I recently moved back to Florida to be closer to my aging parents after 30 years of living in a different state. My older brother (51) who lived just a few miles away from my parents and helped them from time to time suddenly just passed away from a fatal heart attack. We were all so shocked and unprepared for this next phase of our lives without my brother. I am 49 and the ONLY child of 2 aging parents now.
I decided to buy a small house a few miles away from my parent’s house to be close to them especially now that they have no-one at all involved in their lives. They have lived in the same house and neighborhood for almost 30 years and somehow they have found a way to completely isolate themselves from the world. They have NO friends or family members AT ALL. Just me.
I was not aware of this when I decided to quit my job and dismantle my entire life to move closer to them.
My mother is 78, beginnings of dementia, OCD, agoraphobic and mental illness. My father is 76, bipolar, and has other mental issues but otherwise healthy and handles most everything for my mom and the household.
With my limited savings, I decided to take some time off from work and settle into my new lifestyle, try to make new friends and a new life. I am a single mom and my 16 year old daughter lives with me. (She too started a new life).
Here is my dilemma…..
My father comes over my house almost every day unannounced!!
He never calls to warn us he’s coming over. He just shows up!!
He shows up during all times of the day/night sometimes even 2x a day.
He popped in a dropped off a pizza yesterday, he thinks that a pizza makes his behavior ok.
Sometimes he stops by just to gossip about my mother and her deteriorating health.
He barges in the front door without knocking and expects me to stop what I’m doing to entertain him.
He will walk in my house, make himself a cup of coffee sit on the couch and start talking about my brother and how devastated he is and starts crying and moaning about how much he misses him.
Sometimes he stays for 3 hours
If the front door is locked, he will walk around the back yard and peek in the windows and knock on them until I stop what I’m doing and frantically open the front door.
He walked in on my daughter while she was getting out of the shower the other day and I think we have developed PTSD from all of this.
He is nosey and asks my daughter intrusive questions about how I am able to afford to live without a job and how much my bills are.
He pretends to come over to help fix a leaky faucet or fix a broken tile and carries a tool box but ends up just wanting to talk and ask intruding personal questions or cry about my dead brother or gossip about my deteriorating mother.
I am not accustom to having an open door policy and do not appreciate my father stopping by, dropping in, barging into my house unannounced and so frequently. I feel he is very inapropriate. I have gently asked him over 10 times if he could please stop coming over to my house everyday but he will take a break for 2 days and the same cycle starts over again. I feel guilty because they are alone but I can not fill the void they have and be depended upon to entertain my dad everyday!
This has been going on for 5 months now and I CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE!!! I am about to sell my house and move back to where I came from and never come back again!
My daughter and I are so depressed with PTSD symptoms and feel like we can’t make a new life because of my dad and his demanding, intruding and obnoxious habits. My mother does not know about this and I doubt she would even fully understand. I know my father needs an outlet but I don't want to be it!!
I don’t know what else to do, he just won’t respect my boundaries.
Is his behavior part of the aging process?
It sounds as though your father has significant mental illness. He needs the help of professionals.
How much thought went into uprooting yourself and your daughter? It sounds like it was a very illadviswd move. Your first obligation is to your minor child. You need to make sure that she has a safe, secure and unambivalently accepting home base from which to launch.
You are being distracted from your primary jobs in life (to work, be productive, secure your own retirement and launch your child) by parents whose jobbit was to secure their future.
They have Social Security, a home and access to social services. Arrange for a visit from the Area Agency on Aging. Tell them that you are here temporarily to set up care. And get back to your life.
After all you wrote, what you said in the end is the only thing that makes any sense to me. You have a daughter who is at a crucial juncture in her life and now you are not working, are in fact perhaps going through savings you are going to need. I am fearful for you both.
My advice is something I don't even know whether is advice or just telling you what I would personally do. Hon, I would run like crazy. That's just me. I have always admitted here I am a bit of a coward, and not up for hands on this kind of care, but I could not do this. My only strong suit is I know my limitations, and I am very limited. I would be out like a shot. I am 77. You have parents both younger than me. In today's day and age they could live well into their 90s. Are you ready to sacrifice your life to this.
Without you they are alone and without anyone. I understand what I am saying. They would eventually be wards of the system.
I will tell you right now that the more inmeshed in this you become, say taking on POA or Guardianship, the more you will not be able to move away. And the more loss for you will literally risk your own sanity trying to give care in this manner.
If you suspect your parents are endangered then it has to be a call for wellness checks after you are gone.
I know how hard it will be--I imagine how difficult that is to say, to leave. But if you stay, this is your life. No. Worse. Your life will get worse. And no, your Dad won't respect your boundaries, and it will get worse.
I am so sorry. Wish you had visited before you made this move.
And let me tell you, even with cooperation, it was a hard, hard road.
By contrast, I have watched relatives and close friends deal with parents suffering from mental illness, entitlement issues and life-long enmeshment. It's a destructive course. I wonder, parenthetically, if your brother's heart ailments might not have been exacerbated by frustration from caring for your parents.
The confounding factor here is your daughter. She is my primary concern (and should be yours). It is not fair to ask her to give up her life, her privacy, access to her friends and accustomed school in favor of your caregiving for your parents.
I would move away with your daughter, to keep her off his radar.
Your parents are not that old, they can take care of themselves now, you can always come back later, after your daughter is on her own.
Could you sell your father on moving into AL? There would be more company, and different things for him to do, as well better care for your mother. You could play up how difficult she will be for him as her health deteriorates, particularly as ‘you unfortunately have to move back home again’. You could take your father to see a few AL places, and get him to see it as positive for him, particularly socially. Your daughter might find it good for morale to know that you are working on a positive plan, and add her own support for the move.
If this worked, you could get well away but still feel that you have achieved something. It might also help you to cope with the extra pressures that are bound to come in the next 10 years, unless you leave and cut contact completely.
My life was somewhat normal and peaceful before, so how can 2 little aging people cause so much unhappiness and pain in ones life?? I haven't even begun discussing my mother's problems!!