my mum is verbally abusive to my dad

[georgie999]

  my dad is coming up 80, he is still active despite a bad back and knees. He still drives ( until July ) and takes my mum shopping and to the garden centres etc.. My mum can drive but dosent like too, but she can. She talks to my dad like a bit of muck, flies off the handle at silly little things and blames my dad. She calls him an ******* and more continuously and forever puts him down telling everyone he's useless etc. I can take no more, not staying at theirs more than an an hour.
I have made a joke about her having tourettes but she still carries on. My dad mainly ignores it, for a quiet life but I can tell he has had it too. If I confort her she will fly into a rage and the last time I did this she didnt speak to me for 8 wks. Dad rang me and begged me to apologise to her and I did for his sake. I went today and she started shouting saying she wished she was dead and how she is only existing with my dad!. By the way my mom is a healthy 75. What do I do?

[renae176]

god girl u dont know how much it would make me happy for my dad to stand up for something, i have to be so nice to my mom, and shes raising my 17yr old, and is brainwashing him, my son says i know nana is brainwashing me but i enjoy living here, there 2 peas in a pod. my son and my mom, when me and my mom argue my son and my dad wont tell me that they love me in front of her, i have to talk to my dad on the phone at work just in order to hear i love you, my mom will start yelling at me, then look at my dad and say WELL DAVE arent u gonna say something to her.Its just so hard, exspecially when my son is living there, i had my son at 16 and my mom instantly went into a court battle for him, she did the samething with my sister but lost to her,im crying i cant go on, and now iv been ttc for 10yrs and i cant have a baby with my husband

[Chima7]

Man, that is a rough road for you and especially your dad. I'm sorry this is happening. But I agree with the others that there must be some kind of weird symbiotic relationship, as dysfunctional as it may be, or else they would have separated along ago.

Perhaps the best you can do is just try to be there for your dad as much as you can where it doesn't harm your own well being. And as for your mom, I'm sorry she just sounds like a lost cause.

I hope that you can get through this with minimal stress. Although it seems impossible but for your own sake you have to try to disengage yourself from her emotionally as much as you can.

[georgie999]

   Yes, thankyou for that. Sounds very familiar to me, except there is no love there at all. She started ranting on Sunday that she wished she was dead....or him!!! She has all there jobs lined up like laying slabs in the garden, he's nearly 80 for Gods sake, he can't do it. She wouldn't help if he did. Then she rants that he's not interested in anything.....i'm not suprised with all the nagging. I am sorry but I live for the day when dad turns round and tells her to shut up...and mean it. She spends all his money on stupid resin animals for the garden when she could easily pay for someone to do all the hard labour. Sorry for going on but HOW MUCH this anoys me

[renae176]

Hey, I can kinda relate to you, my parents are 68 and 69, my dad is very a very quiet man, where my mom is very out spoken, she says whats on her mind, Even though my dad is an architect and makes most of the money, my mom gives my dad an alllowence, and since she quit smoking she made my dad quit also, she actually gave him a baggy with 5 ciggs in it to last him the day, My mom goes and spends money everywhere, on horses,etc , where my dad cant even go to a hockey game with his friends from work, But on the other hand, my parents 50th Anniversary was last week, so they must love each other, All my life myself, my sister and my brother have always been closer to my dad, I remember one occasion, where it was new years eve, they were at a party at my dads work, my mom wanted to leave 3 hrs before midnight, so they came home, when i got there , my mom was in bed and my dad was crying that was yrs ago but i still remember it, cause it broke my heart, my dad is an amzing stong handsome man, everyone says it, my mom is a very stubborn, stuck in her ways, but i guess all that matters is that there in love, My situation is a bit diff, but also the same in several ways. If u want to message me u can. I had to comment cause ive never met someone in a similar situation.

[specialmom]

I agree with above.  I thought my father in law and mother in law were prime candidates for divorce with the bickering they did. But really, it was their own song and dance.  When my mother in law passed away, my father in law was lost.  

Sometimes it is hard to understand why a couple stays together for eons but that is their business.  good luck

[allmymarbles]

Your parents are old. They are not going to change. The pattern they have was created decades ago. For some reason it suits them both or they would have separated long ago, especially if he really were "useless."

Relationships are always more complicated than they appear. Your parents have had a long, long marriage in an age when more than half of all marriages end in divorce. They have each other. They are not alone. So what if their marriage is not perfect. That is par for the course.