When did the stuff hit the fan?

[Anonymous]

In a nutshell, my aging parents are financially irresponsible and have no plan to move to a house that is more accessible (dad has mobility problems and house is two floors, no bathroom or bedroom on main). They can't afford copays for treatments they deem elective, but in all reality are important preventative treatments or are needed before conditions progress to an even worse condition. They insist they are fine, never ask for help, and refuse help when offered. I imagine this can only go on for so long before there is a true emergency and their life as they know it is blown up. It's so frustrating to watch this knowing that in all likelihood this will not end well for them and will result in emergency intervention by me, which could have been prevented with planning. Anyone been there before? Any advice?

[Anonymous]

Yep. Went through that. Stupidest thing they did was buy a new house with a master bedroom upstairs in mid70s. By 80 they were out (one dead, one moved into a slightly more accessible home though I can’t imagine she’ll be able to handle it for more than a couple years).

Thing is, it was their decisions to make. We kids staged it interventions twice - once insisting on a trip to the ER after a fall which resulted in a multiday hospitalization and another time to get the right level of in-home hospice care when mom was in denial and not able to adequately care for dad. In the end, my dad died at home as he wanted to and lived pretty independently up until the last weeks of his life which was always his wish so I’m pretty at peace with it. The last years were bumpy and hard to watch and he likely would still be alive if he took better care of his health but he lived how he wanted to live and ultimately I respect that. It made the bad decisions a easier to live with over when we accepted that was what he wanted and backed off on trying to impose what we thought were better choices except in a couple extreme situations as described above.

[Anonymous]

Very common. People don’t plan for their old age unless they’ve had to take care of aging parents. They have no idea what’s coming and, honestly, most people in their 80s who seem fine physically and mentally have some level of cognitive decline so they become ornery and stubborn and don’t listen to reason. I have experienced everything you have described and I went through a period of exhaustion, resentment and pulling away, only to return to helping because…they are my parents.

I will not do this to my children. That is the only thing I am thankful for in all of this. I e learned what not to do. Good luck, OP.

[Anonymous]

Like PP said, we can learn and not do this to our children.

I finally had to face the fact that one parent could not stay at home because of Alzheimer’s. If they had planned differently and moved to a home without stairs or done construction to the house, they could have stayed as they wished. However, they chose not to make the adjustments when they were of sound mind.

Then, when things became unsafe, there was no choice but to send them somewhere else.

Other parent insisted on staying in house after first parent died. I was highly stressed and taking food there and more.

Finally, I had to accept they might fall and get hurt and I did not have the ability to force another adult of sound mind to move!

They did eventually choose to move. But they made their choices over many decades, and I could only do so much to persuade them to make better choices.

[Anonymous]

Been thru these scenarios now 4x - first with my beloved grandparents, then with my parents.

Member that the inability to make a decision IS a decision, and a significant one. In all cases with the above couples, there was an agreement or promise to “live in our home forever” and a stubborn insistence that “we will NEVER leave our home, will take care of each other, age in place, wing it, be independent, etc.” Great, admirable maybe but
saying this as an active, wealthy 65 year old but not sustainable and unrealistic as a frail 80+.

And with my grandparents and parents, each couple had one emergency medical event that landed one in the hospital, required surgical interventions and all was a precipitous downfall from there. Like a 911 call, emergency surgery, extended recuperation and repeated hospitalizations. With my grandparent, we got a social worker to intervene and make a simple case that specialized medical equipment and care was needed that couldn’t be provided by elderly spouse.

The elderly are one catastrophic slip and fall away from being unable to live at home “independently.”

[Anonymous]

PP 7:11 with a TL; dr summary:

It can happen overnight and it’s horrible. Now at the forefront of my mind because my “forever young” ILs are huge procrastinators and are heading down the “let’s wing it” road. MIL has an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

[Anonymous]

It's not worth worrying about. Because you can not control it. And you do not know.

In our case, the "well" parent died first.

Something you've never thought of will change the complete landscape.

[Anonymous]

You need to give up on the idea that this can happen in a way that is not stressful. It will be stressful regardless of how much they plan or don't plan.

I've seen people refuse to move and be fine and randomly die in their own bed one night. I've seen people go through a move, have a super tough time adjusting (common with memory or cognitive issues) and then not live long enough to make the move worthwhile. I've seen people love their new place, I've seen them hate it or worse, be unsafe there. And of course financially it's a bad deal to move and then not live long. So it's really anyone's guess how this will go and what's the best and safest option.

Lay down the burden of trying to control this, OP. If you really think they're not moving because they mentally can't process making a decision, that's one thing. But sometimes you just have to accept that staying where they are *is* a decision. Even if you don't agree with it.

[Anonymous]

My mom was financially irresponsible her whole life, but she had a high income so she could always recover from the catastrophe du jour.

Until she couldn't.

She had a stroke and was unable to work "on site". Her idea was that she would work remotely from home. She spent three years lying to me about how much money she was making (in effect, basically nothing) and how much money she was spending, which was a huge amount and I still have no idea where it all went. (She spent what was supposed to be 20+ years of retirement money in 3 years.) Then one Christmas I was at her house and I found all these unopened letters from the IRS. I opened them, and they were threatening her with doom. Turned out she hadn't bothered to pay taxes on any of the withdrawals from her retirement fund, lol. On further investigation, she had less than $10k left in her checking account. I had to do an "intervention" consisting of moving her up to the DMV, clearing out her house full of 30 years of stuff before it got foreclosed on, putting her in assisted living, and shepherding her through bankruptcy.

If she had just told me the situation in advance it would have been so much better. But she wouldn't relinquish control until things had completely gone to sh*t.

[Anonymous]

Dealing with this from both my mom and my sister simultaneously. It's hell. Put mom in nursing home and she is not speaking to me. SIster's family has imploded. I can only do so much

[Anonymous]

Widowed MIL was this way. Fiercely independent, but then developed cancer and needed an operation + rehabilitation. She realized that the house was a burden and authorized my wife to sell it. We moved her into an assisted living facility (independent side) where she enjoyed 3+ meals a day (wine with dinner!), in-house entertainment, bus tours of the monuments and surrounding historical areas, etc... She even found a boyfriend of sorts (gentleman caller). All in all, she enjoyed ~2 years of a substantially better quality of life before the cancer finally took her. One of her regrets was that she didn't move sooner.

[Anonymous]

Medical emergency.

Lay on the floor for two days in pain until SIL came over to check on them. Police had to break down the door. It really changed him. He was like a little baby after that, unable to handle anything.