Mom has dementia and cut me out of her will. Any advice?

First idea - who or what is she giving it to instead?
Second idea - was she actually competent to change her will? Maybe you should not have been willing to pay!!
Third idea - could a neutral third party, or maybe some other family member who she trusts who would be in your corner at least a little, talk to your mom and express that it is not usual to disinherit children unless they have greatly wronged their parent, (in real life, might also be done if they would be at risk of losing government benefits if disabled) and express concern for your feelings and needs to her?

How odd. But my first question is why are you paying toward her home fees and for the lawyer's fee if she has enough assets to leave in a will? Shouldn't she be using her own funds for her own care? I suppose it makes a little more sense if you are thinking, "oh well, I'll get it back in the end," but one can never count on that unless the estate is quite large. She may need care for another 5 to 10 years, and as the dementia progresses she may need more expensive care. Even if she didn't disinherit you, there may not be anything left to inherit. I really don't get it that she isn't paying her own way now.

I also wonder who she is leaving money to instead of you? I have heard of parents setting up trusts for disabled children and pretty much not leaving anything to the kids who have no disabilities. She says she is excluding you because you don't need it ... who does she think does?

I telephoned a dementia hotline and spoke to a lady who was helpful. She said to me that my mother is not being deliberately spiteful by cutting me out of her will. It is because she has dementia and she is not thinking rationally and the fact that I am getting upset about it means I have not fully come to terms with her dementia. Now I see it in a better light. There is nothing I can do about the situation. The lady on the telephone said to me that a parent does not have to give a child anything when they die. The law does not state that they HAVE to. I feel a bit better.

Is it legal for a person with dementia to change their will? I wonder why you paid for her to change it. I agree she should be paying for her own costs - care home fees and for changing her will. That is what her money is for, not for leaving to others. I can see that accepting that your mum has dementia would help and I am glad that you feel a bit better, but continuing to pay for part of her costs, when she is able to pay for them herself. doesn't seem right to me.

My mother went to a solicitor to change it and her solicitor did not question it. Mind you if she did not tell the solicitor she had dementia then the solicitor would be none the wiser and would go ahead with the request. I agreed to pay for her to change the will because my mother said if I did not agree then I was a horrible daughter and no good to her and she never wanted anything to do with me ever again and did not want me to attend her funeral

Poster, you are following the orders of someone who has dementia? Even when they don't make sense? Umm ... does that really seem healthy to you?

I am worn out with it all, and tired of all the stress. it is meant to be Christmas but I have lost all enthusiasm.

The emotional blackmail is nasty, but, honestly, having had it all my life, it is better not to give in to it. I understand that you are tired and worn out by the stress, and have lost enthusiasm for Christmas. You are not alone in that on this site and I expect in the larger world. I hope you will stop giving in to your mother's unreasonable demands - for your own sake. Has she made threats if you don't pay for part of her care home fees? I am wondering if your mother had some of these qualities before she developed dementia. By no means are you a horrible daughter and of no use to her. That is disease talking. Please try to detach a bit as see her as ill, and these words as coming from the illness. I know it is hard. I hear words like that too. Know that you are a worthwhile person and daughter, no matter what your mother has said or says in the future.
Please try to do something good for you today and tomorrow. You are worth it. She is fortunate to have you. (((((((((((((((hugs))))))))))))))

Thank for your reply. I am now going to have a mince pie and some tea. I live in the UK so its late but a treat will make me feel a bit better. As far as today is concerned, its almost bed time here. I will try to detach a bit. The issue of her care home fees has never come up because I have always willingly paid them. I need to make clear that my mother no longer thinks I am of no use an a horrible daughter but that is because I give in to her demands and do as she says. If I do as she wants without question then I am wonderful. As soon as I object to something then I am awful and no good and I get told that other sons and daughters do not object so I should do as they do and behave as they behave. For instance, when my gran was still alive (my fathers mother), my father used to to and see her and do jobs for her like putting up shelves or mending the iron or going to the store and buying her a bag of groceries. I cannot do that as my mother is in a care home and even if she was still in her own home, I live too far away to do that. I have someone I know who put their career on hold to look after their father and said there is no way my father is going into a home so I will stay home and look after him myself. They do say you should stay in your own home for as long as possible. I have not given up my career to look after my mother and some would think that all I have done is shove her into a carre home and forgotten about her. My mothers elder sister never went into a home because her daughter had a granny appartment attached to her house and between my cousin, her husband and their two boys, they took turns in looking after the elderly mother. My cousin and her husband both worked so they had a nurse come and sit with the mother. When the boys got home from school, the nurse would leaeve and the boys would take over until one of the parents got in from work and then the boys could do as they wanted. If on the days that the boys had after school activities, then the nurse would simply stay longer until the parents came home.. I cannot do that because I do not have a house and I do not have the financial means to employ a nurse and I am siingle and on my own so the care home was the best option for my mother.

Mince pie sounds great! One of my favourites. A treat usually does help. What others do and what you do are not the same thing. Comparing is not kind. Not everyone has the resources to keep their parent or other loved one at home till they die. You are said that you do not and there are others here who are not able, for one reason or another to do that. I am glad you have not given up your career. You need it to look after yourself. I certainly don't think that you have shoved her in a home and forgotten about her. Obviously you haven't. Sometimes a care home is the best option. My mother is in assisted living. I could not possible have her live with me due to her personality disorder and narcissism. Now she has paranoia as well and won't take meds for it so she is quite a handful. You can find information about detaching online. I think it would help you, given your mother's tendency to use emotional blackmail. Please don't think badly of yourself for not being able to do what others in your family could do. Each situation is unique.
I lived in the UK for about 7 years when I was young. Keep in touch. Caretaking, even at a distance, which I do too, is stressful.
((((((hugs))))) and Merry Christmas

So know that you did your best based on your circumstances. Not everyone should quit their job and care for their elderly parent. Your mother has the funds for a care home, so - let her go to one. I will tell you this much, even if you had the means to have her live with you, based on her current personality, she will be just as spiteful and mean to you - in your own home. The only thing worse would be - if it got so bad, you would have difficulty moving her from your home to the care home. And when she needs 24hr care, where will that leave you - all by yourself to tend her? In way over your head.

So, like my 2 aunties told me: Your father has money. Let his money pay for your mom's expenses - her supplies, her medical costs, etc..

You see, I spent like 15 years paying this out of my measly paycheck - thinking that it was fair since I am living rent-free at my parents' home. I can honestly say it wasn't with the thought that I was going to get this house/land. My father is very old fashioned. He has told me several times that this place is going to my 2 brothers in the US mainland. If I want a house/land, I have to marry a guy who has one. So, I never ever thought of this place going to me. So, since your mother has money, let her start paying for everything 100%.

My father has been telling me that I'm a bad daughter - with such hateful emotion into it. Yeah, I admit, for years, I cried hard whenever he said this to me - in the privacy of my bedroom. Only when I found this site, I started to learn to think of ME and not my obligations to my parents 100%. This includes learning to like me enough to stand firmly against my father and just say: No. Just a few days ago, he said hatefully that I'm a Bad Daughter. It didn't hurt me at all. I was able to stand there and just stare at him. I refused to do what he wanted - which involves taking more than the recommended dosage of herbal supplements. I've been told that this is called "detaching." Ha! I bought a book on how to detach and never got around to reading it. It seems I stumbled onto how to do it. =) You can do it, too.

my mother does not have the funds for a care home. Here in the UK we are means tested which means if you do not have much money, you can get the Government to help pay some of the fees of your care home. They come and assess you and look at what savings you already have and if you have less than a certain amount then you get help. My mother has less than the required amount so she only pays one third of her rent and the Government pays the rest. When I am too old to look after myself independently and need to go into a home, I will have too much money in savings to get any Goverment help so I will have to pay the full amount of fees whatever they are. I will get two pensions when I retire and a sum of money from my employers and that sum of money will be over and above the required amount to ask the Government to help pay my care home fees. I am going to look to ways of detaching but need to do it in a way where my mother cannot think I am neglecting her

Sounds like you are looking after yourself which is good. Some on here have given up or lost jobs caregiving and don't know what they will do when they get older. It is ideal with people who are difficult" and critical to detach with - ideal but not easy. Some of the articles will not apply to you, but some will - just pick and choose what would work for you. Here is one title "Love More, Care Less: 'Detached Attachment' and Other Boundary-Setting Ideas'" that speaks of that concept. Others talk about detaching with love. It means a change in oneself, more than anything. Good luck!

I live in the US. I've heard of mince pie before. Do you have a recipe that you'd like to share?

no i do not have a recipe. I have no time to bake pies so I buy them ready made. Also thanks for the info on detachment. I will have a look. Are you in the USA emio? Are most people on here from America?

I am in Canada, poster, but went to boarding school for 2 years in England - Surrey and university in Scotland -St Andrews. I had wonderful experiences there and almost feel more at home in the UK than here. I managed to get three of my four kids over for a visit too. I have been back a few times over the years, and really need to go over this year or very soon to see a nephew and his family before I get too old and before my nephew's son grows up too much.

I think most people on here are from the US but we certainly have others from the UK, a few from Canada and other, like booklvr, from further than that.

caregiver752104 - not too many people make their own mince meat anymore. You can buy a jar of it in the store up here. Some make small tarts with it like butter tarts, and some make a full 2 crust pie and fill as you would with any store bought filling. I don't know if it is as well known in the US. It is available around Christmas up here.

Can I add that my mother was attending a church. It was the pastor and the pastors wife who befriended my mother and visited her frequently in the home. Because they were so kind she decided to change her will leaving everything to them. However, she fell out with them over a matter which I won't go into and decided not to leave them anything and left the church. The pastor had come to the home to conduct worship but the home banned him as my mum said they upset her. She was upset because they warned her about a friend she made from the church and since they knew the friend better they said the friend was unstable and didn't want my mother to get mixed up with someone unsuitable. My mother didn't believe them and then said they were not worthy of her assets. The pastor contacted me and said he never wanted my mothers assets because he thought they should come to me and he said he tried desperately to persuade my mother not to disinherit me but she was adamant that he should have them. He said his intention was to hand whatever money was left to him to me and say to me this is yours not mine. I told my mother and she said he is lying to me. She said he persuaded her to hand over her assets and she never really wanted to but she said he manipulated her. The pastor said to me no way did he persuade or manipulate my mother. What she did was entirely her decision and nobody else. I am inclined to believe the pastor but my mother thinks he is nasty and for some reason the care home are on her side and seem to take the same line against him.

Your mother sounds like a handful!

You have my permission - for what that's worth - to tell her white lies and keep things from her that would only upset her. I told my father once, when he was being difficult, "You know, we don't tell you things, and sometimes we even lie to you." He said, "I know, and I appreciate it!"

Poster, if she is living at government expense in a nursing home, there is nothing left to inherit. If she has dementia and says she changed her Will, it probably never happened. You will hear many strange things in the future, do not take them as real unless you can verify them through others. Our mom insisted aunt Ceil was fine and going with us to a party. In reality, aunt Ceil was in a nursing home with a broken arm.

Pstie - I think you have not understood what I was trying to say. Yes my mother is in home at government expense but that doesn't mean to say she has no savings. Here in the UK the government say that you are allowed to have savings to the value of £20,000. If you have more money than that, then they cannot help you pay your care home fees. My mother at the time of going into the home had £18,000 so obviously that makes her eligible for government help. My mom also has her old age pension, plus her widows pension and also she inherited my fathers pension from his job. The only thing she is not allowed to have anymore is her disability living allowance because they only give that to people who have their own home. If you go into a care home they take that away from you because obviously you dont need money to help you live your day to day life as you have carers 24/7 in the home. My mother can just about live on the pension she gets from my dad and her own state government pension, plus the money I give her each month to help her pay the one third of her care home fee and the government tops up the rest. She is too frightned to touch any of her savings because she thinks it will leave her broke and she says she needs that money for a rainy day. So she never buys herself anything much. The odd cd here and there which we get from Amazon and that is because it is very inexpensive. She never goes out to a restaurant for someones birthday because she says "I cannot afford it because I am a pensioner and do not have money to splash around" but for goodness sake she has her savings and it would not hurt to take some of that money and have a nice time.. After all, she cannot take it with her when she dies, so in my opinion, she may as well have a good time whist she is still here and to hell with the savings going down. I pointed out to her that even if she spent all her savings the government would NEVER see her on the streets.. They would HAVE to do something to help her financially. My mother has a sister who is two years younger than her who still has her own home and her sister said to me.. Your mother is very fortunate that she has savings to that degree.. It is not a fortune but at least it is something. Her sister said she wished she had that sort of money and if she did, she would not leave it sitting in the bank gathering interest, she would take some of it and buy a few luxuries or go on a holiday. After all, she said at their time of life what do they need that money for? So that savings money that my mother had would have come to me and if she had carried on with the attitude she has now of not spending it, then it would remain pretty much untouched and it would have come to me. A friend of mine said its not a fortune but at least she would be leaving me something which is better than nothing and I could put it towards something for myself or I could use some of it towards my mothers funeral which I might add is already paid for but if I wanted a better quality coffin then some of her money that she would have left me could have gone towards a top of the range coffin.

oh and I have no reason to doubt that she is going to change her will. She said she contacted a solicitor who will do this for her but her solicitor has to come back in the new year to finalize the arrangements. All she did was book a solicitor and talk about it so nothing has been done. It will be done in the new year. My mother may have dementia and say some out of the ordinary things, but at times she has her head screwed on and can make coherent decisions. For instance, she was in a previous care home. It was whilst she was in the previous home that she was diagnosed with dementia. She did not like the home and wanted to leave. She did not ask anyone to help her find a new home. She got the telephone directory and looked at the list of care homes and telephoned them one by one and asked if they have any vacancies. Most of them said no and some said there is a waiting list. Then she decided that since she is blind in one eye maybe the blind society could help her so she phoned them and said I am an old woman in a home, do you have homes for the blind. They said yes and they said they had such a home in her area. My mother then contacted me and said she had foud a new home and could we go and have a look. I went down and went with her to see this new home and they said they could take her immediately. So you see sometimes she is quite capable of sorting important matters out and if her dementia was that bad she would not have been capable of finding her new care home all by herself.

I find this time of year especially stressful. I have no family because I am an only child and have no children of my own and no husband or partner. My extended family on both my mothers and my fathers side of my family for some reason do not want to know me so I am never invited to them for Christmas. I have tried getting to know them and being friendly and I am faced with nothing very much. I have a married cousin who lives an hour away from me and he has three beautiful daughters. I tried getting to know them and was invited to their house a couple of times which was nice, but then suddenly they stopped contacting me. When I asked why (because for the life of me I could not think of anything I had done wrong) I had taken presents for the children and contributed to the dinner so it is not as if I did not behave properly. I was brought up with manners and if you go to someones house you never go empty handed so I always take something for the host. Anyway as far as I could tell, the last time I went to see them for dinner it was very nice and friendly and pleasant. Then they stopped responding to my emails and I asked why and the reason was not because they did not like me but because they felt they had no time for other family members outside of their immediate family because they needed to pay full attention to the children whilst the children were still young. I was horrified. I would have been more than happy to help them in any way with the children. After all they are my blood family.
I actually felt insulted and I almost told my aunt what my cousin had said but she is elderly so I thought it best to leave it. So I do not spend Christmas with family because they are simply not interested. I spend it with a friend but i would love to be able to share a family Chrismas and they know full well I am on my own, a singe woman so they do not even care about that and bother to say what are you doing for Christmas are you on your own. Then there is the case of my mother.. they do not even ask how she is.

(((((((poster))))))) you are in a difficult situation. I will answer more soon, but can't too much right now. I guess you just have to build your own "family" from friends". Many of us here find that blood relatives are not friends. Wish it were different. You have to carve out your own life and not rely on them...

easier said than done. Especially when others have family all around them and talk to me about seeing this, that or the other relative over Christmas. It makes me think, well I will give my relatives one last try and see what they say. I actually contacted a relative in America (a cousin). She was on facebook and although she was happy to have the odd chat with me, never once did she ask about me or my life so I ended up deleting her cos I thought whats the point. I have tried again with another relative also on facebook and wait to see what happens. Maybe I am a fool because I keep hoping against hope that they will come up trumps but they never do. I did go to Australia to stay with some relatives a couple of years ago but I no longer keep in touch with them because all the things they promised we would do as a family once I got over there never came to light and they made excuses and I was disappointed and to thank them for their hospitality I cooked some nice meals for them and at the end of the day they did not appreciate it and I was told afterwards that they said I could have done more to show my appreciation for putting me up in their house for three weeks. In other words what they implied in not so many words was that since I got a very inexpensive trip because I stayed with them for nothing I should have been more thankful to them. For goodness sake, I bought their 6 year old child a couple of dvds and some presents from Engand.. what more do they expect

Are the laws in England such that a person who has dementia can go ahead and change their will or POA?? Can you get anyone to do a quick mental status eval? My mom with vascular dementia went through a stage where she could call and sound OK enough to make an appointment (that no one could help her keep, because she did not think of the practicality) and order stuff (that no one needed or could use!!)

And I also think it very unfair that people find you unpleasant for reasons they cannot seem to honestly share with you! You seem VERY nice on line here.

Poster after reading all your comments, it sounds you so much want a family you can spend time and celebrations with. Have you ever thought about becoming a foster parent or a Big Sister? Blood doesn't make a family, but people who care about each other.

hi poster - reading your posts, I really wonder if you will ever have good relationships with your family. I do understand that you want good family relationships. So do I, but for my immediate family, that is not my reality. So I have friends to fill those gaps. It can be done. I can see that you have tried, but that it is not working. I do hope your mum changes her will back to what it was originally. She does seem very concerned about keeping her money. I think your aunt's attitude is better, but nothing you can do about it anyway. ((((((((hugs)))))))) to you and best wishes for a better new year

Poster, I do have a pretty good family, and I know I would be very sad indeed to go through the holidays with no one who loved me. I'm sorry this is true for you.

Do you do volunteer work? Are you involved with a church? Do you have interests like hiking or bird watching or playing bridge that would involve meeting people in groups? What about taking Adult Education classes in interesting subjects, or getting involved with politics? I had to do that once when I had a broken heart, and I made some nice friends once I started looking around and getting out of the house.

Have you ever had therapy? I don't think you're crazy, but you do have a big sadness in your life. I have been in therapy several times, and it helped a lot. A therapist might help you learn to reach out and find friends that want to be your friends. Let us know how things are going.

I am not short of friends and have no trouble reaching out to friends and do not need the help of a therapist on that score. But at the end of the day friends however nice they are, are not relatives, nor are anyone I adopt. What I want and hope for are BLOOD relations and I am going to keep trying until they accept me

I honesty am beginning to think this is not the right forum for me anymore

happy new year everyone