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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here. My dad died a few days after Christmas. It was incredibly difficult, he was very, very sick and out of it (morphine), but I do have a sense of peace for him. His body is gone, but I can still feel him with me at times.

We've gone through the difficult stuff. Funeral. Cleaning out the house, selling his home (which just went under contract) and explaining things to the kids who are old enough to realize what's happened. My husband has been a rock during the ordeal, but I can see the toll on myself and my sister. I swear we've aged ten years in one and I've lost so much weight that I've begun drinking ensure (eating has been difficult). My dad was the youngest one of his side of the family, the last living of that generation, so it's weird for me and my sister to be it for that side of the family. It's all surreal.

My mother was unhelpful during this whole thing. After realizing that the man wouldn't likely see New Year's, she opted to take a cruise during Christmas with friends and went to South America. To give us our space in her words. I didn't need space. I needed my mother, but that's a whole another story.

I don't know where the future will go with us, me and her. She skipped the funeral and hasn't done anything, but simply say sorry for your loss when I informed her he passed. I'm angry, but I cannot tease out whether it's the loss of my father or the abandonment of my mother during the difficult times that is fueling it.

She wrote me a very, very long email about her desire to visit, to see the Cherry Blossoms and to do various things around DC. She's begun calling and leaving long messages in a sing-songy voice. She's pretending everything's fine. It's not. I haven't responded, but that's mostly because I don't know what to say...

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Your mother has a low emotional IQ.  These type of people can't handle complex pain and they are inherently untrustworthy because they will do anything to avoid it.  The pain she's having now is the separating with her children that she brought on. She wants it fixed with no complications so she's putting on sing songy like nothing is wrong.  This is a person that is not of much use to emotionally mature people.[/quote]

OP here. I suspect this is the issue. My mother has never been one to deal with difficulty head on. Her parents are still alive and she's never had any loss on her side of the family. And by all accounts, including her own, her life was great. She enjoyed parenting, raising kids, worked part-time and lived a pretty great life with my father in terms of the day to day. They got along, they worked well together as parents.

By my mother's own account, the wheels fell off in her marriage because she wanted a different, more active retirement lifestyle than my father. She wanted to travel, go out more, be active in activities, etc. I actually thought their divorce (pre-my father's sickness) was very amicable. Everyone was happy. My mother traveled, my father puttered around his place and I had a good relationship with both of them. No strife, they jointly attended holidays at our houses, etc.

My mother's detachment during the crisis might have been a self-preservation tool in some ways. She was in denial until the end about how sick my father was and she didn't see (and actively avoided) the strain his illness put on myself and my sister. I think if she would have engaged, it would have forced her to face reality, which honestly isn't her strong point. She has a narrative about her life ("it's great and full of endless adventures and isn't it great to get to start this next chapter, etc.") that would be impacted by the truth of things, which is life has been hard and difficult and sad.

I actually called my EAP at work and vented to a therapist. And the result is I am going to therapy next week to think through things. I don't know how or if I can trust my mother. That's how let down I feel.[/quote]

Living in a narrative is shallow, boring and meaningless to anybody but herself. It is very common among women.  The narrative must be maintained because the true fear is accountability .  I have found that it is extremely common for women to react to accountability and truly admitting failure like a vampire reacts to a crucifix .  Women with the ability accept and absorb fault and acknowledge their shortcomings are true gems .  They are rare.[/quote]

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