Setting boundaries with my mother

[Anonymous]

My mom has been a handful this year. We've never been close , she's toxic and abusive. But my DH and I live closest to her. One state over and about a 30 min drive in no traffic, over an hour in traffic.

Her doctor is near us and she can definitely take public transportation but she started having the episodes and heading to the ER, guilt tripping me and DH into leaving work and going to her. And a few times right after these incidents DH dropce to pick her up and bring her to her Dr appts. Now it's every damn time.

She has a drs appt Fri and called asking if we would pick her up this night. It seems like something small but we lose an entire night to her nonsense. It's $35 every time we go there w tolls. And Friday -Sun we were taking her and her friends out of town for her 60th anyway. I'm just annoyed that we now have to host her thu night.

[Anonymous]

Say no. Tell her you have a work commitment or kid activity or house guests or anything. You could help her arrange for an Uber driver or other type of car service if she can't drive.

[Anonymous]

Please see all the previous threads on this topic.

[Anonymous]

You don’t have to host her. You can say no.

[Anonymous]

OP, this is a lot. You have my empathy. I once burned a bridge at work when I started believing I had to come for every one of my mother’s crises. I would drop everything in a panic for hospital visits and aftercare. And I was emotionally exhausted. It wasn’t good for my marriage either.

Do what you have to do to get out of driving this week. No need to feel guilt; she’s got other options. Tell a white lie, like there’s an important meeting at work you can’t get out of, the dog’s sick, you need to be home for an emergency plumbing repair. If you need to spend the weekend with Ms. Toxic, it’s time to conserve your energy anyway.

It’s never too late to start talking about future plans either. Tell your mom that the time and financial commitment of driving back and forth have been a lot. Offer to get her set up with Uber or Lyft. There may be a medical transport service in your area too. If she expects or needs you to be at follow-up appointments, then they need to happen on your schedule. This next bit may sound harsh, so disregard if it doesn’t fit your situation: Some people use medical emergencies as a form of attention seeking. The only way to make it stop is to stop giving attention. Your mom can call 911 if it’s a life threatening emergency. If it’s not, then she can wait and consult you about setting up an appointment at a mutually agreeable time. If she calls trying to convince you that it’s a drop-everything emergency, send the calls to voicemail and get back to her a few hours later. Say you had a migraine or were in an important meeting. Have DH do the same. It’s ok if this pushes things into late-night hours; that makes it easier to say “I can’t call out from work now, but I will call during lunch tomorrow to check on you, and I will come to the hospital after work to see you.” Chances are that you will call her bluff and find out it’s not such an emergency after all. Accept that she may bad mouth you for refusing to come running. That’s ok; toxic people always find a reason to criticize anyway. Her happiness is out of your control.