A
male
age
51-59,
*omewhere86
writes:During the process of thinking about my own relationship it has made me think about the other close relationships I have. I would be grateful to have some help with this. My partner and I have had promblems with communication and trust and many other areas, so much so that I can't see how things can be resolved without conselling which I have already tried alone. The sessions took a year and after that I gained a sense of the bigger picture and was able to see the way other people behave and not transfer them in to terrible feelings in myself. This was a massive improvement as I had started to become depressed according to the doctor and was not functioning at all well outside of work. Panic and fear and unhappiness was the majority of my inner life for a long time. I now feel that I can see that my relationship is not working but I feel trapped and unable to do anything about it. I feel I can't give up on her. I can't bare the thought of her being unhappy or struggling in any way. Or maybe can't cope with the thought of being alone. I don't know. She is quite an unemotional type and does not like the word love.At this point I want to bring in something about my mother. She lives alone and has done for many years. She so so needy and suffered terribly from depression for most of her adult life. As a girl she was sent away from the UK to France for schooling and when she retuned she spoke more French than English. She dreams of those days in France now that she is older, and cries all too often for the loss of them. My parents divorced when I was 14 and there is still animosity between them especially from my mother. My mother was having an affair and shortly after she got her divorce the guy she was involved with attempted to commit suicide. He lived but was so badly hurt by the shot that their relationship ended. She found out accidentaly by someone in the local area tellig her. She has, for as long as I can remember, had hysterical screaming and shouting bouts. She constantly bewails her outcast state and feels that the whole family, neighbours, everyone, is against her. It is true that almost all of her family have ceased contact. My sister did not invite her to her wedding and she has hardly had any contact with her only Grandson who is now 19. For family get togethers she is never invited and although I have attended some I feel so bad about the fact of her exclusion. I tell her the truth as the truth always eventually comes out.I get calls sometimes from 5am in the morning and through the day while I'm at work. She asks me to contact people for her to help her do little job. I pay for her mobile phone because her landline bils were topping £1000 in a few weeks and this just had to stop. This weekend I was away for a couple of days and I had 20 missed calls and it took me an hour to listen to all the messages from her. She shouts and screams that she needs help and although I have tried over the years to help she is so difficult to help in any way.On occasion her carers call me because they can't cope. I am now, and have been for over 20 years, the only member of the family who keeps in touch and returns to see her. I can't forget that she is my mother. No matter how she behaves, at the back of my head, I know that she brought me into the world when she could have aborted. She raised me.I just can't give up on her. This Christmas no one contacted her from the family apart from myself. It was sad to see but I shrug it off hoping that she will too.I find the pressure of dealing with all of this harder these days and am a loss to know what to do. I am having difficulty concentrating on work.Both my brother and sister live closer (10 miles and 60 miles), as do other members of the family but no-one else will help. I live 160 miles away but fairly regularly make the trip. How can I help her?I am wondering if my feeling of never wanting to give up on my mother is being transferred to my partner and therefore stopping me from resolving my problems one way or another?
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
male
reader, Deathbunny  +, writes (9 February 2012):
Wow.Just wow.First, I think your mother needs a long vacation. Preferably to France. It may not actually help, but the chance she finds a way to stay there...Second, you are your mother's codependent. Mostly, this is because she's alienated just about everyone else--from what you wrote--and you're the only one with the tolerance to continue handling her. Third, yes, you probably are focused so much on other people's problems--including your mother--to make changes to improve your situation. That said, your sense of responsibility is probably as much a good trait as a bad trait in this situation.Finally, this is not a one-person-problem. The "logical" solution--that's not likely to happen--is your mother at this late stage decides to stop ruing the past, makes an honest assessment of her current situation, and makes a go at it from there into a direction that helps her form a social support group bigger than just you. That would release a lot of your obligations to her by sharing them among what--in normal families--includes family, friends, and such.However, this is unlikely to happen unless your mom chooses to have it happen.Which presents the other participant's choices: You have a decision to make. It basically is "How important is my emotional well-being to me compared to supporting my mother?" It doesn't have to be "all-or-none", but perhaps a percentage.That "amount" of importance is how often you need to say "no" and "find another way" when dealing with your mother. Ideally, the "amount" you decide will be enough for you to leverage your energy into a better partner-relationship AND will give mom a wake up call to start reconsidering her antagonism to everyone else.That or you can see about finding a way for her to retire back to France...
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