My once happy mother is now depressed and defeated

My dad died two years ago and my mother’s mother came to live with her. My grandmother is very controlling and abusive. I’ve seen my mom change from a happy person to a defeated nothing – I can’t stand to see her like this.

Advice: It is always hard to give an older person advice. Most of the time, if that advice hasn’t been asked for, the person will feel defensive when we give it. So we have to start with something like this, after mom complains about grandma: “Wow, that sounds pretty hard. Would you like to know what some other people do in situations like this?” You can then proceed to give her as many bad ideas as you can think of first, because people will usually reject the first idea.

She probably knows what she would tell a friend to do. The bottom line is that we can’t tell someone else what they should do.

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We can’t make someone else do what we think they should do. All you can do is think about what you would do if grandma became your responsibility. Figure it out in detail and then let mom know, so she might have an idea of what she can expect from you all when she gets older and needs a place to stay, and it wouldn’t work for her to be with you. What would you do? How is it different with her mom? Simply discuss with your mom some day over lunch. Discuss the theoretical and see how it goes.

From our experience, people get something from their behaviour. Your mother wouldn’t be doing what she is doing unless there was some payoff. She likes having her mom be dependent on her. Mom doesn’t feel like she deserves to be happy. Something is going on. Keep talking till you find out what. Let us know what you come up with.