This backstory has turned out to be a bit lengthy, so forgive the exposition:

Growing up, my parents never really had a loving relationship. My dad was always very pushy, stressful and critical, and my mom was always very clingy, low self-esteem, permanent victim-mode, etc. They fed off of each other's negativity and only polarized each other the whole time they were married. They finally divorced when we were all in our late teens, to "spare" us the stress of doing it sooner. My mom was extremely devastated about being "dumped". My dad really didn't have much money to give in the form of alimony or child support, so we moved out of the house and lived with my mom's parents, our grandparents. As the years went by she CONSTANTLY expressed to us how horrible he was, how he "abandoned" us all and threw us out on our asses with no money to starve (because she was a homemaker who now suddenly had to get a job to support herself), how it was important for us to know how bad he is so that we never get hurt by him too.

For a while, since I did resent how critical and on-edge he was, I let her influence me completely against him. I allowed myself to sit there listening to all the stories she told about how he wronged her, cheated on her, never respected her, always flirted with other women in front of her, etc. This is all still true, but they say that divorced parents are not supposed to criticize their exes in front of the kids. If that's the case, my mom has failed utterly and miserably at this. She became completely helpless and I started feeling like a parent to her, instead of like a child. I would often think to myself "there is no parent here right now with my siblings. There's just another child here that I have to take care of. We're all children fending for ourselves."

Now, several years on, my sister and I still live with her in our mid 20s, and I've been on and off with jobs (off for the longest time in a while now, still looking for jobs). I have big ambitions, but kind of feel like I've been spinning my wheels in my 20s so far, just floating between entry level retail jobs and unemployment that my mom never had too much disagreement with.

My dad reached out to me several months ago and said that he wanted to go on a little trip with me, just the two of us, and we could get to know each other better and settle any grievances I had with him, because I did admit that I still resented him. We hung out in Southern Utah to go see the arches, and between all the long driving, we talked. At first it was just little things between awkward silence, and we agreed on political ideas, so that was a good chunk of conversation. The next drive in the early morning he explained his side of the story and that while he may not be perfect, and may have been hard to get along with, he's actively working on changing his ways, and that his new wife has helped him to become more respectful and sensitive.

He turned the discussion over to me and asked me what I'd like to say to him, and air out whatever I wanted to say. I certainly didn't feel like chewing him out or anything to his face, so I just said that lately I feel like I've been stuck and not doing that much with my life.

From there he immediately launched into a long rant of his own about how my mom was pulling us kids down to stay with her forever and make her feel better and never encouraging us to leave the nest, get jobs and be functional adults- how she bought extra pets to make us feel bad about moving out and leaving them, and all sorts of little things to hang onto us "like tentacles". Honestly, this idea was a shock to me, but made a lot of sense. He asked me if she ever told us to get jobs, and I said yes. He asked if she ever told us to move out and find places of our own, and I said no. He shook his head in disappointment and said, "That's what I mean. That's insane."

He was already on her pretty hard, so I didn't have the heart to tell him that she also always seemed visibly upset and betrayed whenever we DID mention the idea of moving out on own own, and that she absolutely would be more than happy with us living with her for the rest of our lives.

He also vented his sense of anger, disappointment and betrayal at her for pulling us out of public high school and enrolling us in online high school without consulting him because "the education in the sticks is terrible", so that we could stay home with her. He was also angry that she let us quit jobs and not get new ones immediately. It was kind of a revelation for me- but it's also sad that both my parents are content to bash each other in front of us. To be honest, I believe both of them for the most part. But now I'm starting to realize how my mom is trying to make me feel bad about living a life of my own and "abandoning her".

Yesterday my sister chewed her out for bad-mouthing our dad in front of her (she's the daddy's girl), and that scientific studies show that it badly affects children of parents who badmouth their exes in front of their kids, and to that accusation my mom constantly justified herself and defended her resentment. Then later on her errands with just me, we started discussing it again and she literally told me "your father divorced us". I told her he didn't divorce us kids, just her, and she said, "but he abandoned you. He abandoned us."

It's really upsetting to face total confirmation that she's poisoning me and manipulating me into being her servant for my whole life.

Today my sister revealed that instead of staying here trying to finish school to get her Bachelor's degree, she'll take some time off, move to Vegas with dad and get a certificate to travel the world teaching English, which she's wanted to do the whole time and why she's going to school. During this whole discussion, my mom told me that I can't move out now- I have to stay with her and help her while my sister leaves so that we don't all leave her at once.

Honestly, I wish I was the first to be moving out and my sister could be the one who has to deal with her toxic, clinging low self-esteem, but it's me. I've never lived alone. My sister lived in an apartment for several months and then moved back.

I don't want to rush to move out until I'm more financially secure and gainfully employed, but HOW do I keep living with this woman, when I know she's influencing me to be scared, pathetic, low-achieving and attached to her hip for the rest of my life??? It just sucks. I hate that I have to deal with this. I hate that she WANTS me to feel guilty and responsible for her mental health and happiness. She constantly says she wants us to SUPPORT her- financially, emotionally and otherwise.