Inlaws moving to live near us - how to manage for the best?

londonsurrey

You sound absolutely lovely and well meaning. However, they are adults and I do wonder if it would be too harsh to wonder if MIL is used to simply drip feeding someone in her life (you're the latest in a long line) more and more details of life with him. She's not going to do anything about solving it, but it's nice to have an advocate of sorts who will smooth out various kinks caused by him.

CH27

When they move they will have to have a medical at their new Doctors so that should flag up any problems & get any help needed.

Mayflower10cat

margaretclare wrote: »

PS: You describe them as 'elderly'. I never quite know how different people define this term, but for instance, DH and I are in our mid-70s and we don't yet think we're 'elderly', although maybe others do. And we don't think of anything as being 'just one of those things about getting old'.

Thinking back to my nursing career, I've heard of something called obstruction-with-overflow, a distressing condition consisting of blockage in the bowel which results in incontinence of liquid faecal material - if you have a blockage it's all gotta go somewhere as any plumber will tell you. Definitely not 'just one of those things'!

Thanks very much for the info, very helpful. FiL is 78 and MiL is 77. But they always seem way older than my parents, (their attitudes are 'older', too) who are far healthier and only a bit younger at 75 and 70. I've done some googling this evening and I agree, it's absolutely not 'just old age' and somehow, we must convince him to tell his Dr. I have a very good friend and neighbour who's a senior practice nurse - I'll ask her advice on how to handle this.
Thanks very much.

Mayflower10cat

Londonsurrey - there's more than a sniff of truth there, truly. She needs to tell someone, she knows it'll get through to her son via me and somehow she's blameless. It's tricky, believe me, being piggy in the middle. I always feel like I'm saying- 'hey, husband, your dad that you think is so great, well actually.........' and it's hard on him, too. The dynamics of their family is a bit strange too, no-one is honest with anyone else about anything. Always pretending everything is fine even when it really isn't and everyone tippytoeing around FiL to keep him happy. But I'm not scared of him and can stand my ground and my husband, ultimately, knows he can trust me to be truthful and to be fair.

Mayflower10cat

CH27 - very good point. The practice they'll be registering with here has a very good reputation locally. My friend the nurse is registered there herself.

belfastgirl23

I really admire you for thinking this out properly before the problems actually develop.

If your MIL is as savvy as you say then hopefully she will understand the hints about not living in each others pockets. I think you will need to be clear about this in the first few months when they do move in nearby, maybe have one day when you do visit them or vice versa so that they know when they will next see you/DH/kids. Don't forget that by offering too much support you can also create a situation where they are depending on you when they are actually capable of doing things themselves.

At least in the past you have taken FIL on and won, and it sounds like you're the only one to have done so. It sounds to me like he's the kind of man you just need to be straight with and tell straight out when you have a problem with him. You seem to have done that already pretty well, so it's just about nerving yourself up for it.

But you also need to make sure that you and DH have an agreed strategy in place so that this doesn't cause problems between you as well.

Good luck.

Mayflower10cat

Thanks Belfastgirl, I will pick a quiet time to have another chat with husband, probably when they've accepted an offer on their house and things are actually happening. At the end of the day, husband knows (now) what his father can be like and I know his loyalty lies with me. And with his Mum as he loves her very much. I also think it's a good idea to meet up say, just once a week (or less) as I do with my own parents who live about 15 miles away. Thanks.

Errata

Mayflower10cat wrote: »

CH27 - very good point. The practice they'll be registering with here has a very good reputation locally. My friend the nurse is registered there herself.

Any problems FIL is being treated for will be in his notes, what he isn't being treated for won't be. He doesn't have to disclose to a new doctor he's having problems downstairs if he doesn't want to.

londonsurrey

Mayflower10cat wrote: »

The dynamics of their family is a bit strange too, no-one is honest with anyone else about anything. Always pretending everything is fine even when it really isn't and everyone tippytoeing around FiL to keep him happy. But I'm not scared of him and can stand my ground and my husband, ultimately, knows he can trust me to be truthful and to be fair.

I can totally relate to that, the tiptoeing etc. Same play with the family of my late husband, except that it was MIL that was nasty. I faced up to her, refusing the false hugs and kisses, and one of my SILs told me that I was "so brave". Something's VERY wrong if you're brave to simply refuse a hug from a backstabber! Lol. (For a start, a hug means that their hands are behind you - gawd, this just occurred to me and is really tickling me now. Must go to bed)

tom9980

re: dealing with the health issue.

Why are so many older people so damn stubborn? both my granddad and my partners granddad have cancer neither bothered to report symptoms to family or more importantly to a doctor. Both had to be forced to go to the doctors.

In my granddads case he had symptoms for 5 months before he had some kind of growth in his neck at the start of last month, he suffered for 5-6 days before my mum turned up for her usual weekly visit took one look at him and forced him to the doctors. Just over a month on and he is at deaths door the growth in his neck was the tip of the iceberg.

I highly suspect that your Fil needs a family intervention on the health issue!