Elderly dad and wife expect me to care for her

[Adrienne23]

My dad left home for his now wife of 50 years when I was 8 years old and they by and large lived their own very comfortable lives together, seeing me around 4 times a year until my teens, then we saw very little of one and other aside from speak on the phone twice a month or so. My mother raised me in relative poverty with not much financial support from my dad at the time he used to claim he didn’t have the means and we only discovered in recent years that he and his wife were far better off than they said they were. My mother passed away nearly 10 years ago from a long illness and I was her main support, although she tried very hard to maintain her independence and not lean on me unless absolutely necessary mainly in order to protect my emotional and physical well being.
I started to see more of my dad since my mothers death and increased communication considerably during lockdown. In the past few months his wife has been diagnosed with cancer and they now both absolutely expect me to provide all sorts of support and care for them both as my dad’s health is also poor. I am starting to feeling incredibly resentful. I worked hard on myself following my mother’s death, getting a new job, social life, etc, but I am still deeply affected by the loss. The level of support my dad and his wife expect from me far exceeds the support my mum expected (or received) from me, I get calls and messages about the health condition of both, several times a day irrespective of what I am doing, demands to drive to and from appointments, visit the house, messages that seem urgent and can’t wait only to just want to chat about themselves, and so on. How can I draw boundaries now before I am completely consumed by them and their needs to the detriment of my own?

See my mum always said you don't have children to look after you when you're older. She refused to be a carer and didn't expect it of us, although through choice I nursed her til the end and never left her side because I adored her.

My uncle and aunt cared for my grandmother when she became too infirm to live independently and charged her a monthly salary for doing so. Maybe that's something you could suggest to your dad and step-mum, given the circumstances.

Depends if your talking people in their early 70s who retired 5 years ago or people (women) late 70s who retired nearly 20 years ago at 60.
Smart phones and apps have only been a thing in the last 10 years really. And there are trust issues lots of older people struggle to trust the Internet with card details or Internet banking

Do they have any other children who they can call on? I understand completely where your coming from not wanting to step up. I guess all you can do atm is signpost to other services eg taxis for appointments/macmillan cancer support etc

Second what @Miloarmadillo2 said

Also, I would have more sympathy for a distant elderly relative who never abandoned you when you needed them (as a child, when your mum was ill), or even for a random elderly who never did anything wrong to you. In your shoes, I would do less than what I would prepared to do for a random elderly person.

Hopefully OP will decide that the amount of time and money she has to give to these people is zero.

I'm sure that you are only giving OP some practical advice and information, but it sort of sounds as though you think it would be reasonable for OP to provide care for these disgusting people and to work part-time and claim carer's allowance in order to do so.

She can only claim carers allowance if she’s caring for the person claiming AA for at least 35 hours a week. Carers allowance doesn’t stop you from working full time but you cannot earn more than £196 per week. Why would OP want to bake herself into a position where she is responsible for what amounts to over four eight hour days worth of care every week for the paltry sum of £82, as well as working and having an earnings limit ? For people who have the means to organise their own care ?

A monthly salary means expectations and actually doing caring and being on call. This would work in other family circumstances but not for the OP.

This is the perfect response. Repeat and repeat again.

I wouldn’t go into the past. Just leave it at you aren’t available.

I’d just be very clear but factual, I can’t do that today because [work/ kids/ other things]. Leave them with details of taxi firms, age concern, adult social care etc. In lots of places you can also access sort of neighbourhood support for elderly care, which might also be an option. You can also obviously get carers or a PA to help but clearly they can organise that themselves if they want.

I have an 83 year old relative and have to draw similar boundaries. She knows I will help in an absolute emergency, but I can’t be there every week.

If they moan/ guilt trip suggest they consider supported living.

“Dad I can see you and DW have increasing need for support and I think we need to be realistic. I had xx years of looking after Mum and know how big a job it is. I need to be honest, for all our sakes, and say I can’t and I won't take on what will become an even bigger job for the coming years. So let’s make sure you have the right support. I can do one day a month helping with xyz. Have you got a Macmillan Nurse? You will need to Let’s look into attendance allowance and getting someone once a day to help with showering / cleaning / cooking / gardening (whatever is needed). “

This post from @LookItsMeAgain is good. It would be perfectly fine even if he had been an involved and caring dad throughout your life. Well done on focusing on your life following the loss of your mum. A response and actions like the above will allow you to maintain the improving relationship you have while not building resentment about the past.

In Your situation I would have an honest conversation with with my dad.

explain you are happy you have reconnected, but you can’t ignore the decades of neglect (financial and emotional) during your childhood.

Say the expectation that you will be primary carer for him and his wife is too much for you, and not reflective of the relationship you have had. Say you still hold a lot of hurt from his rejection of you as a child and therefore while you want to stay in his life, he and his wife can’t rely on you as their primary carer.

tell him he will have to look into alternative arrangements.

they will try and guilt you - but you have nothing to feel guilty about

I would send a message saying “Dad, you and wife clearly need more support than I’m able to offer at this time in my life. If you need help finding the contact details for companies that can step in, let me know but I’m simply not in the position to do this for you both. Look forward to catching up at Easter etc….”

Perfect

Are you out of your minding allowing yourself to be used like this?

Like really out of your mind?

Send a text that you are not available for this and mute your father.

Ffs OP, stop allowing this selfish pair use you.

Put yourself first.
Your poor mum must be turning in her grave witnessing you being used like this.

Please stop being used.

You need to ween him like a baby , decide today what help you are prepared to give and make it clear to him he can use you once a month twice a month
if that is not heard and understood
first if all you need to invent a thing that stops you driving maybe a ankle injury or some such and be a non driver for 3 weeks
then do one favour if you are so inclined
then get the flu and be “ off work “ for a week so absolutely you can’t go any where near a cancer patient
then do one favour if so inclined
so on and so forth
the trick is to always have a cast iron reason why you can’t help
no money for petrol and of course you won’t take a penny off poor pensioners
car in the garage getting fixed
kids have d and v not passing that on !
social engagement
work commitment
basically stick to your guns and have an excuse up your sleeve
are you able to tell him what you have written here ?

OP, can you afford a cheap holiday ANYWHERE?

If you can book one and make yourself physically unavailable to help you say No.

Let them crack on themselves as you are not around.

Leeches like these two will always figure it out.

They just think of you as a mug they can use.

You can't seriously believe your father gives a damn can you?

You are simply a useful phone number to be used by them.

Keep reminding yourself that he/they essentially abandoned you to poverty as a child so they could enjoy their lives, was a minimal parent, seeing you only 4 times a year at best, and wanted very little to do with you until you could provide a service to them.

Again, didn't give a shit about you until you could provide a service to them.

Stop providing the service. Just stop.

I imagine they will rage but you don't have to engage.

Don't let bitterness rule your decision here but do let sense. You don't owe him more than your mother and you need to work out exactly what you are willing to do for them.

Lifts to hospital can absolutely be dealt with by being unavailable and getting them familiar with a taxi company. You could offer to show them how to use uber.

I wouldn't be too blunt about it. You can say its great that you've got more of a relationship now and you'd be happy to continue to see him from time to time but of course you have other commitments and can't fit in full time care too.

Do you stand to inherit? Worth thinking about, not to be relied on but still the reason why I'm saying to moderate your bitterness. You don't need to spell out that he's a useless parent and you owe him nothing.

If you van adopt a tone of breeziness of course I can't I'm surprised you even asked and a bit of bemusement that will get the message across.

I don't know what they are like though.if they encroach too much you might have to ignore them more firmly.

I've tried loads.

Top and bottom is they don't want to spend the money to give them the modern access they need. Without the technology any help or training is useless.

DM has a phone (PAG) for emergency calls/texts. Never uses it socially.

DF has the same, sends a very occasional text. Usually not very nice ones!

Tablet they own is nearly obsolete.

In lockdown we facetimed my MiL every day on her IPAD ( she was 85). My DP’s, refused to buy an Ipad and struggled through with landline calls after their PC wouldn't function to manage FT.

I nearly bought an Ipad for them, but they have loads of money.

There really is no helping some people.

We reap what we sow when it comes to relationships. Make it clear what you can help with e.g I'm free yo go to the shops on Tuesday at 6pm then give them as other posters have said Social Cares numbers, age UK, McMillan etc- they can obviously use a phone. Best of luck OP x

Over 40 - my mum had to put the proposed subjects into a computer to work out the high school timetable in 1982!

Some of these answers are wild. The average age of my physio group is 74 and they are all smart phones and prebooking sessions via the app.

Anyway, the original technology point was someone suggesting the OP sort out numbers for this service and access to that one.

The PP disputing that (whom I endorsed) was pointing out these things should be well within the capabilities of someone who’s functioning in the world without assistance until now.

You van either keep being unavailable, or simply tell him that you feel no duty towards them as he felt none towards you.

These men who didn't even look after their own children, who now expect said (adult) children to look after them, give me the absolute rage, the entitlement and lack of self awareness is off the scale. Just disengage OP, and tell him exactly why.

As a pp said, don’t disrespect your mothers memory by doing this now. That should add some extra backbone to giving you the confidence to tell them exactly how it is. There are some good example messages on here for you to choose from, to send.