Is it time to walk away from my narcissistic, toxic mum?

As someone who has always believed in the institution of marriage for all good reasons (for individuals and for society), I admit that here is a case when it would surely have been better f or your parents’ union to end.

Your mother led two lives — neither of which could have been happy. In trying to ‘keep the family together’, she sacrificed the mental health of her husband and doomed her three children to confusion and pain.

Perhaps she wanted to preserve the marriage for the sake of status, not love. This terrible story is a warning about living a lie — and a reminder that there are always consequences.

The way you are feeling right now, you could easily ‘step back’ and have little to do with the woman who gave birth to you, but whom you clearly hold responsible for your father’s death. Would it bother her?

maybe not. I suspect she might just withdraw further into controlling lies about her family.

I certainly wouldn’t blame you at all for minimising your contact with this woman.

You call her ‘narcissistic’ and what you have revealed of her behaviour

(some necessarily cut from your longer message) indicates that you are probably right.

She must have been very angry that you have f elt unable to embrace Peter into your families, her obsession with her long-term lover blinding her to the full of horror of your father taking his own life. The truth is, you think she was glad — and cannot forgive her.

Now she has used her will as another weapon against you. You haven’t asked about that (you might take legal advice) and I’m glad. Because the money is not really the issue, is it?

I suspect it’s the sense that this is yet another insult to your poor father, who made the original will with her. It sounds to me as if your mother has never been able or willing to give you and your siblings the kind of maternal support and love you longed for.

The saddest thing is when you s ay s he never wished y ou happiness. Sometimes it is impossible to stick a plaster on such wounds. Then the best thing is indeed to step back and live your own life without the toxicity.

It’s hard — especially with a parent, and she will always be your mother. But stepping back is not the same as cutting off, is it? It j ust means you stop hurting yourself by expecting the person to change.