Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Elderly parents

Main carer is being impossible

5 replies

AvocadosBeforeMortgages · 17/05/2019 11:53

Is anyone dealing with a main family carer who complains about all their responsibilities (to the point of upsetting DGeriatric) but refuses help from other family who are entirely capable because they desperately need to control everything?

Currently being driven around the bend by this. Main carer is desperately in need of a holiday but won't go and leave me or anyone else in charge. Structural building work needs doing but he's doing a DIY bodge job instead of getting builders in and moaning about having to do it himself (money isn't the issue). Got called out to an emergency with DGeriatric while in the middle of a household task; I continued it to help out and was midway through when he returned and told me to stop it immediately (it was the sort of task no one can screw up, so not about competence).

I've ended up scrubbing the carer's kitchen, partly because it's like an episode of How Clean Is Your House (genuinely vile, and he cooks me food there when I visit) and partly for my own sanity, but he's moaning about that too. I've been scrubbing for hours, gone through multiple bottles of cleaning fluid and I haven't even got inside the cupboards yet.

He's bad enough now while he's fit and well; I dread to think what he'll be like in 20 years when he's the geriatric. He doesn't want to do it all himself but he won't accept help of any substance Sad

OP posts:
RosaWaiting · 17/05/2019 15:30

bit confused

is the carer living in the same house as the elderly person?

and refusing help, to the detriment of the elderly person - that kitchen certainly sounds like a health hazard.

I wonder if it's all a way of controlling whatever he can, because so much else is out of his control?

AvocadosBeforeMortgages · 17/05/2019 17:09

Carer and DGeriatric are living in separate homes near each other. I live in another city but visit frequently.

The filthy kitchen is at the carers house; while imperfect there is a long standing but somewhat ineffective cleaner at DGeriatric's house.

He's had a need to be in control for decades, so it's part of his personality. It's the need for control (and hence rejection of help) combined with the martyrdom that I'm finding hard to deal with. Certainly he feels like this isn't how he envisaged life, and he doesn't like the drudgery of it all.

OP posts:
hatgirl · 17/05/2019 17:20

So is this your dad and one of their parents?

There's all kinds of advice lots of people can give you but I have seen this sort of dynamic play out so many times and ultimately the only thing that ever changes anything is the situation reaching breaking/crisis point.

It's awful to sit and watch that happen to people you care about but they have the option of accepting more help and at this time they are choosing to refuse it. They have choices and they are (in your view) making poor ones.

If they are causing a lot of distress to the cared for person to the extent it could be considered abusive then you can raise it as a safeguarding issue with social care and 'speed up' that breaking point happening, but obviously that will likely be at huge personal and relationship cost.

AvocadosBeforeMortgages · 18/05/2019 09:43

He does upset her, but I don't think we're near the threshold for a safeguarding referral. Even if we were, the inevitability would be that she ended up in a nursing home, and I think that would compromise her welfare more as she desperately doesn't want to go into one.

We've been in versions of this situation for 10 years and I don't think it ever will reach a true crisis point unless it's a health crisis of DGeriatric.

I guess what I really need help with is getting the main carer to accept help. DGeriatric really far easier to deal with than the main carer. DGeriatric is perfectly willing to have help (eg builders to do the structural repairs) but it's the main carer that blocks help (often persuading DGeriatric that it is A Bad Idea), bodges it and moans to anyone who will listen.

PS who on earth lets their saucepan cupboard get this filthy? There's good evidence it hasn't been cleaned for a quarter of a century. Envy

Main carer is being impossible
OP posts:
RosaWaiting · 19/05/2019 08:21

sorry if I am being thick

so actually the main concern here is that you are worried about someone close to you who is a carer - you are worried it is too much for them?

the house decisions - they aren't connected to you in any way, and ultimately the Elderly person is agreeing with the carer?

the state of the kitchen is up to the person living there - if the elderly person being cared for isn't affected by the kitchen, why does it matter?

New posts on this thread. Refresh page