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[quote=Anonymous]I have 80 something parents. I'm an only child. My had has a sizable amount of money. Probably around 11 million at this point, down from more, because has a lot of it in mutual funds--in fact in A LOT of mutual funds. Like A LOT of different funds. Also a little rental property. I know there are also some trusts. It could be more than this. He doesn't tell my mother much, and up until very recently he wouldn't tell me anything--not because he thinks I am untrustworthy as a person, but because he doesn't think I can manage it well.

He has offered to "teach" me before, but it always ended up devolving into fights because he has these very intricate systems to manage EVERYTHING, and they are crazy. Like they make sense to him but to no one else, and he will start talking about one thing and go on a tangent, and then he'll berate me for not knowing everything he does in this very certain way. So, at some point, I gave up because it always turned ugly. (Also, since I had no idea how much money he had or where--and still don't entirely--it would feel totally theoretical--Finance 101 from my OCD not very nice dad.)

But we had an incident which made it clear that I NEEDED to understand more, because my mother also can't do it (for similar reasons), and if something happens to him, it's going to be a mess. Even things like my offer to digitize the boxes and boxes of old photos and memorabilia sitting in the hall for several years now was met with hostility. Or my offer to put all of his passwords in an excel file, rather than just copied randomly on pages that make them hard to understand or edit. They have rental property where someone has been paying 600 dollars a month for a townhouse that now could probably command 1,500-2,000 a month.

There are just boxes and boxes of documents that he claims are all important, but they are all over the place. They do look somewhat organized? But of course so much could be stored on a computer now.

I don't think my dad has dementia, although he is slipping a little bit, and I it's becoming overwhelming to him. (Although I think there's a part of him that likes this?) Honestly, he's always been like this. Their house looks like Grey Gardens because he refuses to fix anything since he says it isn't worth it, yet they also refuse to move. They literally didn't have a working oven for over a year. And my mom just goes along with it, even though she isn't happy. I think she just gave up.

I realize I get so agitated because I look at it, and it all feels completely overwhelming to me. So, I suggested to my father that we meet about once a week and he pick something each time that we could look through in the course of 1 hour. 1 hour so he won't go on tangents, and we can hopefully not fight.

And that I wouldn't comment. He would just go through the information with me. I might not even give any suggestions, since he won't take them. But I can make my own notes about how he's doing things, so when the time comes, if my husband and I decide to change anything (like maybe having tenants send payment electronically rather than through paper checks), we will at least understand them.

I guess this is partial venting. I am lucky that I will probably inherit this money--although both of my parents like to threaten not leaving it to me when I do or say anything they dislike. (A lot of this money actually came from my dad's inheritance a lot time ago.) But it's also pretty stressful because I have to somehow figure out how to stay calm with my father, who talks down to me, and is kind of reminding me of Howard Hughes in terms of his sanity.

Anyone else in a kind of similar situation? If my parents didn't have anything, I would just focus on making sure they were cared for. But the money creates its own issues. I want it to be safe and understand it---unselfishly and selfishly. But my dad is seriously kind of nuts, a jerk, his way or no way, and possibly developing a hoarding situation. In no way, shape, or form will they accept any outside help.

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