Moved house and moms not happy...!!

[Anonnypuss]

91yo MIL, lovely independent lady, lives alone and hubby visits every morning and brother visits every afternoon, I go 2 or 3 times a week, we do moms shopping weekly and take meals round regularly. Hubby is 62 and we lived just 10 mins from moms, but have recently retired and moved to the countryside 45 mins away from moms. We didn't tell her directly that we were moving, she worries and frets about the smallest thing, but she has been over to us today...brother drove her here...planned to go for pub lunch. It was a complete shit storm, she raged for 2 hours and now doesn't want to see us ever again. We understand she feels as though we didn't expressly sit her down and tell her and that she is shocked but she forgets what we tell her...dementia. we have been in the new house 5 weeks and have not changed our routine with mom at all, maybe we should have not told her at all...we will continue our visits as normal and hope she comes round at some point. We love her so much its heartbreaking, but I don't think it would have made much diff telling her then or now, she would still react in the same way. Any advice welcome, hindsight is a wonderful thing...

I would ignore it. Continue with the usual routine, if that's the plan.

She'll probably complain, and you need to ignore and just say 'it's fine, here we are, doing what we always do.'

She'll settle when she gets used to it. She'll grumble for a while, I'm sure, but just take no notice of it. It's an expression of discomfort rather than a genuine issue.

If she forgets will she remember next time you see her? However, if she is that forgetful is she safe to be living by herself?

I think it's bizarre you didn't tell her. This is a major change for her child and she must feel that he was keeping it secret for a reason or just simply that she now feels not part of his life that it wasn't discussed- like involving her with things like 'we like the look of this house what do you think', (I don't mean in terms of whether you should have moved).
If she's 'independent' and living alone she still has her faculties even if forgetful.

Don't fret about it, it's possible that she'll have forgotten about it by next week. I've had rows with mum over nothing and by the next day it's never happened. Not for her anyway, I could still be upset about what she'd said for days.

She wil probably forget you've moved. So say nothing and co tinge the routine. If you want to take her out go to lunch somewhere and not your new house.

Presumably, If she has dementia, she’ll soon forget that you’ve moved. So panic over.

with hindsight it may have been better to tell her, but it may have caused her worry while you were waiting to move. We all of us make decisions about our elders that with hindsight were wrong, you just have to relax and treat the situation that you have, never think “what if”.