Why is my mom is different with me than my husband?
Ok he is so sweet and talkative, but she acts different with me. He is gone for the weekend and so I'm doing her meals. When my husband does breakfast she waits in her bed like a queen until he brings coffee and breakfast. This weekend with me (and times before) she will get up and get coffee and wait at the table for breakfast. Before she has even gotten dressed.
She pretends she doesn't like being so helpless and comments how she wishes she could help around house or when we have family over. Yet she doesn't lift a finger to do anything. She makes comments about sweeping her floor herself when I do her room and bedding each week. There is always evidence that she didn't do her floor or that she just swiped it for there is still that creepy granulated dust she is flaking from her skin.
Is it "me" and not her? I don't talk much to her since the conversation is likely to go to sending a check to my brother. So I just don't talk to her much. She has started calling me Pat. Mom rarely used my name before. This is a lot of rambling so forgive me for not being able to articulate my question properly. How do I not resent my mom because she is nice to everyone else? I feel it is because I (as her Trustee) won't allow her to send money to my brother.
She probably sees you as the practical daughter. There is nothing wrong with that. My mother does the same thing about acting like she is going to clean her room, or saying she just cleaned it. In my mother's case, she may have cleaned it a year or two ago, but time doesn't mean much to her. She hates for me to clean her room, but sometimes I have to. My mother talks about what she needs to do to clean, but she doesn't feel like doing it at the moment. Sometimes when I clean she tells me that I'm getting on her nerves. I clean anyway.
My mother treats my brothers as gold. She treats me less well, arguing and fussing a lot. I am the practical daughter who handles everything for her. I wish I had someone like your husband to help brighten my mother's life a bit. If he has a brother, send him our way. ;)
Asking mom to do chores is like adding more stress to me than relieving it. You are right that she should be, but in reality it isn't going to happen. Listening to her act like she is dying grates me more than us doing for her.
It is my attitude that needs changing. And yes you are correct about the control of her money.
I guess without him here over the weekend I just felt trapped. Thank you dear ones for your support. I needed it.
When Mom first moved in, she was pretty capably of taking care of herself and doing simple tasks like wiping the counters after she prepared a snack. But eventually, her offers to help around the house became utterly ridiculous...."I'll sweep the kitchen" Yeah, how can we accomplish that with a walker.
Anything my husband cooked was "delicious" and anything I cooked was criticized. in everything, she was kind to him and critical of me.
But where I see the most in common with you is our fights over sending my brother a check. mom always wanted to send him money and I initially would stall but eventually just flat out tell her "No". Why should my children husband and I have to give up so much to care for her while watching her spend all of her energy worrying about my brother and wanting to support him.
Evermore suggests that boredom could be the culprit and it likely is,. But, if your mother is anything like mine was, she will resist any hobbies or activities you suggest.
You have to accept that it is her choice to be miserable. I spent way too much time trying to please my mother and bring happiness into her life with little success. I eventually realized that it is not my responsibility to entertain her and that moment was very freeing.