Her husband is 17 years younger than her and has a well-paying job. She can drive and do things but wants me to come back to living with her. I lived with her when she was in her early 50s and then when she was 60. She would play the same game over and over. She says she is sick and dying and I will regret not being with her. Then when I move in with her. She just wants me to clean her house and cook for her husband who harasses me. He is not mentally well. He said he had a vision and that my kids belong to him and I belong to him too. He used to harass me since I was a teen. My mother knew but didn’t care. Now she is weaker and has pain but still travels to see her sisters out of the country. She criticizes me all the time. She wants me to apply for disability and go live with her. I have health issues too and if I give up everything to care for her and husband who will pay for my things. My older brother is in jail and my younger brother refuses to help her. I work minimum wage so I don’t have money to pay for help but she has two homes and her husband works.
Your intention to move in with your mom is likely to result in your being homeless, penniless and with a job history in the future. You are risking your own life to throw yourself onto the troubled life and family of your mother.
Your mother and her husband, or your mother without her husband should avail themselves of what support in the community as exists. This isn't your responsibility, and it sounds as though, with your current problems, enmeshing your own life issues with those of your mother and her husband's will create not a helpful situation but further drama and trauma and confusion.
I wish you the best. I have a theory that it is often best for family to live about 1,000 miles from other family. In many cases it saves everyone.
Again. You are now an adult. You are responsible to make good decisions now for YOUR OWN life.
Run away. Sometimes no family is better than our own family. Even better is a family that you choose yourself - good friends who love you, have your back, and treat you with dignity and respect. I'm sure you could find people like that to enhance your life. Cut off all ties with mom and her husband and take care of yourself. You deserve better.
Laughing in her face for 10 minutes is another great response.
My grandmother started saying she way dying in her late 50's and lived to be 86! We let ourselves be used like puppets on a string; the key word being "let". And that didn't even involve us moving in or being subject to a harassing husband. Stay away!
Obviously you have no intention of quitting your job to move in with her and her insane husband.
Do you know that you can't just get disability because you don't want to work anymore? They don't give it out for that reason. Her husband is not going to pay for you or your kids.
Since you don't mention having a husband, I'm going to assume that the father or fathers of your kids are not in the home because no one would be onboard with this kind of arrangement. What about your kids? You'd put them in such a situation with an insane person? Who would be supporting your kids or will they be expected to live in poverty and misery so you can be a care martyr for your mother?
Please do what Alva says in the comments and get yourself some counseling.
There is no way you should choose this dysfunctional situation over getting on with your own life.
But she CANNOT take your life away from you!
A healthy, normal parent/child dynamic is that the parent cares for the child and helps launch them into adulthood--providing as much HEALTHY support as they can.
When that 'natural' dynamic gets screwed up-as in your case, your mom wants you to put your life on hold and make her life YOUR life. Pretty much never works out unless all parties involved are capable of acting like adults. I've seen a lot of multi-generational families living quite harmoniously--and it's fine.
When it's NOT, it's awful.
My MIL EXPECTED her kids to put their lives on hold and take care of her first. My whole married life was that #1 priority was MIL, then the kids and I came in somewhere down the line. She'd call DH with some problem and he'd haul up to her house to fix whatever was currently broken. Meanwhile, I had a 'honey-do' list a mile long, b/c DH was busy doing for his mother.
This takes bravery that I hope you can find: Tell mom 'No'. And walk away if you have to. Don't stand in place and take the beating. NO. is a complete sentence.
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