The final straw - relationship with Mum

[Allbymyshelf]

For those that have gone NC or very LC what was the final straw for you?
I have assumed that there would be some kind of big blow out, one huge argument that we never recover from. There have been events like this in the past but we’ve always managed to somehow bury it and carry on albeit with less enthusiasm on my part. I thought that one day there would be one final attack by her that I can label truly unforgivable.
However following a recent drama free visit, taking her grandchildren a reasonably long way to visit her, and her complete disinterest in any of us I think I’m done. I feel empty.
She says she wants us to visit and provides a spread of food and drink etc but makes no effort to really know her grand children, no games, no questions about their lives, friends or school. The penny has dropped that she’s not actually interested in any of us beyond how we meet her needs or her image as a grandmother. Is this the Mum equivalent of the dirty tea cup triggering a divorce?

We were living and working in an EU country at the time. We had no idea how it would impact us. My DD was halfway through her degree, we didn't know if she'd be reclassified as an internationel student and be priced out. I'm disabled and had no idea if I'd still be able to access the healthcare I needed. My DH had no idea if he'd be able to keep his job due to security restrictions on non EU people. It was the first time in 20 years I'd saw him cry. My mum couldn't have cared less.

Oh that is such a lot. Awful of her. In my case it was our kids’ future plans, but for you it was very real.

@Rallentanda sorry if im being stupid.. genuinely asking as confused (not being rude) but why would this be the final straw for you? Why would she need to think of you with regards to brexit?

A sense of entitlement to something that belonged to me, extreme jealousy when I said no and a tirade of abuse after, stonewalled her grandchild. I've had another 2 children since, of which she has never met and never will. A cold hearted, narcissistic, evil woman. I do not say that lightly. Horrible childhood, she takes accountability for nothing. Disliked by the majority of people who have the displeasure of being in her company. She is in poor health now and I have no sympathy.

Her narcissism running rife when my DC was in NICU and we didn’t know if he’d make it. It wasn’t the last straw, we limped on for a bit longer, but I haven’t been able to forgive her.

Yes I can see it’s not very rational. It was the way she was talking about it. The smug superiority. The rubbing it in. She’s a very unpleasant person. Just one event in a long line of times i’d had to listen to her awful politics, but I’d had enough at that point. There’s lots more. She’s a racist and it comes out in her politics.

It's funny, my mother is very into politics and will talk about it at every opportunity. She's got very rigid ideas and anyone who thinks differently is awful or stupid. One of the more recent final straws was when I told her that I had seen a doctor privately (I'm chronically ill, my disease had flared up and I couldn't cope with the NHS wait time). She told me that people who use private healthcare are disgusting and ruining the NHS because it encourages the government to underfund it and what were people like my brother (also chronically ill) supposed to do when people like me closed down the NHS. It was just insane and a sharp reminder of why I can't tell her anything.

There are more and more things being said that are triggering memories of other issues or events. My mum isn’t very political but she did pull a face when I told her I was doing something at work in the positive action / anti racism space. She has mixed race grandchildren FFS.
On a separate issue, has anyone faced financial manipulation as an adult child? It’s hard to research because most articles are about children taking advantage of elderly parents or about outright theft by parents. This is more subtle as it means the adult children are being manipulated into paying for things or taking on financial commitments when the parent hasn’t disclosed that they are actually capable of doing this comfortably themselves.

@Allbymyshelf Yes! After my father left, my mother was still spending money like she still had access to his wages. She ran up a huge credit card bill in his name, thinking the court would make him pay it - they didn't, because as this was the late 80s he could prove that not only did he not ever have the physical card, but also that he wasn't in our home town when/where the card was used. That debt amount was knocked off her final divorce financial settlement.

She rented a flat that was expensive, spent a fortune on having carpets put down...all in all she ran through her divorce settlement in less than six months. Because 3 of my uncles never left the family home and were still supporting my grandmother financially at the time, my mother thought myself and my older brother would do the same for her...my older brother told her flat out he was sick of being used 'like an ATM' by her and as I was married with a huge mortgage at the time...even if myself and then husband could have afforded to help, there was no way my husband would have agreed to it - his mother had been getting up at 5am for 20 years to clean the local town hall. My mother hadn't had a paid job since having my older brother 24 years previously...

It took a good 5 years after the divorce for my mother to 'cut her cloth' as the saying goes. Even now though she makes barbed, bitchy comments about how my older brother and his ex wife were able to buy themselves a house each after their divorce...