Demanding Aunt

[emogs]

My OH's aunt has recently moved into a supported living flat with her husband. She is in her early 80s and for the last couple of years she has become increasingly miserable, always moaning and guilt-tripping her nieces and nephews. For decades she refused to move from the middle of nowhere even though her husband desperately wanted to move to somewhere where they could access more shops and have more people around them. Now that this has eventually happened, along with a care plan for the aunt, she is by now unable to walk, has to be changed by nurses, hoisted in and put of her chair and bed and refuses to do the physiotherapy exercises provided for her. She also sulks when her husband goes out to the shops or for a walk and when we visited her recently she accused him of 'taking advantage' of our presence by going out for longer than she deemed necessary, although I told her that it was perfectly alright for him to go (she had no reply to this).
She also refused to be taken for a walk in a wheelchair, and even refuses to go to the dining room where most of the residents have their lunch.
She has now started asking my OH to be her power of attorney, although as her husband is still alive (they have no children) and as we live some distance away, he doesn't really want to do this, especially as it's likely that she would use this as a ruse for more contact, and we are already deputies for our adult autistic son, and my parents are elderly too.
Although it's sad to see her so fed up (another gripe of hers is that she 'isn't important enough' to have been granted the blessing of a quick death!) it it also difficult to muster much sympathy with such a selfish person.
I suppose that what I'm asking is (after venting!) is how to get out of this PoA thing is she brings it up again?

being a power of attorney can taken a while to put in place but if her husband is ok seems odd. if they were both asking you just in case for the future might be a good reason. to be honest seems like she likes playing games and manipulating people

As you know POA / being a deputy on behalf of someone is an onerous task and one which can’t be done half heartedly. It will be tough but you have to tell her clearly that your DH is unable to fulfil the role as you are already deputies for your son , are remote from her, and managing your elderly parents. She can’t force anyone to be POA. Suggest she appoints her DH who is there and can manage day to day issues if required. Don’t be tempted to be manipulated into agreeing Sadly many elderly relatives become difficult and manipulative - have a similar situation with a difficult relative living at a distance and have declined to be POA. While difficult I ignored all hints and prompts - just smiled and ignored- when asked directly told them I wasn’t in a position to be POA due to already being POA for my aging parents who required significant help and intervention. No comeback to facts and a direct decline.

You could offer to be a deputy POA if her husband is incapacitated himself, that may soften the blow a little

When my OH mentioned to her that her husband was still alive she retorted crossly: 'It's my money!' So obviously they have separate bank accounts (though it's him who's actually paid for the residential home until the house sale goes through) and there's obviously a lot of resentment between them.

Of course if he's a similar age it is a good idea for POA to go down a generation, in case they are both incapacitated close together.

He's not the healthiest of men but he is quite a bit younger than his wife and only about 12 years older than my OH! 🫤

I have POA for a more distantly related relative than this. I manage their money, as simply as possible (ie limiting the number of accounts for ease) and in line with their wishes (no investments as such as they were very concerned about stock markets when they had capacity), so it’s just bank accounts and premium bonds. There is an annual statement to do.

It isn’t too onerous now, but was getting it set up/access to accounts organised. Is she aware of what a POA is responsible for? The POA isn’t obliged to do care, visit etc? I simply make sure bills are paid, ideally by direct debit or standing order, and there is money to buy things like clothes and toiletries. I rarely visit (too far away and I have a job and young family, so it’s less than once a year). If they don’t have capacity you can pay a solicitor to visit monthly to check all is ok.

I also have POA for another relative who still has capacity and who wants me to take over the finances one but who is still capable and really wants to control what I’m doing and use it to manipulate visiting etc. I haven’t done anything about activating that one but do make suggestions for ways they could make it easier (these go down like a lead balloon!).

Ultimately I see it as balancing responsibilities. I won’t see elderly distant relative stuck but they are far below my immediate family in terms of the time I can spend on them. I have four POAs and if all were operational at the same time I’d be struggling!

Well, thinking things through...
Say her DH dies unexpectedly. Would your DH have enough time, reasonably, to be her PoA? What does she want a PoA to do?
If he's not able to spare the time and energy, it's really not in her interest to have him do a half-baked job of it, unless she's absolutely desperate.

My sil and bil have joint PoA for their Dad.

My mil has ‘all her marbles’ (her words!), she’s as sharp as a tack.
But having 2 of her children make those decisions for her husband just helps her, somehow.
She idolises her daughter, so whatever my sil tells her, is gospel, and can’t be contradicted.

She leaves all of it to them. A couple of weeks ago, my fil went into a home, and the staff advised that they should visit over the weekend, as they need to settle him, etc.
So far, so good.

Then my husband asked a question (in the group chat), and mil basically said, Suzanne* says xyz, and Suzanne says abc.
My mil likes to defer to my sil about everything!

*Not her real name.

I’m going to focus on the angle that you mention that the family member is demanding.

We have a family member like that and the only way to deal with them is to slowly or better yet quickly learn to say no to them.

Our concern was that our children would end up looking after her in old age and our children have their own significant issues and she is utterly unworkable with. We desperately wanted to model saying no to her to them.