DGM and refusal to do, well, most things that would be vaguely helpful

[CrazyGoatLady]

DGM (mid 90s) has had a successful stint in respite/reablement care. They are looking at discharge soon. She's doing much better, has had a care needs assessment and is predictably now refusing to implement most of the recommendations, not being remotely realistic about how she will manage. She is agreeing to carers 3 times a day, but won't have any other adaptations in the home or adapted furniture etc. She's will not hear of any convenience food options, even good ones (e.g Cook, waitrose, m&s) and thinks she'll be cooking meat, potatoes and 2 veg when she can barely stand for 5 mins.

We are all worried how she is going to manage when she goes home. DGM seems utterly determined to be as bloody minded as possible, to do as little as possible to help herself, and while saying she doesn't want to be dependent on others, doing things to increase her dependence on us and our obligations, because she just wants everything "the way it was before".

I posted here before about the condition she was in that led to her having to temporarily accept a residential placement. Nobody has learned anything, DGM is still behaving like a stroppy teenager and DF still thinks we just need to be nice to her and do what she wants and if I say anything I just get told to have more patience, empathy and understanding. She has none, absolutely none for us! No dementia, she has full capacity and knows what she's doing. If I or DF's wife say anything about feeling fed up with her behaviour, DF strops and says OK well just stop doing anything for her then, just pull out and I'll do it all.

I am, I'm ashamed to say, feeling compassion fatigued, and DF's responses don't help. DF would have me abandon my own life entirely in the service of hers if he could make that happen! I've felt for some time that he hasn't much care for me as a daughter, only as a tool to help care for his mother. Nobody else's needs matter to him any more, including his wife's. He is trashing his health, marriage, relationships with DC and DGC, he knows he can't manage everything but he's pushing us all away and pretending we are the problem for saying there's a problem.

I suppose what I'm asking is how do you cope with the intransigence and refusal to do the simplest things to make life easier? And how do you cope when a family member also isn't accepting reality and just thinks good care = do whatever someone wants, no matter the cost? DGM has been stubborn as a mule all her life, but until recent years, it never impacted anyone else. But it now is impacting all of us. How on earth do you recover the compassion reserves but without becoming an enabler?

Irrespective of the causes of the GM’s behaviour it is manipulative, selfish, extremely draining, unfair. Then couple that with the unrealistic father with all of his unrealistic expectations it is very challenging for the OP to retain heathy positive relations while they endeavour to put these extreme demands on her time and energy and completely ignore her other very normal life commitments.

From my own experience this behaviour does not just start in old age. My MIL had full control over my SILs and manipulated them long before she was incapacitated so much so that one of my SILs had to literally move countries to get away from her control.

Yet still that same SIL who suffered so much from the manipulative guilt that MIL planted in her started the exact same demanding and controlling behaviour on MILs behalf towards her sister and DH as MIL got older.

Very similar pattern to what the OP experiences with her GM and F with a very clear pathway back to the GM’s long standing control and manipulation within her children.

I'd also put all thoughts of inheritance out of your mind too OP. As you say, any money may well go on care, and having it even in the back of your mind can make things unpleasantly transactional on both sides.

Guilt is better than resentment. Allow your dad to make his own choices, of course he would rather you do more so he can do less.
After DGM will your dad expect you and your children to skivvy for him because it's his turn. Families follow patterns of behaviour. Break the cycle.
My mum was the same, very selfish and demanding. I eventually went NC. The guilt was awful for few months but it faded, I started to feel less stressed, anxious and tired. I no longer felt responsible for her selfish decisions and tantrums. It also opened my eyes to how manipulative and dysfunctional my whole family were.
Guilt fades, resentment will crush you.

Back off. Let her do it her way. If she has mental capacity then she entitled to make these decisions even though others can see they are unrealistic.

It is only by living them that she will see what is needed. She is entitled to take her own risks. And you are entitled to live your life.

And ditch the guilt!

If she were 45 and doing things that you thought unwise you would leave her to it and shrug your shoulders.

As long as she is mentally sound, she is allowed to make unwise decisions as we all are.

Tell them what you can do - e.g. visit once a week to say hello and do things she might ask then. But no more than once a week.

I have disabilities but do not expect my adult DDs and their families to run around after me. If I am not well enough to drive I take a taxi; if the garden needs doing I get someone in. Sometimes they are available and offer to help with things and I accept gratefully.

Your GM could use all the options at her disposal - she is not dementing - but she chooses not to - that is her choice, as any other adult.

@CryMyEyesViolet I agree with you - but the behaviours produced can be similar. I think I am finding the manipulation and triangulation most difficult, because she will not directly ask us what we are able to do, she forces a situation where we have to.

It's also the assumption that only DGM's quality of life matters, that in order for DGM to keep her autonomy and agency, others must give up theirs. She shouldn't have to make any compromises around her quality of life, but my family is expected to. We must have an endless well of empathy and understanding for her, but are not allowed to need any ourselves.

DF strops and says OK well just stop doing anything for her then, just pull out and I'll do it all.

Why can’t you do what your DF suggests?

@TheCowJumped because I do love DGM dearly for all her trickiness in old age. I do want to do what I can to help, especially because I have seen DF get exhausted and ill, but it has to be within my capacity as a mum of 2 in full time work. If those boundaries are continually overridden, then perhaps as people have said on this thread I will need to step away.

I really do feel for people who have got to that point and have had to. It's a hard decision and not one that anybody takes lightly. Most of us do love our DP/DGP despite all their elderly foibles and want the best for them, but it's hard when their idea of what's best isn't something you can provide.

Have you thought about how you might achieve that. Another poster suggested telling them at the start of the week what you were available for. I know my DH told himself instead and just stuck rigidly to his plan unless something changed in the week. Absolutely nothing he could have done, he could have given up his life and there still would have been complaints from her, and nothing would have satisfied his sister so he never had her being happy in the situation as a desired outcome. He accepted that she never would.

💐 For you. Not much help I know but I am going through exactly the same situation with an elderly parent so I feel your pain.
There is quite a lot of us over on the elderly parents board so you might get some good advice on there.

Oops just noticed we are on the elderly parents board, just shows where my brain is at! I’m probably wishing I was on style and beauty.

Would it really be too much to help a very elderly lady cook a meal? Good God.

I have a similar situation and I have very much chosen a "let them fail" mentality.

They are making their choices (and insisting on making bad ones, no matter what anybody tries to tell them), and there is naturally going to be some fallout from that sometimes. I will offer help in actually improving their situation, but when it's refused then I just think, "Well, less for me to do, then," and do nothing.

Interestingly, they seem to be very adept in getting other people to run themselves ragged around them instead. Turns out that they will just find someone else (related or not) to manipulate into enabling their bad choices, if I won't do it. But, either way, I'm not going to destroy myself over this. My primary duty is to my kids and I would do them no favours by burning myself out.

I think that you have to be firm, clear and consistent OP. Send round a spreadsheet of what you and your husband, separately, are prepared to do and when Monday to Sunday. Add everyone else’s names underneath your two names, for them to fill in. The spreadsheet will add up the hours for each person and each day. Send this round again at the beginning of each month.

Put a copy on a wall where DGM can see it.

Stick to your published commitments

I hate generalising, but having elderly parents myself and all of my friends parents are elderly, they are all exactly like this.

Do whatever you need to do. Mind your own health. They will stamp all over you to get their way until you are in the ground and then they will move on to the next person. Mind yourself x

Every single day?

When they have their own children, their own life and maybe god forbid they'd like to go out occasionally and see friends?

Would it be too much for someone with a full time job and two kids to drive 3 hours to ‘help a very elderly lady cook a meal’ when it could be easily done another way? Yes.

A meal? No
Every meal? Yes.

I would set out what you are going to do:

• Bake a meal once a month, which can be frozen to provide 4 meals
• Visit 1 x weekly on x day
• Remain the contact for medical professionals, via phone

and put it in writing. Send it to your family and the reablement team she is currently cared for by, and anyone else relevant.

That way, she can’t lie to professionals about what you will do, and if eg DF says ‘can you do x’, say ‘I’m really sorry, I have set out what I can do’ OR ‘Yes, I can do that, but that will replace eg the weekly visit this week’.

Don't worry, OP, THisbackwithavengeance is happy to volunteer to cook dinner for your DGM every day. As long as they live within a 3 hour journey of each other then it won't be a problem.

Not a problem at all, I did it willingly for years and was told gleefully at every opportunity that most of what I made was ‘inedible’ or ‘too rich/too bland/too stodgy/too dry - you get the idea.

When I stopped the cooking and delivery and substituted it with ready meals - all at my own expense - she threw it in the bin week after week.

When I suggested we cook together she stood and criticised it. I then went home to my own family and cooked for them. I live an hour away on a good trip.

Do not assume being an elderly lady = sweet natured.

I agree with this ❤️

But we do not ‘make decisions for them’. We firefight impossible situations where they do not appreciate we have lives and families of our own and are utterly unwilling to compromise on anything that veers from what they ‘want’.

Some of us are broken after a lifetime of difficult parents who morph into even worse in old age. We are decent people trust me. I won’t reach my parents age because they have made me so unwell. I haven’t had the opportunity to travel in my 50s and 60s as they did because I have had to deal with them. My parents had 20 years of travelling the world at my age.

The problem is when the elderly, unwell person is making decisions that require the children / grandchildren to provide huge quantities of support.

The elderly person can say ‘I would prefer to be at home’.

Relatives, working with professionals, can say ‘We are unable to provide the level of support you need to live at home safely and / or we need to have an extensive package of professional care in place to support you at home.’

It’s not really about cooking ‘a meal’ for an elderly lady though is it.
Talk about lack of reading comprehension 🤦‍♀️.
I’ve often thought that potential MN members should have to pass a minimal level intelligence test before being allowed to post on Mumsnet threads and this poster’s answer perfectly illustrates why.