We had to move my mom in with us and it may wreck my marriage - advice needed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's sad to see Americans being so cold.

It's your mom, take care of her like she did to you

DP. I'd be arrested if I 'took care' of my mother like she took care of me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who judges OP and other posters with nightmare elderly parents, gets my mother for a week. Once you have lived with her for a week....or 2 or 3 if you live, report back. I suspect a lot of you Judgy Mcjudgysons will need therapy and meds after that week. Oh and plot twist...she's yours. You figure out what to do with an abusive elderly person and then feel free to preach to the rest of us and write a book!

+1 You think it will take a full week or will you mom be on her best behavior the first 6 days?

[Anonymous]

My mom had only Social Security and literally zero assets and we managed to get her her own apartment. It is a LOT of work but you have to get your mom on EVERY wait list possible for senior subsidized housing.

If it’s gonna break your family, just go ahead and spend down her 60k as well. If you can get her a studio for 1K, you’re talking YEARS of independence. Don’t save that money. She’s gonna have to go in Medicaid for a nursing home anyway so might as well spend it now. She may die at 80 and not even spend it all.

Stop being a martyr. This is not working. With full social security and all those assets, she is not destitute.

(fWIW, my mom lived in Fairfield County, CT, with rent prices akin to the greater DC area. Her entire monthly income was around $1300. Senior housing is the key(

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is your mother!!! Take care of her. People in this country astound me and then they wonder why there are so many mass shootings. There is zero sense of community and filial obligations. People are alone and isolated and they go crazy.

.

No country is perfect. My family is from a country where there are many joint families and children are expected to take care of their elders. For many, it works out very well. But, there is also a lot of elder abuse and neglect, which are not addressed because there is so much pressure to not put parents in a home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is your mother!!! Take care of her. People in this country astound me and then they wonder why there are so many mass shootings. There is zero sense of community and filial obligations. People are alone and isolated and they go crazy.

Nobody has said "This is your son!!! Take care of him" in this thread:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1104109.page

What astounds me is the fact that people adhere by the "You have a moral obligation to help a family member in need even if you don't have any legal obligations to them." rule when adult children have a parent in need, but not when parents have an adult child in need. Either you agree with what I just put in quotes or you don't. Based on your comment, you seem to agree with this rule. Therefore, you should make this exact comment comment under the thread I linked. Not to do so would be hypocritical, illogical, and inconsistent on your part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much is her SS? Find a senior subsidized apartment for her.

It took my father in law several years to get into one of those

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You people suck. So glad I am not American and have to worry about being kicked out of my kids (who I took care of and cared for’s) houses. No sense of family or family values. No wonder society is f—cked up!

Are you expecting your own house to burn down for some reason?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You people suck. So glad I am not American and have to worry about being kicked out of my kids (who I took care of and cared for’s) houses. No sense of family or family values. No wonder society is f—cked up!

Are you expecting your own house to burn down for some reason?

Because unless you are, I can't see why you wouldn't want your own space. The house my parents live in right now is about 4 times bigger than my apartment, so I wouldn't even understand them wanting to share a smaller space with me as opposed to having a bigger space to themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This whole thread is very very hard to read. Easily top five on the scale of not caring.

I would never EVER put my mother on the street or in some drug and crime infested low income housing. WTF is wrong with you people ?

You can replace a husband. You cannot replace your mother. Some of these posts are written in such hateful ways. I shouldn't be shocked but considering how DC is I'm not. And most don't even see what they are saying. Just drop Mom off at a crackhouse. Let her fend for herself.

I'll tell you how DC is. They're hypocritical, illogical, and inconsistent when it comes to the "you have a moral obligation to help a family member in need even if you don't have any legal obligations towards them" argument. Most DCUM users abide by this argument when an adult child has a parent in need, but not when a parent has an adult child in need. Either you agree with argument or you don't.

[Anonymous]

Is this somewhat of a class issue? I am an immigrant but close friends with 5-6 American families, parents are well off ( 3 have second homes on the eastern seaboard of MD). However, in 2-3 cases parents developed health issues and our friends (their kids) brought them home to live with them. Now, keep in mind there are millions in inheritance in all these scenarios, but I always thought and it appears so that our friends genuinely respect and love their parents and are happy to support them during their old age.

Not once have I heard a comment like the ones I am reading on this forum, so maybe it is the case that parents did right by their kids and now kids are returning the favor. I am so confused reading this thread as my experience with American families taking care of parents has been positive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this somewhat of a class issue? I am an immigrant but close friends with 5-6 American families, parents are well off ( 3 have second homes on the eastern seaboard of MD). However, in 2-3 cases parents developed health issues and our friends (their kids) brought them home to live with them. Now, keep in mind there are millions in inheritance in all these scenarios, but I always thought and it appears so that our friends genuinely respect and love their parents and are happy to support them during their old age.

Not once have I heard a comment like the ones I am reading on this forum, so maybe it is the case that parents did right by their kids and now kids are returning the favor. I am so confused reading this thread as my experience with American families taking care of parents has been positive.

The internet is anonymous and people will say more via an anonymous message board than they will in real life. Esp when it comes to touchy topics.

Which is why I tell people in person that my mom lives in substandard subsidized senior living only bc she cant handle the stairs in my house. Versus on DCUM it is ok for me to say that she is an emotionally abusive terrible person who I will never allow into my home to mistreat my children the way she did me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's sad to see Americans being so cold.

It's your mom, take care of her like she did to you

DP. I'd be arrested if I 'took care' of my mother like she took care of me.

LOL. My mother is so fortunate child abuse laws, neglect laws and enforcement were different back in the 70s and 80s. I posted on another thread where someone lamented all us Americans are obsessed with therapy and SSRIs and people claimed past generations pulled themselves up by the bootstraps and muddled through. OMG.... if only mom had gotten therapy. So many tantrums, verbally abusive tirades and threats could have been avoided. It's amazing how somehow who scoffed at mental health help so much could think it was acceptable to be abusive and threaten violence, but got forbid she learn coping skills and maybe take some medication to even out her moods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this somewhat of a class issue? I am an immigrant but close friends with 5-6 American families, parents are well off ( 3 have second homes on the eastern seaboard of MD). However, in 2-3 cases parents developed health issues and our friends (their kids) brought them home to live with them. Now, keep in mind there are millions in inheritance in all these scenarios, but I always thought and it appears so that our friends genuinely respect and love their parents and are happy to support them during their old age.

Not once have I heard a comment like the ones I am reading on this forum, so maybe it is the case that parents did right by their kids and now kids are returning the favor. I am so confused reading this thread as my experience with American families taking care of parents has been positive.

I think the bolded is the key. When you're well off, you can afford to outsource help and likely have sufficient space and other resources to make this work with minimal disruption/impact. When my widowed FIL moved in with us, it nearly broke my marriage before DS agreed to have him moved to a nursing facility. My 3 kids were in one bedroom, DH and I were in another and my FIL was in the 3rd bedroom. The kids, DH and I shared a bathroom because FIL had too much equipment and stuff for us to do anything other than wash our hands in it. We were tied to the house unless we hired someone to be with him. We also couldn't afford to outsouce any of the household work. The level of care he required was a full time job - yet, DH and I both WOH FT and our 3 kids were under the age of 10. We had to pay for a lot of counseling to get our marriage back on track. Even now, 10 years later, I don't know if I should have stuck with it. I resent that I had to give DH an ultimatum - marriage or caring for his father. Both could not be done.

Back in the day, my grandmother had her MIL living with her for 15 years and, after she passed, had her mother living with her for 10. She swore she'd NEVER live with anyone of her kids. I don't know why people think things were different back then. None of my Gma's friends liked having their mother/MIL live with them.

[Anonymous]

She should invest the money and use the the interest/dividends/SS to pay for her food and other essentials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's sad to see Americans being so cold.

It's your mom, take care of her like she did to you

DP. I'd be arrested if I 'took care' of my mother like she took care of me.

Then why isn't your mother behind bars? And if she could get away with treating a child that way, surely you can get away with treating an adult that way.