Hi Alice,
I have definitely been guilty of that furious entitlement. I have my rationales: I have lived with and cared for my mother for 9 years now, my brother will have other resources I won't, I even paid her rent while caring for her for several years (until I was unemployed and told her I just couldn't)...
But the real reason, I think, is that as the toll of serving her as I have (I only learned what narcissism was at age 52, five years ago) began to dawn on me, and her own entitled behavior intensified as she got older, this was one way a lifetime's repressed anger showed itself in me.
I was furious with her, then with myself. And, it did feel like an injustice, because she constantly used the tease of my perhaps being able to keep the house, vs. the threat of having to "buy my brother out" which I would not be able to do...she used those to manipulate me. In the meantime, real estate in my area skyrocketed while my career prospects plummeted, and my mother refused to value my services (which ran at the time from clipping her toenails to doing her finances to serving her meals to driving her places, etc., etc. -- to being her caregiver, now with help) as anything more than "a daughter's due." Being able to stay in this town, where I have a church community of friends and feel safe, was so important to me, and she had no interest in the realities of my situation in middle age.
Anyway, all that's just rationalization. Your label does stick to me, because I know I felt it was unfair not to be honest and straightforward with me about whether I could keep the house or not. She never would tell me in a nonmanipulative way, but eventually she did stop toying with me about it and agreed it was fair. My brother visits a few times a year and his wife's family is very well-to-do. I have no reserves, so the house truly is my security. My great-uncle drew the plans with my father, and both men are good, loving memories.
Everyone has a similar story who feels this resentment and dependency. I know it hasn't been good for me. I believe I will come out intact, but I am very clear in my own mind that I felt very N-ish entitlement when it came to being able to keep the house after she dies. And I agree with you that it is damaging.
All told, I may be glad I confronted her with what I perceived (along with my sense of entitlement) to be real Cinderella-esque injustice. A few crises back, when I was on the floor fixing her shoes, or draining her chest drain or something, she said, and meant it, "after this time in the hospital, I now believe it is fair for me to leave you the house." (My brother inherits all the contents except the piano.)
Or, I may be sorry. I may feel I gave up too much, compromised my dignity and integrity too much.
Entitlement is a loaded, difficult, horrid thing to face in oneself. I don't like it. I do sincerely feel I did "earn" the house, in the sense of how a fair and loving parent would/should have planned things...but right beside that I felt that dammit, she owed me!
And that's not so. My caregiving, for all my complaints, has been my choice. And one factor, that others here have dealt with or are dealing with too, has been wanting to protect the possibility of inheriting a building that I care about, since it's the only stable location my D ever knew, and me too.
What an irony. Where the N lives is where I feel secure. Who knows? Maybe one day I will sell it and move to Timbuktu, and I will have given this decade of my life to a sour quest. It's possible. But it also will give me secure shelter...and I can't underexpress what that means to me after so many years of marital and employment chaos.
Hops
