MIL dropping hints about moving in.

[HappyDays40]

I have a lovely but very elderly MIL who at 94 lives independently and has friends who come and visit her that live on the street. We do shopping appointments etc and visits each week she is about 20 miles away. Sometimes when she isn't feeling too good she stays for a few days but is always glad to get back home as we have a noisy 6 year old who she loves but it can understandably get too much.
She told me today she is having the house valued so she can "move in with family ".......I think she means us considering there is nobody else:)
She is unsteady on her feet, can't do stairs but her house is adapted, she is familiar with it. Wherever she moves to would need some adaptations. When she does stay its very hard, we have a small dog who gets under her feet so is a falls risk, we have to move our work ( both full time) to make sure we are home to help her too the loo, get her drinks etc. She is no problem just sits in her chair , watches telly and drinks tea. But it isn't possible to work from home all the time our jobs involve some time out of the house!
Her friends pop over and wouldn't be able to do that if she were here.
We go away, do festivals and are not home much at weekends especially in the summer, she won't have carers or respite care.
I don't want her to move in permanently as it cannot possibly work logistically. She is welcome to stop over but it stops our routines an restricts us to the house. Not sure how we would manage to work, care for her full time and continue any quality of life for our son. Any suggestions how to address this without hurting her feelings are welcome.

Unfortunately we don't know how things will pan out. Once the elderly person cannot safely get themselves to the toilet someone has to be around 24/7 to help them. A carer coming in at 9 is no help if they need help onto the commode at 2.

Look into nearby care homes and assisted living places so friends can visit.

The thing with everybody moving in together is that no matter what happens, you will end up being her full-time carer. Yes she's 94, but that doesn't mean she's about to die. She could go on for several years, and looking after a young child, your household, and an aged relative even for a month would be exhausting.

And for the record: my grandad died when he was 94. I was 10, my sister was 6. My dad's parents had him when they were in their mid 40s, and he had my DSis and I when he was in his 40s. So of course it's possible that there's not a 'missing generation'.

My friends just moved her widowed mum, 90, in with her and DH and it’s ruined their lives. She may have undiagnosed dementia or is just nasty but she demands attention, wants an itinerary of what’s happening each day, expects meals at a certain time and gets jealous when my friend goes out to meet her friends and doesn’t take her. She’s now ill with the stress her mother causes. Your MIL sounds nicer but could soon change. Don’t do it!

Carers already get bit much more than min wage. How much lower do you want to go just do they can live with their charge and constantly be at work

My mum was adamant she didn’t want to move to a retirement flat until we went to see some. There was a lovely friendly community feel in two of them and she could see immediately how much more practical the accommodation was. A 24 hour on-site manager made her feel safe. I wonder if you could try viewing some places near her friends?

All these people with their family trees full of 2.4 children achieved by the age of 30 down through the generations who can’t possibly imagine any other family set up…such sheltered lives.

OP, you sound like brilliant support to her. I do agree that it sounds like she is best off where she is overall. I think your DH/ you both need to have a conversation with her about the specific things that are worrying her and work out a plan to tackle them. It might be that she’s wanting to free up some money to support you after all the gloom on daytime tv about the cost of living, it might be that she’s actually noticed a new health symptom that’s worrying her, etc etc… but without knowing the root you won’t know how best to tackle it. Good luck 💐

Where's your DH in all this? It's his mother.

Depends how much you want an inheritance really.

Put her in a care home and let that eat it up in a very short space of time, or she leaves it to a cats home rather than you if she feels you have abandoned her.

As pp's have said, she is 94......

good idea, oapair could be a new job title

I think you’re making excuses not to have her, you could have her, at least for a year or two, then she might be ready for a care home.

@PinkPalaceinthesky it’s that easy is it? How do you propose they adapt their life/rented home to look after MIL?

What happens when she breaks her hip after tripping over the dog? How does she get to the toilet when both OP and her DH are at work?

This was about the age one of my very lovely grandparents reached the same point. What he essentially meant was that living alone and looking after himself was becoming too much of a struggle; he was lonely and wanted company around him and especially at night when he was awake a lot; and that he was becoming increasingly nervous of falls etc and no longer felt safe alone. All very, very rational feelings.

He would have preferred to move in with family - of course he would, and we would have loved to have been able to do it, but the houses weren't suitable, people were all working and the hours wouldn't have worked, the practicalities wouldn't have fitted.

What worked was to have a very frank discussion about what was and was not possible, and as a result he tried a respite week in a local care home that was not full nursing so much as supported 24 hour shared accommodation. After a week, he had several weeks further option to extend his stay, to go home and think about it and talk further to staff about it or to go home and continue with independent living with carers coming in. Once he'd tried being in a place where there was company and were people to talk to 24 hours a day, where he had someone to have a cup of tea with at 4am when he felt vulnerable or bored, where he didn't have to worry about the demands and mobility of shopping, making meals, even getting dressed alone if he didn't want to, and someone only half a corridor away if he pressed his alarm, he decided he didn't want to go home and he enjoyed several years there before his mobility and health seriously declined. He had much more independence and entertainment and friendships there than he would have been able to have living dependent on one of us, attached to a busy family home.

The fear of change and not knowing what his options were was the biggest barrier.

Is there any sheltered accommodation in the area she lives in? It would mean her friends could still visit if she’s just a short walk or bus ride away. My friend’s aunt moved in with them from the town centre to a suburb about 4 miles away and her friends still visited. They would be far less likely to do this for a move 20 miles away.

My PILs moved to lovely sheltered housing and it was far from lonely. There was a friendly warden and there was lots going on in the common room and MIL, particularly, made new friends

You husband needs to sit down and talk to her about assisted living places. He needs to be armed with details of places locally.

If she raises the point about moving in with you, he needs to firmly say its not suitable for her with a young child and dog and her mobility issues. And not engage further.

This is NOT a conversation for you to have with your MIL , its a conversation to have with your husband.

Often so the menfolk can say... 'of course, WE look after mum'...

Yep!

It isn't usually the people who are doing the actual grunt work of caring who romanticise it. There's generally a shitwork class, comprised either of people who are lower status in that society or imported in to be such.

@toomuchlaundry All of that could be managed with the correct support in place.

I get that the OP doesn't want to do it, fine.

Just pointing out that saying No might have consequences.

i had an elderly relative for a month. it was like being a prisoner in my home as i couldnt go out for more than an hour unless i organised someone to look after her. I worked from home but key customer calls kept getting intertupted because she called me - sometimes because she needed the toilet, others because she just wanted something different on TV. In that month the carpet got trashed and damage to the bathroom (her mobility caused issues). It affected my kids as they didnt enjoy having an elderly person in the house who had high demands and restricted trips out. And that dog is a trip hazard....what happens when she has fallen over a couple of times, does the dog go or your MIL?

Well, I am not ‘judgy’ about any potential age gap, I just find it fascinating. Your family sounds very interesting too.

I think you need a visit for a proper conversation about this.

She knows how hard it is to live with a small child and a dog so she must be very anxious to even propose this.

A company local do me does less formal caring. The focus is on befriending with practical support. So, the person visits for longer and time for chatting and watching TV etc is part of the role. Practical things like a bit of cooking and cleaning fit in with this. It's common to expand the number of hours. Would someone like this be more acceptable? Age Concern would be a good starting point.

One final bit of advice she needs to hear. Decisions made in a time of crisis are rarely the ones you'd have made if you had a choice. Make decisions now when you have the choice.

We're in a similar position with an elderly parent. None of us are able to have someone move in with us permanently. None of us are able to provide the additional caring needs required long term, and the elderly parent is resistant to the idea of carers coming to the house.

When I pointed out that if the choice was carers coming to the house, or moving to where the care was available, the room went very quiet.

It's a horrible situation to be in.

I was reading in a support group recently (for people caring with people with dementia) that someone who had a child at 21, and is now caring for an elderly parent, will have had caring responsibilities on top of all the other requirements of life, pretty much from the onset of adulthood to beyond retirement. It's a lot to ask of anyone.

The difficult conversation needs to be had, sooner rather than later, and as this is your MIL, your DH needs to be leading that conversation. Best of luck to you all.

I would suggest a very frank discussion as quickly as possible. In my own experience, my mother (sadly no longer here) had to go into a carehome in her 50's, I had 2 young children at the time. Even though I wasn't caring for her myself, the mental strain of meetings at the home, hospital admissions, taking her to my house to visit every weekend (she was immobile so very physically intensive) broke me. My husband knows that for our remaining parent's, we will help as much as we can but they will not be living with us.

How is she coping at the minute? You say that when she stays with you she needs help going to the toilet and making a drink. It sounds like the next step is full time care of some sort.

I don't envy the the conversations and decisions that you have facing you and wish you and your MIL all the best.

@PinkPalaceinthesky how do you adapt a house that isn't yours eg grab rails, ramps etc. Would the landlord even accept another person moving in

Could she afford to sell up and buy somewhere, like a one bed flat type thing, but much closer to you? would that work, so you are 2 mins away if she needs you?