Unreasonable mother

[Fusby]

I wondered what other people think of this? My mother is soon to be 89, she is still fairly mobile (gardens/walks/drives) but needs to rest more, is on a lot of heart medication, suffers from a debilitating bad back which is becoming more and more frequent and she is extremely deaf. She is a widow, owns her property and has no financial concerns. The problem is that she is still living in the house my siblings and I grew up in (I'm 58) and she cannot cope with it - the large garden and large house which is in a poor state of repair and now requires a complete roof replacement. She cannot hear on the phone and has been naive and employed cowboy tradesmen who knock on her door and fleece her. Despite being well off she is also very tight fisted and refuses to pay a gardener or for help in the house. As well as the dodgy roof, parts of the house are dangerous - ie steps down into the garage, garden etc. My siblings and I are all in agreement that she should move to a property more suitable for someone of her age and have pointed out that we have her welfare and safety at heart and that life is only going to get harder for her. If she moves while she is still relatively well then she can choose her property herself, which furniture to take and assuming the property is suitable for an elderly person, then she can probably stay independent for longer. She has so far refused to move and although she has emotional attachments to the house, we also believe that there is an element of snobbery involved. She refuses point blank to look at retirement complexes and says she doesn't like bungalows or flats. Everything came to a head recently when she rang us in tears, saying that water was coming through her bedroom ceiling. My husband went over and had a look at the strategically placed buckets which were no longer coping. My siblings and I have always supported our Mum but we work full time and cannot be there 24/7. Given her age and challenges, we pointed out last night that she really must move and if she remains in denial and continues to refuse, then we will leave her to it (ie we will stop enabling her by helping in the garden, house etc). She responded by saying that she will get her roof replaced on her own and does not need our assistance. Bearing in mind that she is extremely deaf, communication with the roofers and scaffolders will be almost impossible and she will misunderstand a lot. We have agreed to pass on details of a decent roofer but she will manage everything and will not involve us. She has always been obstinate, arrogant and the big "I am" and continued to say she wants to stay in the property for as long as she can. What do you think?

I don't know. I didn't ask him.
But the same question occurred to me, too.

I admire your courage to hold the line.

@ChimpanzeeThatMonkeyNews @MichaelandKirk trust me if our mother was a character in Harry Potter she would be the Director in Chief Master of Manipulations and Pedantry. We withdrew food buying at one point to see if she would step up and go shopping herself - she literally lost a stone in a short period of time. She has always had a tendency to tell us ‘I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t think’ when any problems arise. Always - an I mean always. A bad school report for one of us, a boyfriend she ‘couldn’t take to’ anything for attention. So you see we rush back into the storm just as she wants because we are so worried. If you asked her about sleep she would have you believe she has now not actually slept for nearly 18 months. When I held firm and said so not even a nap or a doze. Firm response ‘if I say I haven’t slept then I haven’t slept.’. She is just exhausting-combined with old age it is a perfect storm.

"If you asked her about sleep she would have you believe she has now not actually slept for nearly 18 months. When I held firm and said so not even a nap or a doze. Firm response ‘if I say I haven’t slept then I haven’t slept.’. She is just exhausting-combined with old age it is a perfect storm."

So, just nod and smile, and change the subject. You have to pick your battles, you simply can't win them all! Even if you agree with her out loud, you KNOW it can't be true, but there's nothing to be gained - and a lot to lose - by arguing until she accepts you are right (because that's never). Letting her "win" on the small things is less exhausting than constantly arguing. It's like all the white lies you end up telling...
(And yes, I have been there).

Crikey. That is exactly what we did. Although the interest on her savings did not cover the whole of the rent it really really helped. I would never buy a McCarthy and Stone type place UNLESS I was 60 or 70 in some complexes and only look at second hand. they are often lightly used and any minor repairs will be reflected in the sale price. They are tricky to sell because the market is so small.

I think the majority of people who buy new like the idea of a brand new place. The buyer should be aware. The service charges also need to be paid until sold. Its not a secret but some people seem to be shocked re all the T&C's once the elderly person passes. They have often left it years too late to move so they only stay in the place for a few years. Then its back on the market and they just dont hold their value at all!

Make a robust offer on a second hand one if you must and I strongly suspect you will be taken seriously. The service charge is the killer for the family trying to sell.

@ICouldHaveCheckedFirst great reply and for the most part I do not even respond. I guess I get frustrated at random distant cousins messaging me who have ‘heard about Aunty Blue’ being so lonely, not being able to xyz, not sleeping etc etc telling me I should be doing more, be there more. They are getting a fake view of what is going on

Prob having live in carers, where they choose to live

Sorry but I don't think your Mum is being unreasonable at all. Just because she's older and had various health challenges doesn't mean that she should be pressurised into leaving her home that she's lived in presumably for most of her adult life. We moved into our current house 33 years ago when I was pregnant, and if my daughter started to pressurise us into moving as we get increasingly older and infirm, I would be extremely angry. I will not be pushed into leaving my house by anyone for any reason. It has been my home for half of my life and I don't intend to ever leave it until I either die or go into a home. I realise that many older people want to downsize and move to retirement friendly accommodation, but I'm not one of them and clearly your mum isn't either. I don't know about you and your siblings saying that you will leave your mum to it and stop supporting her, but if I was being bullied like this, I would welcome you withdrawing from my life.

My Mum was very similar but it took a fall and a hip fracture to get her to agree to a retirement flat, to be fair we did sort of “bully” her into it but we just couldn’t keep going over to sort out the ongoing problems on an old badly maintained house.
After the initial moans and groans she grew to be very happy there. We were lucky to get her a downstairs flat which opened onto beautiful gardens and she had her own little patch by her patio, which the gardener took on when she could no longer cope.
She also made some friends there and the warden was an angel.
It wasn’t easy getting her there though but my sister and I would have cracked up if we had carried on the way we were, it’s the juggling of work, grandchildren, your own home and partner which is just impossible.
Mum used to say that she looked after my Nan until she died and didn’t see why we couldn’t look after her, but Mum never worked or looked after my children and my Nan died at 72 which years ago WAS and old lady - very different from looking after a 90+ year old today.

I should also add that my mum would never have considered leaving her house until she moved into a cafe home when her dementia got really mad at 94. I will always regret that I interfered, albeit well intentioned, and insisted that she had someone to come in to cut her grass when she was 92 because she was finding it very difficult. She had loved gardening with a passion for her entire life, and had won awards from the council for her garden, but having a gardener coming in made her feel such a loss of independence, she never did anything in her garden again.

@Growlybear83 each to their own and yes I can see your point. I lived in my previous home for 35 years but recognised a few years ago a) we were rattling around in it b)we spent a lot of time in our place overseas (can’t do that now due to the need to support our parents c)we didn’t want our DC having to pick up the pieces when we could no longer manage a very large property. Of course it was a wrench but I took all my lovely things with me and our new place feels like home. Also it was lovely to see a young family move into our old place as new custodians so to speak. It was an old property so has had lots of history. Yes i ‘lost’ a garden but I cultivate my balcony and it is easier to manage.

Growley - when you get much older and you rely more and more on your family for things you might feel differently. If you want to muddle on through that is fine of course but you cannot expect your family to put their life on hold to allow you to live the way you want.

You might think of course that you can manage but the Elderly Parents threads tell a different story

OP, learn anti-anxiety techniques. You’ll need them. It’s the only thing you can do right now and it helps you.

You’re walking Misery Street now - led inexorably down by the sparks and fizzles of a failing brain. It’s not nice.

Your options are simple: there aren’t any. Wait until things get a bit worse (the only certainty you can work with) and try again.

This is the problem isn't it? As people get older, sometimes their understanding diminishes, and they think they're coping, when the only reason the wheels are staying on is because of the help that they are receiving.
As@MichaelandKirk has pointed out, the choices of elderly parents often come at a great cost to their children.

In conversation with my mother, we've established that her fury about having carers was more fury that this is what her life has come to. She was railing against old age and infirmity. I know that she is reluctant to drink because she fears incontinence. She's terrified of falling, but has not the cognitive ability to understand that dehydration is likely to make her fall. I'm trying to protect her from herself, but her desire to 'do it myself' makes her more vulnerable, not less. And she has every right to decide for herself. I've done a lot of work on my own anxiety levels, because those, I can control. More or less...It's very clear that I can't, and shouldn't even try, to control her. But it's hard as hell to have every suggestion batted back.

I hope @Fusby is able to have a productive conversation about getting someone in to fix the roof. In our situation, we have had to tread on eggshells as she insists on trying to arrange things herself because she won't admit to getting in a muddle. Important things stall for weeks while she 'can't get through to anyone' or then when she does, she can't understand what they were saying,or she gets offended at something they say, and puts the phone down on them. So telling OP to 'just' do this or that is likely unhelpful, as she's probably posting on here as she's running out of options.

I think too, it's often the daughters of the more 'chronically resistant' who find themselves here, as there are plenty of other elderly people who have considered how they will cope as they age. I'm approaching sixty and having also worked as a domiciliary carer, I am very familiar with how these things can play out, at both ends of the planning spectrum. For myself and DH, we plan to downsize, and a bit of 'swedish death cleaning', and complete our POA soon. And also considering ReSPECT forms, so that we can remain independent as long as possible, and not cause our children more headaches than they need.

I don't think anyone who's never seen how these things look towards the end of life; the falls, TIAs, confusion, loss of continence and mobility etc can fully appreciate how difficult it can get, when they are adamant that they are staying put come what may. It's absolutely exhausting. Even when we love them.

Thank you Winter. I was bordering on rude to my DM as to what was going to happen when there was an issue but once she realised that I would take over the problem she had and fix it is almost like a black cloud was removed from her life. Every letter was dealt with and online shopping made things so much easier. I had POA and complete control over her finances. She wasnt massively happy in her last few years. I would say more content. She lived for far longer than she wanted but that is for a different thread.

The worst thing for me was when she fell or did some daft. You had to drop what you were doing NOW and go and resolve. What if I was about to go on holiday and the phone rang saying she had fallen and was calling for me. Do I say call me in two weeks - or do I go to the hospital to find it was yet another fall or a UTI and after antibiotics she perked up. It really is indescrible.

Siblings just let me get on with it. They lived abroad. Ocassionally sister would spout off some view of what I SHOULD be doing but I battered this off and told her if this was a good idea to her then maybe she should get on a plane and get it done. Of course she didnt....

@MichaelandKirk goodness that feels very familiar. I did used to split my time between UK and our overseas place but I have had to stay in the UK over the past year. It is breaking me as my DH feels I have abandoned all the hard work we put into this phase of our life to prioritise my mother….who he has known for 35 plus years and has awful memories of how she has always behaved and treated me. I have a lovely sister but our brother is very judgemental. We are either ‘taking over’ or not doing enough. Nothing is ever right. Yet he gives the impression his parents are his priority. He lied last year about working from our mother’s house ‘all the time’ when he wasn’t he just popped in for a quick visit. He made no effort to follow medical advice to find our father a nursing home but makes out he did. Frankly once this sorry mess is done I won’t be bothering with him. He rather like our mother cares a lot about money so if he wants my share he is welcome to it.

The worst thing for me was when she fell or did some daft. You had to drop what you were doing NOW and go and resolve. What if I was about to go on holiday and the phone rang saying she had fallen and was calling for me. Do I say call me in two weeks - or do I go to the hospital to find it was yet another fall or a UTI and after antibiotics she perked up. It really is indescrible.

I got a call from lifeline at 4am on the way to the airport once. I am very fortunate to have helpful siblings, so I was able to get hold of one of them. Luckily it was a false alarm anyway, but if I'd not been able to get hold of anybody I guess we'd have turned around.

It's very, very difficult sometimes 😔

MereDintofPandiculation - You are correct which is why we also suggested a bungalow which often come with lovely (but smaller) gardens. My Mum's current garden is huge and she admits that she cannot cope with it. It doesn't help having a bad back either.

This all resonates so much with me. The anxiety and fear I had over my mother's failing cognitive facilites combined with her stubbornness and lack of recognition of or insight into her state almost finished me off.
Luckily (awful that i should even say that ) she became ill and was taken into hospital where she stayed, happy as Larry and totally institutionalised, for three months. Thence to a care home (the hospital would not discharge her back to her home because she lived alone) and then a nursing home as her needs multiplied.
It seems to me people in the situations outlined here are frozen by the aging parent's unwillingness or inability to address their situation until a crisis occurs, often accident or illness, when huge decisions have to be taken and acted on in a very short time.

I wish I had more advice to give other than -- be prepared for the crisis to come.

You might think of course that you can manage but the Elderly Parents threads tell a different story Of course they do, because no-one comes on here to relate how well their parents are doing.

Well we're not too far off - my husband is 70
and I'm nearly 67. We've cared for both of our mothers who lived well into their nineties and supported them living at home until their dementia made it impossible for them to live alone safely. It was our choice to provide the support thst we did for our mothers, and was never expected. Our only close living relative is our daughter and I don't expect anything from her in terms of caring for us when we are older. Although she's living with us at the moment, her husband is Palestinian and they have always lived either in Jordan or Turkey since they've been married, and have no intention of ever living here permanently - it has been very difficult for him to get a visa to come here just to visit and I doubt that he will ever be given the right to live and work here. I've always assumed that whichever one of my husband I outlives the other will end up having a friend move into our house.

The deterioration in my mum when she finally moved into a cafe home was really noticeable. All she wanted to do was go back to her home, and she was so depressed and angry with the world.

@Growlybear83 I do understand that and it's totally fine if you are prepared to handle and control lots of aspects of your life , pay out for help needed and not rely on adult children to be round constantly to maintain house or do your shopping or take you to appointments etc or even spend vast amounts of time keeping you company. I think lots of mumsnetters have the issue with parents who don't want to compromise ( understandable) but also don't want to pay for help and also place huge demands on people who are often still working full time and have families still at home. My father in law for instance in his mid 80s is moving to a bungalow within 10 miles of us ( not sure where yet as he's sold but not bought as wants to do 1 step at a time) but was adamant he wanted a detached bungalow, very good order, garage, nice garden and with local facilities- he's happy to pay for any help needed and we will be sorting him an ironing person, cleaner and a gardener once a month to do stuff like hedges and shrubs,

CatsMother66 · Yesterday 21:11 Thanks for your comment - a few valid points and a few way off the mark but it's interesting to read about other people's experiences.

Perfectlystill · Today 07:52 The roof wouldn't be hard to oversee if I split it with my siblings? Are you kidding - this is major structural work - not just a few tiles and some roof felt. Also bearing in mind that it would take several weeks and we all work full time and live in different towns!!

Have finally worked out how this thread works. I had already responded to your post further down the thread.