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[quote=Anonymous]My husband's parents were divorced in 1985, and his father remarried in the early 1990's to a woman with no children. They had no children together. My husband was an adult at that time so never considered this woman a step mother. Father-in-law (FIL) is declining cognitively which we noticed significantly at a family gathering in 2021. At that time, I told my husband he should talk with his father's wife and make sure all the paperwork (will, power of attorneys for financial and healthcare, and living will) were complete and reflected his wishes. My husband and the wife talked about talking for two years, but took no action. About a month ago, my husband got an email from FIL's wife saying she was overwhelmed with his care, he was missing bills, had credit card debt, and she thought he might need to move into assisted living. My husband tried five times to schedule times with her, but she always cancelled saying her dog was sick or she was busy or whatever.  When he finally got in touch she stated he did have papers but would not produce them nor tell us who prepared them. I looked up some lawyers so he could get papers drawn up (~$2,000) but she said that was too much money.

Again, this has been going on for years and he's getting worse. At this point, we do not believe my husband has either power of attorney. Without this and since FIL is married, we have no legal authority to get involved.  My husband does not want to assert himself but I'm telling him things will only get worse if nothing is done. His perspective is "he doesn't care" but he also didn't step away when the wife asked for help a month ago.  I offered to be the bad guy and get her attention by saying this isn't optional and she needs to cooperate. I told my husband we should offer to pay to have the documents prepared.

Or I can just give it up and swear not to help these clowns even though I'm an experienced financial POA and then executor for my aunt and father. I'm struggling to know how much to push my husband on this or to let it go. We have zero idea how much FIL is worth nor do we need his money, but letting this go until he's really incapacitated is simply going to make everything far worse. He is forgetting to pay his bills, his wife yells at him all the time, he is driving even though he gets lost often.

UGH--what do I do?[/quote]

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