TL;DR my disabled mother is living in poor conditions, and my mentally ill stepfather does not contribute to any housework and verbally/physically abuses my mom. I don't know what to do.
My [31 M] mother [56 F] has been on disability since 2017 and has a number of health problems including rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, has precancerous cells in her stomach, has survived spinal meningitis, and just basically lives with chronic pain. Because of this, she’s not able to do much around the house, be on her feet for very long periods of time, or drive. I live about five hours away from her so it’s difficult for me to help with anything aside from calling every week and trying to visit for important holidays.
I know she values my weekly phone calls, and usually we just catch up about what TV she’s watching, or the state of politics, or how her dogs are doing, but every so often she hints at and sometimes blatantly shares about how her husband [56 M] / my stepfather treats her.
They do not share a room and haven’t for years. Since 2010, there has been little to no love between them. They’ve been married since 2002 (it will be 20 years this year). They do not have any common interests. For example, my mom is very into political news and is a democrat, and my stepfather doesn’t like politics, but watches OAN News and hangs out with Trump-supporting republicans that talked about wanting to have participated in the January 6th insurrection on the Capitol. This is just one example, but when it comes to disagreements she might have with him, she just chooses to stay quiet because it’s easier to just not argue.
My stepfather was adopted when he was an infant, and was made to feel not wanted in his adopted family for most of his life. When his adopted mother passed away, she did not leave him anything. When she was alive, she would belittle him and any of his accomplishments. I remember him pulling a gun on my mother and I when I was in high school and we went to live in a hotel for a few days while he calmed down. When my brother was in middle school, he choked him in a Wal-Mart, which caused him to leave and move in with my dad. He lost his job pouring concrete in December 2020 because he was caught stealing gas (something he’d been doing for years while working there).
I don’t like to visit because the whole situation fills me with absolute sadness. The home where I spent most of my formative years is in shambles. Projects that were started years ago are still unfinished, my stepfather’s laundry, dishes, and mail is piled up everywhere. Stains on the floor that I will have seen when I visited six months ago are still there. All my mother and I do when I visit is sit on her bed and watch movies, which she always falls asleep during. Lately, I’ve just been booking different AirBNB’s and picking up my mom and giving her a little vacation from all of it.
My mother has described my stepfather setting down an empty bowl of cereal directly onto the kitchen floor and telling her to clean it up if she doesn’t like that there’s dishes piled up. She’s mentioned that he’s pulled on one of her dogs by their neck, and then my mom had to bite his hand to get him to let go. She’s tripped on an article of his clothing and broke her wrist which is really dangerous for people with my mother’s conditions. He’s thrown a remote control at her face bruising her eye, and he’s threatened to give her more black eyes.
Anytime my stepfather and I cross paths when I’m visiting, he looks unwashed, wears dirty clothes, and seems either drunk or on drugs, having not slept all night, or is sleeping all day. I try to stay amiable because that’s what I’ve always done, and I’m afraid to confront him about all of this because I worry about how he’ll react. I’ve put it to her plainly that this is abuse, that it needs to be documented and reported, and that there is nothing left worth salvaging in this relationship. After the last incident (December 2021) she said that she will threaten him with seeing a psychiatrist, or she will leave. This question of “leaving” has been brought up with everyone in my family and no one understands how she is still with him. One of my dreams is being able to save up enough money to buy a house with an extra room for her and getting her out.
At this point, I’m at a loss for what steps I can or should make. I do think that my mom needs someone else other than me to talk about this because I’m beginning to reach my own emotional capacity, and I don’t want to lose my mom. I think I just need some realistic advice from those who have gone through something like this. I don’t like that my mom lives like this, but I feel powerless to help.
Submitted January 11, 2022 at 02:00PM by No_Bat4607 https://ift.tt/3qgMr2w
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