I agree, and you're all right, I am making assumptions about her.

And yes, it probably is a reflection in my own eyes. My decision about what to do is scattered; one day I want to ask her back into my life, the next I'm thinking it might be best for her to let make the call when, and if she's ready. I just don't know what to do about it.

She has said to me several times though, that my Mother has done a number on me. So she definitely see's it. And yes, my thoughts are that exactly that, toolman65, why would anyone want to get into a relationship with me, when I've got all these mother issues to contend with.


The Christmas party has come and gone. No idea what her plans are for New Year's, but I'll find out.



After my Dad died, the farm went into my name. Legally, the farm was mine, and I had no intentions of selling it. My Mom was living out there all by herself, but would come to the city once or twice a week, and go into the nearby local town to work part time twice a week for a few hours. But in the winters, she relied on the neighbour to plow out the yard and driveway, otherwise she would get stuck.

After my Dad passed, I stopped working to get back into pursuing my career, which made money incredibly tight. I was living in a condo that my parents put the down payment on, but I co-owned with my Dad. I lived there for 15 years by myself, so I know what's is like to live on my own. More on that later. When my Dad passed, the insurance paid off the remainder of the mortgage. So both the farm and the condo were completely paid for. But money was still tight, money with my family in the last 20+ years or so has always seemed to be a problem. My Mom insisted that I move back home with her to the farm. I didn't want to do that, as there was no life for me there. No internet, no friends, no job prospects. It's out in the middle of nowhere, and an hour's drive to the city. Then the neighbour came knocking one day, and offered to buy the farm. He offered a good amount of money, and my Mom and I both mulled it over. Everyone was telling her that she needed to get off the farm, living out there by herself just wasn't good - if something happened to her, it would almost be impossible for her to get immediate help. My Dad died at home, and it took the ambulance close to 30 minutes to arrive, even though it was too late to do anything.

I was never pushing her to move, but it seemed like the best next logical step. And it's not like she liked living there either. She was someone who grew up in the city, but when she married my Dad, and I was born, we lived in a small town. We moved out to the farm after I graduated high school, because someone offered to buy our house in the town we were living in for a reasonable price. It was last minute, and we had the farm already, it was my Dad's old place, but no one lived there. I only lived there for two years before I moved out, but I can tell you now, I know she hated living out there, regardless of what's happened since.

My Mom and I both decided that the offer was too good to pass up, and that if I sold my place and the farm combined, we could buy this new condo in the city and move in to together. So that's what we did. Now I'm here, and the costs of living in this new place have skyrocketed, property taxes, insurance, all that stuff; and with neither of us are working full time; my Mom doesn't work at all anymore, and we're still hurting financially. Even after selling both the farm and my place, it wasn't enough to cover the cost of this place, even though we had budgeted it to work - sometimes these things just don't go as planned as we thought. And over the course of time that I've lived here, I've wracked up debts, and she's helped cover me, a lot.

But to answer your question Rose76, yes, I have been very dependent on her my whole life. Anytime I needed financial help, she was there, no questions asked. Little did I realize that that was a mistake; I thought it was normal for parents to help their children when they needed it. That's how it's been my whole life, and even for the majority of my friends and family. But I can see now how it affected me, and how it's contributed to this toxic environment that I'm living in now.

I know everyone is saying moving out is the first step, and you're all right. But please believe me when I say this, and it's not an excuse, but getting my finances in order has be to be the first priority. I can't even crash at a friends, because all of my friends have either moved away, or are married with families. My one friend who is still here, also lives with his mother, which makes it impossible. If I walked out the door tomorrow, I don't even have enough money for a deposit on a place. I could stay in a hotel for a couple of weeks using my credit cards, but then I'm just wracking up more debt. Even when I spoke with a friend of mine today going over all of this, he said, yeah, you're stuck with your Mother, at least until I can save some money and pay what she feels I owe her, especially the car. He knows what I'm dealing with on that level, and completely understands.

I've been putting a plan in motion to begin working full time starting in the new year. This project that I'm working on right now, a paid project, is eating up nearly 12 hours per day, and I have a deadline... it's the biggest priority right now. And it's a project that has the potential to change my life when it's completed, especially financially. But the second it's finished, I don't care if I have to flip burgers at McDonald's, I'm doing it, and will start paying off some of my debt, and especially things like my car. My Mom has covered my car payments a couple of times, and in her mind, until I pay her back, that car is hers, regardless if it's registered and insured in my name or not. So it's things like that I want make sure she's compensated for, so that she can't turn it around on me.

Like I said, I lived on my own for 15 years, and yes, I depended on my parents to some extent even then. And living on my own again is something I truly do miss. I don't care if I have to live in a rat-infested studio apartment in the worst neighbourhood possible, I really don't, I'm at that point already. But even when I lived on my own, my Mom would make sure she talked to me everyday, had to know what I was doing, and if I was going anywhere. When I was in Los Angeles in September for this project I'm currently working on, it was so great being so far away from her, where she couldn't see what I was doing, or who with, even though I wasn't doing anything irresponsible; I was there for work, and that's what I was up to. That freedom was so incredibly great.

There's so much more I could go into about living at home again. Like when we moved from the farm, the amount of stuff she brought with her. The basement is filled. A lot of paperwork; my parents had their own businesses, and there's boxes of tax information, etc. And I'm tied to a lot it as well, as my parents always included my name on it as a director of these companies. I've been pushing her in the last several months to get this stuff cleaned up, and she has been doing it. But there's still a lot of stupid stuff. Like when we were moving stuff from the farm to the new place, she insisted in bringing this mouse urine stained mattress. I fought with her about it, my friend helping her move also said to leave it and burn it. She keeps saying it can be steam cleaned and it'll be fine. I think she's also a borderline hoarder. None of you can honestly even imagine the amount of stuff there is. And it drives me crazy. Just another crazy thing about my Mom.

But finances aside, when I spoke with one of my friends today about the confrontation we had the other day, he said if she's willing to threaten me with disowning me if I choose to go back to my ex-GF, or if I find a girl who isn't a virgin, that obviously doesn't have anything to do with finances, and it's nothing but having complete control over me. All I can do is putting my nose to the grindstone, working to get some of these debts paid, saving some money, and getting out. My Mom has said she wants to move from this new place anyhow, as it's too expensive, and she's not happy here. I'm actually encouraging it to do, but I've told her, I'm not helping her move all this crap, it has to be cleared first. And I think it has helped, because surprising she has been cleaning. And if that's the case, we can both move out at the same time, and she can go one way, and I can go mine.