"I didn't think you'd want to go anyway"

Easter morning. Anyone who has taken part in preparations for any family gathering knows how much planning goes into it. If you're making food, you know what you're making at what time so it can all be ready on time. I came down to find the kitchen being used to make brownies.

I told her I needed to use the oven and her response was, "well you were sleeping." We've gone over this a number of times recently as she keeps coming down and using the kitchen for her own meals and desserts right at dinner time, without checking with me if I need to use the kitchen to make dinner for my family. The last time she asked me if she could use the kitchen for an hour, she spent three and a half hours in it and got offended when I pointed this out. I got a simple "sorry" but only after an "oh well" and a repeat that I was sleeping. It took me rebuking that and saying that it matters, for her to even fake caring.

I never asked her what the brownies were for...A short time later I get a notification from Ring and see her sister pulling up in the driveway. Since the Easter celebration I was preparing for was not at my house, the house was a mess and I had not even showered or gotten dressed yet. I ran upstairs to ask what was going on and why she didn't tell me, assuming that her sister was coming in. Her response was, "it didn't concern you." I said that it does concern me because it's my house. She said it is not my house, it is my husband's (her son's). 

My husband got a text from his uncle a short time later saying that he doesn't know what's going on, but that she was supposed to pass along the invite to us to his house on Easter and that he's sorry. Yes, we already had other plans, my husband had to work and I was going to my mother's, but that's irrelevant. She made it a point not to invite us as she was asked to do. She made it a point not to even tell us there was a get together.

I asked her today about it. She hesitated, then said she didn't think we'd want to go anyway. Then she started telling me who all was there as if we wouldn't want to see them (we would have loved to). I told her that her brother texted telling us that we were supposed to be invited. She brushed it off and went on pretending like nothing happened. 

She also came down today and asked me if I was using the kitchen. I said no. She said ok, she's only getting ice, she's not making anything...So I told her that's not what I meant, I was asking her to check with me before taking up the kitchen for hours, especially at dinner time. She said nothing and walked away. She came down after dinner time and asked my husband where I was. He told her I was at the store. She said she was going to ask if she could use the kitchen, so he told her she could since he knew I was out picking up dinner and wouldn't need the kitchen. She said no, she'd wait....As if he didn't know what he was talking about. Or she simply wanted to pretend some more like she was being oppressed, for her own shits and giggles.

We've asked her to leave. Told her that none of use are happy like this. Told her we'd help her find a place. Even considered chipping in for her rent since she no longer works after she was fired and her therapist told her she shouldn't get another job. She went through the motions of finding a place, then said she couldn't afford it. Then she said she was waiting for her other son to get more stable in his new job and get a bigger place so she can live with him. Now it's that she doesn't want to leave and guilt trip after guilt trip for things we supposedly owe her for as reasons we must let her stay.

My sanity is hanging by a thread. She lies so much and spends so much time being deceitful. We can't trust anything she says anymore. We can't trust her around the kids because the second we are out of sight she jumps in and does anything we've asked her not to do. I feel like I can never let my guard down. When I start being nice to her, she reverts to being her normal controlling, bullying self towards us and our kids. When I avoid her and don't react to her, she is super fake nice. I don't know which is worse. Well, yes I do. Me not reacting or engaging with her equals her staying away from my kids, for the most part, so they are spared and that is most important.

She thinks she's a saint. She thinks everyone else thinks she is a saint, and while many do, many have seen or experienced her true self. No one else will even consider taking her in besides her first born. He never experienced her like the rest of her kids as he was always the favorite and treated as such. 

I just need to get this out. I'm at such a high level of stress that every tiny thing above it is almost unbearable. I'm starting to wonder if the best way out is to sell the house and force her to find another place. I'm starting to wonder if there's no way out. There must be.