Mum Expects Me To Help With Her Marital Problems

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TUF
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12 Dec 2018, 8:43 am

My stepdad and mum are like my parents, my stepdad's been with mum since I was 9. He's a good dad, a lot better than my real dad is, but a bad husband.
I'm 30 so I'm an adult and I've had my own relationships. Mum knows I'm aspie. We're like friends as well as mother and daughter.
Every time they quarrel, including when she thinks he's trying to cheat on her (and getting rebuffed by the other women) and when he's horrible about her health (she's got a rare disease which is serious but so rare I'm not mentioning it for anonymity's sake since she's one of the only people in the UK with it), she talks to me about it. I know all the details of why he's a horrible husband. She never leaves him and they always make up in the end. They don't even go and sleep in different houses for the night anymore.
She's NT with lots of friends who she could share this stuff with. I think she might be approaching me because I have a policy of treating men and women equally whereas her friends seem to put up with crap from men all the time so long as the guy is rich enough to buy them presents (she knows this is messed up, that's not the dynamic in my parents' marriage but those are the friends she chooses). I tell her my own stresses but that's because she's my NT mother so I see her job as guiding me a bit even as an adult.
I want to help her but at the same time, I want to set up boundaries and I'm not sure if how she's acting is appropriate. Especially since she's decided (on her own but it's from fairly convincing evidence) that he's aspie and adhd and I'm officially diagnosed as aspie and sometimes she says 'is treating people like this an autistic thing' when it isn't, it's just a selfish person thing.
I wouldn't mind but 1 I don't get what she wants from me and 2 she never ever does anything about it so it's just stressful for me to listen to then never be able to mention because she says 'never bring this up to him even in an argument'... and 3 I don't know if this is the role of an adult lesbian long term single daughter or not, it feels a bit inappropriate.



BTDT
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12 Dec 2018, 8:48 am

It could be that she just needs a BFF to vent with and you just need to listen.



magz
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12 Dec 2018, 9:58 am

My friend told her recently divorced mother: No way, find someone else to complain about my father, I'm the very wrong person for it.

I think you should do the same. Your mother needs to vent, true, but you are one of the worst persons to talk about these problems. In general. As a rule. No complaining about your spouse to your children, even when they are adults. She needs another friend or a therapist for it, you won't do, it's a real burden to you but it wouldn't be to her sister, cousin or close friend outside the family.
As his stepchild, you have your right to refuse to listen and she needs to find someone else to talk about it.


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TUF
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12 Dec 2018, 4:31 pm

I tried telling her and she says she hasn't got any friends since she moved. Which is nonsense because we don't live in Victorian times but honestly I feel like between the amount of jobs she's doing at the moment she might honestly have no time to text/email/phone/WattsApp people.
She seems really stressed in general so I'll wait 'til her holidays to let her know how I feel. I did try suggesting it gently, reminding her that if nothing else there's always my aunt/her sister.
I think maybe she's copying what her friends do and forgetting that although he's just a stepdad, he is like a proper dad to me (ie someone I grew up with as a dad) and not some new bloke. A lot of her friends complain to their kids but they're in new relationships. Which is different I think because it's easier then to take mum's side and want whatever's best for her, whereas I do want that but I also want the pair of them to be happy. And also, her friends' adult kids are NT. It feels harder to do this as an aspie I think. I can't even manage friendships well let alone getting a girlfriend, so who am I to advise...
She's having a really hard time at the moment and keeps telling me it's not my fault but I was the whole reason we moved (it gets me out of the house, I had a breakdown then stayed inside for 5 years because I hated our old neighbourhood and town) so I feel like it is my fault and she's white lying.



Earthling
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27 Dec 2018, 5:00 pm

Trust your feelings. You already know that you don't want this.

Parentifying a child (making the kid take on the role of an adult supporter for emotional problems) is emotional incest. It's not healthy.

Even now that you're an adult you don't have to this and it's very natural that you don't want to.