How to resist one full month holiday with a narcissistic, emotionally immature mother?

Viridiana, your comment about Italy being ‘a different culture’ reminded me of a book I read about village life in medieval France, which might interest you. At the time researched for the book, the land was already divided, and it was not normally possible to build new houses or create new farms. The parents owned their house and used their assets to rule their children who wished to inherit. The average marriage age was surprisingly late (late 20s), and daughters or DILs were effectively servants until the elders died. Surplus children disappeared into the convent orphanage, with a surprisingly high death rate, or ended up as laborers on the Church land. These social structure expectations were stable, and have quite probably lasted longer than what originally created them.

The USA was different. There was an expanding population, new land being settled and new houses built. The bride’s expectations were that ‘you build me a house, all painted white’, not that I live in your parents’ house as an unpaid servant. While many migrants brought their ‘parents rule’ culture with them, it wasn’t so deeply entrenched.

That could explain why you hear more about the problems here than in Italy. Interesting?

Looks like you figured it all out. And great that she understands she may not see much of you.

My Aunt was first American her parents immigrated from north of Rome. Devout Catholics and lived in an neighborhood of Italians. So her Mom spoke Italian in home and at work. She lived with my Aunt inventually.

Say no, that holiday plan doesn’t work for me. Don't go.

Say yes, go on the shared holiday. Learn how to get along.

Go no contact.

Pick one.

PS I just saw your reply where a solution & compromise has been found. Good for you! Boundaries are hard work but worth it.

Enjoy the holiday. Know you have other options next time.

My dear unknown friends, let me thank you for all your answers and comments. It feels good to be for the very first time in the company of people who experienced similar issues, here is almost a taboo.
After your comments I thought and thought and then came up with one easy and harmless solution: we rented two small places and I invited her sister to be with her. So this means that she will have her place and her companion and I only have to spend some very little time with her while me and my husband are elsewhere. She was even happier with this solution and me and my husband also were relieved. Yes I have been in therapy and it has helped me enormously, I am confident I can overcome this situation with this solution. We will have friends coming over so she knows we will be busy and not being around her too much.
The residential home is not an option, here the best ones are extremely expensive, and the affordable ones are really horrible places.
Plus, I have reduced the holiday for her to two weeks.
We are emptying our house in order to rent it for the Jubilaeum year which will begin next year, and this will put some more distance.
Italy is (was, we have zero growth since 1993) a place where family is considered extremely important, so rather than putting her somewhere it would be much better for us to move and provide her with a help for the house.
I think I cannot plan it better than this.
You made me feel not alone and gave me useful advices and human support, I have never been so grateful to the technology that allowed me to talk and make exchanges with other people who were or are in similar situations.
I will keep you posted about how this strategy worked, but this time I am optimistic. And yes, I will organise myself to spend less and less time with her; she goes well with her younger sister and I feel really relieved.
Thank you so much for your support, I am sure that also here in Italy there are people with my same problem, but they don't talk about it openly and I have never found a discussion place like this, it is really a cultural taboo...
Love to all of you, this has been really comforting to me.
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Hopefully the OP is reading the comments, and will also answer the questions for more details which were asked. But if not, well hopefully all the responders are benefitting from reading this. It sure is helping me to reinforce topics and strategies.

Viridiana:
Just a whole BUNCH of folks have written you suggestions regarding your post to us.
Would love to know if you have further input, questions, thoughts.

I sure hope you will return to respond or to update us in future.

My heart breaks for you, Viridiana, and I empathize with you because I know exactly what you are experiencing with your narcissistic mother. I am married to a narcissistic husband and my greatest regret is that I stayed in the marriage and I did not run as far away from him as I possibly could. You wrote, “I wanted to make her happy with satisfying her wish.” A narcissist’s “wish” can never be satisfied because the only thing the narcissist cares about is having his/her needs and wants met at all times. A narcissist does not give a damn about your feelings, so do not go out of your way to make your mother feel happy because you cannot make her feel happy. You stated that your holiday will be “hell on earth”, so why are you taking your mother on this trip when you already know that she will ruin your holiday? No one can make a narcissist happy because the more you try to make them happy the more demanding and unappreciative they become.

You already know that your mother is going to ruin your holiday, so do not take her with you. I don’t know if you have respite care through your medical insurance in your country, so I am suggesting that you put your mother in respite care if your country has this coverage or pay someone to care for her while you and your husband go on your holiday. Do not sacrifice your happiness to try to make your mother happy because she will never appreciate the help you are giving to her.

Wishing you a happy holiday trip with your husband. Do not feel guilty about not taking your mother on your holiday as you do need this me-time for yourself and your husband. Enjoy.

Why would you even rent the place? You can't stand your mother and don't have a kind or decent word to say about her. No judgment from me because I totally understand where you're coming from. Why would you care about making her happy, though? Are you and your husband also paying for everything too?

I think you should cancel the vacation and lie to your mother about why. Tell her that an unexpected expense came up like your house has termites, and that you will have to cancel the vacation. Then you and your husband go on it without her. Like a second honeymoon. My friend, my houses have had "termites" many times. Also stomach flu and burst water pipes.

If you insist on taking her there has to be an exit plan in place. She needs to know up front that if she acts up in ANY way and you list every single thing you mentioned here, she will be packed up and brought home. Even if that means putting her on a flight if it's far. She leaves.

When I was married to my first husband, my in-laws rented a place at Cape Cod. They paid for everything and the plan was they were going to stay a week and let my husband and I stay on our own the rest of the time since we were newly married and didn't have a proper honeymoon.

My in-laws are such good people they even invited my mother to share their week for free. Their treat to her. They knew how she was because she ruined our wedding, but they still wanted to give her a chance because she was family then. Well, she started her crap on the car ride up. By I think around the second day my husband got so fed up with her instigating, snide comments, and her general a$$hole behavior that he put her in the car it was night time, drove the four hours or so back to Connecticut, dropped her off at home and drove back. That was our exit plan for her because we weren't about to let her ruin the vacation for us or my in-laws.

Have an exit plan ready for if your mother gets too obnoxious and send her a$$ home.

Have you considered "Grey Rock" as a technique?

Are you in therapy?

Why do you feel the need to satisfy her wish ? And why on earth for an entire month ?

I read where you say you can not go no contact . Ok well then ….

You can still set boundaries. You make sure your mother has what she needs.

A vacation is a WANT not a need. You do not have to vacation with her . My father in law tried that too , it was going to be horrible for my husband and I , so we said No.

I don’t understand why elders expect us to use our vacation time off from work to vacation with them . In my case if my husband and I had indulged my father in law with his request , it would have meant a walker, wheelchair , supplies to change a wound dressing on his foot , a pallet of Depends to go on a 10 day cruise plus the air travel before and after with a man who didn’t shower . It would not have been fair to the other vacationers trying to have a nice time

Your case is more the mental distress and abuse associated . I think a therapist would tell you not to do this trip for a month. You haven’t even gotten there and you are upset over it . We all have the option of saying no to travel with someone , and you don’t owe her any explanations. We told my father in law
“ It’s not possible “.

If it’s going to be a terrible a time for you , don’t do it. I think you should go to the rental without her. Hire a caregiver to check on her and bring her what she needs while you are gone .

You are not responsible for your mother’s happiness , nor are you her entertainment . Make sure she has a lot of choices on her TV . Hawaii 5-0 reruns have plenty of beach to look at on TV. She can order books , puzzles etc , whatever hobby she likes .

Stand up for yourself !!

“Mom, I have changed my mind. I am an adult, and I can do that. I have decided that I’m not able to take this vacation. I have also decided not to discuss it. Nor will my significant other Thank you for listening.”

How do you expect to get coping strategies to deal with a woman who's "stupid, lying, inappropriate, toxic; gives backhand compliments, and is so insincere that it makes me sick." Plus you can't stand her.

My dear woman, there is no way to cope with her, never mind cooping yourself up with her for a month! You can't go no contact, you said, but to do a complete 360 and force this togetherness for a month is ridiculous. Same as trying to make a person like this happy, which you already know is impossible.

Stop causing yourself such unnecessary grief and punishment, and ask yourself WHY you'd even consider doing such a thing, never mind seeing it thru? You know how this "holiday" is going to turn out, so call it off before more irreversible damage is done.

I went along with my in laws to their beach house twice. I ended up telling them before the second time that nothing personal but I couldn’t do family dinners every night with my own family and my vacation time was for me, too. FIL informed SO that he would not be paying my way unlike the rest of the family, so SO told his mom he would not be going either. I ended up having them crying at me to please go and we did get to eat away from them a couple times.

You say in your long profile that you are a sociologist.

I would suggest you seek out a cognitive therapist to help you work through your need to make someone you find toxic "happy".

It is a normal human protective response to separate ourselves from toxicity of any and all kinds. When we are failing to make the choice to protect ourselves and our loved ones from toxicity it is time to seek help before we allow ourselves irreparable injury.

I know that your professional training will have already taught you this, but it is often difficult, as you will also already know, to translate what we know intellectually into how we may be able to choose to break circular habitual behaviors that self-harm.

I wish you the best, but truly believe you need professional help.
A forum will give you much in terms of sympathy, but I would bet you already have that from everyone you share your story with.
What you really need is guidance on a path forward to change your ways of handling someone who I suspect does not have all the powers you are currently ascribing to her.

While your mom may be a person with severe limitations, she is made here to sound like the epitome of evil with a helpless struggling victim caught in her web.
You are not that. You're a grown woman, and a very well educated one, indeed, and you are responsible now for your own choices in life. Those choices include how much time you spend with your mother, and where you vacation/with whom.

A sign of healing will be the day you can protect yourself with gentle limitations and distancing.
I wish you luck.

I think you need to get therapy to find out why you did not walk away years ago. Your Mom, too, is a Narcissist and they never think they are never wrong. Why would you live above a woman who you can't stand. Plan a month away when you can't even stand to be around her for maybe a few minutes. I think you maybe hoping she changes or your looking for love that she is not able to give.

You never Care for your abusers. 79 is not old (I am 74 and DH is 77). Your Mom is lonely because of her. I would tell her you have changed your kind, you will not be going to the seaside because u can't be with her for a month. You just can't take thevabuse and negativity she dishes out. If she would like to go alone, she can go for a week or two on you.

If possible, you need to move. You should never had this arrangement. If you own this duplex, rent your apt out. Abused children need to step away from their abusers as soon as they can.

How to resist? Don’t schedule a vacation with her!

NO. Is a complete sentence.
It can be used at anytime you wish to express your desire to NOT do something you do not want to do, or have.
Example:
Your partner: "Do you want to go to the movies?"
You "NO."
Your friend: "Do you want some tea?"
You: "NO."
Mom: " I would love to go to the seaside, will you take me for the month?
You: "NO"
See the word is very useful.

Other than your mom's age and "depression" you do not give an indication as to why she needs you to take her, needs a caregiver.

Since the place has already been rented the only thing that I could suggest is that you and your husband make plans DAILY to be away from her. While you are getting away have a discussion as to how you can disentangle yourselves from her.
Bring a few GOOD LONG books and set aside a few hours each day and read.

If there are courses that you can take remotely that will help you in your job sign up for them, a few class hours where you can not be disturbed will do 2 things, will help you personally and it will keep mom at bay.
If you can cut the holiday back to a week, 2 weeks that might help.

If mom does not need help daily and is living with you and your husband give her a deadline to find a place of her own.

Honestly I do not know how or why you let this happen. If you dislike her so much WHY in heavens name would you book a MONTH holiday?

Well. honestly this entire plan makes no sense to me. You do not like the woman and you still want to please her and have set yourself up for failure by spending a month with her.

Doing this kind of thing will not make her happy, will not make her love you, one cannot buy either of these two things.

Might be time for you to get some counseling to learn how to set boundaries and stick to them.

“I have to spend a month with her”. No you don’t ‘have to’. You have chosen to. Why?

“Going no contact is not an option” because you live in the same building, one floor apart. You don’t have to do that either. Why have you chosen to?

You are “a sociologist working in the field of social exclusion”. You should have enough brains and enough relevant education to look at your own role in this. Perhaps you should see a counselor about your own issues in staying in a relationship that you think it toxic and is damaging you.

Just read your profile. I am very sorry that you are dealing with all of this.

It’s fairly obvious that you are at the end of your rope and just barely hanging on by a thread.

You have been through a lot, both emotionally and physically.

The stress of caring for your mother is wreaking havoc in your life. You say that you have been through cancer.

What are you doing to manage your anxiety and depression? I saw where you are taking meds, but other than that, how are you coping? Are you running on autopilot? Have you spoken to a therapist about any of this?

I am glad that you have a happy marriage. How does your spouse feel about you being involved in your mother’s care? Does your mom get along with your husband?

I understand that you don’t want to abandon your mom. Why not allow other people to care for her? If you desire, you can be her advocate.

You are 58. Your mom is 79. She could live for many more years. Does she have any major health issues? What’s her financial status?

Why are you traveling with her? Could she have hired a companion to travel along side of her so that you could have had a break?

I had Mom living with us too. It’s not easy and I empathize with you. She died in an end of life hospice care home at age 95.

You say that you don’t have support due to being an only child. News flash! Even people with siblings often don’t have support.

Look to others for support, a caregiver agency, a private caregiver, a nursing student who wishes to work for extra income, Council on Aging, etc.

The best option is to look into placement at a facility, so you can resume your life with your husband.

Has your professional life, working in sociology (social exclusion) influenced your decision in caring for your mom? Just curious.

Wishing you peace in this difficult time in your life.

Why do you want to make her happy if you can’t stand her? What you describe is a woman who won’t be happy no matter what you do.

You could cancel and let her go with some other people. Maybe you need to get “sick” and doctor says you can’t travel.