Selfish Brother

by Kim
(New Jersey)

I am a nearly 50 year old married woman who lives in a mother /daughter home with a very controlling and active 75 year old mother. I have a 55 year old brother who lives with his family about an hour away, however his work is only 10 minutes drive from our home.

My mother has had several serious falls, breaking hip, femur bone on same side and knee. My brother and his wife's attitude is since I live so close to her and have no children, I have all the time in the world to assist to any issue that arises in the care for my mother. I have been the primary care taker in every fall my mother has had. I have lost two jobs as a result of taking care of her in the past. My brother could care less!

The last time she fell he finally provided me with some relief, by spending a few hours with her each week which included walking her dog for her during those few hours. I was still the one cooking meals, walking her dog several times per day, calling to arrange for care and generally being there for her around the clock.

Right now mother is active and in good health, however she is very controlling and opinionated and leaves my husband and I with very little privacy and time to our self. She is constantly knocking at our door, out of loneliness mostly.

She spends most of her time with one friend that is also active and "controlling" like her and the two of them enjoy ruminating on the negative of everything. My mother has always remained very close to me no matter what my living arrangements, she has always been very dependent upon me mostly for companionship.

However, now everything I say or do is annoying to her she has referred to me as a "Know it all" more than once. My brother is suddenly making a once a month visit with her which my husband and I call the "Kiss Up Visit", where my mother takes him out to dinner and they talk about my brothers problems and my mother gives him advise, and money for cigarettes and hair cuts! Suddenly my brother who has a history of ignoring and treating my mother badly has taken an interest in my mother, even his children who have not had anything to d with my mother have come out of the woodwork because they know she has inherited a large sum of money and they now want to get in her good graces so they will get a piece of the action when she passes. It is so obvious!

My mother treats my brother like royalty when he comes for his once a month visits, and treats me like I am a thorn in her side, when all I wanted to do was be there for her in her aging years. I resent my brother terribly and I am beginning to resent mother as well, for treating me the way she does, and my husband as well. My husband does all of the landscaping for her, yet if he does not do it on the day that he mentioned he would, she bad mouths him and calls him unreliable, yet she had a landscaper at one time that over charged her and didn't show up for weeks at a time and she keep him on.

We feel very unappreciated and taken advantage of by her. She is a bully. I am very worried about the future and how I will handle it all, is another crisis with her in the picture? Will my brother help or interfere in the end? Will I ever have a life of my own with my new husband?

These are all questions I ask myself every day. I have Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as well that no one in my family seems to understand or acknowledge. What am I to do? I feel I have made a terrible decision with my living arrangement with her now.

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