My mother, the emotional black hole.
Dear Prudence,
My mother says terrible things to me about my dad like “When your dad gains weight, I pick fights with him so he won’t want to have sex with me,” and “If your dad gets Alzheimer’s, I’m going to divorce him.” She cannot handle any sort of criticism or boundary-setting, so when I tell her that she’s making me uncomfortable, she gets angry, yells, and/or says hurtful things. I can’t talk to my dad about it, as he’d be hurt to know what she says about him. Additionally, whenever we talk, she dumps all of her problems on me and never asks about me. As a result, it is emotionally exhausting to interact with her. She only treats me this way, not my brother. I’ve been in therapy working through these issues as well as processing her emotionally abusing me during childhood. I have gone back-and-forth about whether I want to have a relationship with her. Mostly, I am concerned that cutting her off would result in a huge fallout and affect my relationship with the rest of my family. How do you suggest I navigate this relationship? For context, I’m in my 20s and financially independent.
—Oversharing Mother
Re: My mother, the emotional black hole.
Or if LW wants to be blunt "Talk to a therapist, not me."
Obviously that's not what LW is experiencing. LW is also taking care of themselves in a healthy manner, so maybe just try and limit the presumably one-on-one interaction time with mom, so mom can't do that? Otherwise, I don't really see a way out beyond a total freeze out and try to maintain individual relationships with other family individuals as possible. LW might have to accept it's not possible and work on learning to accept the consequences of that, but LW shouldn't feel bad for choosing their own mental health.
But I also like the blunt response from @MissKittyDanger