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MY mean mother refuses to share her money with me. She’s 68 and absolutely loaded.
I think she should let me have access to this cash while I’m still young. I run a good business but I’m really struggling to find extra funding.
I’ve put everything I have into my project. My father and partner have both invested. So why not her too?
Why is the one person I’m closest to holding out on me?
We’re rowing all the time. She says her savings are nothing to do with me, that they’re for her future.
I’m beginning to conclude that she’s not the woman I thought she was.
How can she stand back and watch me struggle?
MY girl has become obsessed with keeping our place spotlessly clean and tidy.
I just can’t live like this any more. I can’t put down a mug or even read a newspaper without being shouted at for making a mess.
The latest thing is that I’m banned from the kitchen for leaving marks on the stainless steel drainer.
When I point out that the kitchen is a functional space, she elbows me out of the way.
I’m not even allowed to use the shower until she has given me the go-ahead.
Squirted
She spends so much time with her head in interior design magazines that she’s lost touch with reality.
I didn’t even want to splash out on the cream-crushed velvet sofas that now dominate our sitting room.
I loved our comfy old brown leather ones. But now that they’re here I feel like a cat on a hot tin roof.
It’s ridiculous – we row about her obsessiveness all the time.
I tell her that she’s got her priorities all wrong.
She doesn’t want to go out, she doesn’t work, see friends or pay any attention to me. Our sex life is a dim, distant memory.
The other night I made a joke about throwing her across the kitchen table in order to make mad, passionate love to her and she actually squirted me with disinfectant to get me out of the way. No crumb, stain or speck is allowed to survive in this house.
I’m beginning to feel like a stranger and a nuisance in my own home.
JANE SAYS: You’ve got to accept you are not entitled to any of your mother’s money.
Maybe it does gall you that she’s sitting on a fortune, but that’s her call, not yours.
You can hardly knock her for planning for the future and worrying about care home fees.
If she did give you her cash, and your firm collapsed, then neither of you would have a penny left.
Surely personal and business cash needs to be kept separate?
Instead of arguing, try to put this behind you because she’s still your mother.
Don’t be too quick to slag her off for being cautious.
She could have seen other, older friends suffer and be worried about becoming a burden in later life. JANE SAYS:Your girlfriend sounds like a very bored and unhappy woman.
Consequently she’s now challenging her considerable energy into cleaning your home, but she’s going way over the top.
Yes, she’s trying to keep herself busy but her work is futile.
Of course, every home should be clean and comfortable, but there are limits. It’s not necessary, or particularly healthy, to live in somewhere that is blasted with chemicals and too clean.
You’ve got to make her see that this erratic behaviour is masking a bigger problem.
She needs to get back out in the big, bad world of work again.
She has to regain her energy; get a job and stop living in a bubble.
If you and she can’t do this together (or even with the help of family, friends or ex-colleagues) then she’s got to be encouraged to see her GP and explain what she’s exactly going through.
In the meantime, can’t you establish a daily walk; a visit to a coffee shop or trip to a neighbour’s house? Think baby steps first. You all need to understand that her obsessive-compulsive behaviour is masking a deep unhappiness and frustration.
But she has to have it pointed out to her that this is your home too and you have to feel comfortable and calm whenever it’s time to relax. You’re entitled to something of a sanctuary too.