AIBU: I really want to send my mother home.

[aiders]

I am a mother to six and now I have three granddaughters and soon to have another one. I have a job I hold down and I do volunteer work also. I divorced a while ago and I have three of my children living with me. (Teens, what fun we are having)
It has been two years now that my mother came to stay. Background on mother. She is 68, has a chronic illness, limited mobility and now has mental health issues.
She left my stepfather due to his being "nasty" towards her when she got out of the hospital. I am not entirely clear on all the details. My mother and I never really had a close relationship and for many years I never spoke to her. She came to stay with me in 2007 while she was moving houses, for six months as she could not tolerate the dusty environment. At that time she seemed pretty stable, and my children were young so she didn't have to fight for any attention as such.
She called me crying after Christmas 2017 begging me to come and get her. (She was up North and I am down South in a large city) I initially let things "settle" and didn't respond to driving to get her at first because I am busy and really didn't want to go through with her staying "just a little while" as before. I went up to see her in the hospital and she looked a mess. I felt pity and against my better judgement said I would bring her here. My DD was with me and as she is my baby I asked her what she thought. She liked the idea of building a relationship with her grandparent.
It has been a living nightmare.
When she came down here she immediately asked why she couldn't have the same room that she had before. That room is now my teenage daughter's room. She makes little remarks now and then to my daughter that "when I had that room..." My daughter is fed up with it at this point.
My mother is doing everything possible to destroy the relationship I have with my own children. She lies about things, and so my two middle sons have just stopped coming around "while nan is there"
She exaggerates her illness to the point of calling for me at unearthly times of the morning to say she needs help. She texts me constantly with silly things, including while I am at work. While I am allowed to carry my phone for emergencies, I am not supposed to be checking it almost every minute. She tries to grab any spare time I have and utilise it for herself she seems to forget that she really isn't the only person in the house I look after. On the only day I get off, she makes excuses to have to go out to the shops.
Now in order to combat her apparent loneliness, I have tried to get her into daycare centres for her to make friends and have some sort of activities so that she will not be so reliant on me. Every time she has attended one day and found excuses about why she isn't going again. The most recent being that her mobility scooter is causing problems for the lady who drives the pick-up van.
I do literally everything for her. I serviced her mobility scooter after it stopped running. I had a stairlift installed into the house so that she could access the bathroom as using a commode was embarrassing her. I take her to all her appointments and collect all the medicines that she needs. I have written a list of contact numbers clearly for her so that she can contact the doctors involved in her care if she needs. I am at a loss now on what more I can do. She is very very needy to the point that my children are avoiding her when in the house. I have a teenage son who as autism and even he is getting fed up with her now (and trust me that says a lot as he tolerates a lot of things)
I have tried to sit her down and explain how busy I am. In fact before I brought her here I did tell her that it wouldn't be like before when you came down my kids are grown and we are all very busy in our day to day life.
Continuing to have her here is eventually going to destroy my family I feel. We as a family have already been through a fair amount and I have just been informed that I may have to move from the house that we have made a home for many years. So what with work, my own worries and my family I really am being pulled apart by my mother.
Am I just being out of order to try and return her to her own place?

Op you have been a Saint. I would have boxed her up and covered it in stamps many moons ago.

What’s her husband been doing?
Does she own a property? Does she want a divorce? Can she get on a housing list of some sort?

What do you envisage happening?

It sounds like an ultimatum may be on the cards...

Things need to change or you'll have to go home.

If they don't change, follow through on it.

Well done with putting up with this for so long! When she first came to stay was it clear it was temporary? Does she regard it as her home now and not want to go back?
I think you need to have a conversation about the future with her, could you broach the subject by saying you may have to move (which is true) and you may not be able to house her much longer?
If she goes back up north will she have any support?

When she came here I made sure that she put in a police report as to why she is here. DV was stated. She wasn't willing to press charges and was just willing to "wait until he drops dead" (her words). They shared a bungalow. He has since gone to try and take her off the tenancy so that he can move. She has blocked this and is now waiting on the police to give her the report details so that she can inform her housing people that she hasn't abandoned the tenancy. I am hoping that this will be within the next couple of weeks as they said six weeks to trace the report.
She isn't totally disabled but I admit she does need some help. Though she has most of her faculties and can drive and use her mobility scooter to pop about, she just likes to make the most of any help that she is given. She loves it when her scooter wants to break down in the middle of the street, (cause she didn't plug the battery in the night before) and muggins here has to push her along cause she's has gone and told someone to come and get me. I have had a fair amount of random strangers knock on my door telling me I need to fetch mother as her scooter has broken down!
Though she says she loves being here I think she needs to go back to her bungalow which was designed for her with a wet room etc.

Yes , it’s time for her to go home.

If she returns back up North my half-siblings are all within the area. My sister completely blocked mother out of her life and has not spoken to her since she has been here, my two brothers are like chalk and cheese. One is her favourite though and I feel he would be there to help the mother out. He has been down here a few times to check on how she is doing. My other brother is a long-distance lorry driver, so is not around a lot.

Oh dear. Can you talk to her husband and find out what the score is? Maybe she needs to divorce him and get on the housing list independently. Whatever, she has to go. It will only get worse. You will end up in some sort of crisis and your family life will be damaged.

In that case I retract my previous comment. Sod the ultimatum, time for her to go home! She's taking advantage and has outstayed her welcome.

Perhaps suggest regular-ish visits to prevent a fall out if necessary?

I do not wish to have contact with that man. He is the reason I did not talk to my mother for so long and why I left home at 16. Mother has blocked him on her phone and as far as I am aware has not had contact with him for a few months. Any news she has on him is via my brothers.

First and foremost, she needs to leave.
Details about her home life are a bit sketchy as are her mental health needs.
Is it possible, judging by her almost controlling nature, that she may have pre-senile dementia? I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have said that but I’m detecting a few similarities from my own experience.
Irrespectively, this is all far too much for your family to bear, particularly as you’ve said that some of your children are withdrawing.
You have been an absolute angel, as others have said, but you need to put your immediate family first.
Is there, maybe, a possibility of moving her nearer to you in some form of supervised living accommodation? That way, you can keep an eye but she could have immediate support from staff.
I don’t envy your situation one bit.
Very best of wishes 💐

What a very strange woman, and she's relatively young at 68 to be behaving like this. You have to get her out now, as potentially she could live another 20 years, causing trouble.

@1Morewineplease I did think some sort of dementia myself at first. (I have a nursing background) But I have had her tested and the only thing that has been found is that her short term memory is a little lapse. With regards to mental health problems she isn't sleeping, has very bad anxieties and says she feels alone and doe's not want to be left. She has a thing about confined spaces and I have got her a counsellor to try and talk through some of her issues.

At this moment in time, I contacted a carer's centre near me for some support with her. The co-ordinator has suggested sheltered accommodation and this is something I am willing to look into. But again this will be reliant on her getting her tenancy sorted out.

Drive her to Favourite Brother’s house and leave her there. I would. My DC are far more important.

@PersonaNonGarte I would do that but he lives on a boat. I know why now!!

While I agree her behaviour is not fair on you or your kids, it sounds like she'd be in significant danger if she returned to her husband. Does she not want to divorce him? It sounds like she could manage in supported housing etc so look at getting her into that. But just make it clear that she can't continue to live with you and she has to work with you to find an alternative solution between returning to her bungalow and abusive partner or living with you for the foreseeable. If you can get her into council or housing association property she should be able to get a grant for any adaptations she needs, although the housing they have for over 60s is usually pretty well kitted out. She'd be priority need, both for her age and her disability but you might need to tell the council etc you are evicting her. I'm not sure if it would be your council or the one up north that has a duty to house her, but either way they can't force her to return to someone who is violent.

@aiders
My family had a number of years with our mum , who presents like yours. She, too, was a bit forgetful and GP said that her forgetfulness wasn’t too severe but said that her anxiety was quite bad. The fact that she denied it all meant that she couldn’t be treated for it.
As time went by it got so bad that she would phone me and sister up to 80 times a day. ( we had been advised to log her calls as evidence) for such things as ‘ when is Tipping Point on?’ Or ‘ is it time to turn the telly off?’
She demanded to be taken for a ride every day. She eventually started asking neighbours to take her out. And, yes, she was abusive.
I won’t go on as it’s not helpful to you right now, but I would certainly keep an eye.
Sheltered accommodation would be great but , yes, you need to sort out her current living arrangements.
I understand that your father is still in the marital home but there may well be a Housing Association in your area that would be able to accommodate her in there Assisted Living homes and she could well qualify for various benefits to assist in this.
It might be prudent to phone her GP and tell him/her of the situation. They won’t be able to divulge anything but they would record your concerns. We did this and it did provide future evidence for further actions.
Very best of luck OP!

I thought that I would update on this thread.

In December my mother ended up in the local hospital in the ICU department. I was then finding myself going to see her before going to work, then finishing work and going to see her and then arriving home at some ridiculous time at night.

While this was happening my pregnant daughter in law had a fire in her house. This caused her to go into early labour which resulted in my granddaughter being born on Christmas day. I then found myself going between two different hospitals.
Unbeknown to me, my mother had called one of my brothers to remove her things from my house and take them back to Norfolk. I came home one night to find her room cleaned out. When I saw my mother the next day I asked her what had happened and she replied that she didn't know. That she had only mentioned to my brother that she might be going back to Norfolk. She then collapsed and was pretty much unconscious for the next week. I contacted my brother who said that the mother had told him to hire and van and get her stuff that when she got out of the hospital she was going home. She tried to blame my oldest son by saying that she felt that he didn't want her there. My brother was just as surprised when I told him I had no idea of what was going on.
I was due to go on holiday on the 2nd of January. Something that had been planned a long while ago, a friends husband past away and that was a release for her. I was willing to put it on hold after discussing with doctors my mother's condition and being told that it was unlikely that she would be discharged before that date.
Mother came around enough to be placed on a heart ward. She was diagnosed with a severe heart infection which complicated her breathing problems, that along with the C.O.P.D was making it difficult to keep her stable. 1st of January came, and I was still on the work timetable. I arrived at the hospital before work and found mother had packed up her things, she told me that she was allowed to go home. I was suspicious and mentioned this to a nurse, but was told I would need to speak to a doctor. I, unfortunately, had to go to work before I had a chance to talk to a doctor. I told her that I would come and get her after I finished work (I had a four-hour shift) She was ok with this.
When I arrived later that afternoon, she was still waiting for her take-home meds. We got the meds and then left, it was late afternoon at this time and I said that I would take her for a late lunch. She seemed agitated by this but agreed. What I didn't know again was that she had told my brother to come and get her. So she was going to leave the hospital without even telling me. We went to get lunch and she received a phone call. My brother was about ten minutes away from my house. Mother told me that she had eaten enough and wanted to leave. As I pulled up to the front door, so did my brother. My mother then got out of my car, snatched her dog off my daughter and jumped into my brother's car. I have never seen someone with so many mobility difficulties move so fast in my life. She ordered my brother to grab her mobility scooter and go as it was getting late. As this happened all so quickly, I realised after they had left that she had left everything in my car from the hospital. The meds, her zimmer frame that the physio had recommended she use and the many items of clothes and things that I had been bringing in over the weeks. I rang her to tell her this and she didn't answer the phone. I sent her a text message and some three hours later I got a response to "send the meds through the post" I still have the rest of her things sitting in my passageway to be collected along with the stairlift and various other things here. I have never got a thank you, or anything and she barely talks to me now unless she wants something. Then she will send a long text message to explain what she wants.
My mother and I never really had a close bond, this has not gone anywhere near to making that happen. She ended up back in hospital the week after she went back, I only found out recently that she was there for a further two weeks.

I think you need to back away from your her. I feel for your DC having had to put up with her in there home. Your mum has latched onto your brother now so leave him to he to get on with it and seek some support for yourself to help life yourself out of the FOG

Oh wow I remember reading your original posts! What an awful woman, I hope you’re able to see her for who she truly is and let her just get on with it now.

Wow how difficult for you. I agree that now is a good time to back away, I suggest ignoring her texts requesting stuff too.

My worry is that she will do the exact same to your brother who will get sick of it then she'll ping pong between various people, eventually ending back with you. You need to ensure that doesn't happen. Do not have this woman back in your home; I'd go as far as to say do not have her back in your life.

Whatever happens (ie when your brother can’t deal with her any more), DO NOT have your mother back to live with you again! Your children deserve better and, just as importantly, so do you.

Wow what a cunt. You have been amazingly patient and kind. At least she's gone. I'd distance myself from her, this is no good for your mental health.

Dont ever have her back again. Enjoy your life now. Post her meds and ask your brother to collect her things within 12 weeks otherwise it will be given to charity.