My 88 year old grandfather moved into a retirement village last week after selling his family home of 50+ years in conjunction with two other neighbours to a flat developer. His old home was located very close to the shops and railway station. He very much wanted to go to this particular retirement village, becoming upset if we or anyone else suggested that he might want to consider moving to one closer to one of his children. This retirement village is in the next suburb up from his former home and one of the main reasons he chose it is because it is close to his doctors, accountants etc (even though they might retire soon themselves!)
He has taken the move quite poorly although he seemed to be so excited about moving there. He has a lovely two bedroom ground floor villa which was completely remodelled/recarpeted for him. He's a bit of a snob and one of the main features that sold him on this place was it's price and the fact that 'ordinary pensioners' would not be able to live there, only self-funded retirees like himself. He was adamant that it was ideally located close to all the shops/trains for him to manage etc. My aunty flew over from the other side of the country to help him make the final move and she said that all he has done for the past week is moan and whinge about everything. That he's made a big mistake and he should have moved to be closer to her. He put himself into hospital before she arrived as he was having panic attacks and they kept him for a week!! He did this last year too.
Anyway, we went to visit yesterday and he was saying he won't be able manage etc and I basically ended up committing to come one weekday every three weeks to help him do his 'big shop' , cleaning etc. My mum lives two hours away and has serious health problems of her own, my uncle lives in another country and my aunty, as I said, lives on the other side of the country. I am the only close relative left in my city. According to my aunty, he was in a right state about asking me if he could list me as an emergency contact on the forms he has to give management. Which of course I said yes to. I thought this was a bit odd because he had no trouble giving my number to the hospital but it turns out this is because we don't have a car. Both my aunty and my grandfather kept on at me yesterday asking if I found it difficult to manage doing the family shopping without a car, wasn't life more inconvenient etc. My husband had an accident last year, the car was written off for insurance reasons and we haven't bothered replacing it as honestly we are managing just fine (and saving a lot more) without it. We live in the same city as my grandfather but no car means what was once a twenty minute drive is now at least an hour by train due to interchanges etc. So I think they are mistakenly hoping I will put pressure on DH for us to get a new car so that I can tend to my grandfather as need be.
This is why I only committed to once every three weeks (although more than that was not asked of me to be fair). We do visit at least once a month with the kids on a weekend as well. He was a very irascible man when I was growing up, mellowed out a bit the past fifteen years as he realised he was losing his family due to it, then over the past two years has become very cantankerous and demanding again. There was a big blowup which I have posted about before on here where he basically didn't want to talk to my brother (for no good reason!) for 2+ years. I have a feeling that my mum and her siblings are just hoping I will take care of him and I'm more than a bit worried about that if I'm honest. I don't want him to feel/be neglected of course either though. He's not at all poorly off, his dividend yields mean an annual income which is two-thirds of ours, so if it was needed, he could could definitely afford a nurse but I have a feeling he'd rather not pay for help if he thought he could get me to do it.
So my basic question is how I might withstand pressure from both him and my mum/her siblings to do basically do everything he might need done ? I honestly don't mind helping out more than I've committed to but don't want to feel that I'm the only one doing it and it's every second day etc.