Just confirmed my family have planned my life for me

moneyistooshorttomention

margaretclare wrote: »

It sounds like severe heart damage/heart failure, the breathlessness, the blue fingers and lips? Is this right, money?

We've just had a shock. A good friend in the USA had congestive heart failure (among other things) and she has just died. In her late 60s, leaving her mother in her mid-90s.

Yes and various other severe ailments too - but this is the main one.

He has decided not to have any further proposed treatment for it - thankfully, as I don't believe it would serve any useful purpose and I really don't wish to see him go through yet more drastic treatment to no good effect and I did think "Well - at least he is doing what HE himself wants there at last - whatever that is - and that alone is a relief" and he actually looked better today just for having made that decision for himself.

More attempts at influencing me to stay today by both parents - indirect (rather than direct) being my family:cool:. Which just led to total frustration on my part about how they can't seem to see that I literally cannot stay put in this house even if I wanted to. The outside circumstances are changing so much on me for the worse that an already unsatisfactory house is going to become very unsatisfactory indeed for anyone (not just me) at some point. If I had a lottery win (thinks...must go and check last week's ticket ....) I wouldn't stay in this location. I might possibly stay in this county if money were no object - and it really would have to be no object because of just how dear the two places in this county that I like are. My house would cost half as much again in one of them and more than that in the other one. A small detached with garden - nothing that special - would be touching on £half million or so. I cant dream of that sort of money. I cant even buy a house similar to the one I have already in those two locations (even with raiding savings for the "swopover costs"). No point in urging me to do the impossible - even if I wanted to. One thing I am totally realistic about is exactly what I can and cannot afford.

I do wonder just where I get this total "determined to be clearsighted and see what there is to see/hear what there is to hear" aspect from - because it certainly isn't either of them. This way of looking at things has served me well and prevented my life being a sight worse than it otherwise would be over the years - so I'll stick to it.

I do think that many many people in a variety of relationships try to "get their own way" regardless of the other persons best interests - the poster who commented on that was spot on there. I have noticed so much of it going on around me.

Right...coffeebreak refreshments to come up...tasty smells coming up from the kitchen where I have tried out for the first time a recipe from my "new area". It didnt look pretty - but it does smell nice...so it'll do for a first attempt.

Re why I didnt move before - I thought I had already mentioned that my job was here (and replacement jobs/extra work if needed). I needed to stay up till now to work out my time in a job and get the pension from it "banked". I've now finished with holding down a job and got a work pension "banked" and which will be my income until the rest of it turns up at my State Pension Age. You don't go giving up a pensionable job in an area with replacement jobs if need be if you've gone through redundancies and the amount of unemployment I have. You hang grimly onto that job until retirement and long for the freedom of being released from it the other end...when, amongst other things, you will be able to live where you choose at last (well those places you can afford from your list of places you would choose anyway).

ecgirl07

very very interesting thread as it seems to be becoming the norm. Many people I know in their 50-60 are looking after aging parents. In our family OH aunty (OH granny) has just spent the last 10 years caring for her mother until she passed last February, that was her "good" retirement years 65-75.

Looking at it clinically, medically we seem to be able to keep old bodies functioning beyond the minds limits. In the case above the Mother had a bad flu at 85 which 20 years ago would have resulted in her passing at a good time for her but good health care kept her body going for an other 6 years of dementia ridden horror. I doubt aunty slept a night through in those 6 years and was a 24 hour carer. Aunty has no complaints about having this role but it did consume her life to the point of her having no life.

We are in out 40's and were idly talking about retirement plans today and looking after our parents does come into it.

moneyistooshorttomention

Mojisola wrote: »

If our relationship had been anything like the one money describes, I would not have done what I did. Without all the good feelings we had towards one another, it would have been stressful beyond managing.

That is a very valid point in any type of relationship actually.:T

I never married (though I've had my chances to) because I never found a man I loved enough/who loved me enough that I thought it would have stood a "fighting chance" of working. I'm under no illusions about just how hard work it must be sometimes in a marriage/how many compromises/that it should be "till death do us part/for richer for poorer/etc" and I thought that marriage sounds like such hard work that to stand a good chance of working and not ending up in a divorce court there would have to be all the right feelings there on both sides in the first place - as otherwise one or both of us might not have the will to put in that amount of work towards it.

You sound like you picked a good one Mojisola:):T

Mojisola

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

You sound like you picked a good one Mojisola:):T

Definitely!

Bigmoney2

C_Mababejive wrote: »

#1 Love the headline and really,it encapsulates one of the major dilemmas of life. How we handle power within our relationships. You see if your not careful,you will find that people are always planning your life for you. If it isnt your parents its your siblings,partner,lover,wife,husband..whatever.

You then find that you wake up one day and have completely lost your individuality. These people have insidiously taken control of you and you no longer have control over your own life.

Why do they do it? Well for a myriad of reasons.

Something they think you cant manage or they need to help you or advise you on what they think is best.

Often though the underlying reason though you or they may not recognise it ,,is that they are simply manipulating situations to make things better and more comfortable for themselves..in short..self interest and selfishness.

If someone else is a casualty,who cares as long as they gain.

This is spot on in my view.

Its interesting that even in 2013, it still seems to be assumed (by the OP's parents and sibling) that its the (dutiful) daughter that will be the care giver if needed, and the son can have his own life and family.

I'd even bet that his job is considered more important than the OP's.

johnswife

My Mum is 95 and lives with my single younger brother, aged 55.( he bought their council house, therefore has always been her home)
We are "lucky" that there is myself, almost 58, my sisters aged 60, 62, 65 and eldest brother nearly 70.
we share looking after her and at times that is not always easy or convenient when you have your own family and work.
But like another post has said it is made easier because we love her unconditionally and I will let housework slide and my husband is understanding if i have to stay all day until my brother returns from work.
I dont know how one person can care for an elderly relative and and not feel exhausted.
I do not judge the OP, everyone is different, but you do need love and patience. If not then it might be better to walk away and let the professionals take over.

Pitlanepiglet

A friend of mine obsessed about moving across across the globe, he discussed at length how fantastic his life would be in a different setting, he would lose the three stone he needed to lose, he would eat well, he would have loads of friends, he would be out all the time, he'd learn to sail and his life would be GREAT and he would be HAPPY because his life in the UK was RUBBISH.

He was lucky to get a transfer with his work, he went, he stayed for a while and he came home because he didn't like it, the wonderful life he'd planned for himself hadn't come to fruition.

The reason? - he was still the same person when he got there...he was still the shy man who struggled to make friends, the man who struggled with personal relationships. He didn't make friends, he didn't lose weight, he didn't learn to sail - he was still the same person, just living somewhere else where he didn't know anyone...

#Just saying....

Spendless

We were told a year ago that my Grandmother had vascular dementia. This followed several weeks of her saying and doing strange things. such as her neighbours knew her bank account number, they'd broken in and stole from her (no sign of break-in and nothing missing or out of place) they'd sexually assaulted her. Sometimes she put a ladder up at the front door inside to prevent anyone breaking in, one day she'd left a huge rambling letter to them on the door-step.

Eventually she said they'd kidnapped my kids and were abusing them (totally untrue they were at school at the time) and the CPN my mum had managed to get to see her had her sectioned under the MH act. It took 2 doctors, a social worker, my mum, 2 paramedics and a policeman to get her to go in the ambulance!

Several weeks later with medication sorted she was discharged, but she needs keeping an eye on. Her CPN called for a while but then she was judged well enough for her not to need him. I identified with what Poppy said about her m-i-l and the tv, we often take a phone call from Nan crying because she can't work the tv and with what another poster said about there's no-one to waltz in and help out unless you either pay or are too poor to afford to do so.

When me and Mum talk now we realise dementia has been an elephant in the room that no-one had noticed for several years, we believe one of these signs is the not thinking things forward and refusing to do anything that will help the situation for themselves. Neither me or my Mum wishes to be Nans full time carer, mum though retirement age still runs her own business and me because I juggle a hectic family life as well, but we help out where we can, because no-one else would be interested, certainly not the neighbours who she was falsely accussing. I'm glad you are going to write to your brother OP and ask what thoughts he has too about the situation.

moneyistooshorttomention

Spendless

At least you and your mother are seeing things clearly and thinking and deciding on what you will do personally - rather than just being pushed into things by events.

I naively assumed way back that carers were carers because they had been asked to be and/or decided to be. Then realisation dawned that this would probably very rarely be the case in actual fact. It seems, from what I can see, that people just find themselves doing a bit, then a bit more, then a bit more again and before you know it they realise they are a part-time carer, then maybe on from there to being a full-time carer and maybe even (like the poor auntie mentioned in recent post) a 24/7 carer and they were never asked/never volunteered. It was just assumed.

I can understand why a husband or wife would end up doing this - because they chose originally to be with that specific person and committed to that fact by marrying them. That's what happens in marriage - you've done it for "better or worse" - though eventually some spouses find its too much and need help of some description because they are unable to cope any longer. In any other relationship - its not a "chosen" relationship iyswim and things are accordingly somewhat different.

I have watched a friend of mine go through marrying a man and duly doing the sticking by him "for better or worse" as he got dementia and it gradually got worse and worse and in the end he had to go into a home. She accepted that she had chosen to marry him and then dementia had turned up subsequently as a Spectre at the Feast and just turned to and got on with it. I admire her for what she did and I agreed with her when she said that she couldnt do it any longer - so he had to go into a home and she was in there visiting him regularly right till the end (though he no longer knew who she was).

Very different circumstances though in a "birth relationship" to a "chosen relationship".

In fact I am waiting till this particular friend and I go out for an evening out together shortly to get her opinion in particular as to how to word this letter to my brother - because she is the one I know with the "strongest" experience of being a carer.

Mojisola

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

It seems, from what I can see, that people just find themselves doing a bit, then a bit more, then a bit more again and before you know it they realise they are a part-time carer, then maybe on from there to being a full-time carer and maybe even (like the poor auntie mentioned in recent post) a 24/7 carer and they were never asked/never volunteered. It was just assumed.

Unless there is a dramatic change, like a stroke, this is exactly how it develops! It creeps up on you and you don't always realise just how much you're doing until someone else mentions it.

My siblings live some distance away so it just fell to me to deal with things as they cropped up. When you find you've got to the stage where you're unable to go anywhere because you're on call 24/7 and your siblings are telling you about their holidays, visiting friends, going to events, etc, it feels very unfair!