Moving Abroad am I being selfish...?

[MrsChristmas123]

I am 60 and retired, live alone and financially independent.

My mother is widowed, aged 91 and is reasonably fit. However, she has just been diagnosed with mild dementia. She lives next door to me and I have looked out for her for the past 4 years since my father passed away. I have a brother who lives 80 miles away who visits every few months. My brother and me have looked after mum between us, sorting out her garden, getting her shopping. She copes very well on her own and only asks for help when she absolutely needs to. She is very independent.

My son lives abroad, my daughter lives in London and my youngest has just left her job to travel for 3 months and, at the moment she is living with me until she goes.

I am not in relationship.

I have had a long time urge to live abroad, just for a year or two, when my family grew up and left home. I had planned to do some voluntary work but not sure what though. I had planned to rent my house out for a year and see how it goes. I had planned to move to Spain next July 2017.

However, my plans may not come to fruition. My mother is getting increasingly forgetful and I can see that her memory is getting worse by the month. The problem is that she has refused all care that has been offered to her. My brother and me have tried to talk to her to persuade her to have a home help, cleaner, gardener but she obstinately refuses it. As I live next door she always turns to me for help and support which I am more than happy to give her. I have told my brother my plans and he has said, point blank that he will not move nearer to help. He says that it would be a 'backward step'.

The other problem that I had not considered is my youngest daughter. If she moves back with me when she returns from travelling then I can't rent my house out as I planned. I have mentioned my plans to her but she became extremely critical of me, implying that I should not leave her grandmother (my mum) without someone to look after her. I explained that it would not be for another year and anything could happen in that time and that mum had refused all help. My daughter has now said that she will give up her career plans and look after my mum if I move abroad. Now, my middle daughter has got involved by telling my youngest daughter not to do this because it would wreck her work prospects for the future. My middle daughter supports my plans to travel abroad.

I know I am being selfish but I bought my kids up single handedly since they were very small and I have looked after my mum virtually on my own for the past 4 years. I just feel it is my time now and if I don't do this next year I'll be too old.

I guess it is up to my conscience and I do have to make sure my house is ready to rent by next July, whatever happens because I need to find somewhere smaller. If I stay and continue to be here for mum as and when she needs me, life would seem very empty and I know I will get resentful.

What would you do?

The great thing about a year's sabbatical at this point is that it will mean the long term arrangements put in place for your mothers care will not be made based on the presumption that you are right next door and everyone can just dump all the respinsibility on you.

I'd go now while you're healthy and have the energy. there's always going to be something that will mean you ought not to go - just do it. The world is small nowadays and you can come home very easily.

We're the same age you and I and if DH and I are planning to go off travelling in the next few months -

60 isn't old !

Go now. Your mother is 91 and things won't improve. Plan everything rigorously in event of a deterioration in her health, ignore your daughters, you don't owe them, and take your year out before it is too late.

I have a friend who has been desperate to move to another part of the country for fifteen years; mother refused to go with them, she is now 101 and still counting; they are in their late sixties and feeling less and less inclined to relocate.

It's a hard decision for you but unless you are in poor health yourself 60 isn't old. My generation won't be able to retire till 67, though I'm sure the goalposts will get moved again in the next decade.

I think you should go. Your daughter needs to learn that you are allowed to live your life and follow your dreams, and not just be around to be mum and carer of others. If she chooses to give up her career to be a carer for a couple of years, then that is also her choice for her life. But I suspect that is just said to make you feel guilty...

OP I haven't got advice per se but I've come on here to empathise - I'm a different but albeit similar situation. We find out on Friday if we'll be moving abroad and I'm feeling horribly guilty and to an extent selfish, about it. We have 2 small DC who see their grandparents weekly here, and a lovely social life with plenty of life long friends. I have applied for a job abroad and initially we were all hung ho about it but now I'm having a major wobble about disrupting everyone all for the sake of a job.

My parents are still active but they are late 60s and have the odd health complaint. I hate the thought of that worsening whilst we're away and I know they get so much joy out of seeing out DC (their GDC) that it feels mean somehow to 'take them away'.

For what it's worth, I would love for my parents to go on an adventure and fulfil a lifelong dream of living abroad - I'd feel really proud of them.

I would go as well.

Being a carer to an elderly parent is a thankless task and one often left to a female relative particularly when the brothers back off from wanting to do any caring. Caring can be hard physical work, it becomes a 24/7 responsibility. Who is there to pick up the slack for the carer?.

www.healthtalk.org/peoples-experiences/dying-bereavement/caring-someone-terminal-illness/impact-being-carer
amongst other websites gives more insight.

I have seen this type of scenario played out over and over amongst my peers and in my own family as well. The carer also needs support and caring for and that does not always happen easily if at all in the wider community. Many carers can end up at breaking point themselves due to the enormity of the task for which they are ill prepared both mentally and physically.

OP as previous posters have said, you only get one life. Sadly dementia is a one way street. While you are right next door it will be far easier for SS to leave you to struggle on long past the point where full time residential care is required. DMiL's dementia came to light very suddenly. It took a lot of pressure from her DCs to get her into a care home.

StMary, we moved abroad in very similar circumstances. How far away are you moving? Where we were we were able to afford to fly DPiL & DM over to us very regularly. (Thank you easyjet!). DPiL were brilliant and excellent regular house guests. Initially my DM was very resentful of our move but soon got used to her little holidays over to us.

We were planning to move 30 miles when my FIL was diagnosed, there were no need to discuss it, neither of us wished to go.

I'm glad we didn't. Early diagnosis gives you the chance to put into place routines and technology that form habits that hopefully will be second nature when the dementia progresses to keep that person safe and live as independently as possible for as long as possible.

So mild dementia is the time when family and friends can make the most difference to what happens in future.

I can't recommend more strongly that you plan for the worst NOW! Progression can be sudden so you need to be prepared.

OP, between now and next July is actually quite a long time in terms of your mothers health. I would start getting the house ready regardless so you can keep your options open. As others have said, at your age maybe giving it a bit more time would make things easier because if she is already receiving care for a period of time before you go the new routines will be bedded in and you will be around to sort out teething problems.

Your dd must not put her plans on hold but you do also deserve to live your dreams. I think you posted about this before?

Do discuss getting an assessment of her needs by SS so they are aware of her vulnerability. Have you considered going away for a couple of weeks as a test run which might force her to accept some outside help?

I have seen excellent carers and very poor ones. TBH it is quite easy to spot which is which quite quickly which is why it's better to be in the vicinity whilst new care starts. Home Instead have been brilliant for us.

Good luck.

My MIL has dementia. She was the same, refusing help, wanting my husband to do it. But it wasn't to be awkward, it was the dementia, she really didn't believe she had anything wrong, she still doesn't, for the few rare moments that she's making sense! She's now in a care home that is superb. She's thriving. Her carers are wonderful. Her previous, private carer that we hired through an agency while she was still at home, came with me to visit her in her own free time because she missed her. Perhaps we've been lucky, but my experience of carers and homes has been great.

But despite understanding exactly where you are, and how frustrating (and that's putting it mildly!) a relative with dementia can be, I'd never have gone abroad while she needed help. She's done so much for us over the years, I couldn't leave her in her time of need. At 93 she won't be around more than a few years, and hopefully you will be able to get more care/help for her soon (we just organised it, and once she had a strop and sulk she seemed to relax into it). Abroad will still be there for you afterwards...

I recently had the privilege of looking after my dad for the last 9 years of his life. I sort of put my life on hold, turns out to the detriment of my marriage. Well, that was H choice.

I would not change it, looking after my dad.

If your mum has dementia and you go away for a year, by the time you get back, you'll be shocked at the change in her and she may not recognise you.

My dad was cared for at home for a year after diagnosis and then another year in a nursing home before he died. I know not everyone will develop at the same speed, but that is a possible prognosis, and he was 10 years younger than your mum. At the beginning it was "mild" but he deteriorated dramatically in that year at home, so that by the time he went into the nursing home, he did not know who I was, was unable to have a conversation, was doubly incontinent and could not walk or stand. It's a brutal brutal illness and I have so much sympathy for your current situation.

I think your dd3 is coming across as selfish and disingenuous in all this....I would keep your plans as is, have a date in mind and work everything towards that date including getting your mum set up with routines and care. Refusing care is a part of the dementia sometimes isn't it? If your dd3 really does feel so strongly she has just as much right and responsibility as you to do the caring, but I think it's a massive passive aggressive bluff actually. You may feel by next year it is not the right time to go or the perfect time to go, but either way having the plan in place will massively lift your morale until then!!

And ignore the people who say you are being selfish and uncaring. It is not possible when you have already done four years of caring!!

Oh and by the way, all the carers both at home and in the nursing home worked incredibly hard for crap wages and apart from one, who didn't last long, were cheerful, kind, competent & professional.

My mother is the person I seek to protect from living her 60s in abject drudgery in the service of yet another elderly person and their endless, as she spent her 50s.

It is you that is callous, expecting women to devote decades of their best years to unoaid, thankless drudgery with no break and no respite so they can pretend to be moral and to care about love.

Rather than the reality, which is usually an attaempt to orotect an inheritance that could be used to pay for the type of care you dishonestly oretend is not available.

Good elder care is expensive. But it is a reality for those who are trying to hold on yo the house.

Now there's callousness.

Hello everyone

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my question. It has been really helpful reading your thoughts and it has put things in perspective. I just wanted to add something:

When my mother was diagnosed with dementia the NHS offered all sorts of help, advice and support which Mum flatly refused. She is not interested in claiming attendance allowance nor tax rebate for her council tax, attending meetings for support and advice with or without me. She refuses to accept anything is wrong and is convinced that she can cope and she can, with our (increasing) help. She says that she will know when the time is right for her to accept care. Mum says she will refuse to go into care and that she 'rather kill herself first'.

Basically, and I know this sounds brutal, Mum is a crisis waiting to happen. She has glaucoma, arthritis in her hands, she is painfully thin and very unsteady on her feet. If I didn't shop for her I wonder how she would survive. However, she tick along like this for months or years...

The problem is that I live next door and very available in that I am retired and accessible. Although mum tries so hard not bother me, I am her 'safety net' subconsciously if anything goes wrong and there is no one else no friends, no family just me.

I just find it difficult to contemplate sitting here for the next two years waiting...

Your mother is being monumentally selfish to refuse that help and expect you to cover it all.

I love my Granny to bits, but I'm not sure I will ever forgive her for putting her daughter in hospital through similar refusals of help.

That help is not for HER, it is for YOU.

She has no right to turn it down and make stupid pronouncements about killing herself (which presumably you would have to risk prison to accomplish for her ).

Not being next door for a while, and taking her at her word that she can cope, is the best thing you can do.

Live your life as she is living hers - putting what you want first.

Otherwise you are allowing her to blackmail you into providing permanent care indefinitely.

It's not selfish of the mother, it's just not accepting of the situation as it makes it real. Nobody wants dementia, nobody wants dementia to an extent that they need help. Mother is in denial.