I’m one of four siblings and we all live just over an hour away in different directions from our dad who was widowed 7 years ago. He has enjoyed a fantastic retirement over the last 30+ years on a very generous pension and always assured us that he had his long-term care under control with sufficient provision etc. We’ve all doted on him over the years and been helpful and supportive and in turn he has been generous and good company, sadly never quite the same since our mother died but nonetheless we all pulled together.
Now he’s in his 90’s and over the last few years we have been urging him to make decisions about his future, but he’s always been stubborn, and, frankly, spoilt. He has insisted on staying in his large house with a huge garden which requires a lots of maintenance, staff and running costs etc. I have said so many times that if he was to move near to my family in particular he would have multiple visits from me, my husband and adult children and it would great to see him regularly and take him meals, run errands etc but he insisted on staying where he was despite saying he feels lonely a lot of the time and the fact that it was a long drive for us. He would not entertain the idea of a bungalow even though he struggles with the stairs as he shudders at the thought of living like other old people, ditto ever moving into a home. He’s suggested me and my husband move in with him and said he ‘wouldn’t be any trouble’ but this would mean giving up our independence and long commutes to work plus the rest of the time I would effectively be a cleaner and carer. He said to my siblings and I that if we wanted our inheritance we would need to move in with him. We said we didn’t care about the money it was his welfare that was our concern, we wanted to be assured that he was being looked after.
Last year was terrible, to be honest I was close to a breakdown because he was having regular falls and incidents and calling me and my siblings (though mainly me) with problems and health issues. I took a lot of time off work to take him to appointments, hospital etc. The trouble is it’s never him it’s the ‘damn computer’ or the fault of the world being technological, he gets really cross and can be very negative. The worry I had was off the scale and it affected my mental health and relationships.
After many nights lying awake worrying and hours of research, I found him an affordable live-in carer. This has been brilliant as she keeps the house perfectly, cooks, shops etc and it has been a huge relief to us all. He has adapted to this quite well although he’s critical of her weight and the fact that her English isn’t perfect (she’s from Lithuania) so he can’t have ‘intelligent conversations’!
Now it appears that he doesn’t have the funds we thought he had and money is running out rapidly. He doesn’t want to sell his antiques because they ‘give him joy’. None of us have the space to have him live with us, nor are we carers and we are all busy working and with family commitments.
He’s talking about getting rid of the live-in carer as he says he will soon be ‘bankrupt’ though if he downsized and released some capital he could easily afford it for many years, but he simply won’t despite us all offering support to facilitate this. I get that it’s hard at that age, but he’s putting material things before his welfare. I feel selfish for wanting to take a back seat now but I’m feeling frustrated at his lack of consideration over the stress it causes us, and fear once his carer goes we will be pulled in all directions again. Siblings are very supportive but we are at a loss at to what to do next.
Has anyone else been through similar and could offer advice?