To wonder if it’s selfish moving abroad, PIL abandoning dh gran

[LardLizard]

I’m torn as half of me thinks everyone should be able to do what they want

But half of me thinks poor dh gran
She 90 and not in the best of health

Plus her other son and dil are also moving far away but not abroad

I wouldn’t judge. People are living longer and longer lives now, it’s not as simple as putting your own hopes and dreams on the back burner for a ‘limited’ period of time. Many people are living well into their 80s now.

Also, caring for someone is exhausting and can completely consume you without proper support.

I wouldn’t be able to leave my parents, but can easily imagine how people struggle and get to the point where they can’t cope, having seen how demanding it is to care for my elderly DGParents.

I live abroad and have done for a long time. My parents are just entering their 70s and starting to have some health issues. I worry so much about them and how to support them, but I really don't want to return to the UK. It's a big problem, I think. I worry so much about it.

I moved abroad when I was young, but fortunately moved back two years before my dm was diagnosed with cancer. It is hard being far away when the shit hits the fan and not always that easy to get back.

But I do notice that some people start to bring up resentment against their parents just around the time that their parents start to need more help.

But people cannot live their lives in suspended animation. My father-in-law was on death's door at one point and lived another eight years.

My nan is in her 90's - she only has me and my sibling so no I wouldn't move abroad. It wouldn't be fair on my sibling to take on the whole responsibility and wouldn't be fair to leave her when she's done so much for me my whole life. So yes, I think it's selfish

shoes in that scenario I wouldn't move either. But if you settle abroad while your parents are still fine, should you be obliged to rip up your life and your dcs' lives decades later? Especially when your parents know you aren't nearby and have ample time to plan for their future? Personal responsibility comes into it then.

Dh’s gran can be very demanading
And had kinda wanted to be old even 18 years ago when I first met her
So she would have been 72

She also does do that thing someone on here suggested that she expects the females to a lot like the toilet and dressing etc and they are both dil to her she only has two sons

We put everything on hold when my parents needed care in their late 90s. No holidays for four years, out of bed for a 12 mile drive numerous times in the early hours, every plan made with them put first. All done out of love.

I agree with you, OP, I think they're selfish but some people just are. My parents had friends whose children just left them to rot. At the end of the day you have to live with your choices.

My grandmother was in poor health for as long as I can remember, already frail in her late 60s then at 80 she had 3 masdive heart attacks and it was touch and go, I remember visiting her in hospital and wondering whether to leave or wait incase she passed away just after I went home. When she was discharged she wasn't expected to last til the end of the year so moved in with my parents.

She died 23 years later.

It's not necessarily true that someone in poor health at 90 will only be alive another few months or couple of years, so life should be put on hold essentially waiting for them to die. It's entirely possible she'll live to be over 100.

Often robust, never sick a day in their life people seem to die suddenly and unexpectedly without reaching very advanced old age, while people who've been not in the best of health since early retirement continue on in the same way into extreme old age. Certainly true of my own grandparents, DH's grandparents, and people I met during a stint working in a care home for a couple of years.

A serious discussion needs to happen with them about who is there for the gran in an emergency/checking she is being cared for etc. Everyone has a right to choose their life but not at the expense of others.
Lovely that they are deciding to check out and abandon her. If I was the gran I would wish them well, organise as much help as possible in my remaining years and leave the inheritance to those that visited me and the cats home.

Twoblueshoes me too, but I owe my children more than I owe my parents - I chose to have my children and they are powerless while still legal minors. I won't negatively impact my children to benefit my parents.

My parents are also very well off and can afford to buy in care and adapt their large and adored but impractical home. The fact that they laugh and scoff at me when I suggest making adaptions to the house, to make ground floor step free living with an easy entry shower potentially an option (this would be fairly simple in their house but need some minor building work) now so as to make life easier later (neither parent can walk far, one has had a hip replacement, one has had significant stays in hospital due to and a chronic health condition which leaves them weakened for a while after an attack, but both are cognitively fit) is their own choice.

Are you worried that the care will fall on you and DH? Which I don't think is unreasonable tbh. Where are PIL thinking of moving to?

Some elderly people are harder to help than others. My MIL was adamant about not paying for help around the home, adamant she wasn’t going in a home, insistent she would die at home. Except she developed dementia, had a fall and ended up in hospital then home.

We are her nearest relatives, but my SIL and BIL visit regularly. It’s been a relief that she moved into a home. We both work FT and now we know she’s being looked after. We can enjoy our visits to see her much more without having to sort the garden, food shopping, reset the TV etc

But if MIL hadn’t gone into a home all her children were beginning to get really weary about the increasing demands on their spare time (and there were four of them sharing the load) and the impact on family and working time, that resentment was starting to grow. Constantly having to put your own lives on hold for years takes its toll. Your PIL sound like they’ve reached the end of their tethers and feel they’ve done their part and now need to move away.

People who hold "the inheritance" over their children and use it as a weapon usually end up leaving only debt or leaving everything to just one manipulative relative who talks them into it unknown to anyone else, or outliving their own children.

If relatives start bandying about inheritance as a weapon it's best to assume that there will not be an inheritance or that if there is it will be left in a way designed to cause hurt and conflict among those left behind.

People in the fortunate position of reaching old age and being in a cognitive and financial position to plan their old age shouldn't be fixating on having money to leave (many people don't have anything to leave anyway) but should instead spend their money putting measures in place to be independent for as long as possible by moving or adapting their home, and make realistic contingency plans around sheltered accommodation and care should those things become necessary.

Blackmailing relatives into putting their lives on hold and taking on your care for an indefinite number of years for fear of losing an inheritance is low. Most of the time that inheritance won't actually exist, will have to go on care homes anyway despite 20 years of relatives doing care til they hit breaking point, or the relative will be in their 70s themselves by the time they inherit and won't outlive their parent for long.

Caring for elderly relatives is a labour of love. Nobody should be doing it for the inheritance - if they are it'll drive them insane!

To be quite honest OP, based on your recent update I can see why the DILs would want to move.

blueskiesandforests
Yes...I agree. You can't have children expecting them to care for you, anything could happen and when they have their own children that becomes the priority. We are looking at moving soon, away from ILs who are quite elderly. DH always said he couldn't move away from them but since having DS we've realised just how awful where we live is...(busy, polluted, crime, park is a long walk away) and we want better for him. We both had lovely childhoods in green places and want the same for him. It's difficult but we have to do the best for DS.

Lovely that they are deciding to check out and abandon her. If I was the gran I would wish them well, organise as much help as possible in my remaining years and leave the inheritance to those that visited me and the cats home.

Ultimately, all adults need to put things in place to ensure their care without expecting that care to full upon their children and grandchildren. I never want my DS to think he can't follow his own path because he is worried about getting to my house on time for me to go to the toilet. I want him to want to spend time with me, not feel obligated to, and I certainly don't think that personal self care should fall to someone's child. Too many people leave their planning until it is too late and there are few other options. Make a will, get a POA in place, see a financial planner, but take some responsibility for your own old age.

I moved away from the south east to the south west when my father was 89 and my mother was 77 because my dh was semi-retiring and we needed to move dd (aged 14) to a different school because she was being bullied. It meant we could downsize to allow us some capital to make up the difference in income.
I was very sad to leave my parents but had to take into consideration my dh and dd.

“She needs a lot of help” so they are moving away, words fail me....

I don't think this is going to be the only consideration though, is it?
And after OP's last update, I think if I had a domineering mil who expected me to toilet and dress her, I'd want to move away too, sounds like they've had enough and want to enjoy some time while in good health themselves. Tbh, if someone needs assistance with toilet and dressing needs, wouldn't they be better off in some kind of assisted living facility, rather than having to wait for a dil's assistance? Perhaps the move is the only way mil will consider it.

Ventiamore and that is the problem... Many of these older people feel they are entitled to rely on (usually) female relatives for personal care, even when they have the ability and resource to make other arrangements. My mother absolutely does not, she does not want me or dsis to move in with her. She does not want any help at all. She just wants to carry on as she Is, cause havoc and to hell with it all. When someone refuses to take responsibility for themselves though they are capable of doing so, they lose the moral high ground.

It's so sad that this is all about expectation. Mine expected nothing, what I did was what I expected of myself. My husband totally supported me and completely accepted that moving away was out of the question. That's why, although I still don't really want to move we're going to, it's my turn to be accommodating now.

Just hope they understand the example they're setting for when they themselves get to that stage in their own lives.

I think it’s really hard. People are living longer and longer, with a worse and worse quality of life and hugely complex needs. Two of my uncles are still going in their mid/late 90s. I have cousins who have given up over 20 years of their lives running round after them as well as working full time and bringing up a family. They are in their early 60s and now stressed out of their heads and ill themselves. I am quite prepared for their parents to outlive them. There comes a time when you should be able to live your own live for a few years. Don’t know what the answer is though as tough decision to move away. Can totally understand it though.

Lots and lots of very elderly people outlive all their children.

My mil's mother held the inheritance of her house over mil for 40 years. Mil died in her 60s, mil's mother is still alive with the same complex care needs she had 5+ years ago and no reason to believe that she won't continue as she is for another 10+ years.

When I worked in an elderly care home a very high proportion of residents had outlived at least one of their children, and many had outlived all their children. One lady had outlived 3 husbands, her own 5 children (one died in childhood and one as a young man but the other 3 in their 60 and early 70s), two grandchildren and all her siblings and several her nephews and nieces... She had an album of photos and would go through it with any carer who had 5 minutes to spare for her, telling you about them and when they died She'd moved into the home after the daughter she lived with died.

Many people end up caring for their own parents for longer than they were dependent on their parents themselves, and predecease them.

My father was an abusive alcoholic when I was a child and I had a front row seat to his domestic violence towards my mother and subsequently the woman he was with afterwards. Police visits all through my childhood, injunctions etc. Lovebombed a vulnerable lady with gifts and holidays, got his name on her council flat tenancy and then bullied her for 8 years until she left and he got to stay. I stayed in his life because he used suicide attempts as a method of coercive control (so if I called him out on his abuse he would attempt suicide, first time he did this I was 17 so I became programmed to 'care' for his poor little alcoholic self after my parents divorced).

He is now 74, loads of health issues and addicted to prescription painkillers and refuses outside carers/help (because they'll see how he is abusing painkillers and grass him up to the GP). Has used coercive control to get me to buy him drugs, and also sneak prescription drugs into hospital for him. When I went away for holidays he refused to answer calls and texts to punish me for having a life and to make me think he's killed himself. Has harassed me at work and made disgusting allegations about my mum being a paedophile when I was a child (complete lie).. he admitted he was trying to make me break down and lose my job so I could skivvy around for him a bit more.

I have gone NC (he started threatening suicide in front of my kids) and I wish I could move abroad to escape him.

But if you met him, you'd think he was the sweetest kindest old man, suffering in pain while his nasty daughter just abandoned him. Just because somebody is old does not mean their adult children should be judged! There may be good reason why the son or daughter cannot do it any more.