In a family who has left me out of the loop for years, now what is my responsibility?

Palmtrees1 it sounds like your brother is nothing but a control freak and expects to also control you when it comes to you and your mother. I am glad you stood up to him and said no about the visit to Florida. Only you can decide what responsibilities, if any, you will have with your mother, but make sure your brother is not involved. It takes courage to stand up to bullies like your brother! Stay strong and keep telling your brother off. You will see his demands become less and less.

Palm Your answer was not harsh, I see your point of view. I am sorry, if I hurt you. That wasn't my intention. I was refering to the advice if taken, would make you the sibling we all hate, not that you are. If it helps, I take care of my Dad 24/7, a 92 year old with stage 4 parkinson's. My brother has all the power, medical, poa etc. I don't let it bother me. Dad is fully competent, so the control problem doesn't come up. Dad gets what dad wants. If my brother did fight me, I would listen, then dump it all in his lap. He wouldn't last a day. I must add I have an excellent therapist, any landmine is discussed, and his advice followed to the letter. He is a godsend.

Has there been any discussion of your Mom's long term care, assisted living, etc. What are your Mom's wishes? Taking care of someone with a mental disorder is best left to professionals. Have you sat down with your brother, and discussed your Mom's care? Does he understand your boundaries, and what you are able to give?

Eddie always gives excellent advice. Can you protect yourself, but give with love? Even if it hurts you, in the end you come out stronger, more resilient.

Kathy1 thank you for your kind answer. I am so glad I asked this question.

As for having a family meeting, that is never happening. My brother has known all the details of my parents financial situation for years. He was named executor of the will and POA twenty plus years ago. I had no idea.

When Dad became ill 6 years ago and was hospitalized, I asked my brother if my parents had enough money to have in home care or place him in nursing care if he should need such. My brother told me yes they did, they had plenty of money. However, they always told my brother and I they didn't have any money. So I said, because I was so surprised, "well what do they have" and he told me, "I know, but I can't tell you. Because that is what mom and dad asked me to do." I fell apart. I realized there were many secrets and I was totally left out.

Dad passed away and never came out of the hospital. So I gave it some time before I asked her about the lies she had been spreading about me. It was so surreal. She lied to me, yelled at me, then told me not to bring it up again. From that day forward I was the enemy.

So, back to my original question, what do I owe these ungrateful people? And what is reasonable to expect from anyone who has been treated so poorly.

palmtrees1, I don't think you owe them anything. I recommend going No or Very Low Contact with them just to protect yourself from the backlash. Work on a strategy to deal with the guilt or anger feelings that will crop up from time to time. (Advice I should follow myself!) Other than that, let the chips fall where they may.

What do you owe these people?

Peter Cook & Dudley Moore said it all: download a decent recording (it's on iTunes) of "Goodbye-ee." Learn the words. Enjoy.

Even if you don't apply it you can think it..!

I once saw Peter Cook in Hampstead. I was driving up Rosslyn Hill having picked up my three kids from school, and I stopped at a pedestrian crossing, and he went past the hood of my car and waved thanks at me and SMILED, and I said "ohmyGodit'sPeterCook!"

And my children chorused: "who's Peter Cook?" That was when I realised they were changelings and I couldn't possibly be the mother.

Find some way to lighten your heart. None of this is your fault xxx

Hi, we've been shut out of my husbands family for years being constantly criticised and not being given important information like when a cousin or great grandmother has cancer or if someone's in hospital or has died. My MIL is blaming me for her mental health problems and recent suicide attempt. My FIL has his head in the sand in that "whatever makes life easier for me" kind of way. The one thing that I've learned is that I need to come to terms with the fact that these people who I once called my family don't love me. In fact they dislike me so much that they want to hurt me, my husband (their son) and our kids. It's emotional abuse and sadly in our case my MIL has put our children in physical danger as well. The potential for physical harm has been a really big lesson that the most important thing is to protect ourselves and our family. It's not easy as, like you we still feel the need to maintain a relationship with our kids grandparents so at the moment walking away isn't an option. I've cried and cried over what I feel we've lost but I know when I'm sad and angry I'm not the best version of myself - and my husband feels awful about the pain his family has caused, feels like he's in the middle if something he can't help and in the end just gets sad and angry himself - which is exactly how emotional abuse is designed to bring you down. So we've decided that our family is defined by love and is made up of the people who love us. My MIL and FIL are not in our "circle of trust"!! (have you seen that DeNiro/Stilla film?) In order to satisfy whatever crazy/self mutilating need it is we have to maintain contact with our kids grandparents we schedule supervised visits with our kids on our terms. We control when, where and for how long and these things are organised in advance. The triage psych nurse at the hospital told us that the only way to deal with her is to be completely transparent. So when she says or does something that's harmful we call it as best we can. Sometimes we say it to her directly, other times we debrief the kids (and ourselves!) Most of the time now we talk about nothing when we're with her (weather, garden, kids school, what's for dinner) and when she starts complaining or saying things that are inappropriate or getting personal we try to change the subject. We have learned to never engage her or argue. We say things like "I don't think that's appropriate/very nice etc" or "I don't want to talk about that" or "I don't think that's true" or we correct her intent - "no, my son didn't break the toy, it's from a 2nd hand store and had a wheel missing when you gave it to him" or "no, my daughter did not lose the necklace you just gave her, it was a cheap plastic toy that broke and fell off her neck when she walked between your house and the car." We find we're constantly correcting her perception of events. The kids are getting older and are starting to think she's mean so we have a plan to deal with ghe inevitable questions - when the time comes we've decided that my MIL will be explained as having a disability that causes her behaviour. I put my feelings and all of the awful things she says and does in a journal and put them away on a shelf so I can stop having them go around and around in my head and I talk to a counsellor when I find I'm obsessing about it again. I find meditation helps (I use Ian Gawler's CD Meditation Pure & Simple for mind and body calming techniques), as does doing things like making a juice and cooking stupidly healthy meals - maybe I'm tranferring my obsessions, who knows! Whatever works to make me feel positive really.. I try to do something I enjoy every day too in the hope that the day balances out to be a good one. Not being loved and not having the respect of your family is a huge thing to come to terms with. It's not the way things are supposed to be. I feel like for me it will be a life-long journey. I really feel for you and my advice is look after yourself - your body and your mind. If you feel some responsibility for your mum or worry about her being alone, schedule regular visits and do her ironing/bake a cake/make a meal for the freezer - do something while you're there and take some control over what what you'd like to do, what kind of relationship you have and what you'd like to be able to look back on 20 years from now. Try not to worry too much about what your brother says and if want to see him invite him over to your mum's for a cup of tea and some the cake you made. Keep what you do positive but make sure you do it for yourself, you can't expect them to change. If you find yourself obsessing about things that might happen in the future make a plan to deal with them when they happen so you don't have to worry. Make a space for your mother and brother somewhere outside your head and heart - write everything on scraps of paper and keep them in a box under your bed or in a journal on a shelf, take them out when you need to then try to put them away and go back to building a life where what they say and do is less important to you than how you feel about yourself and the people who love and care for you. I wish you all the best.

I just read your last post and want to say that you don't owe anyone anything. Be kind to yourself and do what fulfills your needs - whether that is trying to maintain a some kind of relationship or walking away is something only you can answer. Again, I wish you all the best.