Angry at sibling for abdicating her role

[Anonymous]

Wow. Your sister cared for your mother for 5 long years and you only want to see your mother once a quarter?

Your sister was probably burnt out and needed a break and time with her family after 5 years of care.

[Anonymous]

Six year sister here. The other sister did not visit Mom for 6 years. No phone calls. No cards. It was sad in a way. The other sister blew in the last week before Mom died barking orders. Yea, right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I actually can’t move closer because of my DH’s job.

She could have asked for help or we could have hired it.

Then hire it now. You are terrible.

[Anonymous]

Link to other thread?

[Anonymous]

I don't think that you should be mad at your sister. This is not her problem. She is not required to provide this free care to your mom. It has been 5 years. That is a good run. It is also not your problem, really. If you want to be mad at anyone, be mad at your mom (it is hard because she is the one who is sick, but we know everyone gets old) for not anticipating this and making sure she had enough money to support her at the end. She must have money if she bought into a CCRC. Whoever has POA should use her money to pay for care. The CCRC should have names of organizations that can take on the task of taking mom to appointments.

What I see often is that the children want to preserve the estate, in anticipation of inheriting the money. So they benefit from the free labor of the sibling who took on the responsibility of doing the job of caring for mom/dad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I actually can’t move closer because of my DH’s job.

She could have asked for help or we could have hired it.

Why the eff would she need to ask, you know darn well she needs help.
You are selfish.

[Anonymous]

I’m curious about the phrase “abdicating her role.” Who decided it was hers and hers alone? And forever! I bet she took it on because she realized no one else would step up and now..she’s had enough. She needs to have a life too.


I’m the person who cares for my mom and it’s endless. She calls every day, sometimes multiple times, with something. She has Alzheimer’s and it’s going to be a very long hard road. As it’s I’m always taking time out of my life with demanding job and two teens to deal with her needs and that’s even with assisted living. My sibling(who has no family obligations at all- no spouse or kids) calls once every few weeks (actually just returns her calls) and sees her once a year. You have no idea of the burnout that can occur.

You have nonright to be angry at sister. You should be grateful she did it for five years while you did nothing.

Hire help. Move her or move yourself.when you and other sister have done 5 years then come back and complain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious about the phrase “abdicating her role.” Who decided it was hers and hers alone? And forever! I bet she took it on because she realized no one else would step up and now..she’s had enough. She needs to have a life too.


I’m the person who cares for my mom and it’s endless. She calls every day, sometimes multiple times, with something. She has Alzheimer’s and it’s going to be a very long hard road. As it’s I’m always taking time out of my life with demanding job and two teens to deal with her needs and that’s even with assisted living. My sibling(who has no family obligations at all- no spouse or kids) calls once every few weeks (actually just returns her calls) and sees her once a year. You have no idea of the burnout that can occur.

You have nonright to be angry at sister. You should be grateful she did it for five years while you did nothing.

Hire help. Move her or move yourself.when you and other sister have done 5 years then come back and complain.

Yep. My mom is in assisted living but there’s still a lot to do. And I have a teen too. She’ll be headed to college in 2 years and I feel like I’m missing so much time with her. I was literally crying this morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A 90 minute drive isn’t really that bad. A lot of people spend that much time commuting back and forth to work every day.

That’s fine if you have 3 hours to burn. It’s 90 min with no traffic.

YATA and I would say that based on this comment alone. 3 hours out of your life to help out your lonely, depressed, confused mother is a horrific, unbearable burden to you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She insisted that mom live near her. Mom could have moved near me instead. Then she dumped mom when life got hard.

Why would your mom have wanted to move near you instead? So you could drop in once a quarter, provided weather and traffic conditions were favorable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually can’t move closer because of my DH’s job.

She could have asked for help or we could have hired it.

Then hire it now. You are terrible.

OP complained that S1 reached out at the last minute if she needed OP to cover something like taking their mom to a dr.'s appointment, which happens to everyone stuff pops up.

I suspect OP means she and other sister would have been happy to pay for someone else to fill in those kind of gaps so S1 could continue managing everything on her end. Now that S1 is gone, OP would still rather pay someone else to care for mom, but she'll still have to be more engaged than she's been in FIVE YEARS.

OP, YAT giant A.

[Anonymous]

OP, your sister also had kids, right? Because you say wherever she moved, it wasn't for better schools.

Wouldn't it also have been very hard for her, with her job and kids, to drop everything and deal with your mom after her fall?

I'm a caregiver (my husband is the ill family member) and I have to miss work CONSTANTLY to take care of his needs, which crop up with zero warning. It SUCKS frankly. It is definitely impacting my career advancement.

There's really no way your sister could have warned you about this. She likely saw the writing on the wall. If she were nearby you know you would expect her to be dropping everything and handling it for your mom.

[Anonymous]

I guarantee your mother created these dynamics between her kids. Try to support and understand each other as best you can because the orchestrator of all of this will be gone soon and you don’t want to do anymore damage in your relationships.
You all have had a different history with your Mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you'd get a lot more sympathy starting with "Grateful to sibling for doing so much for 5 YEARS, need suggestions for how we take over." If you can't be there enough, hire help. Wait until you see how expensive it is to hire out what you she did. You need to thank her profusely.

All of this. Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She insisted that mom live near her. Mom could have moved near me instead. Then she dumped mom when life got hard.

You know what OP this is the essential fact. It’s not whether you’re an A or not. I am in the same boat!! I wanted my dad to live near me, he and my sister insisted he move in with her and now she si moving out of the country!! She’s a jerk who said it will be ok if she visits him every six months since he has a daily caretaker who visits but he’ll be 86 and needs the daily presence of FAMILY! It will be harder for him to move near me now but I will force it because I want to care for him and can’t have him be alone and she’ll lose the cash cow that had fully covered her mortgage in exchange for her “care” which is really total neglect. It’s all just too much!!!