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It's been a while since I posted last but I turn to these threads often for the good advice and understanding here. I just wanted to share where things are with us now.

The situation with my Mom and Dad is just getting worse. Dad continues to deteriorate physically and mentally and Mom just gets stranger by the day. They are becoming more and more demanding and paranoid and are making really scary decisions that cause themselves physical risk and are creating an even worse financial disaster. No they are not impaired enough be under guardianship, not at this point.

Both my siblings and I are now working hard at staying on the same page through this. Back when my Dad first got sick with sepsis we were at each others throats over what to do and what was expected of us as care takers. Things were a mess and my parents just poured fuel on that fire. Since then we have started to share stories and we now realize that our parents are really good at creating rifts and causing ill feelings. They lie and manipulate for their own gain.

The good news is that none of us are buying into it anymore. No more secrets no more listening to our folks bad mouth the others behind their backs. We are standing united and finding common ground on how to deal with the the crises that they are bringing down on themselves. No more lone heroes jumping in to save the day. We are a team. When one of us starts to crumble under the manipulation the other two pull them back. We check in with each other to compare notes and discuss our decisions. There is no boss here. We all agree we cannot make our parents do what is best for themselves and we are no longer going to exhaust ourselves by trying. We will help them in acceptable and loving ways but no more crazy.

It's tough to watch the devastation unfold but it was 10 times worse when we were fighting over it. There will be more hurtles and challenges, I know the hardest is yet to come but I am very hopeful that we will handle things OK if we just stick together.

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This is VERY encouraging! Thanks for sharing. Sibling problems are a common topic on here and it is exciting to see some progress!
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