My mom is turning away our family for a holiday stay at home

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  • LisforLeslie
    May 27, 2022 at 9:36 am #1109900

    Tell your brother and your mother that you’re done. You tried to help and got nothing but grief from your mother. Your mother is acting foolish and your brother understandably feels rejected – because your mom is rejecting his family.

    Your mom is angry or ashamed about something and she’s taking it out on you. Maybe she wanted your brother to come and fix the place up and he won’t be able to because his wife and child will be there. Maybe she wanted to ask him for money to help and she thinks his wife will influence his decision (which she will and is totally normal).

    She’s going to run out of kids to insult if she keeps up with this.

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    May 27, 2022 at 9:42 am #1109901

    Your SIL is right. Your mom and brother should talk. Not you. No, don’t tell your mom what you brother said. This needs to be between the two of them and that’s it.

    In the future, don’t try to help by managing communications. Let people deal with it on their own.

    Helping your mom look up things on the internet = OK!
    Messaging someone else about what you’re doing = NOT OK

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    PassingBy
    May 27, 2022 at 10:18 am #1109902

    If your mother and brother don’t have the technical know-how to communicate, that’s their problem to solve not yours.

    You can tell both of them that they can talk to each other about it, and step away. Whether they can figure out how to do that is for them to figure out not you.

    Does the situation suck? Yes.
    Can you fix it. No.

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    MillieMouse
    May 27, 2022 at 11:28 am #1109903

    I got a message about hour and half ago from my brother

    ‘he ___, we aren’t coming to ___, we didn’t realize it was going to be so upsetting for everyone. ____ and ___ are so disappointed’.

    Talk about disappointed. My heart is breaking.

    I was delighted to welcome them home. I got caught in between my mom’s feelings.

    I rang him and he was absolutely raging down the phone to me. Absolutely raging.

    I was going to move this earth to have them home.

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    CanadaGoose
    May 27, 2022 at 12:51 pm #1109904

    Two things come to mind reading this:
    1. If your mother’s personality has seemed to change dramatically from what has been normal to date, perhaps she is in the early stages of dementia. I think that is unlikely as she is only 69 and that really is not very old at all.

    2. She may be sick of people living off her and in her space. At nearly 70, she still has one adult child in her home who is not capable of supporting themselves. Until recently, she had two. She may not want an additional 3 people in her house for nearly a whole summer. It will change the dynamic, the noise level and create more work for her. One adult child coming is very different from another whole family squeezing into her home. Frankly, the entitlement you all exhibit to put yourselves up in her home, largely free, is a bit much. Maybe your mother just wants to be on her own for awhile. She deserves that and to control who lives in her house. She may love visits with you all but not homestay guests or lodgers. Instead of being offended, it might be nice if you collectively tried to see this from her point of view. It feels like a lot of taking and not a lot of supporting your mom and her needs. Why don’t you ask her if this is the case? I adore my kids but I sure don’t want to house them forever and could see myself getting really frustrated in her position and that having nothing to do with my son’s partner. There is a point at which adults need to stand on their own two feet and she may want time on her own before she is truly old and can’t be independent anymore. Her outburst may be bubbled over frustration at years of never-ending imposition.

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    MillieMouse
    May 30, 2022 at 7:02 am #1109934

    All of this fell down. My brother took offence and felt he and his family wasn’t wanted. I very much wanted them at home. I was caught in the middle at home with our mother who had different feelings on it.

    I reassured him and his partner that both them and their daughter are always wanted and welcomed at home. I wrote that right now mom has some difficulties. She is afraid of the home not being suitable and good enough and right now she can’t envision one of her sons childhood bedroom turned into a guestroom. His plans have changed now anyways and he’s not coming home. They are going somewhere else. I am heartbroken because this time was going to be so precious.

    My mom is still being stubborn and vicious about it all. I was talking to her and I said what if his plans were to change again and a balance was found in that he could do 3 weeks holidays at home instead and the spare room will be done.
    Mom barked at me – If they wanted to come here I will buy them a caravan and they can stay out the back. There’s a spare room in the house and it’s large enough for all 3 of them if they still wanted and I am still working at chores that need to be suitable. The room will be suitable if their plans were to change again.

    I’m having massive difficulty trying to understand our mother. Our family live across the world and we never see each other because of distance and she’s like this. She can’t even tolerate the idea of a 1/2/3 week stay if they changed their minds and wanted that. What woman doesn’t want to spend time with their one and only grandchild?

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    MillieMouse
    May 30, 2022 at 7:05 am #1109935

    Also, another update – my mother is still hoping to salvage this by sourcing a caravan and getting me to do her work and contacting the brother to offer that to him. I’m putting my foot down now at this stage with her and no more. She can fix this if she wants picking up the phone and talking to him. Not getting me to go in between.

    She got me to email a caravan park but I’m going to lie and say there’s no response. I don’t have a response from my email anyways but I will continue to lie because it’s not the right point of action.

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    May 30, 2022 at 7:23 am #1109937

    I can totally understand not wanting to host three people for six weeks. You’re acting like it’s nothing, but she is in her seventies with what sounds like a dilapidated house. It may seem incredibly stressful to her. Not to mention she still has a grown adult child living with her, telling her what to do with her home and judging her choices.

    And the thing is, we don’t have to understand or know why she is against this idea. It’s her house, and she gets to choose what happens there.

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    MillieMouse
    May 30, 2022 at 8:43 am #1109939

    It’s not happening now anyways. He cancelled his plans for coming home and scheduled a different European country for holidays. I presume it will be for a few weeks anyways. I don’t know what his plans are.

    There can be a middle ground found if either party is interested and that can be 3 weeks holidays in the country of choice and 3 weeks holidays at home. That would be a balance and a half way point. The issue is mom doesn’t even want them for one night. This is absolutely a complete rejection on his family and that’s all it is. I am here and willing to help and work on the spare room but if there was any sort of change of plan from the other side, mom still wants to get a caravan and put them in the back yard. All this says is that – there’s no room for another woman or her sons partners under her roof. She’s using the dominance of ‘her roof’ when the house is still in my father’s name and they ar years separated but she won’t secure the house. Realistically, what is she going to do – take her roof to her grave?

    We grew up in poverty and from a young age we had to work hard because my father was neglectful and absent. We always helped and did jobs and we all worked together when we were younger adults to do house repairs. I saved money and I chatted with my brothers about a new kitchen and we all did it for a surprise for our mother. We always helped so we were never leeches. I am at home due to housing and financial difficulties but I am far from a leech on our mother. She doesn’t even have to do the hosting. That will be on me.

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    MillieMouse
    May 30, 2022 at 9:09 am #1109940

    I got a message from the brother on Friday to say that they are not coming home to our country.

    I sent some messages trying to reassure him that he and his family was wanted. I picked up the phone to chat to him and all I got was abuse down the phone.

    I was accommodating right from the start. He mentioned weeks ago that he was thinking about taking his daughter/my niece. So our family home is not big but I made plans straight away to clean my room and make space and she was going to have my bed and I was planning on sleeping in a recliner for the duration of thier stay.

    Then weeks later I heard that the SIL is coming and I was so excited and I was going to make plans to paint the spare room and do it up and do other jobs around the house. I was accommodating and I think my other brothers who live abroad, they know that too. I was caught in the middle against our mom.

    Surely he knows that. He never apologised to me for spitting abuse down the phone over the weekend which shows that he hasn’t cooled down.

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    May 30, 2022 at 11:26 am #1109944

    That’s all fine and good but since it’s not your house, you wouldn’t be hosting, your mother would and she declined to or whatever. You just need to move past what you hoped would happen and accept the reality of what has taken place.

    Your brother would presumedly know the state of the house and size and that you’d be sleeping in a chair and would be more understanding of your mothers hesitancy? He didn’t seem very flexible either. It almost sounds like he didn’t really give it much of a chance. What’s the issue with your mother hating his wife? Is it a race/religion thing or something personal?

    Why don’t you go and visit him?

    It’s truly sad that your heart is broken, but maybe work on your own independence and happiness. Definitely get away from your mother and family’s abuse. Move out as soon as you can.

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    MillieMouse
    May 30, 2022 at 12:10 pm #1109947

    I think it’s the way she was raised. She grew up in an old Catholic country where women had little rights and men were seen as precious. I don’t know. I think it’s related to that. There’s just a down right hated that is hidden and in her mind she is seeing the woman as someone who’s stealing her son away from her. It’s ridiculous.

    She had a different treatment of me and my sister to our brothers when we were growing up some it was so mean. As soon as we entered young adulthood and we were working and still living at home, she charged me and my sister rent but she never charged my brothers anything. That was pro8thebmost abusive thing. She did her best to hold us back while boosting up her boys.

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My mom is turning away our family for a holiday stay at home

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