the family enforcer

[Guest guest]

I wonder how common this situation is. I've made up a term to describe my

aunt's role in the family - The Enforcer. She sees it as her job to enforce the

family values and morals as she is the head of the family. These values

include adult children living near aging relatives as to help them with

everything and be ready for any emergency. She did this herself at huge personal

sacrifice to be near my grandnada. I know this shares a lot with Flying Monkey

territory, but in this case my nada will be content and okay but the Enforcer is

always looking to make me feel guilty or take advantage of any upheaval in my

life to push me to move near my nada.

I feel pretty confident about my plans to take care of my nada long-distance as

long as she can stay in her own home. I'm planning to help her in coordinating

increasing levels of home care with occasional visits from me to check on

things. But The Enforcer lives in the same town as my nada and thinks I'm

dumping it all on her - even though everything she does is voluntary and mostly

just social with my nada. In real practical terms the enforcer does very little

in helping my nada day-to-day. For example all of her light bulbs in the

ceiling fixtures are burnt out, but my nada won't ask my aunt because she always

says no to any similar request. And of course my nada won't ask the yard guys

to do it. So when I visit...odds are I will. At some point there'll just be

too many things and I'll have to confront my nada about finally having in home

help...so far her excuse to me is, oh but I have your aunt here.

So I wonder does anyone have an enforcer in their family? Not someone who is

acting on behalf of your nada but has a very strong agenda of their own to

derail your distance or LC? How have you handled it? I really don't want to

lose my relationship with my aunt which once upon a time was better than this,

but I worry it may come to that.

Thanks all,