He should respect your wishes in this. It's your family and your mental health. A good spouse will support your decision for distance and/or termination of the family relationship.


If you're the executor, it will only be a concern when he's dead. If you're the executor, your sister could only take your mother's money and run if she had easy access to the accounts, was authorized on them, etc. If she does somehow take what she's not entitled to...well, there's always court, if you want to pursue. IF that happens.


The awesome thing is that...you are not responsible for your mother. You don't have to protect her from her own poor choices, especially not at great cost to your own health and welfare. (Seems to me she really didn't protect you all that well.) If you choose to attempt to shield her anyway, just be aware of the cost and the reasons you're doing it. Don't let them use your humanity against you.


I don't think it's necessarily about decency, and I don't think anyone who ever had an N parent would question you for cutting and running. In a situation like that, it's the best and most sane thing to do. You don't owe them, you really don't.


The only way therapy helps with toxic and/or a narcissistic parent is by teaching us how to protect ourselves and how to get out. One cannot work with the narcissistic parent. I foolishly thought years ago that mine had changed after therapy. NOPE. Still blind as anything, too.

The other thing about therapy (aside from the difficult task of finding a decent therapist) is that the whole you-control-everything-it-is-all-your-deal bunk that is so popular now. "Have a bad day? It's your fault for not thinking positively enough and failing to choose the right feelings. You chose to feel bad, didn't you? Because you can control all of your reactions to everything and make it all positive! If your life is difficult, it's your fault for not thinking the right way. If you were raised that way...well, that's your fault, too. Oh, and you allowed your family to treat you badly, so that's your fault as well and you can't say anything about how it hurts because you're responsible for everything. The end." And it goes on. It's such crap. Hell, I don't know about you, but if I wanted to be blamed for everything, I'd just get it for free by talking to my narcissistic parent. (Let me insert standard obvious disclaimer that we are responsible for our own choices, ourselves, etc - before someone freaks out, lol.)


This is why distance and/or escape is the only way to deal with them. There is no getting along with them. There is staying away, or there is subjecting yourself to the toxins and bearing the consequences of that.


They wouldn't. People always looked at me as the bad person for not wanting to be around my parent, but if people haven't experienced that, they're totally clueless about what it's like and how damaging it is.


You shouldn't. If you can stop, actually, that would spare you a lot of stress and grief.


That's much healthier for you than feeling responsible and beholden, IMO. Stick with that. And that husband needs to get on-board!


He's obviously lacking some empathy here. If something affects one spouse greatly and the other not very much, the one who is not very affected should yield, IMO. Especially in a case like this. How is it right for him to insist on contact with them when it's destructive to you and he really has no stake in it? If my spouse/partner told me they didn't want to see their parents or have contact with them, I wouldn't even need to know why (though of course I'd want to know because I care about spouse/partner). But if I knew it was upsetting or painful for them, I'd be all in and support them 100%. I certainly wouldn't be chatting with the toxic family on the phone and inviting them over.


I certainly know what you mean.


Oh, of course, because they have nothing to do with it. I especially love when my parent is like, "I wonder where you got these issues from!" INDEED, HOW MYSTERIOUS.