Caring For Aging Parents Support Group
Caring for aging parents can be a difficul time as we become the caretakers for our parents. This broad responsibility can encompass such services as assisted living, adult day care, long term care, nursing homes, hospice care, and in-home care. Whether you have just started caring for your parents or just need a place to talk, we're here.
In short, when my father died 10 years ago my mother moved in with us. We never (husband and I) never thought it'd be permanent. In fact, we didn't think. She decided that she couldn't live by herself and that she was with us to help around the house. To this day, my mother is fit and healthy (she's 74). My husband and I were in our twenties, and only married for 3 years. Soon, she was bossing us around the house and as crazy as that is (that we even allowed it), we did.
She still complained about her lonely life despite being with us and refusing to make friends. After several sulks and crisis I convinced her to go out and get a social life. It was short lived (to this day she expects us to be her social life).
In the meantime my husband became an alcoholic (I can't say for sure if she was the cause but I am guilty for having spent all my energy in trying to please her). He has been in recovery for almost 2 years and both of us (having gone through hell and back) realise that we can't be with her anymore. In fact, she never stopped talking to my husband while he was an addict but she did when he got back home from recovery and she refused to give us space. Plus, she still has her home which is 3 hours away from here.
She feels that the fact she always helped us financially justifies all her actions.
I am tired. I am 34 and I want to start living my life with my husband. We've been married 13 years and only been by ourselves for 3.
I tried every thing: nothing worked. I asked her to spend one month at her place, and one month with us. She ignores it. If I tell her now she agreed, she'll deny we even had that talk. She did go to her home for two months and then she tells everyone how good she is for giving us two months by ourselves.
So, so tired. Why am I caring for someone who is healthy? I'm just so scared of a final confrontation.
She still complained about her lonely life despite being with us and refusing to make friends. After several sulks and crisis I convinced her to go out and get a social life. It was short lived (to this day she expects us to be her social life).
In the meantime my husband became an alcoholic (I can't say for sure if she was the cause but I am guilty for having spent all my energy in trying to please her). He has been in recovery for almost 2 years and both of us (having gone through hell and back) realise that we can't be with her anymore. In fact, she never stopped talking to my husband while he was an addict but she did when he got back home from recovery and she refused to give us space. Plus, she still has her home which is 3 hours away from here.
She feels that the fact she always helped us financially justifies all her actions.
I am tired. I am 34 and I want to start living my life with my husband. We've been married 13 years and only been by ourselves for 3.
I tried every thing: nothing worked. I asked her to spend one month at her place, and one month with us. She ignores it. If I tell her now she agreed, she'll deny we even had that talk. She did go to her home for two months and then she tells everyone how good she is for giving us two months by ourselves.
So, so tired. Why am I caring for someone who is healthy? I'm just so scared of a final confrontation.
Before then I was rushing home to keep my mother company, so she wouldn't feel lonely instead of spending time with friends. I was trying to be the perfect daughter and the perfect wife and I was failing miserable at both. I've come a long way...but still a long way to go. She'd lecture me and I'd curl into a ball, shaking, now if she even dares to do the same I raise my voice and put her in her place (I am not proud of this; it's awful; it's sad but it's what works). I don't allow week long sulks anymore that used to make me scared of coming home.
As far as finances are concerned what my mother does is no different than other parents around here already do. In my culture this is quite common, so it's not as if what she did makes her stand out from the crowd. Plus, she gave me the deposit for the house (that we had to buy in order to accommodate her as it'd be cheaper to buy than rent a 2 bedroom place) and then she claimed this home as hers (in every way). My dad bought me a car (with her permission before he died) and then she claimed it as hers too (she doesn't say "it's mine", she says "it's also mine so you can't sell it"). She basically destroyed whatever was left of my self-esteem (if there was ever any) by portraying herself as my saviour, all the time.
She also bought an apartment near here. She wasn't going to live there, she was going to rent it but I thought that maybe I could get her to change her mind. Then, when the deeds were signed, she said she didn't want it. I could rent it to holidaymakers. So, I've been doing to get some income (as my company went down). In the meantime, I tried various ways to get her to move there by saying we'll sell this apartment and we'll get a one bedroom and she can move to hers. No joy!
I am going away tomorrow for 4 nights with my husband. We need a break to think about things and to be together. I'll be checking on her several times a day and I have a friend who has the house keys. But I am going to have YET another conversation with her...with a twist (as we had many conversations where she agrees to things or says awful things and then later denies it)...I AM RECORDING IT.
I can't thank you all enough for your support and for sharing your experiences. It means a lot to me to know I'm not alone. God bless!
I have to be honest and this is horrible but if my in-laws moved in, I'd move out and get the divorce - and yet, I did this to myself and my husband and have to live with the regret now.
My mother has gone to her home and has been there for nearly 3 months now - we talk fine on the phone and all that, but I am scared about when she returns and for how long that will be for.
It's sad to say this but we get on great on the phone...and should stay like this with visits of no more than one month, while she's healthy. Plus, she has an apartment near us as well (apart from her own home in a different part of the country).
shur1 - it sounds like you are struggling with a lot of guilt about how you handled dad's passing. You are projecting a lot of that onto everyone here. There is nothing wrong with expecting healthy adults to keep their own homes. It is not neglectful or mean to have a life of our own. I know you totally missed the part where I said that dad decided on his own to sell his house and show up on my dorrstep and then expected me to take mom's place with him. Do you have any idea how disgusting is?
Yes, I didn't have to let her come back but I decided to give her some credit when she said she's coming over until the end of the month (and she has a holiday with a friend for two weeks that she hasn't stopped complaining about since she arrived). I can't live with her full-time again - that much is clear!
She came back really thin - like I've never seen before. Last time she went home the same happened but not as much. She admits she's lazy about cooking and hates cooking for herself.
Today I had very demanding interpreting/translation work that took all morning and took a lot of me psychologically. I was looking forward to get home and calm down. What did I get home to? CURSING AND SHOUTING. OK. not at me, she was FURIOUS at the tax man (she received the bill today). We're one of the bailout countries...things are tough. Hey, I don't have a job...I made 50 today, if that (not got paid yet) and I probably won't make any more for the rest of the month.
The atmosphere in the house is horrid again. I've been so zen for the past few months and even got on well with her via telephone. I planted a balcony garden, started a writing course and have been really calm.
Now, basically, I need to wait and see what she's going to do at the end of the month.
god bless......................
I'm sure my mother would like to be remembered as a great woman, great mother, great wife...maybe a martyr. Oh and someone who God was very proud of - one of His favourite.
Personally, I have no such aspirations. If people remind me as I am, with the good and the bad, then they're remembering me...not some character that never really existed. But to be honest...I don't really care either way.
Once an adult is physically abusive, the "world" starts to make the choices. Then the parent can end up in jail or worse.
No amount of love is going to "fix" the incallitrant abusive parent. As long as the choose to be abusive, they are also choising to eventually end up in a bad situation.
No person should ever be threatened or accused of bringing the abuse on themselves. That is telling me that I deserve to be abused. That is just a lie. Nothing I did EVER gave anyone the right to abuse me.
I couldn't have said it better.
I am with you!! I want to be remembered for the real things that I did. Even today my mom is being remembered as some "SAINTLY woman" to be "emulated" by others. When it was my turn, I told a few stories about being her abused child they would also have to follow. There were no dry eyes in the house.
Did not mean to say it when I planned it. But after many other abused children came up and told me the same things about their "sainted" mothers.
So NO I don't want to even worry about what the world thinks of me.That just gives them the control over my actions. If I worred about that today, I would have still been trapped telling lies! Lots of other children would still be trapped in a life of terror and fear who are going for therapy and hope now. I am going to continue to do things the best that I can and let the rest go.
I wish that the world understood this...when we say we don't want parents/grandparents in our homes it's not because we're mean, it's because IT KILLS (unless of course you have the kind of personality that deals well with nursing an elderly, which most of us don't - that's why there are professionals to do it).
I was nasty to my grandmother because I was angry at what she was doing to my mother and to my father (I'm not proud of this, I'm ashamed). I'd throw nasty hints that she should go into a nursing home. One night she had a bad accident in her bed...my mother was screaming frozen facing that scenario, so my dad stepped in to help. Then there was the diaper changing daily. It was killing my mother and father and like my father said...he'd end up dying first. Which he did. I was 25 at the time. I needed my parents still. Why should someone who had lived a very long life steal me of my time with my parents because she did not want to go to a nursing home that was down the street?
My mother would always say she'd not do the same to me and that she'd go to a nursing home. Now a nursing home is taboo to her. I feel so betrayed. She seems quite ready to do it to me and make me go through what she went through, after years of complaining to me about what she went through.
I am already psychologically wasted from years and years of worry, anxiety and anger.
A cousin of mine died after looking for her father and mother. Her father was very hard on her and she started to live exclusively for her father. Her body gave up.
NONE of us, I believe, wish any harm to our loved ones. We want the best for them and for us. Sometimes nothing we can do, or say, can ever be best for them. In fact, it's hardly ever good enough because some people have behaved like that all their lives and that's the bottom line.