My mother is 86 years old and lives in NJ with her 2 elderly sisters. She recently got a bad infection and fell during New Year’s Day. When she left the hospital after 5 days she was placed in a rehab facility to gain her strength back. She suffered from no broken bones, but she also has stage 4 cancer, and that’s where the infection came from: her port. They have removed the port and had her on strong antibiotics to clear up all the infection in her blood.
When my husband and I got there from SC (we drive 600 miles to and from total 1200 miles), the whole time I am there doing whatever I can for my mom — going shopping and getting everything she needs for the rehab — she is so nasty to me. She can’t stand my husband who is so nice to her and her sisters. She calls me all kinds of names and I tell her, "mom please come back to SC with us where you have your own house and me and my kids (her grandkids who are grown) can help take care of you."
My mom and her sisters want me to leave my husband (who I have been happily married to for over 30 years) and come up there and take care of her indefinitely. Nothing is wrong with her mouth or her heart. She said I was the last person on this earth she would live with.
I am so hurt by the way she talks to me and she acts so jealous of my relationship with my husband. When I try to call and talk to her she is so nasty. I told her I would take care of her if she moved to SC (which is also her home) because her sisters are unable to take care of her, but they won’t be honest with her and tell her the truth. I have been so upset and sick and tired of going back and forth up and down the road 7 times in 2024 and 1 time already in 2025. I told her I wasn’t coming back until she was ready to leave with us.
Please help me. This is so hard. I do love my mean mother, but it’s so heartbreaking to me. They even have a problem because my husband drives me there. He even asked my aunt what was the problem with him driving me. She said my mom was just jealous. They say awful things about us. but we continue to be nice to my mom and her 2 sisters anyway. But I am tired of putting my husband through this. Our entire marriage, every time I go around my mom and her sisters (before she even got sick), she has always been nasty to us.
Stop breaking your back and your cars by trying to wait on her hand and foot. LET. HER. FAIL.
And give your husband the respect he deserves but cutting this toxic, miserable and abusive woman out of his life too. He must be a saint to put up with this.
DO NOT EVER MOVE HER BY YOU.
I say this as someone who has been in therapy off and on since I was around 21– please do something good for yourself and find a trauma therapist to work out why you have no boundaries. Not only do you keep going back for more, you are insisting she move by you. Honestly, that is disturbing. Why would you make such a bad decision like that and do that to your sweet family?
You made vows to your husband, not her. You have your own family to take care of, so don't even consider bringing her to live near you!
That alone says how little they regard you. No family members who love you would even entertain the thought! Step back.
One thing I want to say, don't offer your children as caregivers. IMO, if there are children who can care or do for a parent, they should be doing it. But don't expect your kids to give their time helping or caring for a grandparent. They are in the beginning of their lives establishing jobs and families. Its nice if they are willing to help, just don't expect them to.
We have so many grandchildren who come her asking for help. Somehow, familty feels they are the good choice to care for a grandparent because the children have jobs and lives. In the meantime, the grandchild can't continue their schooling, get a job or have a relationship, its sad.
You don’t get to offer up your adult children into slavery because you are tired of unnecessarily driving up to see a cold hearted awful woman.
Leave her be and stop running up to NJ. Take her at her word.
These people do not have your best interest at heart if they want you to leave your husband to be their handmaiden.
Leave your mother where she is with her horrible sisters and go no contact. You owe this woman nothing. Stop making these trips and making yourself sick because of them.
Don't offer your children up to look after a mean grandmother. They will resent you for it.
Please do not bring this woman into your home. She will destroy it.
Go home to South Carolina and be happy with your husband and the family you’ve created there. You are far too good to be abused by your horrible mother.
Let her stay where she is as she wants . Let the sisters tell her she has to leave . Then Mom goes to a nursing home on palliative care for her stage 4 cancer .
You should not feel any guilt over this . You did not make your Mom old or sick .
Mom is not going to be nice no matter how much or how little you do . Your Mom is not going to change no matter what .
Your marriage comes first . And see a therapist to deal with how this abuse has effected you.
Another thing that I agree with is don't offer up your children's time to help your mom. If they want to help, ok, but it should be their choice. My bossy cousins tried to offer me up to help our childless aunt with dementia. They had it all planned out behind my back without even discussing it with me and I live out of state. I mean they wouldn't let up and it caused resentment on my part because I never volunteered for that or said ok. They were trying to get themselves off the hook by loading aunt on me. I can't stand them now to this day for thinking I had nothing else to do and that my life just wasn't important, so I should give it up to care for a stubborn aunt who balked at someone trying to help, anyway.
Go about your life. Stay away and let the chips fall. She's mean and nasty and it will continue to get worse. Don't move her in with you or near you and don't offer up your family to care for her. They will resent you, as I resent my cousins now.
Was she always? Or is this because she is ill, helpless and dying?
She seems not to like you.
She tells you that you are the "last person she could live with".
So let me ask you, is this NEW or was she always this way?
Did she always treat you this way?
Did she always treat your hubby this way?
To be honest I have very little use for connection by BLOOD and GENES. They are an accidental connection.
A good, kind, decent mother is a good, kind, and decent mother. And person. And deserving of love.
I would be out of there, and the LAST PERSON ON EARTH I would be inviting to MY home or even to the place nearby where I lived would be this woman.
This is a TOXIC FAMILY.
Are you willing to martyr yourself to them and to play victim to them?
And if you ARE, WHY? WHY? Because you share genetic material?
I would recommend going back home NOW. And going immediately to a good cognitive therapist. You are in grave danger of being the designated victim of every evil-doer out there is this is how you receive hate.
We have two chances at family.
The one we are born to and the one we make for ourselves.
I congratulate you on having one of the kindest and most patient husbands I have heard of in many a day. Looks like you have this part RIGHT. You have a loving and kind family. Go back to them, cling to them, shed your tears and let them help heal your broken heart, because when you get dealt a mom like your mom, it hurts and it hurts a lifetime. You set that hurt aside or let it teach you how to avoid hatred.
She has stage four cancer. She will die of it, and I am sure she is furious, because as a nurse I learned we die as we lived. When she DOES die, take in a deep breath, wish her well on her journey, and be happy she will finally be at peace.
My heart goes out to you and I wish I could give you a hug.
But I caution you, do NOT love evil-doers. They will take you down with them as they drown. They mean you no good.
However, I'm going to show you some tough love. You have a part to play in this too. Your mum couldn't be so mean to you if you didn't allow her to. If you keep prostrating yourself at her feet, she's going to keep walking all over you.
It's time to stand up. You're not a child, you don't need a mummy anymore - you have a loving husband. Also, it's time for you to mother yourself, to nurture yourself. Be there for the family you created, not the one you escaped.
If you do take your mum home with you, then you deserve everything you get.
Don't be foolish. Live your life and stop feeling guilty over something that's not your fault.
It seems perverse, but you will grieve for her once she's gone. If you can, try and get counselling to process your feelings. If you can't, then write things down, then look back a week later and notice how many of your feelings - guilt and loss especially - are irrational. Look at your anger and think about how to reframe it, so you can be at peace.
Be kind to yourself, and realise that you have become a better person and mum (I'm surmising from how caring you seem to be), not because of your mean-spirited mother, but in spite of her. You can't change that, so accept it. And move forward.
You and I can’t imagine not loving our children more than anything in the world. But some mothers simply went through the motions and do not want a relationship.
Your mother obviously has zero respect for you or your family or anyone’s feelings. Hard truth: She’s never going to be a lovey-dovey chummy mummy no matter how much you do for her. Those warm fuzzy feelings will never be earned. Never!
* I would get into therapy asap. You need to learn what is running you, psychologically and emotionally.
* Learn to love yourself and learn to set boundaries.
* As you say you ' love my mean mother' I wouldn't be surprised if you were in an abusive relationship as a child ... as many children 'do' attach to their abuser.
You manage your own mental health by staying away, setting boundaries and understanding why you are setting boundaries (self respect, self-protective).
Ask yourself why you 'continue to be nice' when this abuse is coming at you?
Yes, it is 'so hard' as you say.
You appear to desperately want a mother who cannot be there for you as a healthy, loving mother would be. You will not get this from her - or the rest of your family - you get it from inside yourself, and from your husband.
* Cease visiting.
* Cease expecting your mother to love you as you want to be loved (she can't).
* Get into therapy and learn to love yourself.
Self-love is a life-long process.
You have immense pain inside from not getting the love of a parent - likely not as a child - and certainly not now as your mom. (Many of us need to learn how to do this for our selves as we didn't what any child needs - positive, loving support).
I understand she has cancer. You can learn to feel deep compassion for her and not subject yourself to the pain she and others in your family are dishing out. You deserve more - better. The key here is that you need to know and believe that you deserve better.
I had to learn to be-come my own mother inside ... to give myself what my mother couldn't.
If you are psychologically minded, read:
1) R Schwartz book on Internal Family Systems and
2) Focusing by Ann Cornell (my favorites).
3) Watch Rick Hanson, Ph.D., neuro-phychologist and Buddhist scholar (Zoom Wed 6pm) ... sign up for his workshops on-line (excellent).
4) meditate
5) write in a journal.
6) Get into therapy.
7) Give a hug to your husband for me - and for you. He sounds like a wonderful partner to you-a very good person. Be grateful. Some of us do not have a supportive spouse / partner.
Gena / Touch Matters
The statement can be your own ‘counselor’, with no appointment or payment needed.
I did this after our house burned down, lots of insurance issues, with a print out that said "The worst outcome is not the most likely outcome'. Pinned up next to the computer, I read it out over and over again. It got into my soul.
"I am tired of putting my husband through this. Our entire marriage, every time I go around my mom and her sisters (before she even got sick), she has always been nasty to us."
I can imagine how your husband feels, after years and years of this treatment. My *former* MIL and her family were nasty to me, too. XH never stood up for me and it hurt terribly.
Also, your mother told you: you're the last person she'd ever live with. Believe her. Let her go.
It's heartbreaking, yes, but how much pain will you accept?
I am so very sorry.
Yes, she can and will say mean things to you and your husband. Accept that this will probably never change. She has lost her social filter and does not know how to have polite conversations any more. You should not let yourself get upset when she says things you know are not true. May I suggest you (and your sweetheart) read any of the boundary books by Townsend and Cloud about creating boundaries and plan for problem behaviors. They are Christian counsellors with good advice and established practice for just this type of situation.
Are you the one who has to make decisions regarding your mother's care? If so, then make sure that doctors, hospitals, etc. contact you when your mother needs medical treatment. Will you also be the one to deal with your mother's financial affairs? If both of these apply, then it might be a good idea to have mom's mental capacity evaluated by a doctor. If she is no longer mentally competent, then somebody (you?) needs to step in to take care of her needs and make good arrangements for her. If she is mentally competent then you need to step back and let her manage her own affairs.
Put your attention into your marriage, your own life, and kids.
Let mom fail. And she will. There really isn't much you can do to prevent it.
She and or her sisters will reach a point where there is an emergency that they can't handle on their own. That may be the turning point for her - to go into assisted living or some sort of care home - not to live with or near you!
You will soon regret it if she moves near you, or moves in with you!
All the stress and nastyness you are struggling with now, will be closer! And more frequent! It is not your job to take care of her, and she doesn't seem to want you doing so.
If you're struggling with the dysfunction of your relationship with your mother, see a therapist. You may never get the approval or kindness you want from her.
Don't spend the rest of your life agonizing over it. A good therapist can help you put things into a different perspective and let go of those negative feelings!
I brought in homecare for her and she knows that she makes it work with them or it will be a nursing home.
It took me a lot of therapy to get past the hard feelings, the guilt, and the fear. I know I will never have my mother's approval, so I no longer seek it. I know she's a very petty and jealous person. She will try to ruin and sabotage and has any special event or accomplishment I've ever had because of her pettiness and jealousy. So, I keep her at arm's length and my life is peaceful and happy because I do.
I’m sorry to say, but your mom is deliberately ugly to your husband because she knows that is the best way to hurt you.
I would LOVE it if you use this “extra” free time to go on beautiful dates and mini/mega-vacations with your wonderful husband—you BOTH deserve it!💕