Friends will always take your side, so I'm hoping to get some guidance from people I don't know, but are in a similar situation. This will be a long read, grab a coffee.
I'm 44 years old (female), I have 2 older brothers (51 and 47). We all live in Connecticut. My son (23) and I live upstairs from my mother in the home that she and we grew up in (which she owns). My dad passed away in 2009 from combat related lung cancer due to exposure to Agent Orange. Because of the nature of his illness, my mom gets "survivor benefits" through the VA (a monthly payment and health/Rx insurance). So, her monthly income is from Social Security and the VA Survivor Benefits (she is a retired hairdresser, no pension there).
My oldest brother (single, no kids) has his own home about 40 minutes away. My middle brother (divorced, no kids) lives downstairs with my mom (moving in after his divorce 10 years ago). He comes with his own baggage and story. Prior to his divorce he was diagnosed with tonsil cancer and received radiation pellets which has made him cancer free since the surgery. Cancer made it difficult for him to swallow so for a few years he had a G-tube (feeding tube). This brother is also an alcoholic. To clarify, a hardcore alcoholic. With the G-tube he found that he could put vodka into it. This didn't go well and further spiraled his addiction out of control - leading to him being in the ICU at Yale for quite some time, his weight dropping to about 97lbs on his 5'9 frame. But, he bounced back. He had the feeding tube removed over 8 years ago, but never stopped drinking or smoking. He's been in and out of rehab across the state more times than I can count, with sobriety only lasting until he acclimates back at home. His behavior is erratic and unpredictable. He doesn't work, rarely drives and hardly gets out of bed. Needless to say, this puts an enormous mental burden on my mother (as well as my son and I). She can't "throw him out" because she would need to go through the legal system to have him evicted. Instead, she "deals" with his behavior. My son and I both work full time. While I don't pay my mother rent (obviously I pay my own utilities), I pay for the year-round yard maintenance, bring her to all of her doctor's appointments, do her shopping, balance her checkbook (after 50 years she suddenly can't do it herself), cook dinner a few times a week or take her out to dinner (if I don't cook she'll make herself popcorn or an ice cream cone!). Since I live upstairs, I'm at her beck and call 24/7.
She was recently diagnosed with COPD, Congestive Heart Failure and Sleep Apnea - adding to having had Type 2 diabetes for about 15 years. She's 73, but has herself living like an invalid. She has 1 friend left whom she rarely reaches out to (sadly, in the past 6 months she lost her best friend as well as the bf's husband and husband's sister - she was close with all of them). My mom is mentally fit. She can drive herself around town to run her own errands, but waits until the weekend when I'm around to taxi her. Selfishly, this irritates me because I work all week. When I make plans to be with my boyfriend she gets angry! I get that she's lonely, but If I make plans I have to hear how awful and selfish I am, knowing she's alone all week. She's never lived independently and has NO independence about her at all. Often she'll repeat things she's told me and talks non-stop. She has no interest in being social or going to a senior center, rather she opts to stay in the house all day then complain on the weekend that she doesn't go anywhere all week. Neither brother even attempts to help (one isn't conscience long enough and the other "needs to unwind" when he gets out of work). She'll say "Oh, maybe I'll just die then you won't have to take care of me" (if you're familiar with "The Soprano's", my mother sounds like Tony's). I've asked if she'd like to talk to someone but that makes her angrier. She's unhappy, joyless, miserable. It's draining.
If you stay you WILL be her de-facto 24/7 caregiver. There are a lot of dysfunctional attachments going on in that home, co-dependencies. You need to create healthy boundaries because none currently exist to protect you and your son (who is an adult too, BTW). Moving out will be the main move in reclaiming your life. If you stay you will burn out and be much less able to help her. It's not fair to you or your son. I come from an Italian-American immigrant family that had the women-take-care-of-the-elderly cultural thing. I said fuhgedaboudit. Not this girl.
If you move out, then your mom will have to deal with how to afford to stay in her house, which you will begin to see is probably more like a stone tied around her neck because it's making everyone make unhealthy, unproductive decisions. Without the house the deadbeat brother will have to get his own life. Without the house your mom can afford to maybe live in a nice senior community where she'll be with others and maybe even enjoy life again. She probably is thinking "those places" like they were in the old days: horrible and depressing where people go to be forgotten and die. Well, that's not true anymore. Without the burden of trying to "keep" the house you and your son won't be guilt-riddled indentured caregivers and can move on to make the most of your young lives. If I were you I'd start by leaving. Your mom won't like it. Your brothers won't like it. But YOU WILL like it, eventually. And so glad you did it. May you have inner strength, great wisdom and peace in your heart to do a difficult but necessary thing.
Mom has made you the designated caregiver and what almost always happens first is you become the whipping post for all her anger, frustration, and resentment. You also become the guilt bank for her. She's making guilt deposits into a savings account if you will that she can withdraw and use later in her time of need. She's conditioning you to make sure you don't leave and will take care of her when she becomes needy. It won't stop there either, my friend. No, it won't. You'll also be the designated caregiver for your brother too.
Think of what mom is playing at as like a wild animal out on plains. A lion for example. The lion pees on a rock and marks his territory. That place is his. He eats first before even the his own cubs. All the other lions stand down to him because that place is his. Your mom in a matter of speaking is doing the same thing. Because you live on her "ground" and don't pay rent she knows that you're beholden to her. Even if you offer to pay her rent, guaranteed she will refuse it. By accepting rent from you it gives you certain rights and lessens her power over you. So she will refuse it and by doing so entitles her to treat you with such disrespect and blatant disregard. It keeps you at her beck and call. The added guilt is an insurance policy to make sure you stay right under her foot.
Get the hell out of there as soon as you can. The longer you stay the worse it will get.
Moving away from mom would be the best thing in the world.
Your Mom is in the habit of depending upon you, and in all likelihood she excuses herself with "she has FREE RENT" And in fact this is true. With free rent for some years I am hopeful that you have done a good amount of saving on your own part.
My advice? Move into an apartment on your own. Disengage. Allow your Mom to rent out the upper unit where you live rent free now, or to move her son there, alleviating some of the congestion of living with an alcoholic. This would give her either relief of a son, OR rental income to help her situation, to hire cars to her appointments and so on.
You and your son deserve to get on with your lives. If Mom is 73, and you 44 I am assuming your son may be or is of age. He will want to get on with his own life now.
This is just how I would do it. I hope you will have many who will give you ideas that you can cherry pick and at least begin to think about and plan around. You clearly are a smart cookie. You have given us above a marvelously clear idea of the situation as is. And AS IS is how it will remain. You cannot change the acts or behaviors of any of the players in the drama. You are only in control of your own life.
I sure do wish you the best, welcome you to the Forum and hope to hear your updates.
The situation will not remain as it is. The situation will most assuredly get worse. Get out now.
Move out and ignore any whinging she does about it.
Your 73 year old mother just made it LOUD and CLEAR to you that she absolutely expects you to be her elder care plan! Trying to dump guilt on you about living there "for free" and then the zinger about your son! She sounds like a selfish narcissist to me.
My advice is to move out ASAP!!
To not charge any rent so the person is now beholden, and that entitles the elder to demand anything they want and to treat that person as abusively as they want.
Even if she offered her mother, even demanded paying rent to her, she would refuse it. Accepting it would mean mom loses some of her power over her daughter.
Just find a new place. The poster and her son both work full-time and have lived rent-free for some time so finding a new home shouldn't put them into hardship.
Maybe mutiny is in the air!
You may sometimes feel powerless to make your family understand your need for change. They may well fight you to keep things as they are... But you DO have power here.
Stop rowing so hard. Slow down.
Explain you will still be FAMILY. You just won't be all the help going forward.
Offer many non-you alternatives (senior centre for company, deliveries & taxis for errands etc). Do you have an elder care assessment service in your area? To explore what Mother needs & qualifies for?
Then find you own little boat to row. This will mean taking on the responsibility of rent or your own mortgage, but this is taking responsibility for yourself & is the price of freedom.
This will force them to either row their own boats, hire other rowers or sink (into crises) depending on the choices they make.
You only have control over your own behavior, as you well know.
So what do you think the best thing to change might be?
No one has to tolerate being treated abusively or has to become enslaved because their family needs a caregiver and one person is singled out because that's who the ones in need of care will accept.
She can still help her brother and her mother, but at a distance. Whatever assistance she offers to give, has to be on her terms not theirs.