My mother has always loved making everyone do everything for her. She never renewed her drivers license after her first child was born so my dad drove her to the grocery store every week, to all of our dr appointments, and any and all errands such as shopping and picking up burgers. My dad begged her to get her licenses renewed but she refused.
Years later when I turned 19, my dad passed and I was expected to drive my mom anywhere she needed to go from weekly grocery shopping , picking up her medications , dr appointments, bank , any birthday or xmas shopping , drive her to work in the morning before I started my job , sometimes pick her up from work ( Sonetimes she took the bus0.
I am now in my early 40s and I am still expected to be her driver at all times. She gets extremely angry if I say I can’t this week and I get the silent treatment and she tells my siblings I am mean etc . My mom Is perfectly able to drive herself. She has always been in good health etc. not disabled. There is no reason why she can’t do things for herself. One day she called me to help put a mattress cover on her bed and while I was there she made me hang up all her pictures and her shower curtain. Mind you. She isn’t disabled.
She doesn’t have any friends. She loves football. So she asked me and my other sis if we could watch the steelers game at restaurant that is a 45 min drive every Sunday. If we say no we can’t this weekend she gets angry and starts the guilt trip on how all she wants is to watch the game at the restaurant and she pouts.
She has actually called me or my sis to change light bulbs! When her tv went out I drove her to store to get new one and she made me do all of the hook up of cable etc ( she won’t even try to do anything on her own ). She just calls me or my sis and if we can’t she says things like “ if you girls can’t take me to my dr appointments I’m going to tell my dr I can’t make it bc none of my 3 girls will take me. I have even given her the number to the cities free rides that are offered to senior citizens that get them to the dr appointments and take them home and they also provide free rides to grocery stores. Her excuse to not use it is she doesn’t want to get in car with strangers or what if her dr runs late and the free service leaves her. She refuses to take the city bus bc she says she might get robbed. The bus system in this city is excellent! They run frequently and she gets a nice discount for being senior citizen.
Since she has always acted so helpless she hasn’t seen her grandkids unless one of her kids picks her up and drops her off etc. we are just to busy to do that all of the time. She has retired a few years ago. Still in great health where she can do things on her own but she refuses. Instead she expects her kids to take off work to drive her to her 100 errands like dr appointments, hair salon , grocery shopping , pick up her medications , . I have recently started resenting her and I am tired of being at her beck snd cslll when I have a full time job , have to go to my own dr appointments, I have been taking my cats to their appointments, having to take care of my house etc and I just got very angry a few weeks ago when I started feeling beyond fed up at the surprise of extta errands she throws upon me when I think I’m just taking her to grocery store. When I show up she also has me running her to the bank because she says it only take a min , then to Walgreens , then grocery shopping , then pick her up burgers because she is to tired to cook after all this running around. I end up spending 8-9 hours driving her everywhere. She never says thank you. I am ready to move to another state to get away from her
Refuse to do whatever. When the complaints start, say loudly ‘Mother you are a mean, lazy, manipulative bloodsucker, and I’m sick of it. Manage your own life by yourself, I’m done’. Then walk out. Chances are that no-one has said this before, and she will be flabbergasted. Make sure Sis knows what you are likely to do, so that when Mother phones her immediately, her response will be ‘Yes that’s all true’. Mother is not going to have a heart attack etc, and you are not going to hell. In fact you may well find it quite liberating! Follow it up with a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting where you lay out what you ARE prepared to do, then stick to it.
Let this suggestion rattle around in your head for a while. It’s a challenge, but if you can’t find a better way, there always this one!
Thank you JudyJ65.
You deserve a bravery medal.
Some folk seem to be facing fire-breathing dragons.. they can flee far away or fight with anger. Or try your way - to teach. Lead & re-train 🤺
Very long story short, my MIL has been chronically ignored by my FIL for the last half of their marriage. What that turned in to was an enmeshed relationship with my DH so that SOMEONE was paying attention to her. Always carting off to doctors appointments, taking her dog to the vet, picking up her compost and plants for her garden, etc. List goes on and on.
Things came to a head when my husband got his dream job and an unreasonable amount of HER things became overwhelming for US to take care of. We were barely able to get our daily needs met around the house and we’re just flat out exhausted from running two households.
We put our phones on silent and would check messages once or twice a day for true emergencies. Lightbulbs are not emergencies.
Moved her into a IL place that has transportation services readily available.
She is responsible for running her own life. If she needs something done, she needs to have at least made an attempt or two at problem solving how it needs to get handled and call the appropriate people.
We limit all visits to an hour or two and take her to lunch. We are reframing our relationship with her so that we are family members, not chore runners. We found that bookending all visits, she can’t throw a billion things on us while we’re there.
Hope something I’ve mentioned helps! It sounds like you’ve made excellent suggestions to/for her, just need to set those boundaries on your end. Which is so hard to do! Wishing you all the luck!
I don't jest. There are reasons some people move very far away from their families. Suffocation is one.
There a few shades of suffocating I've found...
The anxious Little Bird, too nervous to fly alone.
The Delicate Princess who is too dainty for 'work'.
The Dowager Queen who feels entitled to have her subjects so blessed in their low existence as to help her.
Anxiety meds & counselling may work for the birds. The other two can simply HIRE what help they need.
Please grab yourself a copy of the book Boundaries asap (by Cloud + Townsend).
Read it or download an audio version as you drive as far away as you can for a week.
Leave Mother a taxi number & local bus route brochure & GO.
It is up to you to say no, I cannot do that. Then hang up the phone.
She will carry on, but that is her problem not yours.
If you agree to take her grocery shopping be clear that is all you will do that day. Drive her to one store and once you are finished shopping drive her home. It does not matter that she wants to do 10 more things, you agreed to one and that is all you do.If you go to her house be clear as to how much time you will spend there and what projects you will do and which ones you will not do. When your time is up, you leave.
It was FINE with me, it was my JOB. It was known by her that all her personal errands had to be done on the days I worked, as her family all had big families and there just wasn't time in their busy days to come home and run mom to CVS to get a med she already had 100's of.
Calling me her 'personal assistant' made her feel pretty grand--perhaps that would work for mom.
Curious--how did she work FT if she won't take public transport or drives?
Its really going to be able to break old habits. But if u don't, this will get worse. She can get groceries delivered and same with prescriptions. Why does she have so many doctor visits. Are they really needed? My Moms PCP had her coming back every 2 months. Even had one of his nurses, family friend, ask why she was back. I said "I don't know but if he says 'why are we here today' it will only be if she is sick or needs refills. He asked and no more 2 month appts. Once Mom was stable with her specialists, it was every 6 months or a year with labs in between.
My SIL worked f/t and like u carted her Mom all over. She took her Mom shopping and ran errands after work. Her Mom would do the same thing ur Mom did. My SIL stopped that. Told her one stop only. Working a f/t job is enough for me in one day. When my Mom stopped driving, I set up one day a week for her. She went to the bank, shopped and ran her errands. And we may do lunch. If she forgot something and it wasn't important, it got done when I could get to it. And the passive-agressive has never worked for me. Just makes me not want to do it.
You CAN say no.
Repeat this out loud until YOU believe it:
“Mother, I can’t POSSIBLY do that. Here is what I CAN do:
Cheering you in from here!
Very often, it’s emotional blackmail and others attempting to control but we have to find the strength to break away.
You have “STARTED RESENTING HER”? It has taken you a few decades to get there? SAY NO.
Saying “no” is A LOT SIMPLER THAN MOVING. Don’t argue, practice saying it sweetly, gently, forcefully, PASSIONATELY.
Will she be mad? Sure. Say NO.
My grandmother lived alone in her apartment until she had a stroke at age 84. When she lived alone in her apartment she had her mind. She never drove. Her husband tried to teach her but she hit a tree. So she never drove again. She either walked or took a bus wherever she needed to go. She never relied on anyone to help her. She did everything herself. I forgot to mention my grandmother’s husband died when she was 70. So she lived alone on her own until she was 84.
There is a wonderful book called Boundaries by Townsend and Cloud. Please get hold of a copy and start putting some health boundaries into place.
You can love your mother without being her slave.
Is it anxiety behind this dependence do you think? Has she ever sought help for it?
Now is the time to say ENOUGH. You either stand up for yourselves as adults now or you move far enough away where you can no longer be her chauffeur, handyman and entertainment committee.
She either pulls on her big girl pants and gets a new license or she rides the big bad bus or calls an Uber, like the rest of the world does. Learn to say NO mom, I can't possibly do that. Set down some strong and unwavering boundaries where you see her once a week (or whatever) for X amount of time and agree to do X amount of things. Have it all set up in your mind and let HER know YOUR schedule. When she gets mad and throws a fit, oh well, she'll get over it. Or she won't and then you're REALLY off the hook! 🤣
Otherwise, you are a slave to her whims which change like the wind. She'll use and build on her arsenal of passive aggressive tricks and tools to guilt and shame you into doing all of the things she's perfectly capable of doing herself. She's just too lazy and hey, it's worked THIS long, so why fix what isn't broken (in her mind)?
Hopefully you and your sisters can present a united front to your mother now, while you still can. Force her to do for herself or by the time she gets really old, you'll be moving her into your home and waiting on her hand and foot, 24/7 as she reverts to being a baby again.....no joke. You can see these women coming a mile away. I have a mother like this myself and use tough love ALL THE TIME. It's a necessity. She's STILL blaming my father for giving her a miserable life.......and he died almost SIX YEARS ago!
Good luck....toughen up. You can do this!
The best thing to do would be to get together with your sisters and talk the whole thing through. If you just stop on your own, there will be pressure on your sisters and your relationship with them will suffer. You need a shared game plan.
You may be willing to do some jobs for your mother, or you may just stop! There will of course be a huge hissy fit, but if you have a joint game plan you will cope with it. It would help if you give your mother some phone numbers and websites for the things she will need to organise herself. That is a very responsible move for you all to make, you won’t just be walking out on her.
What you are doing is not ‘normal’, and don’t let your mother pretend it is. Most of the carers on this site are the same age as your mother, and are certainly not being cared for themselves.
My oldest brother did this too. He wrecked his vehicle. Then expected me to be his chauffeur all over creation. It becomes too much.
She has used not renewing her license to be able to control others.
Place Uber on her phone and show her how to use it if she is opposed to the bus.
If Uber is out than write the names and numbers of a couple of reputable cab companies for her to use.
Best wishes to you and your family.