Advice please. So confused regarding the relationship with my mom.

All I can say is to follow your heart. What do you want to do?

If you want to share your thoughts on this issue, we will gladly listen to you.

Is this a simple misunderstanding? Is she behaving completely out of character? Is she usually difficult to be around?

Sometimes, daughters clash with their moms. You are not alone if you and your mother aren’t compatible.

You are the only person who can make this decision on whether or not it is wise to see your mom.

Have you been at peace since your separation or has it been difficult not seeing her? Did you intend on never seeing your mother again or did you just need a break from her?

Use the answers to these questions as your guide for what to do.

You give no background as to what caused this estrangement to begin with? But she IS obviously reaching out to you by text, twice now, and it sounds like you DO want to see her. So why not go? Like my husband tells his adult kids who are always fighting with one another, "don't let the next time you talk to one another be at my funeral." Don't wait until your mother's funeral to see her. Unless she's done something unspeakable to you, why not see if making up is possible?

Good luck to you.

I think it may be possible that your mom will use needing a ride as an excuse to see you.

Like I really want to see crystal, so I'll ask her for a ride maybe that way I can see her.

You need to do whats good for you and only you, but it kinda does sound like she is reaching out.

No. Don't do it.
After an estrangement it is, if BOTH parties wish to resume the relationship (DO YOU?), proper to get together and discuss what lead to the breach, and whether or not that is apologized for and repaired and what the boundaries are for trying to reform SOME SORT of relationship.

You don't just pop in and ask to go to luncheon.

I can’t remember your old posts which say why you are estranged, but here goes:

You need to decide whether you want to be estranged or whether you would prefer to make up – a little bit, or totally. If you would prefer to be on reasonable terms, respond to your mother. She is making an effort. If you reject it, you may not get another one for a very long time.

You may prefer to ‘talk about issues’. She doesn’t, and you know it. It is genuinely hard to ‘talk about issues’ without bringing them back – especially if you are sure you were right and what you want is an apology. So decide what is most important to you – your relationship, or being right.

I’ve been through this recently. I was estranged from my daughter and the grandchildren for 8 years. I reached out to her with new information about a genetic medical problem I had handed down to her. I am very glad to be on good terms now, but we still haven’t talked about ‘what went wrong’. It’s too painful. Think carefully.

It really depends on estrangement.
Some could be overcome, some take long time and space.
If you really feel you want to talk or you both agree it will be good to talk, suggest some other venue and do not offer a ride. There is uber, taxis.

No, don't go. Deep down you know this is just her way of hoovering. Otherwise she would have reached out to go meet you somewhere else.
She will be in her element where there won't be any way to have a conversation and she will be on her best behavior in front of her peers.
Just let it go.
Happy Birthday to you!!

Be the better person and be kind. (Assuming) she is old enough to have memory issues and she may be very stubborn. I'm kindly telling you: your situation is not unique.
You will regret the times with her you may have missed.
So take her, enjoy the day.
And when it's done, tell her you enjoyed the time with her.
Ttomorrow is not guaranteed.
This is coming from a good place.
Best of luck!!!

How much contact do you want?
How much would feel safe for you?

Fishing for transport..? hmm Listen to your instincts here.

If providing transport takies you past your comfort zone, have some pre-planned replies ready to say no if you need to. Or at least build in some thinking time.

No, I can't do that.
I don't think I can, I'll have to check.

Noapologies. Just state what you WILL & what you WON'T do.

Do what will give you the most peace in the long run. None of us can know what that is, it’s in your heart and soul

It’s possible that your mother is indeed playing a game to get at you. If it's a game, the roles will probably swap again.

However it’s also possible that she didn’t really want to go into the AL, just went along with what you were pushing. The “beautiful AL with an ocean view” where you “decorated her apartment fit for a princess” might have seemed more about you than about her. That’s consistent with ““don’t pat yourself on the back”, however much it annoyed you. Perhaps brother is an evil tightwad, or perhaps he listened better. Anyway, given a chance, she walked out.

The issue is still whether you want to stay estranged from your mother, whatever her faults. It sounds as though she doesn't regret her choice, and you still resent it.

What really has me worried is that my mother will ask when I will come see her again. I’m not ready for that. I know my mother and she will get agitated if I say, maybe next month. Especially knowing I’m in town. When I cut my visits in half after what happened, she was so angry and nasty to me during those visits. Literally rolling her eyes when I’d walk in muttering things like, “oh look who decided to grace us with an appearance.”

What kind of relationship do you want?
If you want to build one that had eroded then you need to do some of the work yourself. That does not mean you do ALL the work. See what happens. If she is able to pitch in and make it work then you have lost nothing but gained a lot.
On the other hand if all she wants is a ride you will know that and take that for what it is worth and either continue to be estranged OR you can continue to try. (if that frustrates you, angers you, and puts you in a bad place mentally then you stop)
If you want no relationship at all then ignore the text, ignore the call to join her in her class.

What is your relationship with your brother? Just curious, it has little to do with your question. I am wondering why mom is intimidated by him and if that should be of concern

Crystal, you need to tell your mom the moment she acts ugly that you aren't going to be hanging out or visiting with ANYONE that tries to degrade and belittle you. So mom, you want to know when I will visit again and I want to know when you will treat me with the respect you would a complete stranger, who do you think will answer first? Because both questions are answered by actions and not words.

We teach people how to treat us and you have taught your mom that you now have boundaries, prove that by meeting her in the middle. Go to her party and if she gets ugly, leave, she can call a cab or ask one of her friends to give her a ride home. Then you know where things stand and can decide what you want for the future with her.

During your estragement did you have time to think this all through. Has Mom always been demanding and manipulative? If so, then you now need to set boundries. So she gets mad when you don't tell her exactly when u will be back. Its not in her life all the way or out of it all the way. There can be a mid ground if you set YOURSELF boundries. You live far enough away not to be able to be at her beck and call. Your brother wanted POA so now he has it and all the responsibility that goes with it. Mom needs something, he does it or pays someone to donit out of Moms money.

If you cannot set boundaries, then stay estranged. If you think that taking Mom to her luncheon will start something you can't handle, that she will expect more, than don't do it. I am sure she can find a ride.

See the word is EXPECT. Just because someone expects something out of us does not mean we have to do it. Thats their expectation not our obligation. So when Mom says "when are you coming back" just say "I am not really sure Mom". If she gets mad she gets mad. Your life does not belong to her. When u married, DH became your #1.

The first obvious point is that we are only hearing one side of this story. OP says bitterly “What it boils down to is you can’t do what you think is best for your parents. You have to do what they want”. Wow – is that a new thought? If they are legally competent, yes it does boil down to that.

Mom “mom wanted to stay home, watch tv, chain smoke, and wait for one of us to take her out”. Daughter “made it my full time job making sure she was taken care of like Queen Elizabeth”.

My own difficult daughter was heavily into ‘looking good’, and would probably also say that I have ‘plenty of money’ to do it. Her taste also probably runs to decorating “fit for a princess”, although I don’t think she goes quite so much on royalty. I’m probably not such a slag as M, and I don’t smoke, but I can relate to not being impressed with some of this. Perhaps it’s understandable that M turned, “after everything I had done”. And we don’t know what snarky comments OP made to M, just what M said to her.

The second obvious point is that OP says “I feel so torn…. I don't know what to do”. Overwhelming support to walk away because it’s all manipulative M’s fault doesn’t really help. Estrangement is not a lot of fun, and I can assure you that it doesn’t get better after several years.

Baby steps might help here. Even a quick ‘thank you’ for the birthday greetings might have been appropriate?

PS The classic book on psych games is “The Games People Play” by Eric Berne, which by co-incidence I just unpacked and read again. It’s not quite the same line as the pop song that was based on it and also called “The Games People Play”, but it remains an interesting read.

I still have not responded to her. I’m just worried that she will be snarky, which will probably make it my last visit. This terrifies me.

She never needed anything from her kids, except to visit and call. She was ecstatic when I would come into town and visit her every day for a week straight. I drastically cut my visits after I received the certified mail POA revocation. She thought I was being overly sensitive for being so upset. “ Oh honey, stop worrying about this. When are you coming over to see me?”

I do not speak to my brothers anymore. After what happened they would make snarky greetings like, “Hello princess”. They also stopped helping my son(their only nephew) out when he needed them. My son was not involved in any of this drama.

Crystal, could you perhaps just accept that your mother is not the type of mother you would have chosen, if there was a choice? Perhaps you aren’t the type of daughter she would have chosen, too?

Your mother has a right to choose who she provides with a Power of Attorney, and to change it. “I drastically cut my visits after I received the certified mail POA revocation. She thought I was being overly sensitive for being so upset”. You cannot control her rights about this, and ‘drastically cutting your visits’ really was over the top. She was allowed to decide that her son was more in tune with what she wanted, and from what you say it is indeed the case.

If your brothers call you ‘princess’, you may have made your royalty tendencies clear throughout the family. There is an old joke about the mother who watches the march and says “They’re all out of step except our Johnny”. The rest of the family may be marching to a different drummer.

If you want to be on pleasant terms with your mother, you need first to change your own feelings about all this. At least think about it.
Best wishes at a difficult time, Margaret

Family dynamics can become very complex. Mothers and daughters and fathers and sons…throw siblings in the mix and it’s a mess at times!

My husband always had a complicated relationship with his father. It became better after my husband moved out of the house to attend his university.

His dad was kind to me. I was very close to my mother in law. She was a lovely woman.

Then, when my mother in law became sick with non Hodgkin’s lymphoma we saw a change in him, sadly for the worst.

He simply couldn’t deal with my mother in law’s illness and had an affair while his wife was going through chemotherapy. It was awful.

He started treating the entire family horribly due to his inability to cope.

After my mother in law died he moved this woman into his home a couple of weeks after my mother in law died.

He wanted to marry her. She had no intention of marrying him. She wanted to leave her money from her first husband to her children. She didn’t want to do a prenup. She said that my father in law had enough money to pay for everything.

We had no objection to him finding love again but the timing stunk. He instructed all of us to never speak about my mother in law, so we weren’t able to grieve as a family.

The new woman didn’t allow us to have a chance to get to know her. She wanted to become a mother to us and a grandmother to our daughter. She was a stranger to us.

My oldest daughter was extremely close to my mother in law and missed her terribly. She was close to my father in law as well.

None of us knew anything about this new woman, other than she knew my father in law when she was young and went to the same university as my father in law.

I became pregnant with our youngest daughter. My father in law and his lady friend did come to the hospital to see her.

Then the woman insisted that my father in law had no contact with us or she would leave him.

She basically emotionally blackmailed my father in law when he was vulnerable. She knew that he didn’t want to be alone.

She saw us as a threat to her when we only wanted time to grieve our loss and have the chance to get to know this new woman. She was upset because we didn’t accept her immediately. She felt rejected.

My father in law told us that he didn’t want to be alone, so he threw his son, grandchildren and me away like yesterday’s garbage.

She talked him into moving several states away. My kids didn’t understand why their grandpa abandoned them. My youngest daughter doesn’t even remember her grandpa.

My husband felt like his dad went off the deep end and said that my dad was more of a dad to him than his own dad.

After his lady friend died at age 96 and he was 98, he moved back to Louisiana. He called my husband and said that he missed him and asked if he could visit him in his assisted living facility.

My husband wasn’t sure how he felt. Our daughters and I told him that we supported his decision no matter what he decided. Well, Covid hit and they weren’t allowing visitors. He told his dad that he loved him and that was that. My father in law died during Covid.

No one can predict what will happen in their future. Everyone handles difficult circumstances differently. Nevertheless, it’s sad, it’s frustrating and it’s challenging.

As Alva always says, “Not everything can be fixed!” There is a book that she often recommends. I wish I could remember the title and author.

Beatty, this is in reply to your last post about “the swoop into the house, see the situation was not OK, Mom couldn't self-care ...transfer to AL”. You say “Seen as a rescue? Or interfering? Depends on your viewpoint”.

My 'viewpoint' is that immediately after F’s death is the time to help, not the time to ‘swoop’. If the answer is a “transfer to AL”, M was actually capable of self-care with the limited help provided by AL. Other options were possible.

We have many posts from parents who want to control their children. This one comes across to me as a daughter who would like to control her mother. OP's intentions may be fine, but they are not appreciated at all, and this is very upsetting for OP. OP wants to talk about it - but perhaps mostly wants to push her point some more and get an apology. Surely M's feelings are clear by now?

There is a site for parents who have been rejected by children, rejectedparents.net Some of the parents have been rejected because they didn't live up to the status that their children expected - and the author of the book it's founded on had the same experience when her son 'married above him'. It’s not really the point here, but it might be interesting for OP to look at.

I think, rereading all the posts in response and all of the responses of you, Crystals, that you have a whole lot of knowledge of this entire situation, and of how it all happened.

Games get played in life a lot. And the fact is that, unless it's solitaire, it takes two. When one backs away from the table the game is over. UNLESS they RETURN.
You see, SOME, even unbeknownst to themselves, enjoy the games, the drama, the stories.
I prefer to read those in my novels. Currently David Vann's marvelous Caribou Island is all I can do of marital and familial angst (someone's gonna get a arrow through the heart here, unless I am wrong).

You can begin to communicate openly and honestly with your mother about what circumstances will lead you to be able to have a communication together (I suggest honest and open discussions with cards face up).
OR
You can do what I had to do with one of my daughter after we BOTH tried over and over for years and found that communication was too painful, fruitless and destructive for us both. You can withdraw from further communication. Handle business if there is any (for instance my daughter is heir on some of my accounts and should be updated yearly on their whereabouts; banks do not notify PODs.)
So it is short, sweet, polite accounting. As Dr Laura says, "Just be polite and move on".
For myself and my daughter I truly believe she is happier without me in her life; I hope so. But ultimately I cannot have her in mine for my own well being. I am at perfect peace with that.

This is a personal choice.
We are all grownups here. We make our decisions and we are responsible for the consequences of those decisions.

Our stories are ALL long stories. No Forum can know the ins and outs of your relationship with your Mom, nor do we know either of you. These cases are almost never a case of right and wrong. As your responses show they are FULL of complexities. Your responses prove that. And they prove you ARE responsive and intelligent.
I trust you completely to make your own decision here, and move on with your life, which will continue to be full of both good times and bad, because that's the way of it.