PILs have cancelled carers and are now asking when we can visit

Yes, a friend has carers after a stroke and describes some as "ignorant".

Anyway, who wants strangers coming into their home?

They are adults and can make their own decisions. They cannot demand you come to see them on a whim.

Unless you think your MIL is incapable of making decisions, you need to just step back and let things happen.

Life is so cruel. I just wish I could pop off suddenly at 90 after being in perfect health and overdoing it at a salsa class with the 40 year old toyboy and feel a little unwell and then expire after a nice snack. It's the slow decline that is so sad. I think the main problem is not being able to accept that one is not as fit as ever, I certainly would have trouble accepting that. maybe there need to be more self help and coaching for getting old gracefully.

It’s easy for people to say don’t get involved, let them manage etc but when it’s your parents or in-laws it’s hard and when they’re stubborn it’s harder. My parents are 86 & 83, stubborn should be their middle names plus denial that they’re old. Being this way caused falls, upset and blame everyone else. My mum really struggles to stand from her chair and walk, the other day she was telling my daughter who is expecting her first child very soon, that she’s more than happy to help out with childcare etc!!

yanbu
it's incredibly difficult all around

with relatives we had to be very diplomatic for them to accept carers.
we started by organising a cleaner once a week and a daily meals service.
that really helped the eldery caring part of the couple so that they were in a better place to discuss a care arrangement.

maybe ask your dh to explore household help.

all the best!

@StillNiceCardigan goodness I totally feel for you. We have LPAs for health and finances but our mother ignores us when we try and insist she gets help. Interestingly it was our mother who insisted that I sort the LPAs. On reflection I think she loved the attention getting them sorted brought her. Good luck!

Be strong - tell them to reinstate and stop being selfish - we had similar with my in-laws luckily we had lpa for health in place so we could insist the carers went - tell them it gives you peace of mind to know someone is going in regularly - good luck 🙂

@SierraSapphire yep understand that. To be honest I had the wedding she wanted because she threatened to ‘never speak to me again’ when I expressed my choices. I went with her wishes - nearly 40 years on my DH and I ponder if she would have gone through with her threat!

Frankly our mother has always used manipulation to get her own way. She used to threaten to ‘never speak to you again’ if you didn’t follow her rules.

When I have a conversation with my mum about she can't keep calling me about bits and pieces that other people could do because I can't always drop everything and it's disrupting my life, she moves straight to "Okay I'll never call you again then" 🙄

@theonlygirl @Bunnie007 wise words re the manipulation and obsession with leaving money. Frankly our mother has always used manipulation to get her own way. She used to threaten to ‘never speak to you again’ if you didn’t follow her rules. In the case of my really lovely SIL she didn’t speak to her for years because she had been married before she met our brother. It was the most ridiculous few years but our mother buried her head in the sand because’ what will people say’. I remember saying to our mother …you are missing out on a lovely person being part of our family. She wouldn’t listen. Money wise her obsession with her bank balance is bonkers. Frankly I don’t need it. I’m certainly not relying on it. My sister and I know our brother is also quite focussed on inheritance money and we have agreed he can have it all as we are ok. I think she uses the inheritance as a stick to beat us with to keep helping her. After the atrocities in Southport my current mindset is any money left goes to the NHS staff at Alder Hey who have had to face real challenges this week. I also pledge not to expect my children to drop everything to care for me. They know this. I am utterly exhausted dealing with a selfish stubborn awkward resistant mother. I know she does not have any respect for me.

The thing is they are actually being very manipulative. They would prefer your husband to do everything for them and are trying to ensure this will still happen by not engaging with the carers. It’s selfish, if your husband wants to continue to be controlled by them you can’t stop him but I would be clear that I will not be going up frequently to replace carers. I know there are reasons they may be resistant to carers and I don’t mean to sound uncaring but I feel a lot of concern for people who are basically at the whim of older people who are not seeing how the caring responsibilities are a strain on their children

I think my mother is also obsessed with leaving money. She has mentioned several times about money for grandchildren which is lovely, but not her responsibility I just want her to have the best quality of life in the time she has left and spend her money on that. I fear though that she won't want to spend it on help. But I will gladly spend mine instead because I will not spend the last good decade of my life doing someone else's cleaning, shopping and personal care. I do think though that she has this expectation, although for now it is unsaid. I struggle too because I find my mother quite unpleasant. I look forward to seeing her, but often, after 10 minutes I am desperate to leave.

Agree with this. OP if it’s more just help around the house that your PIL need, your DH might be better off sourcing a local person privately for this, rather than a care agency. This is what we did with my DGM - a lovely local lady came once a day to prepare meals, make tea, do some washing and whatever else needed doing. This was in addition to cleaners that came once a week and district nurses to attend to medical issues. They got on really well and the fact it was the same person every time was helpful. We went down the carer agency route a few times, including some very expensive private companies, and it was always a disaster. Sometimes they would send men which my DGM hated (we weren’t allowed to refuse) but apart from that the quality of the carers was very variable and the constant cycle of new faces rather bewildering for my poor DGM.

To everyone, (few exceptions who clearly have never actually experienced the realities of the complexities of stubborn elderly people) thank you! Definitely appreciate the comparisons to complex family dynamics. I definitely feel like a frightened child navigating our mother. Her volatile nature of old now manifests itself as quite scary. Staring hard at me and no words as opposed to shouting and screaming until she got her own way. She has dug this hole for herself had so much good advice and suggestions over the years but always knew better. I’m 36 hours since I was with her and am starting to feel better. Definitely taking the advice to be more focused on healthy boundaries and keeping a distance.

This

My experience is one of the sensitivities about daily carers is you can get a different unknown carer each day - in the case of my 76 year old mum with cancer young male carers in their 20s were allocated to assist her with washing herself in the first week and each time she thanked them but said she was in too much pain that day because even the thought of the losing that much dignity made her weep

To be honest I will resist having carers as long as possible although I will not ask my children to step in**

I think this is what my DM thinks, that she doesn't ask much of me. which to some degree is true, when things are going okay it's maybe a weekly visit, possibly a trip to a medical appointment. plus daily calls (which themselves can be energy sapping), but the issue is there are situations that she can't cope with that then becomes an emergency for me and it doesn't really matter what else I'm doing - just got home from chemo? – rush round - have an important funding bid to get in? Nope, you're not finishing that this afternoon. And it's the constant worry and guilt, if I can't get hold of her, is she lying on the floor injured, or has she just left her phone upstairs? She has a need for something basic doing and I could do it, but I want to go to the gym. And each time we have an A&E trip, often overnight, it takes me a couple of weeks to recover. And the constant guilt that she is on her own and has nobody except for me, and DD to some extent, to listen to her.

We were in the same situation with my DF, she was just about coping with him, although she wanted him to go into respite care, then she broke her hip and because there was no care set up (I had been begging them to do this for a long time because I could see it was going to become my crisis at some point,) for the two weeks it took to set up carers I was going into my DF three times a day, visiting my DM in hospital, and trying to run my business all around this. It was around this time that my consultant thought my cancer probably developed. I've noted on other threads there seems to be quite a large crossover between the elderly parents thread and the cancer thread.

It's interesting the thing about cognitive decline and only being able to see your viewpoint and not others, although I think neither of my parents ever really saw me for who I was they both wanted me to be completely different. All those unresolved childhood issues also play into what's going on now. My DM often complains about my DF"s behaviour towards her, but it doesn't seem to occur to her how damaging it might have been to two small children, but I don't think she's ever acknowledged that or her role in it. If you grew up in a dysfunctional household as a child who felt responsible for the emotions of your parents, then it's probably harder to cope with this later on as well because you've been conditioned into it.

I've always said to my DD that I am going to move into more suitable accommodation earlier, where it's self-contained and you only own flat or bungalow but you've got a warden on site,one of my DM's friends lives in one of these in town and she loves it. But who knows what I will actually do when the time comes?

People choose to have children, by doing so they sign up for the selfish toddler phase and the stroppy teen phase. Nobody chooses to be born and by default to sign up for being a carer to elderly selfish parents. That's the difference.

I feel the same, but I think the selfishness is part of the cognitive decline, I don’t think it’s their fault at all. As I said above my Mum was probably the most caring and considerate person you could meet, but when she got older and her body and mind started to get frail she became increasingly selfish, a different person. She never wanted to be a burden on anyone, but in the end she couldn’t help it.

My Dad wanted to cancel his carers. We said that if he didn't have carers then the alternative was that he would have to go in a home because we just couldn't cope.

He kept the carers and they were brilliant. Absolute unsung heroes.

To be honest I will resist having carers as long as possible although I will not ask my children to step in.

To be honest I will resist having carers as long as possible although I will not ask my children to step in.

A similar thing happened with my Mum. My Dad used to care for her but then he passed away from cancer. My Mum then basically forced my brother to move in and take his place. I have my own health issues but did as much as I could, mainly keeping her company in the afternoons so he could get out for a break. We had carers for personal care but she didn’t like the carers because they were making her wash and dress at times that didn’t suit her, apparently, so they were cancelled. I think the problem is that the carers would to some extent tell Mum what to do, whereas with my brother Mum was always the boss. She was the parent so we ‘kids’ had to do what she told us to, that was her point of view. It was about her wanting to keep control over her own life, but she didn’t seem to consider or care how that was impacting my brother’s life at all. I think that selfishness is a part of cognitive decline, but the nurses when she was in hospital said that it is very common for the elderly to simply not be able to understand anyone else’s needs anymore, they just become completely self absorbed, they can’t help it. No one really understands how tough it is to deal with unless they’ve been through it. If she was still her usual self looking after her would’ve been a joy, but my Mum wasn’t my Mum anymore, she was more like a particularly difficult teenager. What she wanted wasn’t what she needed. She was refusing to eat properly or get any exercise and kept on getting up in the night while my brother was asleep so she too had a number of falls. Medication was an issue too as although my brother monitored her tablets she kept on worrying for more painkillers and then getting up in the night to take more, but she got the boxes mixed up. When we discovered this we tried to work out exactly what she’d been taking but it was all kinds of things. We had to lock away her medication to stop her overdosing, which went down like a lead balloon. She ended up in hospital then a nursing home simply because she refused to accept the help she needed. She had gotten to the point where she needed 24/7 care from qualified nursing staff, which we couldn’t provide at home. She died soon after. We were with her, but she wasn’t at home in her own bed, and I will always feel sorry for that. OP and everyone else on here going through this has my heartfelt sympathy xx

Me too.

This is so hard. I’m in a situation where my both 80-something parents have deteriorated rapidly. I want them to be able to stay home as long as possible and I’ve have found a private care company and they are visiting to assess. Hoping for a few hrs a day initially. My mum thinks she doesn’t need it but we are ploughing ahead. They have the funds and I’ve said to her that it’s to help dad if something happens to her (as she’s been really ill recently). Dad is open to this but appreciate this might be difficult in your situation. Your husband needs to have these conversations with them and I think be quite firm. I tried the treading on eggshells ‘you might want to think about…..’ but eventually had to take control. We’re about 60 mins away but daily visits are not possible as work a 6 day week. Good luck.