Reply to Father with MANY issues, mother is completely overwhelmed yet refusing help- what to do?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Are there things not related to caring for your dad that you can take over for your mom?  Anything you can hire done or pay for from a distance?  Yardwork, grocery delivery, housecleaning, etc.?  If she won't take help related to him, maybe she'll accept help on other things (perhaps framed as "to allow you to be able to focus on helping Dad)?  [/quote]

We actually had more success with the opposite approach. After spending years trying to support our mom, talking with her, researching, offering to do different things, all to have her pretend to go along with it and then at the end say "Well, I'm not going to do that yet." we'd all had enough. My dad was to the point where he had no idea who we were and shouldn't be left alone at all, yet my mom repeatedly refused to get more help or enroll him in a care facility. I have no idea why she was so stubborn; they had a terrible marriage and she didn't even like him. All the conversations with her about it just ended up feeling really phony and manipulative; like she'd have us spend hours researching and talking about things she had no intention of doing. We all finally said "Fine, do what you want, but we aren't visiting anymore." She couldn't travel and leave him, and he wasn't even capable of making an outing to the store at that point, much less make a plane ride, so she was stuck at home with him. She complained but we just kept saying "Dad needs more help and when you finally get it for him, you will be better off, too."

It took like 2 more years, but she finally relented and enrolled him. It was a great place and he stayed there until he died.

OP, unless you are going to call adult protective services and go to court to try and take over your dad's care, there isn't really anything you can do to convince your mother. It might just have to get unbearably bad for her to be willing to make a change. If she hasn't looked already, you might want to research what kind of programs would be available for your dad so that if she does become ready (or she becomes incapacitated) you can move quickly to get him admitted. 
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