My mother keeps using guilt tactics to get what she wants from me. She has made the choice to live 3.5 hrs away from me and my brother. I have begged her for years to move closer to us. It's a bigger city and has much better medical care. The closest specialist for her health issues is an hour away from her home. She refuses to move because she says she wants to be where she wants to be. Now she needs more medical care. She keeps trying to get me to move in with her to take care of her because she retired to move in with her parents to care for them (something they never asked her to do). She guilts me by saying that she took care of me as a child and young adult so now I should take care of her. I'm divorced and have a full time job. I am not old enough to retire and I need to work to pay my bills. I do take my PTO to drive 3.5 hrs to take her to major medical apts another hour away and 3.5 hrs home. It's a minimum of two days PTO. She does have a caregiver who will drive her to checkups and does light housework and errands for her. She constantly tells me that the (paid)caregiver is there for her and I am not. She is constantly telling me that she is going to die soon and that I will regret not taking care of her. When I told her that I was getting a divorce her response was "good, now you can move in with me and take care of me".
My brother has no contact with her now except when he needs money because of her mental tactics. He ironically has a wife who is just like his mother and controls him. He never helps with her caregiving.
How do I respond to her when she is guilting me that I can't move in with her to take care of her full time?
As far as the guilt trips . “ Sorry Mom I have to work”. You should not upend your life . You should not be the one to move from where you live.
I think living 3.5 hours away from your mother may be a good thing for you at least for now . It helps maintain boundaries .
Do not move in with her or have her live with you . She is the type that will want you to be obedient and do what she wants when she wants . Maybe when she needs more help , assisted living near you would be an option .
It's very sad that your mother is so self-centered and unable to see you as a separate adult human being with the need to support herself.
If your mother refuses to move, then it's on HER to make other arrangements for her own care.
It sounds like a nice Assisted Living place in your city would be a good option.
Stop doing this. Your mother made her choice and now she will have to live with said choice. It is not your responsibility to take 2 days off to take her to these appointments. Does that sound harsh? Maybe, but your mother doesn't get to call the shots here. She wants to do what she wants to do and that does not mean you jump when she calls. Obviously she can hire someone to go to these appointments and that is what she needs to do from this point forward.
And whatever you do, please do not move into her home and do not move her into your home.
"She guilts me by saying that she took care of me as a child and young adult so now I should take care of her."
Here's the thing about this when you were a child and a young adult you had to listen to what your mother said. She made rules and you had to follow them. If back then your parents had said we're moving then you would have had to move with them. You had no choice or say so in the matter.
Tell your mother if she would like you to treat her like the child you once were then you are more than happy to accommodate her with doing so. That means she will need to move close to you and you get to make ALL the rules and she has to comply with said rules, just like a child.
If she doesn't want to be treated like a child, she needs to stop bringing it up about caring for you when you were a child because it holds no weight with you about the game she is trying to play to get her way and ruin your life and financial future in the process.
And to add: Parents are supposed to take care of and love and nurture their children. It's their freaking job and no you don't get credit for being a decent human being to your own children. There are no special accolades for a parent actually doing what they are supposed to do. Children don't owe their parents anything for that.
Sure there are crappy parents who don't even do that for their children but those people are mentally defective humans who should be forcibly sterilized so they can never bring another child into the world to neglect and abuse.