How to set boundaries when caring for a demanding elderly parent

[IAmNotALoon]

Please help me cope with the totally unreasonable demands of my elderly, poorly and frail mother. She had been ill lately, so I've had to move in with her to look after her ( this has happened about twice per year over the last few years). She expects me to be a 24/ 7 carer. And I mean 24/7. She has decided she doesn't like my husband, so I shouldn't spend time with him. She has decided my children can cope without me ( they are older but have specific needs as well). She wants me to spend every minute of my life with her, unless she gives me special permission to do something else (for example I attended my youngest child's parents evening recently but it was clear she was unhappy about this). She has form for controlling behaviour, dating back from my childhood. She won't have a sensible discussion with me but gets spiteful and upset if I try to discuss balancing my needs and my family's needs with hers. I am exhausted because she sleeps poorly at night and disrupts my sleep. She has plenty of money and capacity but won't discuss getting some outside help. As time goes on the demands are getting more unreasonabl and I need an advocate who will sit down with us and work out a reasonable compromise.

Well, the first thing I'd do is move out again - she can't control you if you're not living under her roof. Then I'd get a needs assessment done. If she needs care then I would look into carers coming in x times a day or discuss moving into some kind of residential care. You have made a rod for your back by being so available, so you'll have to be firm if you want to reassert your boundaries, but you are completely reasonable to do so. You're an adult with a life and family of your own and this could go on for years, so it's worth thinking about what you are prepared to do for her and what you are not. How do you want things to look from now on? That's what you need to try and achieve. Get advice and help from the GP and Age Concern regarding having difficult conversations and putting sensible and reasonable boundaries in place.

You don't "have to move in with her to take care of her". With all due respect, that is a choice that you have made. And you can unchoose it and move back to your home and your family. You can request a care assessment through her county's Adult Social Care team, and a social worker will come and assess her needs if you're no longer there to provide care. If she chooses not to accept carers, then you need to define your boundaries of what help you wil provide, make her clearly aware of them and that you won't drop everything to move in with her, then if she continues to refuse care, ultimately there will be a crisis and decisions will have to be made.

You sound like you might also benefit from some therapy to discuss boundary setting and work with a professional on how you can advocate and set boundaries for yourself.

The key thing about boundaries is that they are YOURS. You decide what you are willing to do, and you stick to that. You don’t even have to communicate them to the other person or have a discussion because you aren’t setting the boundarIes for them - you are setting them for you.

Your mum can have whatever expectations she has or make any demands that she wants to: it doesn’t mean you have to accept them.

But if you’ve had a lifetime of conditioning to obey her, you will find it hard at first.

What’s the situation? where does she live?

This is ridiculous - you moved out of your home with your husband and children and she demands your 24/7 attention?

Her needs could be met by a zillion other solutions - live in carers, respite in a care home, having a social life etc.

What is the (very unnatural) hold she has on you? What do you fear will happen to you if you assert your rights?

Another vote for therapy here.

Wow, this sounds awful.
i would move out and be giving social services a call to get the ball rolling with a package of care. Your mother shouldn’t treat you like this and you deserve better!

You are an adult. You don't have to do anything. The only people you are responsible for are your children.

Move back home, tell her you will help her sort out carers and visit around your own commitments.

You aren't a child, she has no control over you.

The fact is you can't change other people so it's about your response. Why do you feel you have to give into her demands? Fear, conditioning, guilt, it's easier to give in, because you love her and desperately want her to be happy? What happens when you say no? Do you have support and someone to lean on?

Its about looking at why you feel you can't say no and then making a plan to ensure you are supported to hold your boundaries

Thank you for your replies. I do think part of the problem is I don't know how to set boundaries, or know what a reasonable boundary is. I'm a doormat and brought up that way. My mother does need someone with her and I'm prepared to do the bulk of the caring, but I'm needed at home some of the time so I think mum needs to use some of her funds to pay for some sort of outside help. Initially she seemed agreeable to this, but now won't discuss it sensibly. She isn't bothered about spending money it more seems to be that she doesn't want strangers in the house. She lives in a neighbouring village in her own home.

What everyone else has said in spades.

But if your reaction to reading the responses here is "they don't understand, it's not that straightforward", then you'd really benifit from talking to a professional to understand why you're unable to assert yourself with your mother and to help you find where you end and your mother starts

You need professional help to learn to really perceive how her needs and your needs, are her and your responsibility to meet, respectively. At the moment you don't seem to understand the difference in a deep way, only at the shallow words level.

There is no way on God's earth myself or my sister would move in with our mother. We love her, she loves us, but that is not a part of the equation. She does need help arranging for, and sorting the payments for, her carers and other admin. But hands on day to day care? No way. And because she loves us, she wouldn't expect it.

As a mother I am horrified by the thought that I might blight my children's lives the way your mother blights yours.

She sounds to me to be a dreadful parent.

Snap @ICanLiveWithIt . You need to develop a deep, reliable sense of the most important boundary of all, the one between what she wants, and what you want (and need).

Why does she need someone with her?
What needs does she have that require this?

You don't need a compromise. You need to not appeal to some part of her nature that isn't there.

You tell her what you can offer and she can take it or leave it. Go home.

Yes shell try it on with the medical crisis but tell her if she's in hospital she's being looked after ok.

Give yourself permission. Move out. Her expectations are completely unreasonable and the more you give, the more she will expect as you can see already. Your loyalties lie with your husband and children. And believe you me, no matter what hoops you jump through, you will never get the approval you’re looking for. I bet there’s a pattern here that goes back a long way (could be projecting here!). Refocus your lens on your own family. They’re your future. She has to get help, end of story. I would move out today.

She had been ill lately, so I've had to move in with her to look after her.

No you didn't, you chose to. Blunt I'm afraid but true. You have a husband and children, your place is with them. To move in was a mistake.

Personally I would ask for a care assessment for her needs on the basis you will be moving out in 4 weeks and need a break. You will then look at what you can do going forwards after a 2 week break. Tell her if she refuses and will not engage with a care plan then you will provide zero care for her after you go until she does - as obviously if she is turning care down then you have nothing to contribute to.

You need to be harsh here - no care from you unless it is part of a shared care plan with carers - as you have a family who need you too.

My ( now dead) mil tried this when her husband went into a care home. She DECIDED what was best all round was if my husband and his sister ( her children ) left their homes and spouses and dogs and went to live with her permanently. As if the years between them leaving home as young adults hadn’t happened. She was genuinely surprised to be told no - because by that point me and my BIL had successfully de brainwashed our partners from her narcissistic control.

What’s a reasonable boundary? Start with: what do you want your life to look like? Where do you live and how do you want to spend your time?

What actual care does your mother need? I’m not talking about company, a live in servant etc. Does she need help to wash / dress / eat / take medications? What are her illnesses and are the physical or cognitive?

FFS op, you have moved in with her and left your own family? You don’t need an advocate, you need to grow a spine. You set boundaries by deciding what’s right for you and your family in terms of her support, and saying no to anything else. Move home first of all. Decide what’s you will and won’t do. When you will phone her and when you won’t, etc. Start saying no, and keep saying it. You don’t need a ‘compromise’, you get to decide what you will and won’t do. You say she has money, so you buy in the care and other services she needs. You don’t have to do what you are doing. You have made a choice. I now suggest you ‘un-make it’, and go home.

I couldn’t get past the “special permission”
she gives you to attend your child’s parents evening.
Echoing everyone else here, you move back home immediately, work out a plan going forwards for yourself first as to what you’re willing to do (maybe with the help of your husband? Presumably he has your back?) and then you inform your mum what exactly you will do for her and what care she needs from other services. And stay firm. She does not get to control you.

You're not a "doormat". You a person who has been groomed to believe that you have to be subservient to your mother, and I don't use the word groomed lightly.

Please go back to your family and your children, investigate professional support to work through what has been done to you and don't feel obligated to provide any support to your mum. It's not an obligation, it isn't mandatory. But your family, your children, need you, regardless of their age.

Here is a starter for 10 of things that I think are reasonable boundaries:

"I will not sacrifice my physical or mental wellbeing in order to look after my mum."
"I will not tolerate being spoken to rudely."
"I will live with my husband and children." (I really think this needs to be prioritised. It isn't reasonable to expect you to live apart from your husband and your children.)
"I will not miss having quality time with my husband, or my children. My relationships with them are a priority for me."
"I will not miss important milestones with my family (my husband and my children)."
"I will not miss having downtime each day to care for my own needs and nobody else's." (This is SUPER important and so often missed).
"I will not work myself into the ground."

I think one way to enforce your boundaries is to leave your mum's property every time she is rude or disrespectful to you. "I do not accept being treated like that. I'm going home now Mum." AND WALK STRAIGHT OUT AND GO HOME WITHOUT A FURTHER WORD OF DISCUSSION/ARGUMENT/PLACATION. Even if it's half way through a meal. Even if it's in the middle of the night. Stay gone for long enough to inconvenience her. When you return, if she is mean to you, turn around and leave again without saying a word. Repeat every single time.

Regarding not paying for carers, I would approach it the same way I approached lots of boundaries with her. Matter of factly, without emotion, and without asking for her permission. (Yes of course she still has the option of consenting or not - it just doesn't pay with people like her to focus on that). Get as far as you can setting up an account with a care agency. Just do it, book the home visit or whatever. You can say it's just for if you're not there one time in the future. You could arrange a weekend away with husband and children to engineer the "one off" need. If she sulks or tells you how awful a daughter you are... you know what to do, leave the room. Leave the house. "No mum I'm not going to tolerate you abusing me. I can help you to book cover when you're calm and respectful towards me."

There is a phrase, "drop the rope". Don't be complicit in the noose she is holding around your neck. You can choose to stop doing the things that give her something to brace against as she pulls on the rope. Going completely non-contact is one way to completely drop the rope, but there are less extreme ways. Getting a good night's sleep at home with your family is one way of dropping the rope. Tell her that as of X days time you will be sleeping at home. Help her to arrange care cover, but if she refuses, you need to go through with it anyway. You may well have to pick her up in the morning if she has a fall, or change some bedsheets some more times, until she realises that you mean business, and she complies with getting carers in, but do not soften or relent.

Get an alarm pendant or button, and speak to the alarm company about NOT calling you between 9pm and 9am. If she needs help, she will get it from the emergency services. If she is a frequent faller, you may have a department of your local adult social services who come out to help people who aren't injured get up.

I also think it's useful to think of yourself as juggling lots of balls in the air. Some of them are her, some of them are you, some of them are what your children need from you, some of them are your relationship with your husband which does need some nurturing, etc. Some of them, if they drop they shatter and it's an awful thing - you don't want to drop an important medical important for your child, for example. Some of them, if you drop them occasionally, they will bounce. You're already regularly dropping your relationship needs with your husband, and so far it is bouncing but do it too often and it will break. Same with your self care needs. Same with the relationship with your children. These are the balls that you need to focus on keeping in the air. Your mum getting her favourite newspaper every morning by 9am? Drop that ball, it's not important if it breaks. Your mum needs care - but it does not have to be from you. Keep that centered in your mind. You can drop the caring for your mum ball more often. She has a choice - she can get on board with carers, or she can live with sitting in a wet pad or whatever the consequence is, if she has chosen to not replace the balls that you tell her you will be dropping.

She has decided she doesn't like my husband, so I shouldn't spend time with him.

Who you spend time with simply isn't within her power. She might have managed to trick you into thinking she has the power over you and your relationship, but she doesn't, it's a trick spell, a mirage, not a real thing. You can literally spend as much time as you want to with him. Right now, today. Break the spell and see what happens. The world won't end. She might have a strop, but so what? She can learn the hard way that the more she strops, the less of your time and attention she actually gets.

She has decided my children can cope without me.

Also not within her power to control. She can think what she likes, but she can't physically stop you from spending as much time with your children as you see fit. It really is as simple as getting up and going and doing it.

She wants me to spend every minute of my life with her,

She can want whatever she likes. I want to win the lottery.
She can't make you spend every minute of your life with her, any more than I can make the lottery machine pick my numbers.

Honestly, treat it like she's cast a cheap magic trick. "Oh yes mum very good, you really saw that lady in half didn't you. I'm just going to open the box OH LOOK she's still in one piece, what a surprise! Now I'm going to go watch TV with my kids, seeya."

What do you want? Maybe start with a piece of paper and write down what you want. Not what you think you ought to want, or what somebody else tells you you should want, but get back in touch with the part of you that knows what YOU want.

The best bit about having moved in with your mother, rather than inviting her to your house, is that you can move out, which I suggest you do asap.

Your responsibility, as her daughter, is to make sure that she has the care that she needs, not to provide that care.

Depending on what her actual care needs, rather than wants, are you may need to speak to her GP/adult social services to organise an assessment.
Please start this ball rolling immediately.

Go home now, she needs to see how she copes without you there and you need some distance from her.
Do you have any siblings? If yes then get them to share with you popping in and out to see her. If not then you ask your DH to share visiting every couple of days with you. See how she copes.
If she can manage in the house with care visits the provider her with a proposal of x care visits, meals from one of the companies that do this, maybe day centre as well.
If she truly needs 24 hour care (not company, care) then she will need to either have this at home or go into a residential care home.
Ask LA for a care assessment, keep a record of the request, keep asking.
Don’t move back in, don’t do more than keeping an eye on her. Keep presenting the options she realistically has. Get you family to go round with you sometimes, she might listen to them or be less rude to them.
It will be difficult at first but will get you to a better place in the end.

You say you have to be there overnight @IAmNotALoon. Why is that?