My partners Mum has dementia, and is currently looked after at home by relatives and has carers 4 times a day. We have been together for 4 years, we are madly in love and have just bought our first house, also we live 200 miles away.
His Dad just passed away after a long illness, the plan after his passing was to sell the house and get full time care for her. But my partner has now decided he’d rather care for her himself, and split the duties with his siblings and her grandchildren.
We live so far away, if he did it 3 days a week he would have to work the other 4 days to continue to pay our own bills. I would never see him, our future plans of having babies, holidays and cats are out of the window.
I could understand if she had a short time to live, but she could easily live for 10 year or more so it’s just not sustainable. Also his brother is highly unreliable and if he knows my partner is there, he will just leave the house and often he doesn’t come back for days. My partner could quite easily be there full time. Also asking her grandchildren to help, means them giving up their entire weekends possibly for the next decade of their lives as they work Monday to Friday.
Putting her in to care is the right thing to do, but he’s scared she’ll deteriorate. When I’ve mentioned this he gets defensive. If I convince him, and something happens to her I’d feel guilty forever. He just doesn’t seem to consider me as the priority, we aren’t married yet, but he is my family now. I don’t know what to do. Everyone I’ve spoken to so far, seems to agree with me. Any advice?
That's a dream world. How can he tell his sibs and nieces and nephews what to do? As you say, he could quite easily become the fulltime caregiver.
Barb's answer: "If he won't consider even temporary placement, you can see where this is going. Sell the property and move on."
Barb is 100% correct. Sell the house you've bought and move on. You will always be second fiddle to his mother, and that's not the way a healthy marriage should be. You are more in love with him than he is with you, apparently.
Your partner has *just* lost his father. This is not the moment when he's going to be amenable to putting his mother into care. When did the father die, exactly?
Also: whereabouts are you and MIL, roughly; and how many responsible adults are included in the care plan (all siblings + offspring added up)?
What is it with everyone all of a sudden that they think the future has to be "decided" in one summit meeting? Plans develop. Feelings alter. Answers emerge. You do not have to force your partner to any final decision at this point, so seriously don't.
You should be his top priority.
How can he know he he hasn't tried it.?
If he won't consider even temporary placement, you can see where this is going. Sell the property and move on.
If you both had a solid plan in place before dad's death, perhaps you need to give him some time to process his grief and realize what the best thing to do is.
Your instincts may be telling you that you aren’t satisfied with how things are. Listen to your gut feelings. I think it’s natural to want to be his number one priority.
It’s complicated, especially since you own property together. It seems like his mind is made up. I suppose you could sell the house and move on with your life.
Why are you living so far apart?
Stick around and others will have some ideas.
Being “madly in love”, and based solely on those feelings, buying property (usually a MAJOR investment) TOGETHER, is typically a significant mistake, and often also results in long term serious legal difficulties. “been together” has no legal meaning. I’m SURE you knew that when you committed to purchasing property, and I’m sure you know that now.
Your “partner”’s “plan” is, as YOU realize, already based on decisions he thinks he is making for other people. The obvious fallacy there is that people CHANGE THEIR MINDS. HE has changed his mind already, possibly having actually determined that round the clock full time care is VERY EXPENSIVE, often unreliable, and also often inaccessible.
When ADULTS are fully, truly prepared to make long term decisions for themselves and then for others, they arm themselves as completely as possible with all the information available in advance of making promises.
Both you and your “partner” seem to have brought many expectations to at least two or more situations, including the physical care of a dependent adult, an expensive mutual purchase, strong feelings for each other, a long distance relationship, the legal obligations of care and mutual property ownership......without fully examining the realities of what confronts you as you move forward.
Are you both able to address the uncomfortable truths about what your resources are, what your individual and mutual obligations are, to yourselves as individuals, a vulnerable adult relative, and each other, and how, or IF, you can move forward?
Also, are you both clear about your legal responsibilities and rights in all of the parts of your life that intersect?
Emotional decisions can make wonderful movie plots, but reality can be SO different. Hope you both are willing to do the very hard work of figuring this complicated situation out, and find out how to keep your lives moving forward in the best way for each of you.
Tell your b/f to keep that in mind when making decisions on behalf of his mother. Oh, and also that he is placing unreasonable expectations on family members, especially grandchildren, who have extremely busy lives and not much extra time to devote to caring for their grandmother. Plus, he is giving up the probability of a full life with you for this idea he has.
If he insists on moving forward with his idea, it may be time to move on yourself. Only you can make that decision.
Best of luck!
"But my partner has now decided he’d rather care for her himself, and split the duties with his siblings and her grandchildren." That may work for a short amount of time to help "grannie" in the immediate month or two after the death of her husband but that does not a long term plan make, because most family members will want to go back to their own lives i.e. get back to normal.
You live 200 miles away. Driving back and forth each week is hard enough without having hands-on caregiving awaiting at the destination. Your partner drives 200 miles and arrives at his mother's house. What's waiting for him? Laundry? Grocery shopping? Meal preparation? Mowing the lawn? What exactly is he going to do? And for how long is he willing to do it?
And what happens when his unreliable brother doesn't show up? Is your boyfriend's employer going to understand when he doesn't show up for work? Remember that he's paid to do a job and plenty of people can probably replace him. And then what? He's unemployed? Where's the gas money to drive 200 miles going to come from? How's he going to pay for your house? Can you afford your house by yourself if worse came to worse?
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