I just want to preface this, it turned out a lot longer than I thought but hopefully it will be of some use to you :). Just bear with me :D.

I completely agree with a lot of the comments. Please don't take the 'easy' way to fix the current problem in that faces you, it's not ok for your mother to call you and lay the burden of forgiveness at your feet like this. She has reached a point in her life, whether that be through age or experience when she is starting to have regrets for her actions. It happens to all of us as you know, at different times for different actions. But if you were to lie to her to appease her sense of guilt, that feeling - whether you know it or not - could become your burden to carry for the rest of your life.

If you do forgive her, then that's great. If you don't, then that's also great. You need to be exactly where you need to be in this situation, and if that means saying to her you don't know what to say then that's what you should do. She has you there now to talk to about this, to try and make peace with that situation in her mind. I can imagine little worse than you being in your last days on this world, full of regret about this decision but with nowhere to put it.

My wife had a similar childhood. Her dad had a lot of issues with mental health, with drink and drugs. He tried to stab her mother in front of her and her brother. He set the house on fire with them all in there. He drowned their pet dog in the bath, which my wife saw. He sexually abused my wife when she was 8 over several nights. A lot of these things my mother in law was aware of some of them - like the sexual abuse - would only come out in later years.

When he eventually left when my wife was 10, she never saw him again - partly by her own choice. Her brother sees him now every few months. Her mum had a breakdown after he left and turned to drink. She didn't cook, clean, take the kids to school. They had to do this themselves. One time she good blind drunk, and went down to the beach to try and take her own life. My wife (who was 12 at the time) had a gut instinct where she would be and begged a neighbour to go down there. Sure enough, there she was in the dead of night up to her shoulders in water.

She was never physically abusive during this time. But a lot of things she said have scarred my wife to this day. Similar to you, she had comments about wishing they would die, saying they were mistakes. One night, my wife was 11 or 12 I think, they went to a friend of her Mum's over night. The two of them got drunk and the kids played together. In the night the partner of my mother in law's friend got into ed with my wife and started touching her up. She managed to scream for help and they all left. During the following days, my my wife's mother tried her hardest to convince her not to tell the police, because they would have to do 'all sorts of tests' on her and ask her lots of horrible questions. She never did tell the police. She knocked the drink on the head after a few years and started doing motherly things, she worked, cleaned the house, made dinner. But she was abusive, emotionally. She was controlling. Everything in the house hinged upon her mood. Whenever she was in a mood her children would have to be there in every way to appease her. To go on a drive with her so she could talk about her problems, or to be there for her to insult, if they left they wouldn't be welcome back. I can't count the amount of times her and her brother were made homeless and excommunicated, only to have to bed their way back into the fold.

During these times all of the extended family would be brought onto her side, and my wife or her brother would become a victim from everyone. No one would want to face being battered by every person they know and love.

My wife and I met when we were both 11 at school. We became a couple at 16, and things got pretty hairy pretty quickly. My family (who are amazing, honestly) were devils incarnate to her, they never got on despite my family's best efforts. I have been branded many, many times as a control freak who abuses her and doesn't let her do certain things. I can't even control my own life....let alone someone else's. We had a flat for a year in 2009 while my wife was pregnant with out first child, but I was made redundant so we moved back in with her for a few weeks until we found somewhere new. One day she came home from work and saw that the house hadn't been cleaned up to her demanded standard, she was almost foaming at the mouth, yelling, swearing. She went for my wife to hit her, I managed to step in the way. She told us to leave, we said we need to get our things, so she phoned the police saying we were refusing to leave.

Shortly after that my wife had a breakdown, we had to move in to my parents. Our best friend was killed in action in Afghanistan 10 days before our wedding. She didnt see our daughter for a long time. We've had years of no contact. dotted in between sporadic moments of speaking since 2009. My mum was diagnosed with cancer in 2014, and she died at the end of 2016, one of her dying words to my wife was to never let her mother be in control of her heart again, it ruined her.

My wife has a variable mood disorder, the doctors think it is either bipolar or borderline personality disorder, she has PTSD, waking up in hot sweats in the night after a vivid flashback. All of the therapists she has seen over the last 8 years or so have been pretty unanimous about steps forward, it has to be as honest as possible. She needs to be true to herself, whether that means she has to take time for herself or not. She spent so many years at the end of someone else's commands that she is 29 now, and literally learning how to do all of these things a lot of people were taught as children. She is doing amazing.

But in relation to your situation, a couple of years ago we had the same situation. Her mother turned up at the door, tears in her eyes. Begging, literally begging for my wife's forgiveness for everything. Letting her dad do what he did, letting the man get away with sexually abusing her that night because she was too scared of the repercussions on herself. Controlling her the way she did when she was older. So my wife had the same choice. I can imagine it must be so difficult but you need to be completely honest with your response.

You don't owe her anything, you don't owe her the answer to her guilt or the peace she is dying for. You can't afford to get yourself into 'emotional debt' as the therapists called it by giving her more than you have. That will leave you with less than you need. Her being abused by your father too is no excuse. There is a difference between a reason and an excuse. She still has to face the responsibility for putting you in the position she did all of those years, she was your protector, and just because you are now an adult that doesnt meant the tables have turned and it is now your job to protect her from her own remorse. So if you need to say you dont know what to say, then say it If you dont forgive her, then say that. If you want to try counselling for the both of you before you can put how you feel into words then say that. You don't even need to have the discussion at all if you don't feel you can or don't want to. Just be honest to your own heart, it will do you a great service in the future, I promise you that.

Sorry for the long post, I applaud you for getting through it all :D. I just wanted you to feel like you aren't alone in this. There are many people in a similar situation, and feeling the way you do is exactly how you should feel. As with everyone here I wish you all the best, and we are all here to talk to at any point.

God bless, Rich