I’ll start by saying that my mum lives with us, my wife and I own our home outright and my mum has her own room and bathroom. We don’t charge her rent since she’s permanently disabled and doesn’t get much in benefits (this is the UK FYI.)
Every. Single. Day. She complains non-stop for an absolute minimum of two hours when I get home, or when something happens that gives her an excuse to complain. 99% of the time she complains about the way people treat her.
She’s my mum, I love her, but she’s a total doormat. She has no degree of backbone towards anyone except me. She can’t say no, can’t set boundaries, can’t do anything but do whatever someone with a sad story tells her to. All it takes is for someone to have a bad day, and she’ll take some of their responsibility off their hands (and usually put it in mine, since her disabilities prevent her from doing a lot.) From then on they just put more and more onto her, today she ended up doing someone else’s entire weekly shopping for them, because they didn’t feel like doing it today.
She was complaining and whining to me, after I did our own weekly shopping, hers, and this other persons whom she had taken on (she told me it was only a few things, that I don’t mind.) Saying how people are always so cruel and horrible to her, despite how nice she is. I tried telling her calmly about the problem, despite being so stressed out I couldn’t see straight, but she kept ignoring and waving me off, and whining even more.
Finally I snapped and screamed at her to just fucking listen to me for once, and then told her (I did not scream for this part) that it was her own fault for being a doormat and she needs to learn to say no and set boundaries, and if she won’t, then I will and won’t do any of this crap for her anymore.
She’s now telling everyone what a monster I am for refusing to help someone in need.
Reddit, AITA?
Edit: Since I keep saying this in replies, I have to say that I have tried multiple times over many months to set boundaries, explain this isn’t OK but she only listens when I lose my temper and scream. She finds ways to get around my boundaries and throws tantrums worse than my one year old. We’re all autistic and none of us can tolerate her screaming, I lose my patenience when my babies are hurting, so I fo everything I can to stop that from happening and she knows it.