Problems with a highly unlikeable widowed mother...

gotoguy

Please delete thread. No need for this to be hanging around online anymore.

gotoguy

...There may be a bit of TLDR here...

19lottie82

Sounds like a PITA but I'm not sure what you're asking here? Looks like your only real option is to put up with her until the lease is up then move. There are nice house shares out there you know.

gotoguy

19lottie82 wrote: »

Sounds like a PITA but I'm not sure what you're asking here? Looks like your only real option is to put up with her until the lease is up then move. There are nice house shares out there you know.

Thanks. To be honest I'm not sure what I'm asking either! Just finding the situation quite overwhelming, can't see the wood for the trees kind of thing.

19lottie82

PS once you're in a house share and you're in a position to save, pop over to debt free wannabe part of the board they're great at advising how you can reduce your outgoings and / or increase your income

purpleshoes_2

You could move out, it just means you might wait longer to get a house deposit, surely your living conditions are now intolerable?

elsien

My opinion, which you might not be ready for, it that you don't have to take responsibility for either of them. They are both adults - your brother is 24 and long past the point where it's up to anyone else to make him self sufficient.
Ditto your mum. You cannot force people to change or get help. It has to come from them.
So you either cut your losses and get out, or you stay and save money knowing that nothing is going to change. You need to decide which option is best, because hanging on in there in the hope that it will get better probably isn't realistic.

BigAunty

On a practical level, the Shelter website will tell you how to get out of a jointly signed tenancy contract or not. Will your mother be happy if you leave before the contract term or is she so stingy, she will resent the extra expense? Will the landlord be amenable to your ending the contract in the fixed term and issuing a new one to the remaining tenants? The landlord doesn't have to end the contract but may agree. A joint tenant serving legitimate notice ends the tenancy for all and its up to the remaining tenants to renegotiate a new one.

As for trying to change her personality, improve her social life, fix her drink problem and tackle her mental health issues, only she can do this, if/when she has a light bulb moment. Some people never get them.

Some people on this forum find comfort in the 'my mother is a narcissist' threads on MSE as they find the kind of hysterical and manipulative behaviour is quite common in some households. I am not diagnosing her, just saying that some people have a 'aha' moment when they read about the experiences of other dysfunctional families.

How do you propose you rescue your brother? Do you plan to take him with you to the property that you plan to buy? Or is he too much like a 'mini-mum' to bear? Does he think he has any kind of problem? Does he crave independence from your mum. Maybe he's a willing hostage?

Ames

None of those things in your 'need to happen' are likely to happen, and they're certainly not in your power to make happen. You need to work on your own responses, find coping strategies so that you can get to where you want to be.

I do sympathise, I have toxic family myself and I should have taken this advice a long time ago.

gotoguy

BigAunty wrote: »

On a practical level, the Shelter website will tell you how to get out of a jointly signed tenancy contract or not. Will your mother be happy if you leave before the contract term or is she so stingy, she will resent the extra expense? Will the landlord be amenable to your ending the contract in the fixed term and issuing a new one to the remaining tenants? The landlord doesn't have to end the contract but may agree. A joint tenant serving legitimate notice ends the tenancy for all and its up to the remaining tenants to renegotiate a new one.

As for trying to change her personality, improve her social life, fix her drink problem and tackle her mental health issues, only she can do this, if/when she has a light bulb moment. Some people never get them.

Some people on this forum find comfort in the 'my mother is a narcissist' threads on MSE as they find the kind of hysterical and manipulative behaviour is quite common in some households. I am not diagnosing her, just saying that some people have a 'aha' moment when they read about the experiences of other dysfunctional families.

How do you propose you rescue your brother? Do you plan to take him with you to the property that you plan to buy? Or is he too much like a 'mini-mum' to bear? Does he think he has any kind of problem? Does he crave independence from your mum. Maybe he's a willing hostage?

Thanks - Yes the extended family finds her behavior infinitely amusing, primarily because they don't have to live in it!.


I know ultimately there is little I can do to help her until she truly wants to help herself, sometimes you see the light bulb flicker but it doesn't seem to come on for long enough to have any effect, I think she's so used to being miserable it's her default and what she's comfortable with. I think it's just hard to give up on her completely as I know she's always had good intentions when raising me and my brother even if she has failed in practice.


The reason I feel I need to help him is that I have an advantage over him in that I have much greater exposure to people so have developed normal social skills, through university, several jobs, including my current one in a huge company and a wide circle of friends...he on the other hand, never went to uni, left school with nothing and has had the same nmw job ever since. He couldn't afford to be self sufficient and currently owes her a lot of money for a car, the repayments plus a third of the house running costs is eating 90% of his income.


His coping strategy is to work every waking hour to minimize the time he's at home. I think he's wasting his life through not knowing what else is out there and feel very guilty that my own coping strategy for years has been to be as far removed from the family as possible, especially when our dad was ill.


I'm not too worried about buying out of the tenancy if I have to, I have money to hand, more worried about the future. If she said she'd bought a big enough house I could put up with 12 more months to reach the minimum I need to buy a place, it's the uncertainty that makes decision making difficult.


Sharing a flat with him has been discussed before but I don't want to end up taking over her role in looking after an oversized child!

gotoguy

purpleshoes wrote: »

You could move out, it just means you might wait longer to get a house deposit, surely your living conditions are now intolerable?

Thanks - I think if it was just waiting longer then it would be an easy decision to make and I'd move, unfortunately with spiraling prices its looking more like either accepting its an unrealistic goal or leaving the area, neither of which are particularly appealing, I've already scaled back what I wanted to have saved to the bare minimum to get out.


If I did hang on I probably only need another year but currently depends on where she decides to move to.