Just confirmed my family have planned my life for me

Pitlanepiglet

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I am minded to send a letter to my brother asking what ideas he has for what "we" might usefully do to ensure the welfare of "our" mother.

Snip

So - I have noted those (in the minority as far as I can see) posters who feel I should/will feel "guilty" if I go ahead with "living my own life". I think I understand where they are coming from - but I can also note the posters who feel angry/resentful that they have been prevented from "living their own lives" because of being put in the position of being carers (despite no active choice to be on their part). So that seems to boil down to:

Can you not just talk to your brother?

Don't assume that those of us flagging the problems you might find dealing with your relatives remotely are all bitter, twisted and put upon people. We live our own lives very happily but we have chosen to do that in a way that allows us to provide care to the remaining parent that we each have because its important to us.

Sure it's difficult at times but it was a whole lot harder dealing with both of them from away and I enjoy the fact that we are able to spend time with them and to help them in their twilight years.

It matters to us, it may not to you.

rosered1963

Hello.

A very interesting thread. I have moved house, left my job and friends and moved north, bringing my husband with me, to live round the corner from my parents. Dad has a life-limiting condition and I was always trying to be everywhere at once. One year on, I can't tell you how hard it has been: I love my parents and I also like them, but being somewhere where I haven't lived for 30 years, no work around here (very rural) so having to go self-employed, no friends and the stress on my marriage has been very hard.

For me personally though, I have done the right thing: my parents are definitely happier now that we are here. When we lose one of them, the other will never be left alone. I have no remaining family at all - so it's down to me. There is no government body that magically sweeps in and helps an old person when they become ill and frail - that's a myth. There is no meals on wheels in this area and home helps went out years ago - it's all unqualified people from private care agencies which you have to pay for unless you are penniless. I can't leave my parents to that. I've seen the reality in my professional life.

There is so much I wanted to do with my life that I do feel trapped to an extent, and sad to have left our old life behind, but that's what I have to do.

Whatever people decide is individual to them, thier parents' situation, and their relationship with their parents.

Good luck to anyone in this situation.

PS OP - I have lived in the country most of my llife - I hope you do not cut yourself off entirely - it's ok when you're fit, but if you can't drive//live where there is poor public transport what would you do if you became ill? You need friends wherever you are. No-one knows what is going to happen to their health, regardless of age. Also beware of oil fueled central heating. so expensive.

troubleinparadise

Dear MTSM,

Your post:

I am minded to send a letter to my brother asking what ideas he has for what "we" might usefully do to ensure the welfare of "our" mother. My very distinct suspicion is that he will have no suggestions whatsoever - but I suppose I could always end up surprised that he might have a useful suggestion or two. My feeling is that he will have no useful response whatsoever to this - but at least I will have tried - so I think it will be worth doing this. I will keep it short and polite and see...

strikes me as your most useful initial course of action.

The many postings here on your thread from the various different viewpoints will no doubt have given you much food for thought, and hopefully given you some useful pointers as to where you might source help for your parents should they decline.

But putting the ball back in your brother's court as to whether he has given any thought to this will at least clarify things between you as to both your assumptions/presumptions about each other's position with regard to the future caring of your parents.

Until you know exactly how things are viewed by your brother you will be tying yourself up in knots with your one-sided thoughts, and that isn't healthy for you.

Rosered's post:

PS OP - I have lived in the country most of my llife - I hope you do not cut yourself off entirely - it's ok when you're fit, but if you can't drive//live where there is poor public transport what would you do if you became ill? You need friends wherever you are. No-one knows what is going to happen to their health, regardless of age. Also beware of oil fueled central heating. so expensive.

is also a very good point. Rural living is lovely when you have the energy to cope with the isolation/organisation/travel issues etc, but awful when you get older and have to rely on others to help out, or the minimal bus service, or nearest shop 5 miles away. Whilst you are seeing your parents' potential problems ahead, don't be blind to the negatives of moving away from simple urban facilities for yourself.

moneyistooshorttomention

rosered1963 wrote: »

Hello.



There is so much I wanted to do with my life that I do feel trapped to an extent, and sad to have left our old life behind, but that's what I have to do.

Whatever people decide is individual to them, thier parents' situation, and their relationship with their parents.

Good luck to anyone in this situation.

PS OP - I have lived in the country most of my llife - I hope you do not cut yourself off entirely - it's ok when you're fit, but if you can't drive//live where there is poor public transport what would you do if you became ill? You need friends wherever you are. No-one knows what is going to happen to their health, regardless of age. Also beware of oil fueled central heating. so expensive.

I hope you manage to resolve the personal problems that moving has caused you and your husband to have.

I am looking ahead for the rest of my life and, with the way this house and its area are, then there is a high chance that if I don't move now I never will be able to and would have to sit here as the area goes steadily more downhill. Since moving here graffiti and flytipping have gone up a lot - I don't particularly recall that happening when I moved here - but I can see that the last few years things are moving steadily in that direction and the "main cause" is likely to be around for some time. There is rarely a week goes by without at least one incident. I decided this morning that as soon as I get to exchange of contracts on this house and my new one that I will stop reporting all antisocial behaviour to the Council and I suspect the neighbourhood will already be visibly worse just in that 4 week period I estimate there will be between exchange and completion (as no-one else ever seems to report any of this). I believe the area will look like a tip by the time I've been gone for a year - as I don't believe anyone else will "pick up the baton".

I have other problems personally living in this area - and those are scheduled to get very much worse and be very troublesome indeed in time and mean the appropriate response to them is "Run and run now".

I have done A Lot of keeping this area as reasonable as possible/way way more than a fair share in fact and with the amount of unpaid work "looking after" this area that I have done then I feel its not fair for me to be on the "receiving end" of its antisocial behaviour any longer and time for someone else to deal with it/or live with it now.

If I stayed here then Here is where I would probably have to remain for the rest of my life - and that would be an estimated 30 years of wrong house/wrong area/wrong location and worrying about the health affects of having to stay living so long in such an area. Not able to do my gardening (because of still not having a garden). Less able to get the benefit of Countryside (as it gets more and more developed on the one hand and more and more other people are walking in it on the other hand). I can see clearly that the whole Rest of My Life would be substantially worse in quite a lot of ways if I stay here. I can see that caring parents wouldn't want to potentially ruin 30 years of someone's life for them. I have a "second mother" figure who I care a lot about and who cares about me and she is busily urging me to leave, as she knows all the circumstances I am in (even though she has said she will miss me and, with her own health being bad, the chances are that she won't be taking up my invite to come and stay on holiday with me when she likes).

I have picked what I believe to be the right size place for me that will contain enough facilities for "basic" purposes for the rest of my life and would rip out oil-fired central heating if that is what the House I Buy has and stick in storage radiators - but I will be just urban enough that I will likely have gas central heating and will be easily able to walk to the shops/social facilities/etc. I got sent details of a house there only this morning on email that looks like it really IS "ready to move into" as the agent says and has a decent garden and I could s...q..u.e..e..ze finances enough to pay its asking price if need be, but won't investigate that one further, as I know the Target Destination well enough to know it's that bit too far out for me. I shall be making sure I can still nip to the shops quickly and don't take that long to walk to the social calendar of things I have already planned of activities I intend to take part in there (I could tell you right now what I will be doing Monday mornings, Tuesday mornings, Wednesday mornings, etc). Hoping to be in in time to get the garden "up and running" to some effect this year.

Brighton_belle

Pitlanepiglet wrote: »

Can you not just talk to your brother?

I don't think you have picked up how very difficult OP's brother is and how fairly obstructive he is in conversations about his parents. He's.not.interested.
They live far apart so this would mean a phone call and not everyone communicates at their best on the phone.
Writing to him will at least enable the OP to calmly and unemotionally ask questions and make any suggestions.

moneyistooshorttomention

Brighton_belle wrote: »

I don't think you have picked up how very difficult OP's brother is and how fairly obstructive he is in conversations about his parents. He's.not.interested.
They live far apart so this would mean a phone call and not everyone communicates at their best on the phone.
Writing to him will at least enable the OP to calmly and unemotionally ask questions and make any suggestions.

Thank you. I communicate a lot better than my brother, whichever method of communication is used but "calm and unemotional" is exactly why I think it best to do it this way.

Right at this moment - my blood pressure is rising visibly, as I am thinking "Thats THREE blinkin' antisocial behaviour incidents hereabouts in just one week". I do hope the little chavs can feel the mental darts heading into their little backs as we speak:mad:

margaretclare

..I still don't get how computer literacy is the be all and end all to people remaining independent. As I said earlier, my Dad does pretty well on his computer, but he still doesn't remember to lock his doors and take his medication!

No, it's not the 'be-all and end-all', I never said it was. What I said was that it can make life easier in so many ways.

We drove back yesterday 300 miles, mostly motorway so DH found it very easy just using 'cruise control' - I would 'spell' him with driving but he has a lot of difficulty/near-impossibility getting into the passenger seat. However, once we got home, apart from all the usual things like unpacking, he was able to talk to his brother in France using skype. I ordered a new pair of slippers - will need new ones for a short hospital stay this month. I checked whether some money had been moved around. I ordered more of my routine medication. All that done online. We have had a lot of recovering from surgery over the past few years and grocery-shopping online is a godsend, as is checking our bank accounts daily, seeing direct debits have gone out etc. All these things can build up to be little worries - weather is bad, 'oh I've gotta get into town to get money and go round seeing things get paid, or posting off cheques', those kind of things.

To moneyistooshorttomention: you mentioned the difficulties you're having with your present residence, climbing up a loft ladder etc. This almost made my hair stand on end. You'd only have to slip and that would be it - even aged 60 you could have fractures of legs, hips, or even worse. To my mind you're thinking of moving at exactly the right age. My first husband and I moved from a 3-storey Pennine cottage to a 2-bedroom Essex bungalow, in our late 50s, and although he didn't live long to enjoy it, and I was left with the mortgage and coincidental redundancy, I still think it was one of the best decisions we ever made. Since then there has been a lot of upgrading/modernising/improving done to this 1930s property as time, money and opportunity allowed. But I've seen so many people who could have moved to more convenient living arrangements but, for one reason or another, didn't, and then they became incapacitated and it was just too late, they couldn't cope with the physical or mental efforts involved. I've often come across instances of people in their 60s or later being totally responsible for the care of an older generation and it becomes a nightmare. Added to which, I've heard people say 'and what happened to MY life? I brought up children, worked, retired, now it's like having children again only worse, because you can't tell them what to do and you can't physically do all that they need doing...when do I get a life of my own?'

It doesn't sound to me as if you'll get much joy out of your brother, or your parents, but you can only try. It sounds as if a lot of assumptions have been made by them about you, and bringing it out into the open and laying it all on the table in front of them, can only be a good thing. The very best of luck to you. New year, new start.

moneyistooshorttomention

Right...lunchtime break now.

...and I've had to climb that loft ladder again Margaret (ie putting away DIY stuff in the loft). That's the thing, if someone lives in a house as long as I have then you've accummulated most of the possessions you ever intended to get and they have to go somewhere. There is LOADS of cupboard space in this house (some of which I've added as extra to what the house had anyway) - but no garage, conservatory, cellar or big enough garden to take an extra garden shed (no garden in fact) - so loft it is then. I know my mothers response if I mention that loft storage is "So don't store anything there then":cool: - in other words throw away possessions I need to keep. I am hoping not to need to climb that ladder again whilst here. There is stuff up there I will be taking with me and I need to chuck out a few bits from there I won't be keeping but I have done the tidying/cleaning of the loft. I am going to pay the removal firm extra to do the packing for me and have told them that a bit of the stuff is up in the loft when I showed them round to get my quote from them.

I have now virtually finished weeks of work getting this house ready for sale. Friend here shortly and I will be paying him to help me out with a couple of little bits and the decorator in Monday for that back bedroom (because I just gave up and am throwing money at getting that substantially repainted). Not a lot to do now at last. Estate agent will be coming round in a couple of weeks to take the photos/do description/do plan and I'll be "good to go" when I push the green button.

margaretclare

Well done. Decisions made, now looking forward positively. I hope all goes well for you.

I think if I had done 'what other people expected of me', over the years, I'd never have achieved anything.

wannabe_sybil

My father lives with us. He is in his eighties but has a very young outlook. It works really well for us.

My uncle lives some distance away. In an ideal world he would like us to live with him. He is in his late sixties and has a very old outlook. I would not consider living near him under any circumstances as just the daily phone call and recovery time can take up to two hours out of my day.

There isn't a clear cut should/shouldn't, in my experience. I am not necessarily saying you should be focused on nothing but yourself, but I think that you owe yourself a chance to be happy. If he hadn't moved in with us, my father would be fine as he had taken all reasonable steps to keep himself able to live independently. He has three children, but is far from dependent on us and worked as if he would not be able to rely on us. My uncle has no children but relies on me and my brother to an unhealthy degree and refuses to look at trying to make things easier for himself.

What I am trying to say is that I don't think that there is a clear cut, one size fits all. I think you have looked at things clearly, made the choice and I think you should carry on. However you may find it of more comfort if you get in touch with Age UK and just check out what support is available and what sort of agencies can supply support.

Good luck!