Amazing how different strangers can have identical histories with their parents! Mom is 87 Dad died 2 years ago and their relationship was broken since I can remember. They were like water and oil. My half sister will start telling her about how bad things were and she takes the baton and runs with stories of abuse and won’t stop! I’ve asked her to try and find something positive but she goes right back to the negative but stayed with him 55 years and allowed us to witness both verbal and Physical abuse. Dad was a veteran and left her well off but she still has nothing to say but all the abuse she took from the past! She never considers the abuse we went through seeing it all. It’s all about her and my younger brother who she somehow feels suffered more than my sister and me but who is OK seeing their Mom getting pummeled? We ALL suffered. She says she is so lonely now and misses him but in reality she just hates being alone and when he was alive she complained daily of how sick of him she was. Now he’s dead but she is still talking about how terrible he treated her. Mom isn’t a saint and multiple men called the house for her when I was a child but she Swears it was all innocent. I told her to please stop talking about him and she got upset and was ready to get off the phone

I could have written this post too! My mother died recently but badmouthed my dad, her caretaker, constantly. In retrospect she was housebound and handicapped and probably felt trapped and lashed out at the nearest person, but at the time, it made me feel disgusted and cringe-y and my therapist would tell me to hang up but I couldn't, I would feel guilty. It SUCKED.

Anonymous wrote:Wait, are you me? My mom has done this her whole life, about my father as well as everyone else she doesn't like, and my father's recent death has not stopped it.

My way of dealing with it is to immediately stop the conversation as soon as she starts doing it, and refuse to tolerate it. I will either hang up the phone or just stop talking in person. She will never change, but at least it stops the bad-mouthing!

Gosh, I could have written this post!

I change the subject. She always badmouthed him.

nope, never.

“I’m not the right person for you to say these things to.”

She talks trash about him ALL.THE.TIME even though he is caring for her and has the patience of a saint.