Living With Mother - opinions please!

[VolDeNuit]

Hi everyone! Long time lurker and first time poster here, desperately in need of advice! Apologies for the mammoth post. I'm wondering if any posters have experience of living with elderly parents.
Some background - DH and I are in our mid-forties and have been married 4 years. I have a 10 year-old DS from a previous relationship, we live in London. DH runs his own business from home.
We live in a small, expensive rented flat and haven't been able to get on the property ladder since we married. DH was unable to work for a long time following a serious accident, which wiped out all our savings. House prices have doubled in 4 years and the average price of a 3 bed house around here is ?300,000. Our income is now well above average, but we still couldn't afford that sort of mortgage.
My mother, who is nearly 80, lives alone in a 15 room house in a very beautiful part of the country. She has refused to move to a smaller property since my father died 14 years ago. She is still as sharp as a needle, but is becoming increasingy frail and has mobility problems. The house is in a bad state of repair, but she lacks the energy or will to do anything about it although she is quite well off. She has admitted she can no longer cope with the house, or the upheaval of moving.
My only brother and his family are emigrating this year. We suggested it would be to everyone's benefit if we moved in with her. Over the last 3 years I have nursed her 3 times (for about 5 months in total) while she was bedridden following operations. We normally spend about 2 months a year with her, helping sort the house out etc. I sacrificed a summer holiday with DH and DS last year to accompany her abroad to see her own family (possibly for the last time) because she couldn't manage the trip unattended.
We have offered to pay her ?500 per month to occupy the unused attic bedrooms and convert another room used for storage into an office for DH. We have also offered to undertake repairs, re-decorate, pay for domestic help and organise her shopping etc. There are 2 kitchens in the house, plus another 4 rooms (a huge living room, dining room and 2 other spare double bedrooms) which are only used when family come to visit, so we wouldn't exactly be under her feet all the time.
My mother reluctantly agreed to this plan but has said repeatedly that she "won't like it" and has now imposed a great many conditions including:
. She wants to monitor our financial affairs - we have to clear all our debts (about ?6,000 cards/bank loan) and agree to save at least 50% of our income.
. She wants the right to inspect our bedrooms because we are messy and "leave clothes lying around", and "keep the rooms too hot" (the attic rooms are unheated and the house is freezing and damp!).
. Last but not least, I now have to get psychiatric counselling and preferably medication before we move in because I had a row with DH at Xmas (which she unfortunately overheard) and am obviously mentally unstable.
We love her to bits, and she has been very generous to us when times were hard, but she has always been critical and controlling. I left home 25 years ago, have had a successful career, run my own home for years, try to be a good daughter, and am still treated like a difficult, incompetent and irresponsible teenager.
Is my beloved mama taking the piss?

'I hate seeing people dumping their poor parents in homes and leaving them there to rot - it sickens me. These people bought you into the world and raised and supported you until an age where by you could look after yourself. I think the least people can do is show the same condideration for their parents and take care of them in their old age. '

a tad judgemental there I think. You don';t know the situations for everyone in this position.

My mother is in a care hospital. She is dounbly incontinent, cannot walk, cannot talk, needs help feeding herself, needs a hoist to get her into the bath, fights the staff when she is dressed. She hasn't recognised me for the last 4.5 years. I have two children of 10 and 6 and a dh with a terminal illness. Should I give up what little time I have with him to give 24/7 care to my mother?

My cousin thought that I should, right up to the point where her mothers Alzheimers landed her in the same ward as my Mother.

It isn't helpful to judge people, you seldom know their situations in full. It is hard enough to deal with my mother being in hospital, without the guilt added by people who judge.

I think the only way it would work is if you could persuade her to sell the house and buy a different house with an annex so you could be "next door" but keep your privacy (or alternativel, convert the existing house in a different way to your original plans so she can't barge in whenever she wants...

but as it sounds like she doesn't really want you all living together, not sure either option would work really.

How about if your brother and you persuade her to sell the house and buy somewhere smaller, perhaps in a retirement complex where there is a warden on site? IF she was planning to leave the house to you and your brother, there might be tax advantages to passing on some of the proceeds before she dies, I think (but you would need to talk to a financial advisor obviously)

"Part of the problem is that my brother, SIL and DH are very very keen for this arrangement to go ahead. It means that my brother won't have to worry about mum living by herself when he moves to the other side of the globe, and DH won't have to worry about us getting a mortgage or feel guilty about us living in overcrowded accommodation".

Ignore Brother and SIL, besides which they're emigrating!!. This is about you and DH now.

Your Mother is still trying to exert her controlling influence over you. Don't let her!. The woman frankly sounds unhinged.

If you were to move back and live in your Mother's pile (which is in a poor state of repair due to years of neglect) this will be the worst mistake you've ever made. Its looking that bad for you. Having a variety of frankly mad and bad conditions imposed on you as well is not on either. You're better off living apart.

If you are afraid of upsetting your brother you could always just tell him you are not prepared to go to counselling because you don't need to and then it is your mum refusing to let you move in, not you backing out. Although I agree with Attila that there is no reason why should have to pander to any of them. This is your life. Let them call you selfish, so what?

Lwatkins, you have evidentl;y never the experienced the delighted of an elderly ladies clawing you in the eye with faeces covered fingernails. Would you be happy for your mother to do that to your children?

VolDeNuit - Don't Do It.

I can understand her wanting to make a few ground rules and still wanting to feel like she is in charge in her own house, but this seems to go a bit further, so I would say no but I can see how you feel it could be a solution and that she does need some help, but this doesn't sound a good set up for anybody.

Lwatkins- That is vry unfair. My parents didn't have me so that when they were old I would give up my life to look after them. They are are still young at the moment but my mum has already told me that if in the future she needs care to put her into a home!! I feel the same. I would hate my children to have to care for me when I'm elderly, put me in a nice home and bring the grandkids to see me everynow and then!

Vol- As someone else has suggested I would sit down with your mother and brother and come to some arrangement. Of course you resepect the fact it is her home but she needs to respect you, and the fact you are an adult with a child of your own.

No i'm not being judgemental, i'm being honest. I don't like to see people putting there parents into a home if it is not what they want. I understand that if they have a serious illness which makes them incapable of looking after themeselves etc, then i can understand why people may want to hire help ie a nurse, or see about a care home. But from what i understood the op's mother doesn't want to be put into a care home, at least not yet anyway.
And yes i have been around many elderly people in homes and have first hand experience and some truly unsettling memories of being practically attacked by some very ill people. I have also seen the effects that being put in a home has on some when it has not been what they want, and i found it to be truly upsetting. I also know some care workers who work in care home settings and i think i may have just heard one to many horror stories.
I'm not saying you are born to look after your parents and i never did say that. But i do think that we all have a certain responsibility to our own, i'm a very family orientated person and will always take care of my parents, and i would expect my children to do the same for me.
Like i said in my other post VDN, i think that these rules your mother is laying down are silly and a bit ott, but maybe that's just her way of trying to put you of moving in. At the end of the day you have to do what you feel is best for you and your family. But if you have been made miserable before when living with her, then chances are it'll probably be the same second time around wouldn't it? The balls in your court, but i still think that your mothers feelings should be taken into account through all of this as well. Just so that nobody ends up hurt or bitter or angry. Good luck

My mother didn't want to be put into a home either, but as she was demented to the point of being 'sectioned' she wasn't compitent to make that decision for herself.

It is very easy to judge on the outside, when you are not the one with a. the facts or b. the enormity of the decision to make.

thanks LWatikins, you've expressed many of the feelings I have about the situation.

Of course it is HER home. She is terrified of losing her independence and privacy. There has never been any suggestion that she should be shuffled off into a retirement home, she has always referred to that as something for the hopefully distant future. If we move in, she would be able to stay in her home and be looked after by her family for the rest of her life. The house is big enough to employ live-in care for her 24/7 if necessary. We did this for my (paternal) Gran who lived with us all my life until she died.

I stayed with her several times recently when she has been ill or had accidents or needed nursing after operations. I could only do this because I was self-employed, but I now work 5 days a week with very little holiday entitlement. I just can't drop everything and travel to the other side of the country in an emergency. I also have MY family to consider.

Last year, she considered selling up, moving to London and pooling resources with us to buy a home with a "granny annexe". Unfortunately she has rather unrealistic expectations about the type of property we could afford. Every property I showed her was "too small". She wants her own living room, dining room, 2 bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom. We would be looking at at least 250,000K more than we could afford, expecially as she (very sensibly) doesn't want to sink ALL her capital into a property.

She would also find it impossible to organise a house move on this scale unaided - it has been the family home for over 40 years and is packed to the rafters with Stuff! We just can't be in 2 places at once to help with this. I gave her loads of contact numbers for house move/clearance specialists, but she wouldn't make any enquiries, and refused to delgate the task to me.

I really want to do the right thing for everyone concerned.

Also consider that if you do move into her home and spend thousands on repairs, maintenance etc, what happens when she dies and presumably the house will be split jointly between you and your brother. Do you accept that he will get a much better house as you will have paid for its upkeep so he gets the benefit of the money you spent, or do you deduct this from the proceeds?

It is very important that you explore all the care options that are open to your mother, before she needs them.

making choices of this sort are very hard at the best of times. Trying to make them when you are despirate for care, or respite for yourself makes it even more of a nightmare.

We were placed in this situation quite suddenly. My mother suffers from vascular dementia, essentially she had a series of small strokes that didn't affect her movement, but did made her demented. This happened quite swiftly, she went from being able to cope well in her own home to needing 24/7 care within about 2-3 months.

Explore all the options now, when you can be calm about it. Setting up care at home will probably involve large amounts of money, or you devoting yourself to her care utterly. Neither was a possibility for us. Thankfully my mother is in an excellent psychogeriatric unit.

And on elast things, take into account that this situation may last for a very long time. My mother has now been hospitalised for over 5 years. You have to take the long therm view, for the benifit of all the family involved in this situation. Not least the needs of your own children.

Trifle has a good point

as the person who mentioned the retirement home, can I just clarify more what I meant

your mother is trying to control the situation and I know how this works having lived most of my teenage years with a controlling grandmother

I'm not advocating putting her in a home, it's just about taking control back. It's about saying, these are the options, obviously you're not happy with one of them so I have thoroughly researched the other. You might need your brother's support too. It's just about saying, there are other options apart from yours, and I am the adult who can sort this out.

tell her you're not getting the counselling. Tell her you're getting locks on the door. All this 'she won't stand for this, she won't stand for that' is you allowing her to be in control. How many more conditions will start sneaking in?

I loved my grandma very much but she made my mother's marriage incredibly difficult because my mother could not stand up to her. Over time she went from an outspoken member of the family to the difficulty that the whole family revolved around. Everywhere they went, even for a quick pop out to the cafe, she had to go with them. Their lives became completely about making her happy because the fall-out was too difficult (guilt-trips etc)

You need to get yourself a thick skin NOW and work out what YOU will or will not stand for.

I'm reading this thread with great interest.

Have just agreed to have dad live with us.Hes 89 ,physically robust but prone to anxiety attacks and poor memory and living 200 miles away by himself and refusing to consider a residential home . Doc says hes in the grey area between coping and at risk.

We need to make provision for him ,to give him quality of life, and to move him into safer environs ,we are set to care for him in the long term. However,I have made it clear, that the next step would be a residential home if ,in time, I cant cope .

The emotion pull of our parents on us is tremendous,particularly if we see them fearful for the future. I think in order to withstand ityou have to stop being the daughter (they are not able to be a competent parent to you), stop acting like the parent (because they will resent it)and mentally become "the carer",a friend who sees them as they are and doesnt get dragged in .

vdn- maybe gran needs someone impartial to explain to her just what she is giving up and what she ,in reality ,needs. weather its you or someone else long term provision should be put in place now. While she can deal with the change.

As a single person i would do it, with a family I would not move into granmas house ,the power balance would never be in your favour.

Very wise words, particularly the 4th paragraph!

How about offering to refurbish part of her home as her own flat with a little kitchen or kitchen/dining room (eg all on one level if she's getting frail)? Then she won't need to poke about your rooms .