Am I bound by an agreement made many years ago with my brother and his wife?
Twenty five years ago, when I was single, my brother and his wife asked me if I agreed that mom and dad could live equal time in our homes when they could no longer live alone. I agreed but even at that time I wondered what a future husband might think of that arrangement.
I have been married now for nine years and my 91 year old mother cannot live alone any more. My father is deceased. My husband is totally against this arrangement. It has caused a lot of trouble within our family and within my marriage. My brother told us that even though my husband was not there at the time, an agreement was made none the less. My husband has done many things over the years to be a wonderful member of the family for both my parents and my brother's family but he now feels betrayed by them. There is much friction between us all. My brother lives in a different state many miles away.
My mother has mild dementia. She is still pleasant but her memory is very bad.
My husband cared for a relative with dementia for 10 years and he doesn't want to do it anymore. His health is being affected and he is very depressed about mom coming to live with us again. We finally agreed to it and we have had her with us twice for six months at a time. He said he just can't do it again.
My mother has money for assisted living but I know she would rather live with her family. My brother is in charge of her money and he has already divided it up between us with the understanding that we will return it as she needs it. We never discussed health issues when we first made this agreement.
We are looking into adult day care but that would only be two days a week for 5 hours a day.
I told my brother and husband that I feel torn about what to do. They both feel betrayed about my feeling torn. I love my husband very much and I don't want to ruin my marriage. I also care about my mother. Does anyone have any ideas, opinions or suggestions about what to do is this situation?
Yes, bro and even mom will be upset, but that is life. You will be worst off if you give in.
I am troubled that your brother "divided up" your mother's money while she's still alive. I don't think that's appropriate at all, and I think it's probably illegal. Are you sure that he hasn't used up "his" share and doesn't want to have to admit that the money for her assisted living no longer exists?
Your mother may prefer to live with family (or may think she prefers it, having never been in assisted living) but you should not be sacrificing your marriage or your husband's happiness to satisfy her preferences. She has money - it should be used for her care. If your brother wants to keep her full time that's his decision, but you aren't bound by it. You aren't bound to give your mother a home unless she'd be out on the street and starving otherwise (and some would argue not even then).
Additionally, we stayed in a motel a couple times when we went back to take care of her house that she was selling. She wanted to be involved, but she was so disoriented by being in a hotel (she thought she was in a hospital and didn't know how she got there) that I wondered if I'd done the right thing by bringing her along. Also, even with just a couple days in a hotel, it made it hard to return to my house and she really had no idea where she lived for weeks after the hotel stays. On one trip, we stayed with her sister and that didn't help her - it was still a matter of being in a place she wasn't used-to even though it included one extra familiar person (her sister).
I've had some friends that were successful with the six months between two siblings plan but I think when a person has memory loss and mild dementia that it's probably not going to work, long-term. So, watch how your mother reacts, but I suspect going back-and-forth will be too much for her.
So, what's best for her might really be to stay in one place.
As for your promise, sadly, you'll have to break it. It was made 25 years ago and under different circumstances. Things have changed. You have another person in your life who deserves to be part of the decision, your mother's mental health isn't the same and, even though you should have spoken-up back when you made the promise that you might have to undo it if you got married, it's still not reasonable to hold you to it, now.
Give yourself a break. Breaking the promise makes you feel guilty but it doesn't mean you don't love all the people involved. Your husband isn't a bad person for not being able to handle the situation. Your brother isn't being particularly understanding about this, but he's not a bad person for trying to hold you to the promise, either.
The bottom line is that you can't have it all - no matter what you do, you probably won't feel good about it. Do your best, live with your guilt but try to remind yourself that you're doing your best and do what you can to just remember that.
Her mild dementia does not mean that she is incompetent to handle her financial business in a business like manner. Nor does it sounds like your brother is the best choice to be her durable POA since he has already mishandled her money and that is her money not his.
It would further anger your brother, but I wish your mother would change her mind while she still has her mind about who is her durable POA.
Even if she were incompetent, that was the wrong thing to do. What on earth was he thinking by doing that?
It does not make sense to give you the money with the expectation that you will give it back when she needs it. That's stupid! What does he expect you to do with it in the meantime invest it. Well, she can invest it if she wants to. There is nothing to be gained by dividing the money up. Sounds like bribery money to me. Where does he expect ya'll to have money from to take care of your mother in your house? Sounds like he wants you to spend your own money on her since he expects you to give the other money back. What does he plan on doing with his part of her money? Have you asked him about that? I bet he will not or would not like that question.
You are married now and you were single back then. As a married person, your first commitment is to your husband who is not healthy enough or up to the challenge of this.
Does your brother realize that it is not good for a person with dementia to be moved even every six months. Is he in denial of what a challenge it is for anyone, even a healthy person to look after someone with dementia? Is he trying to protect some sort of future inheritance which may or may not be there after her care and death? Why does he want ya'll to be the first to take care of your mother in your home? It was his idea to begin with, he should be first unless his plan is to get her into your house and never let her move in with him and his wife. Sounds sneaky to me.,
Whenever there is a discussion like this everything belongs on the table for a full and honest of discussion of he reality of this disease, people's own health and financial well being that don't and should not be thrown under the bus, but too often are either by others or by the person themselves, the financial well being of the parent, the parent's health and a realistic view of present and future implications of the future health needs of the parent and how best to approach them for their safety and care plus the well being of others. Who is going to pay for the parent's care also needs to be discussed and also the future plans about what to do when the money is about to run out. All aspects both future and present concerns need to be asked, researched and talked about.
Right now, my step-sister and I are discussing my dad's present and future care in light of his rapidly declining Alzheimer's, recent diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease, living at home with three 24/7 caregivers whom she coordinates very well, the upkeep of the house and other bills that would not be there if he were in an assisted living, his own statements from last spring that he wanted to move into an assisted living place after his wife died which took place in May of last year, his current boredom at home, his changing his mind about going to assisted living, how long his long term care policy will last and the best use of his money for someone who is 89 years old and might live beyond the time of his long term care policy, and the pressure and stress on my step-sister who is his durable and medical POA who went through a lot with her mother's care as her POA and the use of her long term care policy, plus I live 8 hours away and both my wife and are on full disability. A lot to consider, but we are seeking the input of his doctors, our own knowledge of the situation, and information we can both research from a site like this which I've already sent her a lot of information from. The unique thing is that years ago, our relationship was not all that great, but she has wonderfully changed and after her mother's death apologized to me for how mean her mother had treated me.
As an adult, you have the right to change your mind from 25 years ago. . As and adult and as a couple, you are within your right to have boundaries for the sake of your own well being and having a life. Does your brother and his have good boundaries in their life?
Sorry to be so log winded this morning but all of these ideas and questions keep coming to mind.
Legally, obviously not.
Morally… a teeny, tiny bit, maybe, but only to its fundamental aim of caring for your mother. You are NOT bound to the hypothetical arrangements precisely as agreed at that long distant time, when nobody knew what the real circumstances would be.
Much has changed since you and your brother made that agreement in principle. The agreement will have to change too, and be adapted to present realities. If your brother cannot accept that he is being a complete wombat, and paying no respect to the very real needs of your actual, present day, there-in-the-flesh husband.
Bringing him round to reality sounds as if it will be heavy going, for which I am very sorry for you, but have patience and try to work out comprehensive care for your mother that involves both siblings and their partners as far as they are freely willing to give their commitment. You are not in the wrong; your brother is being wilfully obdurate.
There are many examples of destroyed marriages in the midst of caregiving on this site. Often the destruction is but a symptom of deeper problems within the marriage that the stress of caregiving brings to the surface.
One of the major themes that arises from this collateral damage is one spouse is more connected to a parent (mom or dad) than they are to the spouse. This leaves the spouse feeling all alone. Some wives on this sight are still fighting for their marriage to a man who is more emotionally married to mom than he is to her. Sorry to be so blunt but that is actually what they have written. I've only read of one wife who abandoned her disabled husband to care for her lonely, but rich mom and expressed no regrets about her decision. Some husbands have waited for their wives to return after years of being gone taking care of mom whom the doctor said should be in a nursing home only to find her more upset over putting mom in a nursing home than being glad to be back with her husband. Other husbands have just considered their wives gone to either mom or to dad and have ended up divorcing them. Sometimes, but we don't here about this too often a husband his overly attached to his dad and thus easily dominated into a situation where he is emotionally abandoning his wife.
People may disagree with my observations, but this is what I've seen over the years of being on this site since around 2009 or 2010.
Don't let this happen to you and your husband.
How in green acers does your brother know when and if your mother at 91 one is going to need Medicaid in at least 5 years and one month so that their 5 year look back does not catch his moving of the money? Also, whatever is above the legal gifting level allowed by the IRS, he has just created a tax burden for his mother. He can't avoid that now, even by paying the money back. I would talk with a lawyer, but I'm almost sure that your brother has made an illegal move with his mom's money as her POA since she has not been determined to be incompetent which is normally required for a durable POA to be activated. If the lawyer says that is so, then your brother no longer has the legal grounds to be her POA and should be removed for that decision. Might have been a well intentioned move, but it sounds motivated by a desire to protect an inheritance that has not been executed by the will and flatly I believe was not legal. Truly, the love of money is the root of all evil. I hope he is not the executor of the estate as well. I hope that I'm completely wrong, but I doubt it. Talk to a lawyer about this. Your mother's money needs protecting.
Whatever money is left should be used for Mother's care. Your first responsibility is to yourself and your marriage. That is also your brother's first responsibility. You can both see Mom is safe and well cared for but that does not mean in your homes. At her age and health, by the time she gets use to one place she is being moved again. Not a good situation at all. Good luck!
My Mom's POA (a sibling) suggested making a gift from mom's assets instead of puchasing hearing aids she needed. That was the start of the dysfunctional family nonsense as well as sibs reporting me to APS alleging financial explotation, when that did not occur, and she knew it since she was the one with access to the assets.
You don't talk with a criminal, you report them. You don't ask them to make it better and if they don't cooperate, then call APS and report his financial exploitation. Report him on Monday morning!
APS is probably going to want to know if your mother is competent to file a charge against your brother and is she aware that her son has financially exploited her as her POA? Does your mother know that your brother has done this with her money? Is she competent to understand that what he did is a crime and not allowed because he is her POA?
Today is Saturday and Monday is coming. Make that call!
I may be wrong, but my guess is that your brother is being stubborn and unreasonable rather than sneaky and larcenous. Unless you have reason to suspect that Mom was not properly cared for during her stay with brother & wife, I disagree that you should report him to the authorities. He IS your brother, after all, and while your husband comes first, family members deserve some loyalty unless they have proven to be untrustworthy and self-serving.
My advice is to sit down with your brother, just the two of you with no interruptions, to discuss the entire matter. Show him all the responses from this thread. If he won't budge from his position, then you'll just have to say "I'm sorry. I love you, I love our mother, but my life partner comes first. I am not obliged to throw my marriage on the sacrificial altar because of a verbal agreement a quarter of a century ago when I was young and single!"
Best of luck in this sticky situation. Wouldn't it be nice if family members always behaved in a rational and caring manner?
A family that can be supportive of one another is my dream, the care I am providing is difficult, but would be so much easier with just a little bit of support!
It sounds like she needs it now, for her ongoing care. You and your brother can use the money he distributed to pay for her Assisted Living expenses. That is what he said, right? If she needed the money back you'd both give it back. So she can pay her own way as long as the money lasts, and then apply for Medicaid.
Or, of course, he can choose to keep her at his home year around. Maybe that arrangement works well for him.
What he can't do is expect you to continue to take a turn having Mom in your home. That is a decision for you and your husband. Brother has no say at all in that.
Brother tried to ensure that you and he would have an inheritance. He tried to set things up so that Mother would get to use taxpayer money rather than her own when the time came -- not so she would benefit, but so that the two of you would. I wish he had consulted a lawyer about the best way to do this. As it is, I think you should consult an Elder Law attorney about the best way to handle this financial situation now.
I personally would not go so far as to want to make legal trouble for your brother, but you do need to put a stop to your half-time caregiving.
Bottom line, without sounding insensitive, even though you must help your mother, your priority is your immediate family. My pastor confirmed this issue for me which gave me some peace. Try to find a good home for your mom and visit her often. But don't put your marriage at risk.
And as for the agreement, things have changed and you are no longer able to meet your earlier promise. If your family doesn't understand, you need to know that we all have family members who don't (or won't) understand. As they are making decisions that are best for them, so must you. God bless you and yours
Just to clarify, Debbie’s brother (Bill) transferred his mother’s money through a reputable estate attorney and all monies are managed by a reputable financial advisor. It is true that he did this in order to satisfy the Medicaid 5-year “lookback” period but this transfer is completely lawful. Debbie and I were simply told what would happen and had no input whatsoever. You need to understand that Bill is a NON-CPA accountant that so wants to be important. Despite a lifetime at the same company he has never been a supervisor or manager. No wonder…he used his father’s illness to escape an unpleasant work assignment.
My issue that is Debbie and I have saved and invested wisely and really do not need her mother’s money. It is true that almost 30 years ago Debbie agreed to have her mom or dad live with her for six months out of the year but as everyone thus far has opined, that agreement entered into so long ago and before she was married is not valid. Even if Debbie was bound by that agreement, I certainly am not. After the money was transferred we agreed to return it to Debbie’s mom in increments as needed – her brother made the same promise. We also agreed that the money would be conservatively invested to remain liquid and we did so. After a year our mutual financial advisor advised us that we had lost a huge amount of money over the past year by being so conservative but I proudly told him that we had had made a promise and abided by it. Only then did we learn that Brother Bill had, behind our backs, instructed the financial adviser to invest aggressively. Unlike her brother who is both a weakling and a liar, I am an honorable guy and will keep my promise, even if Debbie would pre-decease me. Anyone who knows me, even if not one of my fans, would confirm that.
Returning the money is fine with me as I never wanted it in the first place – Deb’s mom living with us is another matter. Watching her remove her teeth, clean out food stuck in the plates and then the re-ingest it is a bit much for me. Picking bits of dropped food particles off of her blouse and throwing them on the floor Is not as bad but still a bit much for me to see on a daily basis. No one will dispute the fact that I have done more for Deb’s mom and dad in 8 years than Brother Bill has done in his entire life. The world consists of doers and those like Brother Bill, a couch potato who runs his mouth but avoids physical labor at all costs. I once had a very close relationship with Deb’s mom and actually felt like she was my “second” mom. When we were first discussing living arrangement and had disagreements, I asked Bill to call me so that we could work things out man to man. However, Brother Bill is a coward and when he knew that Deb and her mom were alone, he called them and eviscerated me with his lies. Of course his boss (wife Ellen) was on the phone for this ex-parte backstabbing. When Deb and I showed her mother the emails which CLEARLY showed Bill to be a liar, she concocted lies in an effort to protect him. Deb’s mother, although knowing her son was lying, never once defended me – understandably, I never felt the same about her. I’m very loyal to those I love but I expect that in return. I never expected Deb’s mom to side with me over her son but I did expect her to at least defend me against what she knew were lies against someone (me) who had helped her more than her own son.
Problems with money manners within that family are nothing new. In 2002, in an effort to buy back their son (Bill) who ignored his parents while keeping in touch with his wealthy aunt set up an irrevocable trust for Bill’s two children – 100K each. Deb’s mom, dad and Brother Bill kept that a secret from her for many years. It worked...Bill was suddenly more attentive. It hurt Deb terribly but hey, except for me who cares about Deb as long as Bill is happy? Bill raised his children to be like him and his domineering wife. No need to give notice before quitting great jobs (UPS), even though someone vouched for them to land the job. Neither child has ever been forced to say ‘thank you’ for a gift despite Aunt Debbie’s generosity. No need to show up at a function just because you were invited and accepted the invitation and although now an adult, just accept gifts at Christmas – no need to return the gesture. Still, they wonder why their nearly 30 year old daughter cannot maintain a job. This gives an idea of the type of people we’re talking about.
I was once a good in-law. I worked on my elderly in-laws house and saved them thousands and thousands of dollars. I loved them very much and enjoyed doing so. When my father-in-law could not climb the stairs when he came home from the hospital, I carried him up two flights. When a contractor wanted $125.00 to install each of 7 Grab bars I did it for free. When they were nervous about having Chem Lawn, for two years I applied weed treatment to an acre of lawn for free. (To be fair, I was reimbursed for parts and supplies). When I found that they suffered from power outages for many years I used my influence to have the local utility fix the problem. When my father-in-law needed to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance (on many occasions), he had a police escort. When I was expected to gush when Bill’s daughter Lindsey landed a job bathing dogs at Pet Smart (with her two college degrees) I gushed as I was expected to do. When I was asked to lie to the daughters illegal Mexican live-in about her relationship with another illegal I promised to do so. (Incidentally, the job at Pet Smart didn’t work out – she lasted two days. Lindsey did not approve of the way the other dog bathers talked. She goes home and screws an illegal Mexican and cheats on him with another illegal Mexican but she will not tolerate any cussing. Understood.) When their son joined the USMC as a mechanic and we were told that he would be riding in the convoys with combat Marines so he could fix the vehicles under fire on the battlefield instead of at a safe base I never called bullsh*t. When we were told that after fixing the tricks all day he would be kicking down doors and routing out enemy combatants at night I went along.
Deb and I have always had a deeply loving relationship – she’s my whole life. However, things are now coming to a head.
Your BIL Bill, sounds like he is what is called a "bookie" a non degree, non-certified CPA. I know this because our son in preparing to get his master's degree and become a Forensic CPA one day.
I would assume that Bill is aware that moving that money has created some gifting tax for his mother which I think is taxed at 30 or 40% for the money above the allowed financial gift given per adult child. The amount allowed per adult child for 2014 is $14,000. I'm not sure about the exact percentage but a tax CPA would know.
I don't know, but am interested to know would not the Medicaid people wonder where all of this money is coming from after they get approved for medicaid or is there a way around that? I don't like that Bill has aggressively invested the money he has. That is not very wise.
By saying that things are coming to a head, does this mean the situation has created a rift between you and Deb?
This question may have already been asked and answered but how old is Debbie's mom?
What happens if her mom suddenly go into a very deep spiral as far as her own health is concerned and suddenly about all of their money is basically spent before 5 years is over? About how much money does mom have to last her for 5 years? Sounds like a real roll of the dice to me.
I'm sure that others will have more helpful input to your update.
I think we'd like to hear how this progresses. When you refuse to have Mom at your house, what happens next?