I’ve a good long standing friend who when she goes away (not often, it’s usually 1 week a year and a long weekend) I do a favour, which being deliberately vague here, is essentially helping look after an elderly relative.
Nothing overly personal but does require daily/twice daily drop ins. Relative has been very reluctant (understatement) to take on a carer or look into other options and essentially insists they are looked after by family (I think this is potentially cultural) hence why they ask family friends to help when away, especially people who know the relative already.
Friend is always incredibly grateful and sends me a generous amount of money to cover the costs of a few nice meals out to treat myself as thanks every time. I’ve never asked for this. Just for context that I don’t think they are tight or CFs - not the point of the thread!
Honestly it doesn’t work anymore for a number of reasons but the two main ones are I need to be in the office more than I used to, and due to a limited train timetable (I live semi rurally) I really only have one train I can get which makes being organised enough for this a real stress.
The elderly relative in question is also not as “with it” as they were even a year ago, which makes them increasingly difficult to be around. I think the relative needs more formal care and is not far off probably needing residential care but in this family this would never happen and I know they have encouraged them to move in with a family member with room and time, but they won’t leave their home.
This with a few other less key bits… fundamentally I just don’t want to. I used to not mind at all, and actually really enjoyed going round and their company, I never felt guilt tripped into it!
But they were away last week and I helped out, relative is increasingly difficult and I actively dreaded it every day and was counting down the days till they were back and was so annoyed/upset when their flight was delayed and I had to do essentially another day.
I’m also very worried given their declining state they’ll get very sick while the family are away (they go away as a whole family every time) and I’ll be stuck talking to doctors etc.
There have been times when I haven’t been able to do it due to also being away/other commitments and friend has never had an issue but I think has struggled to find other people to help.
I don’t know if the best course of action is to say now, I’m not willing to do it again. Or just make up a white lie that I can’t when she asks (usually about 3 months notice). I think she’d be very upset if I said the former as they might take it a bit personally but do I just need to rip the plaster off?