My mother wants me to move back in with her; I want to keep solidfying my autonomy.

[sunrise24]

By request from whichwayisup, anna121, and preraph, here is my latest thread about my financial/living situation.

 

***

 

Disclaimer:

 

> I do have a job that is consistently giving me more than 20 hours per week and does pay at least minimum wage; I've been getting tips every work day on top of that.

 

> I do pay my own bills.

 

***

 

This is part 2 in my series of threads about my relationship with my mother. For background information, see Part 1.

 

Since the events described in Part 1, I lived with my mother until early this January, when she lost her place due to not being able to renew her lease. She and I then both moved in with a friend of hers, where we were each charged $200/month rent. I then was forced out at the end of April, and moved to a room within a house.

Soon afterward, I lost my sales job, my savings quickly diminished, and I was illegally evicted (only 10 days after being late for June's rent, which I drained nearly all of my remaining savings to pay part of). Rather than sticking it out in a legal battle and having an eviction on my record, I struck an agreement with that landlord where I had no further financial obligations to him, and voluntarily moved out 2 1/2 weeks before the deadline he gave me. That was June 24, and, with brief breaks, I have been living in my car ever since.

 

With my savings depleted to below threshold, I was able to get back on both Food Stamps & General Relief, and use that to keep me afloat until I successfully landed my current job earlier this month.

 

***

 

Today is my 28th birthday. My mother was telling me about how she hoped to have her own place to live again by my birthday; I responded "don't worry; I'm not crying over it." My mother has been on very bad terms with her friend with whom she still lives, complaining about her being too micromanaging and not understanding how hard it's been for her to find a place to live. My mother is on the verge of being forced out, most likely within 2 weeks. Unlike me, she has 3 cats, and bioidentical hormone & storage bills as well.

 

My mother has also started working again, as an Uber driver, and has been getting great reviews, though she's not yet making much more money than I am.

 

Now, I do believe my relationship with my mother has improved somewhat since my venting in Part 1, but not to the degree where I consider us to be very close. She knows I've been living in my car and has been worried sick about me. She wants me to move back in with her when she gets a plce to live, so she can "get me off the streets" as she puts it.

While I recognize the nobility in these intentions, my experiences living with her are not something I want to repeat. She still has a tendency to be emotionally unstable, lecture me about various habits in my life as if I'm still a child, and rely on me to run various errands for her (when she is not busy) to a degree that suggests codependency. She also doesn't have a bank account, since it got closed down due to her not being able to pay her overdraft fees; my bank account is being used to hold her savings on top of mine (part of the reason why I've been especially conservative with my spending lately).

 

While I've never returned to the point where I've seriously considered ending my relationship with my mother, I do believe that I should continue living away from her and continuing to build my autonomy, however risky my current circumstances sound.

 

The main reasons I am living in my car, and plan to for a while longer:

1.) My savings have only just started building back up.

2.) My credit got so severely damaged from my defaulted student loans that I cannot pass any credit check (virtually all lease signing these days requires one) if my life depended on it.

3.) I want to start finally paying down my student loan debt, so that I can start making progress with rebuilding my credit, which will enable many other facets of a healthy life (including having my own decent place to live) to fall into place more smoothly.

4.) I have found locations to park and sleep that are less than 2 miles from my workplace; since driving is the largest part of my job, I want to keep my commutes very short and my gas consumption outside of work very low.

 

I have never had the cops called on me or been robbed.

 

***

 

What are your thoughts on the circumstances that I've described thus far?

What would you do if you were in my situation?

What would you do if you were in my mother's situation?

 

Also, I realized that there are very likely a lot of unanswered questions; feel free to ask any that you may have for further clarification.

 

P.S.

I was an emancipated minor as soon as I knew I could be one and I never looked back...

I left home at 16, and never slept another night there.

 

I never asked for or accepted a penny from them after I left.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have done the same. When I expressed this to my mother, she told me "don't be so hard on yourself."

[hoping2heal]

I have some experience in dealing with a co-dependent, helicopter mom. I guess some of the differences would be that my mother herself never had personal success, never did the college thing, and never had a lot of money. She was never pushy with what I should do with my "life" aside from getting work so I can pay bills. She grew up in a home with an alcoholic father and a severely co-dependent mother. I was the elder child and as soon as my parents divorced I became an emotional pad for her and in many sorts a caretaker and a mess cleaner-upper. I will say, I do think my mom loves me in her own way and equally believes she is somehow helping and demonstrating love for me by attempting to coddle and guide me.

 

What has worked for me greatly is establishing boundaries. This is something I did work on with a general counsellor for a few months and I have to say, it really equipped me with the tools to pull me out of my own mess. It has been..geez, 6, 7? years since then and things have greatly improved. Different from you, I decided to pursue college of my own desire when I was mid 20's. I took big risks that paid off because I followed my passion but also stayed grounded in reality with respect to job opportunities and marketability of my edu pursuits. I have accomplished a lot of strides in my own independence that my mother sadly never did for herself. Some of them she supported and some of them she did not but? I learned boundaries. My mother's own behavior has gotten signicgantly better in response to me enforcing boundaries.

 

My mom is entitled to her own opinions about my life choices but she needs to keep them to herself. When she attempts to be critical I will firmly remind her that I'm a grown adult and have not asked for her input. My first few times of trying this with her resulted in her trying to guilt trip me; "I'm your mother, it is my job" "I can't believe you would not want your own mother's input" bla bla blue blue. But, I stood my ground. I check her on every offense without guilt. I'm not cruel or snappy about it - just firm enough to make it clear that she is crossing boundaries.

 

The thing with mom is she doesn't realize that she can't give me guidance and advice because she doesn't have life skills herself. She made many poor decisions in part of her humanity and in part for her lack of wisdom, knowledge, and appropriate life skills. However, this is something I have learned to stop strapping on my back. I always wanted to save her and make her life better for her. That was me crossing boundaries, too. I can't and will not try to fix her or her life. I can and only will stick to carving out the best life possible for myself.

 

You are going to have to learn how to define and enforce boundaries with her whether living with her or not. This can work and the results are worth it.

 

Re: your living arrangements. How are you bathing/showering if living in a car?

[Tayla]

 

You are going to have to learn how to define and enforce boundaries with her whether living with her or not. This can work and the results are worth it.

 

Re: your living arrangements. How are you bathing/showering if living in a car?

This part of advise is worthy of agreeing to.

The other parts, nope! People, adults ... have the right to lovingly express concerns, you do not get to tell your parent to shut up or that you didn't ask. That is such a teen ager response.

 

Op- Write down what you would like to build in your adult life with your parent? More autonomy? More open and respecting conversations? decide, then do.

[hoping2heal]

This part of advise is worthy of agreeing to.

The other parts, nope! People, adults ... have the right to lovingly express concerns, you do not get to tell your parent to shut up or that you didn't ask. That is such a teen ager response.

 

Op- Write down what you would like to build in your adult life with your parent? More autonomy? More open and respecting conversations? decide, then do.

 

Expressing concern is normal and okay, it's just not something I give my Mother much leeway to do for very good reasons. I certainly did not say that no person ever should be allowed to express concerns. We can agree to disagree, my life has worked out better for me when I learned to make good choices for myself and stop sabotaging or shying away from them at my mother's behest. I just cannot agree that in every parent-child relationship concerns and critcism are healthy or warranted. Seeing as how OP expressed she felt shoved into life decisions by her mother's "concern" I felt this is something on which she could relate.

[sunrise24]

Updates:

 

Today, my mother and I went shopping at Trader Joe's together; I buy apple cider vinegar from there or Whole Foods and had run out, plus I wanted to make sure she wasn't going to dip too much into my funds.

 

She was also stressing about finding a place to live and venting to me about how her friend texts her constantly asking when she will be able to move. My mother thinks her friend is messing with her head; I suggested that she was letting her friend get to her. She replied that sometimes she just needs someone to vent to and maybe I can teach her how to better handle the situation with her friend. I didn't reply to that; I'm not sure what she could possibly need me to teach her that years of her own relationship experiences haven't already taught her...

 

While we were on the topic of housing, I reminded her of my plans to stay close to my workplace. At one point, she remarked "I thought we were sticking together." My reply: "doesn't mean we have to be under the same roof." She didn't have a reply to that.

 

Another interesting twist later in the day was when she asked me if I would buy her a white bra and panties that she had found online for $20. I replied: "That can wait a little longer; we have more urgent and important priorities." (my mother and I both need to replace our cars ASAP)

My mother persisted with: "I have only 2 pairs of bra and panties that I can wear for a whole week." I countered with: "We both don't have much in the way of nice clothes; you're not alone. Getting the car issues resolved is more important right now. Later, we can celebrate with some clothes shopping." (this goes without reminding her of her living situation). My mother didn't have any further response.

 

This is not a matter of "my bank account, my rules;" it is simply a matter of urgencies and priorities that my mother herself has repeatedly expressed to me.

 

***

 

There are certain ways my mother and I can share and ask each other for help that are fine with me; my main concern in starting this topic has been our living situations. My strategy here has been to subtly plant the suggestion in her head that we won't be living together again. Besides that, I've been taking the codependency issues one a time as they arise, gradually setting boundaries in a civil, non-confrontational fashion.

 

My mother's friend is currently on a road trip dropping her daughter back off at college (she'll be out of town for at least a couple more days); my mother has expressed her desire to have me sleep in her bed with her (as the friend is going to take over the room that was used for her daughter) so that I don't have to continue sleeping in my car; this also appears to be another way in which my mother is rebelling against what she deems to be unfair rules the friend has put in place. I didn't respond to this yet, but I get the feeling it will be the next notable test of my ability to set and reinforce boundaries.

 

***

 

hoping2heal:

I'm very much in agreement with your suggestions. Fortunately, it appears I haven't even had to be blunt in my counters to unreasonable demands or with indicating that I don't want to move back in with her. She seems to be taking the subtle modifications of boundaries well enough thus far.

 

Also, a well-known way to be able to shower on the go is via a gym membership; I have one with 24 Hour Fitness.

 

***

 

preraph also weighed in via PM; some clarification is merited:

 

Never heard of anyone not being able to open a bank account somewhere.

I have also asked my mother about this; she explained that because her unpaid overdraft fees from her old bank account got sent to ChexSystems, banks will not allow her to open a new account until that debt is paid.

 

Basically, as far as I understand, she needs to use someone else's bank account to be able to store money and make payments that can't be made with cash, and there aren't any reliable alternatives for getting paid as an Uber driver as far as I can tell.

 

I think your mother was probably putting you down as a dependent and getting some gov't money that way...

This is false.