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I have a chance at a wonderful oportunity to further my career and make a difference in other people's lives at a drug rehab facility 300 miles from my home. My family is trying to make me feel guilty saying my dad needs me. He forgets the visitation about an hour after I leave. This has been so heartbreaking for me. Is it wrong for me to consider moving? I have a brother and step mother who can care for him better than I can. It's a 3 and half hour drive for me to come to him when needed....

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I'm sorta in the the same situation. I live 2 hours away from my elderly Dad. He has been sick for awhile now and my siblings, 2 brothers and a sister expect me to drive home every 15 days to stay with him for 5 days. I am disabled and have obligations to my family at home and cannot get away as easy as they can. Two of them live next door to my father and the other lives 10 minutes away. It costs me more money to drive there, plus during bad weather. I have to drop everything and cannot even take care of something if it comes up at home. Once my electric was shut off because I was with my Dad instead of at home to pay bills. Staying with my Dad affects my husband, my daughter and my grandson. My brothers are not married, and my sister's husband is retired and her grandchildren live next door to her, so she can still deal with day to day activities that come up. My siblings have tried to guilt me into doing more, but it has been a big struggle for me to keep arguing with them. I have now started seeing a psychiatrist to help with my depression over all of this. I feel Daddy needs to be at home, but he needs nursing care also. I am not trained to take care of his needs and I know if something happened to him, I would be blamed. Got any suggestions for me?
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The F.O.G. concept comes from the stop walking on eggshells literature in dealing with people who seek to emotionally blackmail us for example people with borderline personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder plus others.
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Makes sense. Alot of sense, actualy. I mean, this is an opportunity I would pursue despite what is going on with my Dad......I guess they will have to live with my choice. Thanks for the F.O.G. concept. I guess it's quite common.

I do realize that I cannot be objective when it comes to family. And caregivers need help too.
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A therapist really can't treat one's family or oneself with much accuracy at all. Thus, I strongly suggest you meet with a therapist to deal with this guilt issues and how your siblings are trying to use F.O.G. to get you to change jobs and where you live. It sounds like they are trying to use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to meet some 'need' they have and not a need that you dad has.
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