Background: I'm currently living at home working part time for six months before returning to grad school in the fall.
This whole ordeal started because my mom's car was on the fritz. She asked to borrow mine that day to get to/from work while she was having it towed/looked at. I said yes, and she proceeded to ask me the next three days to do the same. It was very inconvenient and she could have been a lot more respectful of me and my time (once asked at 11:30pm when I was already sleeping over at my bf's and she needed to leave at 6 am -__-) but whatever it's my mom.
However, four days after this all began, at 10:30pm, I get a text from her stating:
It is with great sympathy that I must report that your car is dead. It died earlier and I have been trying to revive it since 2:30 ish. It will be towed to (AUTO SHOP) later. I was planning on renting a car until mine is fixed. You can take it in the morning. I don't know what will happen after that.
As it turns out, my mom used my car (Prius) to jump my sister's [28F] car, and then my car died. They spent the whole day trying to get it revived behind my back (hoping they could fix it and tell me about it later).
While I don't know much about cars, I know that I would never have tried using my Prius to jump another car because it runs differently. More importantly, I never would've taken liberties like that with someone else's car they were letting me borrow without at least contacting them first. I would not have approved this had they asked me first.
Surprise surprise we later learn from the auto shop that you should never use a Prius in that way, and that repairs are going to cost an amount neither I nor my family can afford. Aka I'm most likely out of a car. Which stunts my ability to work part time. And I have to find different housing for grad school. Not to mention the death of my social life these next couple months... :(
I have a lot of building up feelings of resentment towards my mom about the entire situation. I'm angry that she felt so overly comfortable when borrowing my car that she 1) assumed I'd be able to drop everything and let her use it whenever 2) did not contact me before attempting to use my car to jump my sister's car 3) did not feel the need to tell me in the moment that my car had died, only when she knew there was no getting out of telling me and 4) she never really apologized or took responsibility -- using language like "your car died" vs. "I killed your car". I can't help but speculate that the attempts to revive the car after the fact also made it worse, which makes me even angrier that she didn't at least tell me at 2:30pm that my car was dead.
Obviously my mom didn't kill the car on purpose. Plus, I'm staying at her home rent-free for 6 months, and while I know she enjoys having me here, I know is not something to take for granted. If this were ANYONE ELSE this would be a different story. I have what I feel are justifiable feelings of rage, distrust, and disappointment, but I don't know how to let those out when it's my mom. I don't want to just let the resentment bottle up, but I also know it won't go away on its own.
Am I being reasonable faulting her for this? Am I allowed to demand an apology? Should I not try to be angry with her because she's my mom? Am I allowed to ask she put for the effort and resources into finding me a new car? Do I have to just suck this up and move on? I think I'm just grasping for some feelings of control over this situation because at this point I've had none, but I'd appreciate any and all advice so I can stop alternating between seething and crying to move on 🙃
tl;dr: My mom was borrowing my car and used it behind my back in a way I wouldn't have approved of, which led to it being essentially totaled. I'm absolutely furious, but know it was an accident and don't know how to proceed.
Submitted April 25, 2019 at 12:24PM by wrongqueenmama http://bit.ly/2UHuqav
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