How do I ask my manipulative mother to move out?
Long time listener, first time poster here. I’m in need of some advice, or literally anything at this point. I don’t really know where to start but here it is. Fake names for obvious reasons.
My mother (f57 Karen) and I (f28) have always had a rocky relationship since my parents divorce. When they split, she moved me across the state to live with her boyfriend (we’ll call him Bill) at age 11, and honestly those were the worst years of my life. I dealt with constant manipulation, emotional, physical and financial abuse. As a child I had to figure out how to survive through a toxic environment with a narcissist for years.
Our lives were a constant cycle of Karen leaving and returning, mixed in with Bill kicking us out, forcing us to stay in hotels for weeks with no where else to go. Bill physically abused both my mother and I on multiple occasions. After a while, the way Bill spoke to her, is the way my mother spoke to me. She slowly began to develop all of his mannerisms. When I was in highschool he choked me in-front of one of my best friends while she was at work. After this she left him for a few years and our mother daughter relationship improved drastically. We were happy and financially stable on our own. However, during this time I became my mothers emotional crutch. She suffered from alcoholism, and became abuse herself. She constantly guilted me about leaving her for better opportunities, often mentioning she has nothing left, she might as well… we all know. But before I knew it, she was hiding who she was talking to and disappearing for days on end. They were getting back together and my mother told me after our lease was up she was moving back in with him. That the invitation was extended to me. I refused.
Within a year of them getting back together, they got married and the abuse immediately continued. She was showing up at my house after he beat her up, saying she didn’t know what to do or where to go. I couldn’t do it anymore. I moved out of state and focused on myself. Started my career, and started my education. While I put boundaries forward to protect myself. I always offered her asylum because he didn’t know where I lived, nor did he have my phone number. She always told me she would leave, but never did.
In ‘22 I met my wife and we started our relationship on a strong base of communication and kindness. We both had our fair share of toxic partners and intentionally went into our relationship with strong motivations to dismantle our toxic traits and bad habits.
My mother and her met a few months into our relationship and saw it for what it was, healthy. She explained to us that she desired that peaceful partnership in her life. About a year later she filed for Divorce and settled into a quiet peaceful life, financially secure on her own. Finally. At that time our relationship was at an all time high, and my wife and her got along so well. I thought Karen had finally really made all the major changes I had been begging for and longing for since I was a kid. There were a few times that she would display behaviors that threw up some red flags, but I would quickly shut it down. I would tell her what behavior specifically I wouldn’t be dealing with, and if she couldn’t respect that, here was a boundary. She was great for the first 2-3 years of my relationship with my wife. Hell, she even did everything she could for our wedding knowing my father refused to show. It was surprising.
On one of Karen’s holiday visits to our house, she kept talking about how she didn’t know what she was going to do because she still lived in a town where her ex husband was, and she was scared. She told us that he found out where she lived and would show up. She said he left notes on her car outside of work and when she was at the park walking her dog. She wanted to leave but didn’t know where she would move or what would happen. Thinking our relationship was going to continue and be great, my wife suggested she move in with us temporarily. We were struggling financially, and just wanted to catch up after a really hard year. Once we finally got things all figured out, we drove 6 hrs with a trailer to pick up her stuff. We had all agreed to down size, as we were conjoining our two house holds. She did not. And that’s when it all started. She didn’t load anything, she didn’t hire movers, my wife and I did it all. She swore up and down she would do all the unloading once we got to the house, and would only need help with the big stuff. Within an hour of arriving, she started to complain that she was feeling sick because of the car ride and couldn’t move anything. She didn’t go out to unpack any boxes for FOUR DAYS! All while making comments to guilt my wife and I into unloading all of her stuff. Like “oh It really would be nice if I had MY towels but they’re all packed away”. We moved her stuff in eventually. The living situation continued to get worse from there. My wife was unexpectedly let go from her job about 3 months in. Karen was quick to say we would figure it out together and she would pay half the rent. A jump from around $600 to $800 a month. (We were splitting three ways to be nice, but she has over half the house. We have our master and living room. She has the extra living room, a bedroom, a bathroom and the spare room turned into her living room).
During this time, my wife took it as an opportunity to start a business she has always wanted to, and had the hopes it would take off rather quickly and it started to. She got her businesses set up and 5 clients all within a month. And still actively applied for any job that she could qualify for in our area (job market is insane here)
Karen consistently bugged my wife about job prospects and how much she was going to get her income back. It started to weigh on her.
Around that time We planned a camping trip to decompress, and Karen came. We did everything for her. It was like having a grown child who got drunk on fireball and almost fell into the fire. Mind you, I grew up pretty country. So she KNOWS how and “loves” to camp. So it was definitely weaponized incompetence. We were upset because we didn’t even get to enjoy ourselves. After we got back from camping, my wife went on a quick trip to go see some family she hasn’t seen in well over a year and enjoy herself. The moment my wife left, Karen did a complete 180. She immediately started acting like she had never said she was going to split rent, and when I tried to stand up and call her out; she gas lit me till I cried. Once I started crying, she just kept laughing at me. I felt like I was so small, and I felt like I was that 13y/old fighting for my life again. The conversation ended with her saying she’s not helping for more than 90 days. When my wife returned, she acted like nothing happened and was beyond fake.
The following months came with multiple conversations about rent because Karen continued to say “oh I didn’t budget for it, can it be late”. My wife had to call her out multiple times because Every time I tried, it was the same thing. My wife obtained a full time job on top of her new business to keep the financial peace but that was as not enough. She started trying to create issues within my wife and i’s relationship by trying to create doubts about me to my wife. She hardly ever cooks, and when she does, it’s horrible. Her cooking has always been good, we grew up in a very culturally vibrant community with the BEST food. But now she says “ I don’t know how to season like you guys”.
She expects dinner when she gets home even though we are all working full time. She got a job here in a similar field to mine and she constantly tries to one up me. She says my job is cake and I have it easy even though I have a masters and 6 years experience in my field. My job is always high stress, and somewhat dangerous.
Before this, she was a secretary at a middle school.
My wife and I have been wanting to move from our area because it is not LGBTQ friendly. I have an active transfer request in the system so that if a spot opens up in the city where we want to go, we are the first ones in line. Once I told Karen about this, she started trying to guilt me not to take it, or will try to talk to me when my wife isn’t home. She will say things trying to get me to tell her she can move with us. I have recently told her that if she continues to live with us, it will ruin our relationship because I don’t believe our relationship was where I thought it was. And her response was, “I’m sorry you feel that way”.
I had to start recording our conversations because she speaks to me completely different than if my wife is around. If I try to recall prior conversations for my wife In front of Karen without a recording, she would gas light me and change the story.
She is incompetent when it comes to caring for our animals and hers, even though she raised me on a ranch with multiple animals. A few months ago I found her dog hours way from death in a pool of blood. I rushed him to the vet and found out it was pancreatitis. She over fed him for a year. She couldn’t even be bothered to pick him up from the vet after an overnight stay because she wouldn’t miss work, even for a lunch break. So I had to pick him up. On top of that? A few months ago We left for a weekend and asked if Karen could watch our dogs. She fed my wife’s first fur baby a bone marrow bone that gave him gastroenteritis, after days of vomiting and refusing to eat my wife took him to the vet. After $1300 and an overnight stay, we never received an apology. Only $200 and she met me at the vet to pick him up after work (while my wife was working) because “he’s grandmas boy”.
There is so much more and this is just a very small portion of it. We are struggling with our mental health and do not know what to do. Her victim complex is so bad, it makes any conversation like this so difficult. Any advice or anything would be appreciated. If there is anything that needs clarification, please ask. We need help.