My family expects me (30F) to leave my family (and small child) indefinitely and move across county to care for my mother (66F), and I don’t know how to react. No expectations fall to my drug-addicted (36M) brother.

My mother is disabled due to a neurological illness. She was diagnosed in her late thirties and I remember her mostly as being sick and needing help. I used to really look up to her as super-mom who could overcome any obstacle. That was until my father died. My father passed over a decade ago while I was still in high school. My brother (36M) and I lived with my parents at the time. I got a job while in high school after he passed, cleaned the house, mowed the grass, bought food with money from my job, paid bills when I could (minimum wage isn’t much), and made dinner most nights for my mom and me. My brother was rarely in the home unless to sleep or because he wanted money.

Over the years, my brother has been in and out of prison dozens and dozens of times for everything from drunk driving to drug possession to stealing from our mother to assault. He is currently incarcerated. No one mentions him or expects anything of him, except my mother who, in violation of a court order for her own protection that she herself asked for, sends him money and speaks to him weekly as well as sends letters.

Back to my father’s death (a seven month bout with illness).

Nearly two years after my father passed. I graduated high school and left for college out of state. I would send my mom money while in college and I distinctly remember, for instance, using my stipend I received in December to buy my mother and brother Christmas gifts because I knew they wouldn’t have anything if I didn’t. No one reciprocated, but I didn’t expect it. Honestly, I didn’t care either until it became a pattern over the next decade. That particular Christmas, barely 18 years old, and I was scraping together pennies to buy a cheap fridge after I came home on winter break with gifts only to realize there was no food in the house. My brother, in a drug-fueled rage, tore down the Christmas tree I had bought and decorated and threatened to kill himself unless I gave him money because “no one loved him” and it would prove that I “cared.” It is important to note even at this time my mother continued to let my now-felon brother back into home.

I’ll try to skip through the college and graduate studies years but suffice it to say I met my now-husband and I spent less and less time at home. When I was home or when my husband and I visited, it was as follows: clean my mom’s home, buy my mom food, cook for my mom, take care of my mom. I was and remain very clear with my mother that I will not let my brother into my life as he has threatened to kill me (over prescription cough syrup!), thrown me down my stairs, and broken down a door to get at me (and the little bit of cash I had on me at the time). I have no doubt he would try to hurt my child, my husband, or me to get what he wants. He has told me he will find me and he “get me” for his perception that I have wronged him (for not giving him money), and I have ZERO contact with him. I have blocked all numbers that have any correlation to him including friends he has call from outside prison. Note: My mother let him get my number off her phone.

I have told me mother for years that I cannot have my brother in my life until he at least goes one year drug-free. To date, he’s been unable to do so. He has stolen tens of thousands of dollars from her. She always says she won’t let him back in her house, but she in the end forgives him and the cycle repeats. Next year, when he’s released again, she has told me under no uncertain terms that he won’t live with her but she admits she remains in contact, sends him money, and thinks this is “the Devil” in him that makes him a drug-addict. He will move back in.

I have offered to help my mom move closer to me as I live many states away. My husband and I even had a realtor come out and start the process of listing our home so we could find a home with space for my mom. My only condition was that she not bring my brother into my son’s life. She has adamantly refused same. She has also refused to look at assisted living facilities, even though I reached out on my own accord and found great recommendations from her doctors.

Now that she had surgery this week, I have had family come out of the woodwork. Honestly, I am resentful of this. I’ve had people who can’t even send me a reciprocal Christmas card tell me that I am “neglecting” my mother by refusing to take time off work and travel to her to take care of her. They do not care that I don’t have the vacation days and would likely lose my job. One even stated that “I wouldn’t care about putting groceries on my table. I wouldn’t work for an employer like that.” Easy words to say; tell that to my hungry toddler. They have said, “Who do you think cared for you as a baby?” and, honestly this one gets to me, “Sometimes you have to learn to deal with life. You can’t just ignore it.”—because “dealing with life” includes losing my job, moving away from my toddler in his formative years, and caring for my mother, I guess?

You can probably tell at this point that I am fed up. I am in a no win position where literally the ONLY surviving family members are telling me to leave my job, my family, my small child, to come care for my mom and help her. They also refuse to put a timeframe on this; it would be “as long as she needed.” I am expected to care for her 24/7, no questions asked. I also strongly feel like they are taking their own resentment at my mother asking them for favors out on me, though I have explained multiple times that I offered for her to stay with us and have the surgery here (at no cost to her, mind you) and she declined. They tell me in response she has a “right to be near her friends.” I have also tried to explain that by bending down to her every beck and call, they are enabling her, but they don’t want to hear it. They do not seem to hear me when I try to explain that, for example, helping her check out of physical therapy facility a week and a half before her doctor’s recommendation, is enabling her and in the long run, not good for her independence. She has grown accustomed to everyone doing everything for her (example, on this past visit, she got very upset with me for not taking her to Wal-Mart because she had to go there at nearly the toddler’s bedtime. This wasn’t an emergency. She wanted to “look around.”).

My mother in all of this mess has taken the position that although she doesn’t “want me to lose my job,” a good daughter should care for her mother. I honestly have a lot of animosity toward this proclamation because my mother has not, since before my father died, called me on my birthday; tried to establish any relationship with my son (I am always the one trying to get them to FaceTime or speak on the phone); and in the last twelve years, I can count on one hand the number of times she has called me just to check in on me or my son or ask how we are doing. If she does reach or and contact, there is always an ulterior motive (money for my brother or for her because she’s given my brother everything).

I am at my breaking point.

I can’t work full-time, care for my family, and also be expected to hear multiple times a week how I am a shitty person for refusing to abandon everything I have worked so hard for to care for my mother. Despite everything, I love my mom. My husband and his family have all seen this unfold and multiple people have remarked “Why do you even try anymore?” (meaning try to schedule calls to allow her to talk to / see my son). I invited her to my home earlier this month, scheduled the plane tickets, assistance though airport, etc., only to watch her play on her phone or spend time playing fetch with her dog rather than read a book to my toddler, who just wanted her attention.

Today, as if a final straw was needed, I called to check in on her and she proclaimed she was going home against doctor’s orders because her dog NEEDS her because the dog is sick. First of all, he has a very minor skin condition that is nearly 100% resolved thanks to her friend giving him the prescribed ointment. Secondly, my toddler got sick this week (meaning out of daycare for three days sick), and even after I told her of same, she never once called to check on him, just like she never called to check on him when he got the Flu last year, or when he had a mysterious week-and-a-half long illness earlier this year that resulted in four doctor’s appointments and a 104 degree temperature.

I can’t stand it anymore. I am literally writing this as a last resort. My husband is saying to go no contact with everyone (this is ALL the family I have left, except one aunt on my father’s side) because he sees me crying when the hurtful comments role in and the guilt trips. He sees me trying to hide it from my child. But then I feel like I am giving them what they want, right? Look at LittleMissPotatoe, such a crappy human being and so inept at “dealing with life,” she just chose to ignore all of us. But I can’t spend my days defending myself to extended family members I have seen in over a decade or, in some cases, over two decades.

Nothing I say is good enough. And nothing I say ever will be.

TL;DR: I have been told in no uncertain terms that I am a horrible person for refusing to abandon my husband and small child and move across county for care for my mother.

Submitted June 28, 2019 at 09:49PM by LittleMissPotatoe https://ift.tt/2YmklCw