To feel incredibly angry that because my sibling lives abroad I am left alone to deal with all the support for our parents

[outtolunchagain]

I know I am really , he is perfectly entitled to do the best he can for his family , they have a good life out there and I'm really happy for them. There is absolutely no prospect of them coming home ever .

But I feel so alone and vulnerable , our parents are divorced , one happily married with new partner and my step siblings are very supportive so not to worried there.The other is about to be widowed and lives at least a 7 hour drive away, we have a fraught relationship at the best of times .It feels like a train rushing towards me .

Brother says all the right things but realistically is a 16 hour flight away, not feasible to come home to go to a Drs appointment or visit the lawyer or organise the tyres or MOT on her car.

It would help if he appeared to understand the problem , it's all very well to say he'll be there in an emergency but I don't need him there in an emergency I need him there regularly

SIL by the way comes from a third country even further away than us and I suspect her brother feels the same as me

Sorry this was a rant but I feel so scared of what's coming , I also have a job a workaholic DH and three children one with extra needs , admittedly all teenagers one older than that now but still needing support

He

Is it possible to move the soon to be widowed parent closer to you?

I'll pm you, but I think you are my twin!

Well maybe I suspect that is what will happen in the long run , we don't have the best of relationships but I cannot keep driving 7 hours to see her .However I don't suppose they will want to do that in the near future and to be honest the prospect of having her living nearer is pretty horrid , however it ,may be better seeing her little and often and it is going to be the only way

You'll only have the responsibility you choose to have for your parent. If you have a fraught relationship and live 7 hours away why on earth are you arranging mots, Dr appointments etc?

For the cost and time of a 7 hour drive you coukd hire a local care agency ad hoc for apointments etc - and blaming your brother for being abroad is just a bit silly and unproductive. Get pratical and also set your boundaries

Your Mother needs you to contact SS for local support to be put in place. If they refuse you find out why. If she refuses then you are not responsible. You can't travel 14 hours all the time.

I was in a similar situation. My Dsis and Dbro both lived a minimum of 9 hr flight away. I lived an hours flight or 7 hr drive from my widowed Mum.

I also wanted to emigrate with DH DS and DD, but felt as though I couldn't due to having to look after Mum.

We had several long conversations and my Mum's attitude was to that I had to do what was best for MY family.

So we emigrated. It was hard, but my family's attitude was why should I be saddled with the guilt just because I was the youngest and therefore the last to leave.

As the flip side to my story is one of DH's friends. He looked after his ill Mum for years to the extent of not having a life of his own and still living with her She died recently and this nearly 50 year old man has no one.

I think what I am trying to say is would you want your kids to give up on their lives to look after you?

My mother does not need any care at the moment , and would be horrified by SS but she does get lonely and obviously it's all fine whilst she is well but what if she falls or crashes the car or just is lonely or gets lonely .Also at some point she will need carers but that is difficult at a distance .

I am practical but sometimes I get fed up of having to be practical , I have a life too and I feel like there is no support for me .Db can also be a bit holier than thou, he seems to think I can just abandon my life to pop down there ( 7 hours) to keep an eye on things once a fortnight.

No I don't want my children to give up their lives for me , but actually someone has to do it, I don't think there are many people who would just walk away from parental care , they might not be doing day to day nursing etc but actually there are myriad of small things which just need dealing with on a day to day basis as people get older

I suspect I will end up in a similar situation in a few years time as my only sibling is a few hours away and can't drive due to medical issues and so realistically won't be able to help with my dad when he is likely to need help. On the other hand my much older fil is a four hour drive from us and I know his care will largely fall on my sil who is nearby and on her own, and I do worry about her coping with the help he might need. It is sad that these days so many families are so far away geographically and there just aren't the family support networks close by as in the past.

If she doesn't need care, then I think the best you can do is help her to get out more and join in some things so she's not lonely. Does she live somewhere with things going on? What are her interests? Does she have friends or neighbours? There is masses for older people to do in most towns and certainly in cities. Just going to church is a good way to meet people, unless she's an atheist. But there are many volunteer opportunities out there if she's reasonably well and able, and there are clubs and teas for less able older people. Contact Age UK, give her the number for The Silver Line (a telephone befriending service).

Otherwise, does she like music? Gardening? Knitting/crocheting? You know her, so if I was in your position, rather than run yourself ragged I'd make it clear to her that she needs to reach out and start to make a fuller life for herself. Unless she is in poor health (which it doesn't sound as if she is), it is wholly unreasonable of her to expect you to run around making doctor's appointments and sorting out the MOT on her car when you live seven hours away and have three DC.

If she is just a typical older woman who's always had a man to do everything for her I suggest you do what my aunt did when my grandad died and set up a load of direct debits for her so all her bills are paid automatically. Then ask the garage to send her a reminder when her car is due for a service/MOT and arrange for them to pick it up and drop it back for her. Most garages will do this for older people. But, above all, don't set up an expectation in her head that you will come running for every little thing. I saw it happen with my aunt and grandma and the older person can become increasingly needy and demanding if you don't set clear boundaries.

Db can also be a bit holier than thou, he seems to think I can just abandon my life to pop down there ( 7 hours) to keep an eye on things once a fortnight.

And TBH if my sibling was doing this I'd tell him to get stuffed. Just because he's pissed off 16 hours away doesn't mean its easy for you to drop everything and drive the length of the sodding country. You might want to think about ways he CAN help from far away - like call her every week to help keep loneliness at bay, send her regular postcards, commit to visit every year or every other year, have her to stay with him, if she's able. I don't think I'd let him get off too lightly, if it was me!

Oh yes, you are definitely not BU, I live half an hour from my mum. She is 78 and getting quite frail and has recently been diagnosed with dementia. I visit her at least every second day and talk on the phone if I don't manage a visit.
I work, have one teenager at home and was widowed this year, my sister lives about 200 miles away and won't visit once a month at the weekend as fuel is too expensive. I asked her what exactly she thought I spend on fuel each month, and that's only the tip of the iceberg she has no clue how much time it takes for the small every day stuff.
Sorry for the rant, and the hijack..... I probably sound awful, I do love my mum and will do anything I can for her, but it was good to get it out.

He can do a lot of stuff by phone for her, he just wants to laze out of it. What a selfish person. If my sibling told me to 'pop round' I'd tell him to go to fuck. Yes, I would.

I agree with juneau that some time spent setting things up with your Mum to make life easier for her will save you a lot of effort.
It sounds like she is still capable enough to sort out her own MOT and Drs appointments if you give her a bit of initial support.
I wouldn't make her too dependent too soon.

Later when my Mum became very dependent I found that an intensive week spent setting up services and organising adaptations saved a lot of stress and worry all round.
I would quietly point out to your brother that fortnightly visits are too much.
A phone call can help with loneliness. Does your Mum have friends locally?

If your mum can drive/run a car she should be able to sort out her mot and appts. Of course we look after our parents as and when they need it but you're taking on too much too soon I think.

Agree that hte best would be once your mum has got through the innitial trauma of losing her DH, you start looking at ways to set up her life so she doesn't need as much help, from giving her details of a good garage (perhaps find one that are happy to send her a reminder to book the next MOT each year? Mine does.)

Help her get everything in her name, then leave her to it.

longer term, you could suggest she looks to move nearer to you. But be clear to your DB when you talk to him, you can't jut pop down every couple of weeks, so if she can't cope, she'll have to be encouraged to move to near you, or you both accept she's being left to it, so might need paid for help earlier.

If your mum doesn't need SS involvement then she doesn't need you to be organising MOTs and doctors appointments for her. If she is capable of driving a car she needs to capable of keeping it roadworthy. Not clear why you are needed to do these things - is she generally quite demanding?

Providing your mum with emotional support as she loses her partner is one thing. If she needs more practical help on a regular basis and if you want to provide it then she needs to move much closer to you. Or buy in help. You don't have to spend hours on a motorway once a fortnight and neither does your brother.

I really think as a society we need to move away from this couple-centric thing and get people focussed on living in communities because the current model is not working for people in their older years, yet this is the life they have chosen.

I agree! People who are widowed or divorced earlier in life often are more able to cope, because they form those deeper friendships and social connections, but people who are in a couple until their 80s or so can be extremely co-dependent. A lesson for us all!

As PPs have said, I think the real issue is that you can see a problem coming, but you're not really thinking through all of the practical options that are open to you. I'm not picking on you, OP - I think this a large scale problem we have as a society. We know that ageing happens, but we don't deal with it until the consequences are right on top of us, perhaps because we're afraid of having difficult conversations.

Basically, your family are going to need some kind of support in the near future. You realise that this cannot be you - you're not close enough geographically and you have other people who need you too. So it will need to be a solution that involves spending a bit of money and getting some help from the care system. I think the best thing you can do is to talk to your Mum about the issues in the relatively near future, and start her thinking about what she wants. There are many fantastic places for older people to live now, where they can get all kinds of different types of care. If she were to move now, while she is still hale and hearty, she could settle into a new place and meet new people without the problems of illness and more urgent care needs. Older people who face up to these issues early do much better in my experience than those who bury their heads in the sand, so the more you can get her to take action the better.

You can then get DB to help in the way that he can - money to make it happen!

I have additional sympathy as well as I don't get on well with my parents, it's a very different thing being expected to look after people who you like to those you don't.

If you've build a life away from your mum, the prospect of her moving near you might well be practical, but doesn't mean it's something you'd relish.

Thank you for people's comments , it's not so much that my DM expects at this stage that I will do these things, we are not close at all.However In my job I deal with elderly care and so I am probably over aware of issues which might happen.For example she thinks she is a safe driver , I expect she is not however if someone isn't seeing her regularly it's difficult to assess.She is normally healthy but last year had shingles and was unable to drive for 3 months, how will that work now she is on her own.

She is an intensely private person and really doesn't make friends easily, my sf was actually pretty possessive and so they really don't have friends to rely on , he has terminal cancer but was determined until last week that no one around them should know , I think the neighbours have guessed something is up but they have lived there 13 years and don't even know their neighbours names.

The thing is she can manage at the ,lent a lot of things and will be fine , but all the time you know the crisis is coming it just needs one thing fall .

....Why do intelligent people not have any insight into planning for their old age? .....

Very few people do have that insight. The deterioration in faculties is often so gradual and the way that family pick up odd jobs (even down to gardening and minor DIY) is equally so gradual that before people know it they're into fully fledged caring. The situation for friends and family who live close by is often deeply difficult and Yes, unfair - but there's usually a good dose of obligation and guilt to throw into the mix along with many older people not wanting 'strangers' to do for them.

You've got some advanced awareness and warning, OP, so I'd be starting to make arrangements right now even though she seems capable in most ways.