My story is about parents of 92 who have been together since they were 21, and live in their own house 100 miles from me. I am 65 and have always been close to me mother. They are both getting quite frail and can't walk very well because my father has a recurring pain in one leg and my mother is very unsteady on her feet. They have both been concerned about whether they may have to go into a 'home' or sell their house to get a warden run flat. However, last May Bank holiday, my husband and I visited to do their garden, get in the shopping and do some cooking for them, and all went well on the Saturday. Sunday was a different matter. I started to talk about doing up their rockery, and my father said 'oh no, not worth it the house will only be sold'.?? I said, well you don't know that (for the past 20 years they had left the house to me in their Wills). Oh no, he said, we have changed our Wills, and spitefully added that they had given my brother money (for his struggling business) 'because YOU never came into business with us??? And anyway, we told you two years ago. I said I knew nothing about it, and then his rage kicked off 'we told you, we told you' and my mother chipping in 'course he did, course he did'. This was a shocking blow to me, as he had changed Will 20 years ago because he had handed £200,000 + contained in a limited company of which all 4 of us were directors, and this was all done behind my back at the time, and I only found out when my parents asked me to sign saying I was no longer director of said company, and my father telling me that the company 'wasn't worth anything' and your brother will look after you! So now I know that once again my brother and his wife had manipulated and exploited them to get them to change their Wills and give them money! I think my father had built up guilt over two years and that's why he told me, hoping I wouldn't notice. But when I did notice he treated me with contempt and disregard and made like it was nothing important. The rest of that day I bit my tongue and carried on in shock, shopping and cooking for them, and finishing the garden, and not once did either of them try to explain anything to me. The following day, I asked him to put things right, and all hell broke loose and he ranted and raged at me with personal abuse and character assassination, until I got up to leave, when he told me don't come here again. I said, my mother needs me, and he added, 'We don't need your help". My life from that point came crashing down, and I descended into the worst nightmare of a nervous breakdown, wanting to kill myself, seeing a counsellor and taking anti-depressants and practically ending up in a mental ward! When my daughter wrote to her grandmother and said I had been crumbling into a million pieces over three months, and that I was completely broken, my mother responded with "my bad temper" because I walked out presumably, and that their poor son worked his butt off trying to keep a roof over the heads of his employees (so clearly they have been made to feel responsible for his workforce) and they 'don't have to tell me anything' apparently. Oh and when my daughter asked why her uncle and aunt don't speak to her as well as her mother (me), my mother replied that it was my decision??? My Sister-in law has seen off numerous people, my brother's Son from another marriage, my father from the business he worked in with my brother, one year after she got her hands on their £200,000. He had to 'retire' as he was 74 or thereabouts and mother needed him (apparently).
I haven't spoken to my parents since, but they decided to send me a birthday card in October with a cheque for £100.00, and I felt nothing at all, but I noticed my poor mother's shaky hand writing. I took the card to be an invite to come back and fall into line and be subjugated to my brother (Trustee of Will) and his evil wife who will now take over the house and clear it when they die. Even writing this now makes me feel like vomiting as my Sister in law has always studiously ignored me at family gatherings, and she spends her time drip drip dripping poison about people behind their backs and my parents knew that we not been on speaking terms for many years, yet she handed everything over to my brother to take care of when they die. And apparently, 'they don't have to sell the house now' I learned in May? Because, presumably, my brother has promised to look after them. I am now waiting to see the house be changed into the name of my brother! And I am the baddie. Discredited, stigmatised, and thrown out. Deceived, betrayed and humiliated, subjugated and violated, and my wound is deep and continuing, even though I am resuming some sort of normal life! I have built a wall to protect myself, so no longer cry all the time or wake in the middle of the night, or need anti-depressants. I no longer know what to do, as I think they have mild dementia and my dad crazy!
