Parent won’t accept boundaries and sibling not helping

[MorningSunlight]

My mother has always been hard work, she’s on her third marriage, falls out with everyone and always has some drama or another - she’s the epitome of someone who makes everything about her. On the surface she comes across as a sweet old lady who’d do anything for her family but it very much comes with strings attached.

I live around 2 hours from her - I moved away after uni for work. I’m divorced with my own house and a pretty full-on job which involves travel and a fair amount of responsibility. I’ve got 1 adult daughter. My brother lives 1/2 hour from her in the town we grew up in. He’s not married, has no kids and lives alone. He works a 9-5 type job and doesn’t drive currently. It’s becoming increasingly clear that despite the differences in our circumstances it’s me she’s choosing to rely on as she gets older.

Her health is not too bad but my SD’s is deteriorating. He does have some family but my mother has fallen out with most of them so support from that side is limited.

She has taken to guilt-tripping me every time we speak - how hurt she was when I moved away, how she wishes I lived nearer (even though she had the opportunity to move closer whereas I need to be here for work and my daughter) etc etc. I get she is lonely and life is becoming harder but why should all this be my responsibility?! I’ve been her shoulder to cry on since I was a teenager and I’m really tired of it. And my brother gets none of it.

She calls and texts at inappropriate times and I know I should just not pick up but what if one time it’s actually serious? And again it’s never my brother she turns to. He just gets away with it - when our dad died it was me that did everything and I can see it’s going to be the same going forward. There’s no point me talking to him as he just buries his head, or to her as she will just play the hurt bunny and make me feel like I’m in the wrong as usual.

How the hell do I deal with this? Women in our family live a long time and she’s only 80 🤦🏻

Simply put you change the subject.

Shut down nonsense about the distance. This is where I have my life Mum and yours is there. Make yourself less available. Don't answer every call but call back when it suits you. I bet if you stop making yourself so available she may then turn to your brother instead. Even if she doesn't then just engage when it suits you.

It's like Pavlov's dog. She has trained you to answer. If there is a problem and you don't answer, she has other options. I wouldn't even defend my decision to live elsewhere. When she starts her complaining, dead silence. When she finishes, tell her you've got to go. Keep your brother out of it. By the sound of it, he has his own boundaries. Your mum will be just fine without you solving her problems for her. I've been there. I know

I’d ask her, what does she want to do about being lonely and the fact she can’t live independently much longer. I’d be suggesting retirement communities with living assistance. Asking her, where do you see yourself in two years? Reminding her she can still move closer to you.

I would be talking to brother and telling him to check in on your mum occasionally as well.

Yes he definitely needs to step up, he can’t just keep ducking out of responsibilities - it was really hard arranging my dad’s funeral and clearing his house on my own, he was ‘too upset’ to help which is understandable but I was too and I had no choice, someone had to do it.

You become less available. You don’t answer her calls or texts right away. Engage when it suits you, or when you have agreed to call her. Do not volunteer to help too easily (you say sorry, can’t do that, and you could try suggesting she ask your brother, he may not engage and that’s not your problem). You practice phrases like ‘that’s a shame’, ‘what are you going to do about that’, and other things rather than fall for her guilt trip and agree to sort whatever it is yourself. You can’t change your brothers behaviour btw, only your own.

Absolutely but I recognise I do need to help to some extent as she gets older - it’s just a bit ‘boy who cried wolf’ at the moment - I have asked her not to just call randomly especially when I’m at work but to text first giving me an idea what it’s about. But she won’t do it and if I ask again I’ll just get ‘I’m not even allowed to call my own daughter now’ or something along those lines 🙄

My Dad (would be 80 now if alive) had trouble keeping up with etiquette on phone calls. As a young adult, he’d just go round to friends or family home and knock on the door. Not everyone had a phone in their house. Then when everyone had landlines, you could just call anytime but now had to call before coming over and knocking on their door. He never really adapted to cell phone etiquette, he kept his like a landline - literally putting it on the hall table.

He never got the hang of texts or messaging. But yeah the idea that you should text to schedule a time to call would have been nonsense to him. A step too far for someone raised where you could just physically pop by for a chat and a cuppa with no forewarning or calling ahead.

That’s a fair point, she just has no idea what it’s like with a full-time demanding job having retired early herself. And the frustrating thing is that I know she doesn’t do the same to my brother - like so many women I’ve become the default go-to 😡

I had a mother like that. Would send me out grocery shopping for her during the height of lockdown when I had stage 3 breast cancer rather than trouble precious golden child son. She will never care how ill/stressed or difficult your life is. That's why I went NC.

My advice might be different if you were an only child or your brother wasn't nearby. However, as he is closer than you, if there was an emergency she could call him if you were unavailable. So just stop answering the phone if it doesn't suit you. If its urgent and she can't get you she'll call him. If she just keeps calling on a loop text her to say that you can't answer the phone and are going to turn it off and will call back when you are available. And do it.

I mean this helpfully (as the older sister of two brothers).

You have the obvious role model in your brother. Your guilt, or conditioning that somehow women have to be available, seems to me the issue here.

You have to accept you can't make your mother or your brother do anything. You can only control yourself. You control if you answer the phone. You can't control if she calls, ect. If it's inconvenient, don't answer. Even if it was an emergency, there's nothing you can do. She should and would call an ambulance. If it's just calling to inform you something has happened then you'll find out when you call back. You can only control your actions

Don't pick up. You don't have to. If it was vital she would ring again a number of times or text - and you know it isn't vital because she does it all the time.

It it was truly vital, she would ring your brother if she couldn't get hold of you.

You are unavailable during working hours. You are unavailable when you are doing other things.

"So now I can't even ring my daughter"
"That's right, Mum, you can't call when am working. No one can. That's what Being At Work means. That I am not available for personal calls."

Actions not words will get the message across.

Stop answering the phone.
You asked her to text.
She wont?
Stop answering.
Treat her as you would a toddler to drive the point home.
Step away from her.
As long as you keep being totally available to her, she will continue to demand of you alone, because she is getting what she wants.

This.

While he should have helped with the funeral, the way he deals with your mother actually makes a lot of sense. You need to take a leaf out of his book when it comes to boundaries, rather than him being more like you.

You don't "need to do anything, it's a choice. You mention boundaries but you've not set any, a boundary is what you do not what you are asking them to do as you can't control that. So mum if you start banging on/moaning or whatever I will put the phone down. Don't answer the phone as much, if there is an emergency she will find someone else, people like her always do. You are doing anything to avoid the guilty feeling, guilt won't kill you, sit with it for a bit , you won't keel over I promise.

If you don't pick up when she rings, and it's "actually serious", then she can dial 999.
You don't have to do any of this stuff, OP, but you will have to be both persistent and consistent.

could you phone your brother and arrange a rota of phone calls? Tell your mum youre “busy phone me xxx day, but phone brother as he’s not heard from you in a while”.

Both are training you.

Before you know it it’ll be shopping, taking her for a perm, doing her sheets wash…. Get him trained. It’s murder doing it all alone. Get her told she needs to phone him more coz you’re struggling just now with working late. Whether you are or not.

I think she resents my job, she definitely doesn’t understand what I do or how stressful it can be. Because she retired early she looked after her own mother until the end and her sister who recently died lived with my cousin who has her own business so a certain amount of flexibility. So she thinks that’s how it will be for her but it’s not an option - I wouldn’t want to do it if I could.

I'm not trying to be annoying here but 1. She doesn't have to accept your boundaries, you just need to set them and enforce them yourself, and 2. Your sibling doesn't have to help with that. Your boundaries are your own. No one has to agree to them or support them but ultimately you can set the boundaries you need and enforce them when crossed. This is within your control.

Just ask your brother to do specific things … ‘can you hoover mums house this weekend and take her shopping’

Your brother doesn’t have to do anything for your mother any more than you do. You don’t have to pick up the phone, organise or help your mum. make some rules and stick to them.

But don’t we have a duty to be there for elderly parents? In which case I just want it to be split more fairly rather than him being let off the hook - why should he get away with that just because he’s a man? (Her exact words - you know what he’s like, he’s a bloke etc etc)

No, he doesn't need to step up. His relationship with your mother is his to deal with. And no, it's not your duty to look after her when she becomes infirm.

We don’t have a duty to answer their every call during working hours when we have busy, stressful jobs.

You can choose to support your mum as much or as little as you want. But you cannot make your brother step up if he doesn’t want to.