I may lose my boyfriend so he can care full time for his Mum, what can I do?

"... my partner has now decided he’d rather care for her himself, and split the duties with his siblings and her grandchildren."

That's a dream world. How can he tell his sibs and nieces and nephews what to do? As you say, he could quite easily become the fulltime caregiver.

Barb's answer: "If he won't consider even temporary placement, you can see where this is going. Sell the property and move on."

Barb is 100% correct. Sell the house you've bought and move on. You will always be second fiddle to his mother, and that's not the way a healthy marriage should be. You are more in love with him than he is with you, apparently.

KitKat, in the words of Douglas Adams "Don't Panic."

Your partner has *just* lost his father. This is not the moment when he's going to be amenable to putting his mother into care. When did the father die, exactly?

Also: whereabouts are you and MIL, roughly; and how many responsible adults are included in the care plan (all siblings + offspring added up)?

What is it with everyone all of a sudden that they think the future has to be "decided" in one summit meeting? Plans develop. Feelings alter. Answers emerge. You do not have to force your partner to any final decision at this point, so seriously don't.

You are right. You aren't even married yet and already competing with his mother for attention. Not a good sign. Ultimatum time. Either he stays and builds life with you or he goes to care for sick mom and sells your house so you can move on with your life.

You should be his top priority.

It sounds as though he is emotionally enmeshed with his mother. How does he know she will deteriorate in care? Many of us discovered that our parents THRIVED in facilities with good ful-time care.

How can he know he he hasn't tried it.?

If he won't consider even temporary placement, you can see where this is going. Sell the property and move on.

Kitkat, if the loss of his dad is very recent, he may be reacting unrealistically to his mom's needs out of grief. He will soon see that whatever plans he makes, he can only control his own actions, not those of his siblings and nieces/nephews.

If you both had a solid plan in place before dad's death, perhaps you need to give him some time to process his grief and realize what the best thing to do is.

I’m so sorry that both of you are going through this. You want to be with him. He feels caught in the middle of you and his mother. I am sure losing his dad is magnifying the situation.

Your instincts may be telling you that you aren’t satisfied with how things are. Listen to your gut feelings. I think it’s natural to want to be his number one priority.

It’s complicated, especially since you own property together. It seems like his mind is made up. I suppose you could sell the house and move on with your life.

Why are you living so far apart?

Stick around and others will have some ideas.

You aren’t exactly speaking to me, since we are all relatively anonymous and this is an accessible forum, but as to agreement or disagreement, you need to be aware of the fact that in caring for a Loved One with dementia, there may well be NO good decisions available.

Being “madly in love”, and based solely on those feelings, buying property (usually a MAJOR investment) TOGETHER, is typically a significant mistake, and often also results in long term serious legal difficulties. “been together” has no legal meaning. I’m SURE you knew that when you committed to purchasing property, and I’m sure you know that now.

Your “partner”’s “plan” is, as YOU realize, already based on decisions he thinks he is making for other people. The obvious fallacy there is that people CHANGE THEIR MINDS. HE has changed his mind already, possibly having actually determined that round the clock full time care is VERY EXPENSIVE, often unreliable, and also often inaccessible.

When ADULTS are fully, truly prepared to make long term decisions for themselves and then for others, they arm themselves as completely as possible with all the information available in advance of making promises.

Both you and your “partner” seem to have brought many expectations to at least two or more situations, including the physical care of a dependent adult, an expensive mutual purchase, strong feelings for each other, a long distance relationship, the legal obligations of care and mutual property ownership......without fully examining the realities of what confronts you as you move forward.

Are you both able to address the uncomfortable truths about what your resources are, what your individual and mutual obligations are, to yourselves as individuals, a vulnerable adult relative, and each other, and how, or IF, you can move forward?

Also, are you both clear about your legal responsibilities and rights in all of the parts of your life that intersect?

Emotional decisions can make wonderful movie plots, but reality can be SO different. Hope you both are willing to do the very hard work of figuring this complicated situation out, and find out how to keep your lives moving forward in the best way for each of you.

I will tell you one thing; my mother will be 93 years old tomorrow. Had she NOT been in Assisted Living the past 6 years, she would have died about 10x already. The care she's gotten by the staff and the nurses at Assisted Living is precisely what's kept her ALIVE this long, of that I am 100% certain. They've caught pneumonia twice, immediately, before it became life-threatening, and a whole bunch of other illnesses and situations (high blood pressure, AFIB, UTI infections, etc) that probably would have taken me a long time to figure out, especially since I'd be working and not at home for 10 hrs a day to be paying close attention to everything.

Tell your b/f to keep that in mind when making decisions on behalf of his mother. Oh, and also that he is placing unreasonable expectations on family members, especially grandchildren, who have extremely busy lives and not much extra time to devote to caring for their grandmother. Plus, he is giving up the probability of a full life with you for this idea he has.

If he insists on moving forward with his idea, it may be time to move on yourself. Only you can make that decision.

Best of luck!

You are right to be worried. Your partner is thinking about being gone from your home 3 days a week in order to maintain his mother's status quo. For how long is that sustainable?

"But my partner has now decided he’d rather care for her himself, and split the duties with his siblings and her grandchildren." That may work for a short amount of time to help "grannie" in the immediate month or two after the death of her husband but that does not a long term plan make, because most family members will want to go back to their own lives i.e. get back to normal.

You live 200 miles away. Driving back and forth each week is hard enough without having hands-on caregiving awaiting at the destination. Your partner drives 200 miles and arrives at his mother's house. What's waiting for him? Laundry? Grocery shopping? Meal preparation? Mowing the lawn? What exactly is he going to do? And for how long is he willing to do it?

And what happens when his unreliable brother doesn't show up? Is your boyfriend's employer going to understand when he doesn't show up for work? Remember that he's paid to do a job and plenty of people can probably replace him. And then what? He's unemployed? Where's the gas money to drive 200 miles going to come from? How's he going to pay for your house? Can you afford your house by yourself if worse came to worse?

Give it some time. He is grieving the loss of his father. Don’t get married. If your boyfriend doesn’t come around in time, sell the house and move on. Don’t marry him until he puts you first.