Cockroach cafe 🪳 Spring 2022 🪳

Enjoy your pizza @Knotaknitter.
Echo others @kennelmaid we get one shot at this…..
@VeryMuchFlaggingMinty hope you and your dd are ok

That is very kind of you @AvengingGerbil but I know if mum kept my school reports from 1969 she's kept her marriage licence. It's in one of two places and I've been through one of them already. If I fail next week I may take you up on it though.

knot if you pm me the names and location, and a rough idea of when (a decade, maybe), I could look it up for you on the genealogy sites.

I am having reward-pizza tonight as I have battled with the many IHT forms and I'd like to say I have emerged victorious except there's the little problem of when my parents were married. I know where it was but my sorting out has not yet turned up a marriage certificate. It's the bureau of doom for me next week, the right hand side produced school reports from the 1970s and I lost interest before I got all the way through the papers wedged in there.

@kennelmaid Your dad may well be upset if you split but it's not his marriage is it? He may think he knows what your relationship is like and yes, he's there in the house but the only ones who really know what a marriage is like are the ones in it. It's the same situation as couples who stay together in a deeply unhappy relationship "for the sake of the children". I know the feeling of being trapped but ideally, what would you want your future to look like. Forget about everyone else - what do YOU want?

[quote kennelmaid]@VeryMuchFlaggingMinty thank you for the welcome.

It's hard. Honestly, I don't even want to have to take my DF with me if I do leave but it wouldn't be fair on my husband or my DF to just clear off on my own.[/quote]
But it is also not fair on you to be forced to stay in an unhappy marriage because it suits someone else. You can't put your own life on indefinite hold for other people.

When your father moved in with you, did you have any discussions about what would happen if anything changed, eg you needed to move or he started to need more hands-on care? What are the financial arrangements - does your father co-own the house with you/pay rent/make a significant contribution to costs? Would he be able to afford to live alone?

I would start having a look around at any sheltered housing/retirement communities near you, or near where you might want to move to, or even an elderly-friendly block of flats nearby, that way you have some options to talk about.

@kennelmaid, hello and welcome. It all sounds tough for you. Are you able to discuss your unhappiness with your DF? Would he understand? I know that my dad would never have wanted me to put up with anything on his behalf - my mother, on the other hand......
Nice new look @VeryMuchFlaggingMinty!

@VeryMuchFlaggingMinty thank you for the welcome.

It's hard. Honestly, I don't even want to have to take my DF with me if I do leave but it wouldn't be fair on my husband or my DF to just clear off on my own.

Oh Minty 😞.

@kennelmaid. Put yourself first with this situation. As everyone on here will tell you, when you're putting the happiness of a parent above your own you think. 'it won't be for much longer now, then I can get to live my own life... I owe it to them to make their last years happy...'

and the years go on, and another Christmas comes and goes, and you are still stuck in the same situation putting other people ahead of yourself..

@kennelmaid

Welcome.

I would suggest you do what you need to do for yourself.

At one point I thought I would stay put in my unhappy marriage until The Olds shuffled off, thus negating the need for wearisome financial wrangling with the ex.

They were well in their 70s at the time and virtually no-one in our family has made it past 80.

Circumstances forced my hand and here I am nearly 6 years later, having swapped a controlling H for a controlling M who at almost 83 is still for the most part, fighting (literally) fit.

New outfit

Stayed at mums last night...we literally start bitching and sniping at one another the minute I set foot in the house.

DD came and stayed last night as didn't want to be on her own. Mum keeps grilling us about the accident and asking why S is not herself and why I'm so uptight, the looks pathetic and comes out with 'oh, I wish there was something I could do to help...'

Woke up this morning to no hot water and cold only from the kitchen tap.

She had a new tank put in a few weeks ago and have tried both guys involved with that but no answer. Tried her former regular guy who understandably won't touch it.

She keeps wanging on about how he asked for her email address but she's going between her phone and PC and can't seem to tell the difference between text, Messenger, email, WhatsApp etc.

I am desperate to get home, spend some time with DD and decompress (and take the last f*in parcel to the drop off point).

Aaaarghhh!

I'm new here, hello! I'm happy to have found this thread.

My DF, 86, lives with me and DH. He's able to look after himself quite well and we have a good relationship.

Trouble is, my marriage isn't making me happy and I'd really like to leave, but my DF is very happy with the current arrangement and would be terribly disappointed if it came to an end.

I feel awful even thinking it, but it's like I'm stuck here until my DF dies.

We didn't have a golden sibling. My mum had 3 children. The eldest one who moved to another country decades ago so has never provided any elder care. My brother who has autism and LDs, so needed a carer himself, and then me, who has been the default carer. (Still getting used to saying I 'was' mum's carer). I think I would have been incandescent with rage if my eldest sibling had lived close by and not done her share over the years. It would have made me down tools

Booked mum's funeral yesterday. Direct cremation. Nice and simple.

In my case the golden siblings don’t do more because ‘they can’t cope with it’. I oscillate between bitterness and admiration. I expect they’ll come out if it with their mental health more in tact than mine.

@notaflyingmonkey I don't think the golden siblings consider whether their contribution is sufficient. I think they don't do more because they don't want to.

If @Knotaknitter is making the drinks I'll do the washing up. I'm pretty much in the same position with mum in a home since October. I still have the guilt and anxiety but at least my time is my own!

I wonder if the golden siblings know they are? Or do they kid themselves that their contribution is helpful.

@Warmhandscoldheart having a good spend always helps me! My chemo is going well thank you but leaves me with limited energy which Mum cannot understand. I feel very let down by my sister, I don't expect her to be here all the time but I would appreciate an occasional visit, just to take her out for say lunch or a coffee.

Thank you all for the warm welcome 🙂
@MrsRussell thank you, I took your advice, went for a coffee and did some retail therapy.
@Fantasea my sibling is the golden girl too, she rides in on her white charger spewing forth nonsensical suggestions then rides off for months leaving me to explain to an excited DM why it isn't feasible. I hope your chemo treatment is going well.

I'm here to fetch the drinks and offer encouragement. This time last year was really hard, mum at home, MIL at home, one with dementia hitting hard and the other a frequent faller. A year later and I'm off the carer's couch as mum's decline was very quick at the end. MIL continued to fall, and after a few occasions where she returned from hospital and fell again the same day the discharge team decided that home was not a safe place for her to be. She's been in residential care since the autumn. I've gone from being run ragged with phone calls at all hours of the day to an hour's visit once a week. I do look back through my journals now and again and I'm not that person any more. It was so hard, looking back I can't see how I coped except at the time there is no choice is there?

@NewYearNewMinty thank you for the cake and flowers. I'm sorry you're dealing with perimenopause problems on top of everything with your DM. Great news you've finally spoken to the HRT person at the surgery and hope you can get started on it soon. Ladies I know on it say it's a miracle. I didn't have too many issues in perimenopause so didn't take it but my operation plunged me into full-blown menopause overnight! I had the most horrendous hot flushes for a few months and was over at Mum's when one happened. I asked her if she'd experienced them in her menopause and she said 'no, because I had a job'. That clearly would have stopped mine in their tracks 😆.

@notaflyingmonkey that must be very hard for you and you've obviously done loads for her Xx

@thesandwich it sounds as though your DM had a nice outing and appreciated it with you and DH, that's good to hear. Mum spent an hour and a half in Tesco and managed to get 4 out of my 6 items. Unfortunately, I'd asked for a bakery sliced loaf (in a plastic bag) and she'd picked up a non-sliced one which you have to put in the paper bags provided. I know she will have touched it and her hygiene is appalling, I'm talking not washing her hands after going to the toilet or putting the rubbish out so I have had to throw it away. I also noticed some yellow sticker items when I helped her in with the bags, one of them was a huge Pizza Express pizza in the black box, she hates pizza but it was reduced right? I find her frugality so annoying at times, she is very affluent by anyone's standards yet so mean.

Hello everyone, and to those going through tough times, particularly sandwich, freshcarnation and minty.

Major progress here this week: DM moved in to her sheltered flat, it went more smoothly than I had feared, and so far she seems to be positive about it (and hasn't asked where her wine stash is). 🤞🏻she copes with all the new stuff and settles in OK. It has taken six months to get to this point after the fall that finally got her to agree to it. Now onwards with clearing and selling the house I grew up in...

Hello nota so far not too bad thanks…. 3 rounds down, 9 to go….
Main side effect being feeling weedy for a week/ 10 days. But ok and I’ve been v well looked after and surrounded by cake!

How are you holding up with the chemo sandwich?

Hello all! Thanks for the new thread @MereDintofPandiculation love the added kumquats!!
@NewYearNewMinty thinking of you and your dd.
@freshcarnation sending 🌺.
@notaflyingmonkey please try and stop feeling guilty. You have done so much for your dm. Please look after yourself.
@Fantasea hope tesco has stock and your dm delivers!
Took dm out with dh today for the first time since October….. due to her decline in mobility/ my surgery/ chemo.
She appreciated it and some of the regular staff there made a fuss of her. Not sure when next will be possible due to weekly chemo starting next week.
Welcome newcomers. Feel free to vent and rant here.