My single mother would come home looking tired all the time and I would wonder why she did not retire. You could go to the health club, volunteer, make nice dinner, get the house in order. Well she retired at 72 and is now 79. I know why she did not retire. She has no social skills and she hid it well. She has friends but they are tired of her complaints....all the time...she never took time to learn how to have fun. She calls me every day, in pain, she has a problem, or she just wants to insult me. I'm her primary care give since my sister never liked her. My mom would try to buy her and still does but my sis is a no show in another state. When she visits, the 2 of them fight and expect me to put out the fire. I have asked my mom to call me two wes is after my sister leaves so I don't have to hear about the fallout but that request falls on deaf ears... I thought when my mom had cancer and went through chemo my sister and her children would come and provide me and my spouse with son relief...My sister was worse than ever.... I had to calm them down....omg... she is so demanding with her male friend that he request asee aston calling him ever now and again. She waits a few weeks and he puts up with her again.... she is destroying my life.....it's been years since her retirement and I am about to fall apart... I don't have the guts to leave my 79 year old mother alone. I love her but she does not know how to calm herself.......help!!!!!!!.....I just say that cause it makes me feel good...day after day after day
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I would like to think that if I'm not being treated well or don't like the way someone that I care for is acting, that I make a plan for their care or allow them to make their own arrangements and then go to a place that I can be happy. Waiting on a senior to change the way they act or treat people when they are well into their 70's, doesn't sound realistic to me.
Have you ever been to therapy?
She was a good mother when I was a child, and growing up, she had my father (who died when I was 25). Living with her, I soon learned she is totally emotionally needy, socially inept and having no interests or hobbies beyond her family and what they were doing every minute of the day. Basically she lived through us. I realized she was negative about everything seeing the glass as half empty about anything my daughter and I wanted to do. She was restless as a cat, couldn't sit still, and having no interests of her own, we were her interest - only us. I thought I was going to lose my mind I felt so trapped and responsible for her since she didn't know how to be happy. I had no privacy.
That being said, people are what they are, and always will be. I still love my mother, but I couldn't live with her and neither could my sister.
After 2 years, I had enough and simply told her I was going to get my own apartment when our lease was up, so I could have more space and date, etc. (She was 75 at the time.) She did ok and moved near my sister and eventually found a man and married.
Don't let your mother ruin your life.
Don't waste your time trying to change her or expect her to change.