MIL wanting additional stops when I agreed to just one.

[7238SM]

If you take your parents/in laws to medical appointments or to ONE shop, do they add on extra shops/banks etc? I'd potentially be more flexible if MIL actually asked, or had no other support, rather than just saying 'Oh and I need to go to the bank, and then I need to pop into Sainsburys and then....'. MIL does drive, can order all manner of crap stuff online herself, but refuses to do internet banking. Her mobility isn't great, so being driven means she can be dropped near the entrance- because she refuses to consider a disabled badge.

DH and I work full time and live a distance away. SIL works part time and lives 2min from MIL, but MIL doesn't want to bother her or BIL! And yes, we are saying no to added stops. Sorry, I just needed a rant!

If so then this is an extremely manipulative way to go about it. Why not ask OP to come round for a cup of tea, glass of wine and slice of cake instead??

Oh yes!!
My mother will just sit and pointedly say . “I have an appointment at X”
I still just say “oh yes “
I have said repeatedly if you need a lift ask and I’ll sort it we have had frequent run ins about her martyrdom and also just assuming.
Just ask me ! Can’t bear the woe is me performances .

I can't say if you are bu or not as I can see both sides of this.
However I have an acquaintance who does something similar to this to me.
She will ring and ask me if I can take her to B&Q for something specific. I say I will, but i'm not able to do xy or z too, nor am wanting to have lunch afterwards. I know she will ask me for more, so I make it clear from the start.

Every time she agrees, and then every single time when we have been to the first place, she will ask if I can take her to a second, third and sometimes 4th place usually with a request for lunch out.

It drives me mad. I don't think she has any/many friends so I feel uncomfortable saying no.

I also think you need to sort out a rota. Set up a WhatsApp group where you can check everyone's availability on there. Let MIL know that any appointments will be shared out.

The MILs son could do that.

This is the second MIL story I’ve seen in two days but it’s exactly the same - the MIL has children, but for ‘reasons’ they are unable to help their mother and it’s left to the dil to step in.

Every little thing you do, stop and think - could her own children do this one thing? If so, leave it to them.

Well yes. The siblings should just be doing it but I thought maybe others were more charitable than me.

What would happen if you said you were unavailable?

This is not about her needs but her wants. She can apply for a blue badge, she doesn't want to. She could ask her daughter but she doesn't want to.

I'm all for being accommodating but it needs to go both ways.

She needs to set up Internet banking.
Just don’t let her manipulate you.

Yep. To her it's so much more convenient. It's just another 10 or 20 minutes, whereas the alternative is her getting the bus or walking at a later date.

I say "I'll drop you off there but I'm not waiting then driving you somewhere else. Up to you"

She's not old though and lives in a public. Transport accessible place. I am fully expecting her to be a very demanding, incapable old person. She told me the other day she refuses to pay into a pension. She rents privately, has no savings or investments or pension... So I have a feeling her plans must heavily involve myself 🙄

Has she fallen out with her DD? Why doesn't she want to go with her DD? I think I'd be investing that first. Mil I have taken 2 hours off from work to take you to consultant. I won't be able to fit in any other stops today. I might ring her DD myself to ask if she could help.

Agree. I discovered that a very independent family member who was still driving short distances (safely) at 92 didn't have a Blue Badge. She had heart issues and couldn't walk far. She hadn't applied for one because she "didn't think she was bad enough". I did the forms (she fully supported it) and it was such a help you'd have thought I'd given her the moon and stars.

Deliberate refusal of things that are purely designed to make people more independent is just stupid. Alienating the people you rely on is stupid. On the whole, those who are unreasonable and demanding in old age (dementia aside) are continuations of their unreasonable younger selves, with added guilt. Boundaries needed.

Why would you be asking any of us for help? We don't know you - do you often threaten suicide when faced with a perceived inconvenience?

Yes, I had an aunt who used to do this. I was really firm about saying no as she was so slow and I didn’t have the time. I would take her to hospital appointments but not shopping afterwards. She just wanted to be taken out and about. In the end she hired a carer to take her shopping.

Yes, this is why I stopped taking an elderly neighbour to hospital appointments. I initially offered,
thinking I’d just drop her off and go into work. Then it turned into a full day trip with additional stops and a “treat” lunch at the garden centre, which was clearly a treat for her but not for me!

She seemed to think she’d taken on a personal chauffeur for the day.

Well then just say no.

Urgh! What a manipulative, guilt tripping post. OP's MIL sound pretty manipulative as well if she only asks OP for help when OP works full time and lives quite a distance away while her own daughter is on the door step and only works part-time but is never asked to help.

You're not being unreasonable here, every one of these trips is landing on one car, yours. Two things might quietly shrink that. Most areas have community transport (Ring & Ride / Dial-a-Ride) for exactly this, and hospital appointments often qualify for volunteer transport through the surgery or Age UK, so the medical trips don't have to be you at all.
On the bank: if she won't go online, most banks still do telephone banking, and some do branch-by-appointment or a "community banker" home visit, which kills the "pop to the bank" stop entirely.
Has anyone actually sat down and mapped which of these trips genuinely needs a family member versus a service that already exists?

Yes, MIL did this. Particularly when her DD (my SIL who doesn't work) would be tasked with taking her to a hospital/GP appointment. MIL would then say, I need to pop to Sainsburys for a few bits and after that, it would be can you just pop to the post office and then how about the garden centre for lunch?!...4 hours later SIL would get home and neck a glass of wine!! 😅 What makes it worse is that when they went into Sainsburys, SIL got her into one of their mobility scooters but she was an absolute menace in the damn thing, driving into people when they wouldn't move IMMEDIATELY😬My SIL now comments 'hospital appt ONLY; nothing else!!' 😂

MIL has previous for this with one of her DIL's too...she got suckered in with the sainsburys shop/mobility scooter one day and I'm not sure she's recovered from the trauma yet 😂

But I get your frustration OP, if only they'd be open and honest and say 'I need 3 hours of your time; are you available to do XYZ and ABC for me a week Tuesday?'

Why doesn’t she want to bother sil or bil?! I would refer to that often, I’m afraid. This should be fairly divided.

If she asks you for an appointment, I would say-I’m at work that day-can you ask Sally or Dave.

Put them on the spot.

Only when they had both been asked and both been forced to decline/agree/come up with a feeble excuse that you yourself can use next time, do you agree but say, ‘I have meetings at x and y, so it has to be an in and out flying stop by and we can’t visit any other shops.’

Spell it out. And involve the others!

I think be clear on timing .

Say at the outset ‘we have one hour because I am working. What errands do you want to do within that hour?’

And stick to it. With calm responses that you have prepared in your head ‘not possible today, as I said I must be back at work at xx’.

She will learn to plan better.