In need of advice on whether to cut my mom out of my/my kid’s lives or to keep trying…. Sorry, this is going to be long.
My dad passed away 7 years ago. My mom has not coped well since his death. She is not an independent person and doesn’t leave the house most days. She wasn’t independent even before he died, and now she pretty much will not go anywhere other than local stores without someone going with her.
She has three adult kids (me, my sister, and my brother). My sister and I talk to and/or visit her regularly. Contact is at least once a week, usually several times a week by phone. She has a good relationship with her grandkids. Up until last year, my brother who is in his 40s had never lived outside of my parent’s house except for several years when he was in prison. While living with her he would occasionally help around the house and be a “warm body” for her to talk to. I say “occasionally help” her because she would have to harass him to do simple chores while he was living there rent-free with food, internet, etc paid for by her (and for many years he did not even have a job). For example, he was so unreliable about mowing the lawn that she had to hire someone. Meanwhile she did his laundry, helped him pay his bills (including restitution for his felony), bought him clothes, etc.
About a year ago he went crazy on her. Truly insane. He made it his mission to “make her kill herself” (his words). He would go into her bedroom at 1am and proceed to scream about how horrible she was for hours so that she could not go to sleep. He became obsessed with the idea that the money my dad left her (their retirement) was “not hers because she didn’t work” during the 40 years they were together. For some reason, and he really believes this, he thinks that the money should be HIS. He also wanted her house. When he couldn’t get her to leave it, he tried to destroy it (while living in it) by burning cigarette holes in her carpet, nailing things into her wood doors, smashing up her bathroom tub tile, etc. She was terrified of him and slept with a hammer under her pillow for a long time. There is much more that he did to her, but it’s too much to list out.
He was definitely doing drugs at the time. He’s abused barbiturates for a long time and huffs piles of whippets as well, but he definitely started doing something else. He had all the characteristics of someone who was on methamphetamine because of how intensely “up” and violent he was.
During this time he also harassed my sister and I. He would chain call us over and over and over again for hours in the middle of the night. We both have small children, we both work regular shift jobs, and even though we didn’t pick up much of the time, it was mentally exhausting to have your phone going off every 3 minutes from midnight to 7am or to wake up to a full voicemail inbox of his insane ramblings. We were scared to block him at first because he was talking about wanting our mom dead and other really messed up stuff, so we needed to be able to know what was going on in his head in case we needed to call the police. (Who WERE called MANY times, but because he wasn’t PHYSICALLY attacking any of us, they just wrote police reports and moved on.)
This went on for weeks because even after we blocked him, he would try to find a new way to contact us. We received constant emails, Facebook messages, text messages. Constant screaming, threats of violence, etc. One day he started repeatedly leaving me messages that I was “keeping his baby nephew away from his uncle.” I immediately blocked him on EVERYTHING and lived in CONSTANT FEAR he was going to kidnap my son from daycare or something. I was also fearful he was going to KILL me, but when he brought my baby into it, it was another level of fear.
When he realized I wasn’t listening to his voicemails or reading his texts/emails anymore, he left me a note at my front door with a dryer hose next to it. The note said the hose would “fit really great over my tailpipe” and was written on an old legal document related to his felony. I filed a police report but they couldn’t arrest him because he didn’t explicitly say he wanted to kill me, just implied it. Shortly after that, he searched online to find my work email. On a Friday night, he emailed my work email threatening to tell everyone that I “abused him” if I did not talk to him again. I didn’t even see this email until the next day and the police did nothing but file a report when I called them.
On Monday morning I found out that he spent much of the weekend calling/emailing leadership at my work about how I “abused him.” I was mortified and worried about losing my job. That morning I was upset and trying to figure out what to do next when… HE SHOWED UP AT MY OFFICE. He was standing in the lobby telling every one of my coworkers that I abused him and showing them burn marks on his arms (that he inflicted on himself). The police were called AGAIN to file ANOTHER statement (we were on statement number 6 or 7 at that point) and he was issued a no trespassing warning/told to leave. I was very upset. He had never been to my work before and it is complicated to find my office. He very methodically found out how to get to me and how to contact my bosses. I immediately excused myself from work and went to the courthouse to file for a restraining order. I was granted one.
Fast forward a year. He eventually was tricked into leaving my mom’s house, but quit his job (he “didn’t want to work anymore,” his own words) and was evicted from his apartment. He expected my mom to let him live with her again, but she changed her locks after he showed up at her house demanding to be let in. We all had a relatively peaceful year after that because he gave up on getting back into the house and got himself another job. He would randomly call my mom to tell her he hated her or to blame her for ruining his life, but otherwise he was leaving everyone alone.
Well, he recently got himself arrested again for battery. His friend posted his bail, but he was hauled back to jail for violating his bond (he went back to the victim to make threats). He calls my mom multiple times a day to beg to live with her when he gets out. She is so lonely and is having such a hard time keeping up with her house (but also refuses to move), that she has convinced herself that he has changed. She is willing to let him live there and really thinks he will take care of the house for her. He admitted to her that he was living with a crack dealer and doing drugs when he got arrested. Obviously he is not doing drugs now that he is in jail, so she thinks that means he is clean and will remain clean. Everything he says to her is a lie and she admits that is true and he’s incapable of telling the truth. He even lied about the jail not giving him any food or underwear so she would put money in his commissary fund. When she brings up transitional housing/employment programs for people getting out of jail, he gets mad and hangs up on her.
She admits she doesn’t really want him living there but she also is happy about having a roommate again (I can’t make this up). Every time she changes her mind and tells him he CAN’T live there after all, he threatens to kill himself and tells her it will be her fault. (He’s been doing this to everyone in the family for years; he threatens to kill himself if someone doesn’t do what he wants them to do). So not only does she want him there to “take care of her” but also because she feels guilty about the suicide threats.
I told my mom I cannot have contact with her anymore if she lets him live with her again. The restraining order is still active, but I don’t want him knowing where I live (even though I’m almost certain she told him after I begged her not to), what my phone number is, etc. and she has all of that information in her phone book, on her caller ID, etc. I don’t want him seeing pictures of my kids on her digital frame and figuring out where they are by stalking them like he stalked me with the work thing. I don’t want him logging onto her Facebook in the middle of the night and seeing what my family is doing (she saves her passwords). I don’t want him overhearing conversations on the phone or picking up the line to listen in. I don’t want to talk to him when I call her house and he answers. Not to mention I am worried about him abusing her, killing her, or stealing from her!!! Other family members have told her they feel the same and will not go to her house again, period.
She is very angry with us about this. She tells me it is my choice if I do not contact her when he lives there and I am a mean person who doesn’t love her, which makes me feel like she is blaming me for what he did to me! She’s upset that “I am taking her grandchildren away from her” but the whole situation is so toxic and NOT appropriate for children, especially toddlers! I feel like she is demanding that I remove the healthy boundaries I have set up to accommodate both of their unhealthy lives. And I also feel like I am losing my mom. I don’t know what to do, but she insists I need to “get over” what he did and that I am being unreasonable. I really don’t want my kids to grow up without their grandma but I don’t know what to do! Thoughts please.