Some background on me. Growing up, I was consistently sexually and physically abused by my bio dad. My mom knew and did nothing. She would tell me to ignore him and if I didn’t (because he forced himself on me.) it was my fault because I didn’t resist hard enough. When my bio dad died at 9, my mom blamed me for his death after he killed himself. I told my friend’s mom about what was going on at home with my dad. She got the authorities involved and although I wasn’t taken out of the home, word got around and he lost job etc. my mom held this against me for years and abused me constantly. I was bullied at school for being dirty and I started to be sexually abused there too. My mom knew and again did nothing. She was far more concerned about me possibly being gay because boys were assaulting me.
I eventually ran away to my girlfriend’s (at the time) home at 17. My mom made no effort to contact me during this time. Over the years we would go no contact to some contact. It always followed a pattern. She would pull on my heart strings, get me back and then start her behavior over and over again. About 8 years ago, I finally cut her off for good. I know from some of my family members that she still tries to find out where I live, work and any places l could be. She also sends me a card every year which I throw out.
I heard about a year ago that she had cancer. I ignored it at the time. One of my cousins, who I trust, called me and told me she was in hospice and her last wish was to see me before she died. I declined and told them my reasons. Then my cousin told me about how much work she’s put into changing. Going to therapy, outpatient, inpatient, retreats and counseling. I responded basically “that’s nice but I don’t care.” He accepted my decision and we hung up. A few days later, he texted me saying that my mom has written a will saying she’s leaving all her money to me but if I don’t come see her, she’s taking me out of the will. It’s a lot of money, like hundreds of thousands
I don’t want to see her. I want her to die knowing that I’m happy without her. That she fucked up. My cousin says she’s changed but this feels like ransom to me. A part of me wants to be the bigger person. Go get the bag and bury my anger. Maybe she has changed and I’m letting the past control me. Maybe I’m just being an asshole to a dying old woman.
Should I go to appease her and get the money or not go at all?
TLDR: My mom repeatedly ignored abuse and perpetuated abuse on me. We went no contact but now she wants to see me before she dies in exchange for money. Should I go or not?
37 comments
I am so sorry to hear about the trauma and abuse you have experienced throughout your life. It’s understandable that you have deep-seated anger and resentment towards your mother for her actions.
Regarding your question, it’s ultimately your decision whether or not to visit your mother. No one can force you to do something that you’re not comfortable with, and it’s important to prioritize your own well-being and mental health.
It’s worth considering the potential impact of visiting or not visiting on yourself and your relationship with your mother. If you decide to visit, it may provide closure or the opportunity to reconcile with her. On the other hand, if you choose not to go, you may be reinforcing boundaries that are important for your own well-being.
Regarding the money, while it may be tempting, it’s important to consider whether accepting it would make you feel like you’re compromising your values or doing something that doesn’t align with your beliefs. If you do decide to visit your mother, it’s important to keep your expectations realistic and not expect her to take back the hurt she’s caused you or to suddenly become a different person.
If you are struggling with this decision, it might be helpful to speak to a therapist or trusted friend or family member who can offer support and guidance as you navigate this difficult situation.
Yea unfortunately I’d suck it up and go for the money. You can piss on her grave afterwards
She went to those retreats to fix her reputation, as she again is being abusive by using her will as a means to get what she wants.
I wouldn’t go, it’s clear for me that she is lying, and doesn’t deserve to part with any means of forgiveness.
Money is just paper, but if you decide to go, don’t go alone, and don’t be surprised if the will ends up being nothing because she last it all during her cancer fight.
She didn’t have your back, not even once. You don’t owe her anything at all.
I’m happy to hear that you got to turn your life around from that terrible start…
Weigh how much you need/want the money and how much of an impact seeing her will be. If the money doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t go at all
I would also make triple sure that the money and will is legit. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s just lying to you
I’d simply tell the cousin that if she had actually changed, she’d never use her will to manipulate you.
She’s manipulating in her final days on earth.
If you want to see her, do so. Otherwise, don’t.
It is not pride. She knew your father was hurting you and did nothing. That’s an enabler. That’s not a mum.
> my mom has written a will saying she’s leaving all her money to me but if I don’t come see her, she’s taking me out of the will.
She’s trying to manipulate you into meeting her. You shouldn’t be surprised if you visit her and then later find out that you were not in the will, considering how she has been.
If you are doing financially well, then don’t go.
It’s manipulation from her. One last chance at it.
As a mom, I wouldn’t take my kids out of my will because they refused to see me on my deathbed because I was a horrible cunt to them all my life. No. If she truly understood and went to therapy, she wouldn’t be weaponizing whatever money she has left. Stay strong and live your life. Screw her. You deserve your happiness and peace.
Vis8t her, take the money, skip the funeral. Shell dead and won’t remember anything, she didn’t win. And if you feel like you compromised your values after that, goto the funeral and stick a gold plated dildo under her so she can’t rest in peace. Using the money you inherited. If you took your abuser to court and they were order to pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars, would you turn it down?
No, you shouldn’t go.
If she was that sorry and if she’d changed that much, she wouldn’t be making leaving you the money contingent on you visiting her, she’d just leave it to you. As it is, she’s just trying to pay you into visiting so she can pretend to herself and others that she was a decent mother and the abuse wasn’t that bad. After all, you’re all good now.
If you start to doubt yourself, maybe you could do some sums, and work out how much money you’d get for each sexual assault. Would you submit to that now for that much money? Give that number to your relatives if they start asking you to go again. Ask them if they’d pimp out their kids for that amount.
No, you shouldn’t go.
If she was that sorry and if she’d changed that much, she wouldn’t be making leaving you the money contingent on you visiting her, she’d just leave it to you. As it is, she’s just trying to pay you into visiting so she can pretend to herself and others that she was a decent mother and the abuse wasn’t that bad. After all, you’re all good now.
If you start to doubt yourself, maybe you could do some sums, and work out how much money you’d get for each sexual assault. Would you submit to that now for that much money? Give that number to your relatives if they start asking you to go again. Ask them if they’d pimp out their kids for that amount.
No, you shouldn’t go.
If she was that sorry and if she’d changed that much, she wouldn’t be making leaving you the money contingent on you visiting her, she’d just leave it to you. As it is, she’s just trying to pay you into visiting so she can pretend to herself and others that she was a decent mother and the abuse wasn’t that bad. After all, you’re all good now.
If you start to doubt yourself, maybe you could do some sums, and work out how much money you’d get for each sexual assault. Would you submit to that now for that much money? Give that number to your relatives if they start asking you to go again. Ask them if they’d pimp out their kids for that amount.
Any of your options here are OK, there is no right answer. Go with your intuition, which is not to go.
100% she’s lying. Even if you need the money, don’t go, for your safety.
Don’t let her fool you into believing she is in control here. You are in control of this situation, not her! She’s trying to control you with money and crocodile tears, while at the same time giving you the best shot at closure that you could ask for.
I would say if you can manage it emotionally, go there. If the will and the money is real, take it and view it as a small amount of compensation. And at the same time, witness her death and get closure that this devil is finally gone from your world for good.
Instead of thinking about fulfilling her last wish. Think about it as her paying you watching a monster die and taking it’s treasure. You don’t have to hug her, you don’t have to hold her hands. You can watch her life draining from her eyes, smile at her and whisper in her ear that you’re glad to witness her death and that wherever she ends up, she’ll suffer for what she did to you. Use this situation and the control YOU have over it, to make her last thoughts as fearful and miserable as possible. Send her straight to hell with a letter of recommendation.
That’s maybe a bit dark, but that’s how I see it. She’s paying you to send her off to hell, while giving you closure that she is finally gone from your world. Take the offer if you can endure it.
Just because she is dying doesn’t mean she is a good mother/ human to u she failed to protect u ,u don’t owe her anything she is getting what she deserves karma is bitting her ass real hard
Honestly think it’s a decision you need to make on your own and whatever that choice is being the right one for you not anyone else.
This may be the last time you can finally tell her how you feel or the last chance for her to apologise. At the end of the day if you know you’ll feel no regret and will be at peace with your decision. Then it’s the right choice for you.
It’s something for you. You don’t need to make her dying wish or anyone happy. Just make yourself happy.
Trojan horse!
Mom sounds narcissistic. You could go see her snd she still writes you out. She wouldn’t hold money over your head that way if she changed, imo.
Does it count if you go to see and read out the riot act to her with the full list of grievances you have against her and a full list of things she has to do or say for you to ever forgive her?
I’d put “I’m sorry” right at the top of the list of things to say, but also stuff like “I admit to being a nasty abuser and enabler and homophobe” and “what can I do to make it up to you” and then whatever your answer to that question is goes straight to the top of what she has to do.
Ask her flying monkey why he’s even telling you all this, I mean, if you go and she wills everything to you, that’s a lot less for him right? I think he maybe added the bit about the will thinking if he can’t appeal to your sentiment at least you’d want the money yet wouldn’t actually ask to see the will or anything because that’d make you look like you only want the money.
I don’t see that you should have any scrupules about taking her money, it’s the least of what she can give you.
Get the bag. It’s the least this woman owes you. You can forget all about her afterwards and piss on her grave
You’re the only one who can make the decision here. I’m so sorry for all that you’ve been through.
It comes down to this: is seeing her going to hurt you much more than the expected monetary benefits will bring you ?
You’re the person that has the power to decide here. You don’t owe her anything at this point. *There may be no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow at all. Or it may come on the condition that you forgive her on her deathbed*.
It just a plan or a trick an there is no money. She wants to insult you one last time an make it about herself. Don’t go an block your cousin if they keep insisting.
I would not. I am NC with my father. Shortly before I decided to go NC something happened where we all, including him and his doctors, thought he was going to die. I live in another country so I called. He said the most vile things to me. It was like he was worried he’d not get to say them ever again so he took his chance. This is how I suspect it will go for many who have been No/Low Contact and choose to break that when a parent is dying.
It’s unlikely you’ll get a death bed apology and profession of love. And as she’s dying you’ll be left alone to unpack what ever she chooses to say.
I don’t care about any inheritance. I have my own money. If I do get any I’m donating it. Your situation may be different, but it’s rare that there is enough money there to make the headache worth it.
First of all, I wouldn’t believe that there’s actually hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake here, or that if there are, I’m in the will at all. And secondly, the fact that she’s using it as a threat, means she definitely *hasn’t* changed. A good person who knows what they’ve put OP through, would leave them the money no matter what.
Honestly it depends on where you’re at in your healing process. If you think you can fake it well enough to win an Oscar without setting yourself back, I say get the bag and piss on her grave later. If doing so would be harmful to your progress, maybe don’t go. But either way you are under no obligation to actually forgive her or actually give a shit
I don’t think you should go – she did f*ck up… like majorly. She should pass knowing she was never forgiven. She truly doesn’t deserve that from you.
Also – how do we know there even is money and how do we know she will actually leave it to you just by visiting? I wouldn’t trust a thing she says. I think if she did change… she had plenty of years to prove that to you. She didn’t change. She just got old.
I wish you the absolute best and I am so sorry about your childhood. No one deserves that.
I wouldn’t. I hate my fucking parents. They are both pathetic losers and did my brother and I wrong all our lives. My mom called my ex at his job and said my dad is having heart surgery. Good for him. I’m not gonna be there. I don’t deserve how they treated, ignored and neglected me time after time. And When they attempted gave me love it was fake and manipulating and they were either drunk or high. They can have eachother and their alcohol they both put on a pedestal. I haven’t seen my parents for nearly 3 years. I love my life now. I can’t believe how kind I have been to myself and I am finally blooming into the woman I know I am capable of. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel guilty for cutting out abusers. Fuck my parents.
My mother has tried that manipulative bullshit, I would burn any money she would have tried to give me. She is trying to manipulate you to the very end. If I was in your shoes I would not go.
If she’s actually dying I’m only feeling she’s wanting to see you to clear her conscience before she dies. Trying to blackmail you just proves it. Or to show the last bit of control she still feels she has over you. If there was a hell that’s where she most likely knows she will be going alongside your bio father.
And if what your cousin is saying is true it’s clear her conscience has been eating her alive which she deserve or just another manipulation tactic. At this point she’s made her bed now she will suffer in it alone. Do what you feel is healthy for you.
# The money isn’t real.
It isn’t even a question of if you should make the trade or not. The trade is an illusion.
Whether or not you go should be solely decided on whether you think you would find peace in a last conversation. Even if the money exists — which I *highly* doubt — she can take it away on the same kind of whim she’s now dangling it in front of you, trying to get you to beg like a dog.
So regardless of the state of her bank accounts, **the money isn’t real**.
You may find it healing to forgive her. But remember that forgiveness is not condonement, and you can forgive someone and still shut them out of your life.
And, you are not obligated to go face one of your abusers simply because they are dying. That is healing too. She lost any filial obligation from you long ago, and lost it over again when she started trying to add financial abuse to her rap sheet.
She had that much money and let you go to school dirty? I don’t trust it
Imagine you going and she still doesn’t leave the money to you! Or has no money at all. This is a manipulation tactic from an abuser. If she had really changed she would leave you the money, and be willing to accept whatever response you have for her which includes no response at all.
If she’s on her deathbed, like real “the end is near” deathbed, not sure she’d be legally able to change her will anyway. Diminished capacity and all that good legal jargon.
This sounds like massive manipulation. You do what feels right for you and let the money fall where it may.
We forgive not for the other person, but for ourselves. It’s your chance to take your power back from her. Buddha said holding onto anger is like holding onto a hot coal with the intention of throwing it, you are the one getting burned. Look into stoicism and the teachings of marcus aurelius. I say don’t make a decision that you could see yourself regretting later, no matter how uncomfortable it is now.
If you don’t need the money. Don’t go.
If you do, go bite your tongue and cash in.
In no case should you consider this anything but what it is: You getting something tangible from the relationship. You aren’t forgiving her, you certainly aren’t forgiving him.\
I’d ask to see the will, but I’m an asshole like that .
She has not changed. If she had she wouldn’t be holding the money hostage. She is trying to manipulate u to get u to talk to her. Tell ur cousin “thanks but no thanks she has not changed cuz if she had she would NOT be using the money as hostage against me like that” and tell ur cousin ur happy without her ransom money. Ur dad raped u and she did nothing and now she is still carrying on the abuse. Fuck her