help with live in mother

MrsTinks

Bit late but: :j :j :j yay for you for telling her to hoof it! Well done and a huge cyber pat on the back Stick to your guns - if anyone asks you how you could "do such a thing" then calmly tell them you love your mum and you'd like to carry on loving her that's why she has to live elsewhere now...
Remember that getting her out of your house does not mean you don't love her - it's enabling you to one day love her as much as you did again

chnelomi

As i read through this thread i kept having to remind myself that the mother is not yet sixty. I can hardly believe it, it has only been the last few years that we have had to increase the help for my grandmother and shes in her 90's my mum is over 60 and looks after her.

I think as was said earlier she is a TAKER and i doubt she will ever change. i was always running after my MIL as she was old never getting a thanks with all the bitterness that entails when people get old so i never griped, It was not until she passed away i found out that she was in fact years younger than my mum, even my mum was shocked.

margaretclare

sandraroffey wrote: »

definitely involve social services and her own GP. they will work together to find what it is that would suit her best. maybe sheltered accommodation?? maybe a care home?? my mother in law went like this when her husband died. she just smoked and stayed in bed. she deliberately stopped taking her heart pills and her diabetic pills, then took several days all at once, then made herself ill because of it, so was then calling out the ambulance in the wee small hours 'so the neighbours could see just how ill she really was' it was a nightmare. in the end she put herself into a care home at the grand age of 62. the age i am now.

even in a care home, she never dressed, never went out, hardly ever got out of bed and didnt bath or wash her hair for up to a year at a time. and the home werent allowed to make her. disgraceful.

if thats how they want to live, then let them.

I think that 'older people' (Age Concern) starts at 55. Certainly some of the sheltered housing complexes offer accommodation from 55 onwards.

I didn't have the luxury of behaving like your MIL when my first husband died (I was 56) and I was made redundant coincident with his death. I had no choice but to get out there and find work of some kind, any kind, to keep a roof over my head and pay the mortgage. Some of the work - agency nursing shifts on busy wards for example - was beyond my capabilities at the time and I struggled, but I didn't see that I had any choice. At 62, as I wrote earlier, I met my now second husband and fell in love all over again. I couldn't imagine 'putting myself into a care home' - not at any age, not the age I am now and certainly not at 60!!

Savvy_Sue

margaretclare wrote: »

I think that 'older people' (Age Concern) starts at 55. Certainly some of the sheltered housing complexes offer accommodation from 55 onwards.

Age Concern "We have a wide range of products and services specially designed for the over 50s."

Many sheltered housing complexes will take the over 50s too (although some will be 55+).

Your mother is not too young to take advantage of their help and advice!

never_enough

Maybe you should print this thread out & give her a copy? She may not even realise the impact she is having on you & the household.

Pee

I don't think you are being completely reasonable, expecting her to live a healthy lifestyle and give up smoking when it would seem that she has very little quality of life to extend.

However, having said that, it is not appropriate for her to be living with you - you have children and need support not someone else to care for and if she does not leave soon, then she will not be able to leave as she will be less able to cope.

You need to talk to your OH about this, because you need to present a united front.

It sounds awful and I couldn't deal with it.

margaretclare

Pee wrote: »

I don't think you are being completely reasonable, expecting her to live a healthy lifestyle and give up smoking when it would seem that she has very little quality of life to extend.

Why has she got 'very little quality of life to extend'?

She has the same opportunities in life as anyone else. She is not old, she's a spring chicken. Life is out there, it's a question of going to find it! Getting together with other people, joining a class, doing some volunteering, exploring the countryside or wherever she lives. If she has enough income without working then she is a heck of a lot more fortunate than I was at her age. There are masses of things she could find to interest her around where she lives. One thing she's missing out on - her grandchildren, even though she lives under the same roof as them!

However, having said that, it is not appropriate for her to be living with you - you have children and need support not someone else to care for and if she does not leave soon, then she will not be able to leave as she will be less able to cope.

You need to talk to your OH about this, because you need to present a united front.

It sounds awful and I couldn't deal with it.

Yes, I agree with all of that.

MrsTinks

60 is certainly not old! My step dad is 60 and he'd be most offended at being called old!
My grandfather at the age of 70 went to nightschool and learnt english (e're danish ), from he retired till he was about 78 he was an exam guard at the university and whilst he loved sitting and watching footy on the TV he certainly didn't procrastinate - sadly in his last 5 years he slowly suffered more and more from dementia and he and my nan both ended up in a nursing home - mainly because they were getting very immobile but also because of their increasing forgetfulness (my nan on a couple of occassions took overdoses because she'd forgotten she'd already taken the tablets... :eek:) They both passed away round Christmas time in their very late 70s (actually I think my grandad was in his 80's...) and my great grandmother was in her late 80's before she passed on...
My stepgrandmother is in her late 80's and still lives in a 3 storey house with narrow steep stairs, surfs the internet, dashes round the world with her brother (now also late 70's, sails round the med on his boat most of the summer) and enjoys her grandkids and greatgrandkids all of them have or had medical problems (my grandfather had numerous heartattacks and my nan was on a cocktail of meds for arthritis and 20 other ailments...) - 60... at 60 I hope to be the cool nan taking MY grandkids out to do cool stuff and buying them the most horrid noisy toys - not to be sat moaning and feeling sorry for myself in my daughters house having her wait hand and foot on me!

belfastgirl23

I think you've made the classic mistake of waiting till you reached breaking point to deal with a problem. And what a problem it is too!

I think the difficulty for you now will be persuading your mother to take you seriously and to take some actions. Has she shown any signs of doing anything about your request? If not, you need to sit her down very calmly and spell things out to her. The current situation is not working for you and your family. So given the difference in lifestyles she needs to find another place to live. Ideally have options for her (sheltered housing/over 55s apartments etc) and make sure you are very clear that you expect her to take action. You also need to think of what you will do if she doesn't take any action.

I do think at the end of the day though that you have to take some responsiblity for the situation. You invited your mother to move in with you without ever laying down any ground rules or putting in place any systems to work through issues. I think it's worth acknowledging that to her if you want to continue to have a relationship with her when she moves out. If you make it all her fault then it'll be much harder to get past this. And after all we are all entitled to eat and smoke ourselves to death if we want, however unpleasant it may be for other people. At this stage you won't change your mum, all you can do is limit your exposure to her. And who knows, perhaps you are accidentally enabling her to behave in the way that she does and that once in another place, she will feel the need to up her game.

And before anyone gets cross, I know you were trying to do a nice thing I'm just trying to suggest a way forward that allows your mum to keep her pride etc.

sharkie

I had a similar problem, My mum (75 at the time) moved in with me. She insulted my friend that visited - so lost those.

I also have some other friends quite a bit older than me, so took her with me when I visited but she insulted and argued with them too and they asked me no to bring her there any more, but she also did not wan to be left alone either. I have no brothers or sisters to palm her off onto, so out of luck on that front.

I came home from work and the complaining would start, so I stayed at work later - got home about 11+pm. then the complaining would start about long hours + other complaints + bingo was rigged and she was not winning - like I control the numbers, and no, I do not work as a bingo caller either

then I found she was opening my letters and reading them. After an argument blew over, she only then read the ones I opened - the letters had moved places. So started to leave unoppened letters for weeks on the floor and tke the bills to work and that irked her to the point she kept reminding me to open my letters.

I tried age concern but she did not have enough money for their housing schemes as the little she had was frittered away on bingo. With out having a house to sell or a large chunk of money Age Concern was not that concerned, or useful, or knowledgeable. This may be a branch thing though.

Finally I had it and had a sharp word with her and sent a letter to social services listing the problems. they found her a one bedroom flat not too far from me to vist and to get moaned at. Social services were good to us both. Also she was diabetic and the local disability in Harrow (HAD) were marvellous and I can't say a bad word against them.

yes, I did and do feel a bit guilty especially when she was crying. Hated going to the Day Centre as she did not like the other people there and the did not mix with her either and all she did was sit around. She also liked going to the Day Centre - you figure it out as I can't. Kept getting the "other peoples children do ??? for their mother", the reply being "Well go and move in there then, see if they will have you!"

Sometimes you just have to have use the right level of hardness and to be blunt and sharp to cut through the crud to make things happen.