'AITA for refusing to help my siblings with my estranged mother's end of life care?'
"AITA for refusing to help my siblings with my estranged mother's end of life care?"
My mother, who I have been estranged from my entire adult life and since the age of 15, is terminally ill. She wasn't a great mother to any of her kids. There's me (27M) and my sisters (23F, 20F) and my brother (22M).
But in saying that, she treated me the worst and left me homeless at the age of 15 because I looked the most like our father, who she hated with every fiber of her being, and don't ask me why she had four kids with him I have no idea. I went entirely no contact from that point on. My siblings still lived with her and according to them she got better once I was gone.
My siblings have always downplayed how bad it was for me and how bad she treated me. So while I still talk to them I am not close to them and I don't know if there's a future where that will ever happen. Which is why I refused to help them with her end of life care now that she's terminally ill.
They say she has about a year left and needs a lot more help than they can cover. I told them it was not my job to make sure she goes out of this world in comfort and peace. They told me she's still our mother and I told them she was the f--ing worst mother. That I would not shed a tear over her and I felt not one single ounce of obligation to her.
They tried the "do it for us" angle and I told them they have minimized the stuff she did to me even though they said she got a little better once I was gone. So they know she hated me to her core. They told me I'm still her son, still their brother and I'm the oldest. I even got a call from her adult social worker who had been told to contact me by my siblings.
She wanted to go over my mother's care with me. I explained I would not be taking part in the end of life care for my mother, which surprised her but she left it alone. My siblings think I'm a monster and they say I should be willing to do something. This has turned into a fight three times already. AITA?
The internet had a lot to say in response.
fleabag52 wrote:
NTA. I can sooo relate to this. You owe neither her nor your siblings anything. If you wanted to try contacting your mother and see if there is any slightest amount of true remorse for the way she treated you, that *may* be worth considering.
Because once she's gone there's zero chance of any kind of resolution, but at the same time, if she's anything like mine was, she'll never admit to anything she did or being wrong in any way, in which case, carry on living your life apart from her - that's apparently what she wanted anyway.
OP responded:
I don't want to try. I see her as a monster and I think the world will be better off with her gone. There is no room for reconciliation between us in me. Maybe if she hadn't been so awful and hadn't left me homeless at 15 but the day she did that was the day there was truly no coming back.
I'm sorry you had any experience with this. When your parents are awful it leaves so much trauma and I still work on myself to make sure it doesn't turn me into an awful husband or father (future father).
WorldlyTowel246 wrote:
NTA. You're making yourself a priority which it sounds like your mother never did. If things truly got better she had and still has every opportunity to try and make things right.
OP responded:
Yep. But I think better means she was just less awful not that it got like amazingly better. They feel like she improved enough that she was worth helping. That is their right but I never got that.
AsparagusWTweak wrote:
NTA. Not even a little bit. Your mother is the monster. Tell your siblings you’re willing to show her the same compassion she showed you when she made you homeless at fifteen. I’d imagine it would be hard to feel like a son to a person who acted nothing like a mother towards you.
Your siblings don’t get to tell you what your obligations are. It’s their business if they want to overlook her appalling actions. And the fact they’re saying that she got better after you were kicked out? Whoop-de-f-king-do.
DinaFelice wrote:
"You know my answer about being involved in her care. I'm not changing my mind, so there is no point in continuing to discuss it. Now, is there anything else you wished to talk about or should I hang up for now?"
NTA for refusing to help, and NTA for being done with trying to explain.
You've given them your reasons, and your siblings are refusing to hear you, which means they have absolutely forfeited the right to have further discussions with you. They could learn something from the social worker: she didn't need to understand or accept your reasoning in order to respect that you have the right to make that decision.
GarbageImpressive505 wrote:
NTA. I’ve said to my father that if my mother was on her deathbed I wouldn’t visit and I wouldn’t cry at her funeral, and don’t bother inviting me. What your mother did to you and the ab-se she put you through is inexcusable and only YOU can decide, now that you’re a fully functioning adult, how much effort to put into the relationship SHE ruined.
How sad that the person who created you and gave you life, had one basic job of loving you, and messed it up so badly. Sending you strength my friend.