Been dating for about 8 years now, married for 2. Her father passed away unexpectedly and extremely abruptly in December, there was some complication in his medication that led to a series of unfortunate events. He was rushed to ER, and a few hours later he passed away. We never managed to get their in time.
My wife has 2 sisters, and a brother. We are also the only ones without kids, however my wife currently runs and jointly owns her own dental practice. It is a high stress job for her. Her mother is also unfortunately suffers from a long term back injury that often leaves her barely able to walk around her home, and even doing so is extremely painful. She is unable to drive, and do most things.
We are technically the closet to her of her entire family at around 4 hours away. Since my FIL passed away both me and wife have been driving up Friday afternoon, and spending the entire weekend with her, and helping her out with everything. It is exhausting. Her sisters have tried to help out but they both live in the US, and her younger brother is in his medical residency on the other side of the country.
Unfortunately she refuses any sort of outside help, and has taken the stance of “Well just leave me alone, and let me die then if i am too much of a bother”. Her home is massive, with a massive backyard, etc. That requires regular maintenance that she cannot do herself. She has no concept of budgeting, or even basic things involving money. She has never paid a bill in her entire life, and has no understanding of concepts like paying bills, or even what bills she has.
We have tried to hire even basic stuff like a maid that comes by weekly to clean, to even a nurse who will come by, and other things. She refuses, and said she doesn’t need that. She lives in the country and the closest neighbor is about a 10 minute walk away. Her neighbors also are not really friendly and when we asked them if they would give us their contact information to do a wellness check if we need it they refused.
In general she is in massive denial of everything, and when she finally got her first check from the government for her late husbands pension plan, she called us livid that the government had slashed the payout (we told her multiple times). Even getting her to do the basic estate paperwork took months to get it all settled. She calls us multiple times a day, asking questions like. “How do I use a credit card”, or “how do i pay a water bill”, to things like trying to guilt us to drive down in the middle of the week because she needs to go buy yarn.
The painful realty that both me and my wife have realized that unless something changes we are going to have to base the rest of our lives around this woman, who refuses any sort of help beyond family. Last weekend we tried to talk some sense into her, and she refused to even entertain the idea of help. This weekend my wife is the maid of honour, and she has called us twice today talking about when we come down this weekend she needs to get her medication refilled. We both explained we are not coming down this weekend, and she started berating my wife/me claiming how can we lave her like this.
Does anyone have any tips to make her understand her situation without hating us?
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My MIL (now deceased) was the same way. It turns out she was spiralling down with dementia. My FIL covered it up for her until he died, and only then did the kids see how bad it was. I’m afraid you have the same problem. Has she been evaluated for Alzheimer’s/ dementia? If she has either this will only get worse. My MIL ended up in “memory care” at an assisted living facility because she needed 24/7 supervision to keep from wandering away.
While she’s coherent, you’ll need her to appoint someone as her power of attorney for legal affairs and a separate medical power of attorney (they can be the same person, some states require an explicit medical POA, check with your lawyer). Also a living will and a for real will if she doesn’t have one. All this before she can’t function mentally. Don’t wait.
We didn’t have room at our house but in retrospect we could have added a MIL suite to the back of the house and hired private nurses to sit with her cheaper than what we paid the assisted living facility, and would have had the addition to use after she passed. Something for you to consider. With her health problems, even if her mind is fine, you might still build her a wheelchair accessible carriage house so you can check on her all the time by walking across the back yard. You can pay off the cost of the addition by selling the giant house she’s currently in.