when she dies as she will cut me out of the will, but it's worth every penny.

Thank you @BigglyBee and everyone else, including those listening in. It helps to know others have a similar dynamic and you never know, it's often just a phrase or tale that unlocks or frees you from a problem.

I had a lovely DM it sign posted:
We took you to stately homes thread in this board ( NT membership was big in my childhood)
And the website daughters of narcissistic mother's.

I worry about the example my behaviour gives to my teen girls.

My children were much younger when I cut contact but are mid teen and adult now. Going NC taught them to have boundaries and that you don't need to maintain relationships with anyone if they don't mean you well.

I’m low contact with my mum. She visited more when the golden child was on holiday this summer and I was relieved when golden child returned and she left me alone. I do realise that I’m still entrenched in the unhealthy need for attention/approval from which I will never get as I am thick and uneducated (in her view). When my dad dies I will go no contact, cannot do so as I’m trying to respect his wishes at the moment.

I'll be 300k down when she dies as she will cut me out of the will, but it's worth every penny.

Same here and my mum did. Definitely worth it though.

@Minimalme part of my dilemma is inheritance.
If my dad goes first I suspect my mum will quickly burn through money on multiple cruises, possibly meet someone else. Care may be needed.
My brother with or without his partner is quite likely on their death to move straight into the empty house and I'll never get them out. It will just stretch on and on.
I have the only grandchildren, she could effectively bypass me and leave a share to them.

I have no idea the cost benefit analysis with all these variables for my girls to inherit anything between 0 and 75k each

Had nothing of dad and nothing off stepmom either. When they both died nor my birth mother nor the aunt who brought me up, she was toxic as well.

Sorry to say it op but your Mum sounds a prime candidate for dangling the promise of inheritance, only to cut you out anyway.

My grandmother (also a hideous person) cut my Mum out and they spent years pretending to line each other.

My other thought is that your kids will never benefit from £75k as much as you will from cutting your Mum out altogether.

Sorry, las t point about money. My potential inheritance set me free ultimately because I know she has the funds to pay for care.

She has suckered me into a vortex of elder care and once I worked out she was plenty rich enough to pay for the services she got for free from me, I walked.

I sympathise, I'm just a 1 dimensional part to my mother and my dad supports her portrayal of me.

Don't berate yourself believing that it was in your power to change things.

I tried to connect with my repressed projecting martyred mother and it made her angrier than I could have imagined. So shocking and disappointing.

I always have that "comfort". I tried to communicate and she just wouldn't have it. My mother 78 and I'm 52.
I dont think she is going to get self awareness now. Far easier to smear me for my "behaviour"

Same, any inheritance will bypass me and go to my children. I accept this. But I am not faking that I'm OK with having been labelled paranoid, sensitive, angry, entitled and insane. Also, I look like death warmed up apparently. When things were terrible between us but could have been salvaged still if she showed some understanding that she'd hurt me, she chose instead to tell me that I looked like death warmed up. Twice. I do not.

All the insults flow one way only and if I say "stop", that hurts them more than all the labels they threw at me.

'death warmed up' sounds familiar, followed by literally a tinkly laugh, any offense and I'm always so sensitive.

I think I might be resetting the future. I've wasted two days and £200 entertaining them. And more importantly the head space before and after. It's time to reframe this relationship.

Act as of there is no inheritance.

I was reading interviews this week with famous people estranged from their mothers because I have been wondering if I will regret going NC with my mother, and it's almost like a fact checking mission (she doesn't have long to live now), I don't want to spend any time regretting anything. And that just made me realise that I have no real feelings for this woman anymore. There is nothing there, and any damage limitation is not about her, it's about me. That on its own is amazing, and it feels good. I could never have experienced this if I had her in my life, and I don't know if I would experience it if I continued to accept her behaviour towards me until she died. It is a very tough decision, and I can see both sides. I would take a lot of time now and work out what you want. That can be harder than it sounds.