My mother-in-law had a stroke a few years ago. She was not able to live independently right away, so we moved her in with us and had to place my father-in-law in a nursing home. He passed away about 5 months later (which she blames on us). We have been taking care of her for the past few years, and we have reached our limit. She has always been an extremely manipulative person, and she will twist your words around to make you look like pond scum! She offered to take us out for dinner because we had been taking care of her, driving her to her appointments, going to the store for her, etc. The next day she told all of her family/friends (our family and friends too) that we were broke and couldn't afford to buy any food for ourselves, so she graciously offered to take us out to dinner, but now she couldn't pay for any of her medicines this month because of us! There are hundreds of these examples of her doing this. She hates me the most. She has told me I am the reason her son doesn't spend as much time with her as he should, I am a horrible mom and should have my kids taken away, etc., etc. We have tried to make her life as pleasant as possible, but she is such a hateful spiteful person, she doesn't want to be happy. She just wants to complain. She has told my kids "I know you don't love me, I'm just going to walk out the front door and never come back again" because we wouldn't drop everything and run to McDonald's for lunch. She has told my husband and me the same thing if we refuse to drop what we're doing and get her a glass of water. She is very demanding and wants to be treated like a princess and served breakfast, lunch and dinner on a silver platter. In her mind, that is the only way we are "taking care" of her is if we do that. She has diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis and is overweight. The ONLY time she gets out of bed is to go to the bathroom a few times a day and to fix her meals. We stopped fixing her meals for her (she is VERY capable of doing it, just doesn't want to) so that she would be forced to get out of bed and do something. She is just a miserable person who doesn't want to change. If she has a headache, my husband will tell her to take some Advil. Five hours later she still has a headache, hasnt taken any Advil yet. The next day, same thing. She just wants to complain but not do anything to fix it.
My husband and I are at the end of our rope. We love his mom and feel guilty about not wanting her in our house any more, but she is not welcome in our home any more. She wants to live on her own, but then complains that nobody does anything for her. When we ask her how in the world she expects to get by on her own when she can't even do it here, she goes into the "I'll just crawl under a rock and nobody will miss me" thing and says she just wants to live by herself. Two minutes later she's made because nobody brought her lunch yet! I feel like I'm talking to a hamster running in a wheel!!
She doesn't have ANY money (just a little SS every month) and we really don't have too much extra, she doesn't really qualify for a nursing home or assisted living, we just can't have her here any more! I would love any suggestions you can give on how to deal with this.