For over 25 years I & my husband have paid my mom's house payment, as she could not even afford the low $450 house payment herself on her low SS check. Fast forward to now. She's 88, has metastatic breast cancer, macular degeneration, is on oxygen (can & does walk around the house with her hose, & can go places with her travel oxygen unit), has short term memory, kidneys are starting to show high lab numbers, & glucose is still higher than normal, though down from what it used to be.
Meantime, my spouse & I have helped her to the tune of over $200K throughout the years, which included car repairs, house repairs, a new roof, new windows, shower to bath conversion, paying her house off, etc. We have a promissory note / deed of trust attached to the house title (to one day hopefully recoop what we've spent on her), & she has filed a TOD form for the house to go to me when she passes (I don't want her to gift it to me now, as the taxes would be horrendous).
I've been living with her since March, with occasional trips (with her) back to my house or my husband visiting here. I take her to doctor appointments (she gave up her car over a year ago), fix meals & get her meds ready for her. I enforce a 10pm bed time (I will NOT be up all night watching out for her). I limit her drinking anything other than water after 7:30pm, to try to cut down on bathroom trips each night (with limited success...she still gets up twice a night). I take care of everything around the house...she takes the dinner dishes to the sink on her walker after we eat & puts her clothes away after I wash them.
I've never been close to my mom, and I resent dealing with her more as time goes by. She's always been a very selfish person... every conversation switches back to her within a sentence. Nothing you give her is ever good enough-never expect any thank you when you give her anything, or do anything for her (although I finally have her "trained" to say thank you when I bring her anything [from constant harping about it]). Of course, her self-centeredness has only gotten much worse as she has aged.
My spouse & I have decided to sell our house (in a large city) & move to her town, both to help her, & (mainly) because taxes are super high where our house is & the community there feels unsafe (crime, violence, etc). The small town my mom lives in feels much safer, very walkable, & hubby & I are now retired.
My thoughts were to sell our house, put things in storage, TEMPORARILY move in with her, then look for a house close by. Houses are less expensive here, so this is very doable. I want to try to find a medical professional (someone who maybe works at a clinic or the nearby hospital so "hopefully" would be more scrupulous than a random person responding to an ad) to move in with her. She still can do her ADLs. Basically, I just want them to make sure she eats right, takes her meds & goes to bed at 10pm.
Otherwise, I can see myself (in the not too distant future) forcing a sale of her house (the verbage she signed off on in the promissory note / deed of trust allows me to force the sale of the house), & putting her in a home. I seriously do not like dealing with her. The problem is, this house has been in our family since the 50s-if I sell it to pay for her care, it's gone forever. (The house was my grandparents...they left it to their 4 kids & my mom "bought" her siblings out).
She commented about her parents passing at 85, so figured she was due to pass soon, but I've got to say that the more that I think about it, I think if they had someone living with them, like I am right now with my mom, her parents would have lived longer. In fact, when I moved in with my mom back in March, she seemed on death's doorstep, but the longer I'm here, the healthier she gets. I think that's great, but I don't want to be the one to deal with her.
Do my plans (sell, temporarily live here, and buy something locally) seem sound? Things seem to work until they don't.
Best of luck to you.
You talk about how much work you are doing for her every day and all her health issues, but still think it would be no big deal for some local person with medical expertise to move in and "just" do the same things. This often get mentioned as a possible plan -- a person doing the care in exchange for free housing -- but it tends to be wishful thinking.
How important is keeping her house in the family to you? Just because it was your grandparents house -- do you love it and want to inherit it and live in it, or are you concerned about it being "gone forever" just because you think you should keep the house in the family, whether it means that much to you personally or not?
You've already spent nine months of your retirement living apart from your husband with a person you don't like. Is this a town you really want to move to and settle down in? Maybe it is, in which case, go for it. But just keeping on because you're already on a certain path, it sounds more like settling. You and your husband deserve a good quality of life, not one dictated by the needs of a selfish, self-centered person who doesn't appreciate anything you do for her.
This is a woman who turned to me as a teenager and asked "You'll take care of me when I'm older, right?" Who asks their kids that? And what the heck do you expect a teenager to answer? Obviously, she planted the guilt seed decades ago.
The years went by, and the marriage went to s**t, but my aunt refused to seek a divorce. She wasn't willing to give up this beautiful house they had built, and if they divorced, they would have had to sell it to split the assets.
So, she remained in this unhappy, loveless marriage. For a house. First, they had separate bedrooms; then she eventually moved out to live in her own place; still no divorce. My uncle's bipolarism spiraled out of control and he became a hoarder and hoarded that beautiful house into ruin. When he died, they literally had to have it bulldozed down to the ground because it was in such a ruined state. She sold the land afterward.
Is this house of your mother's really worth it to you? My aunt was miserable for years and years for the sake of a house that, in the end, was worthless. It's a decision only you can make. I, for one, value my peace and happiness far more than I value any house. Especially in the situation you describe, where you don't even like your mother very much, and you are apart from your husband for her sake. Do you love this house that much that you are willing to become a slave in order to (possibly) own it one day?
You have not gifted 200K of your own retirement money to a woman you don't much like.
I can't imagine how or in what way, where or why this seemed like a wise thing for you to do? But you did it.
Now, yes, you are correct. It is time for you to keep on keeping on if you think that this house may in any way afford you a return of your initial investment in all of this. Assuming it is valued at 200K you may some out somewhat even. THAT after spending 30% of your life taking care of and being with someone you don't much care for.
You will not be able to place your mother. The house will go then to reimburse the federal government for any money via Medicaid they might invest in your mother's placement and care.
The beginning and end of all this is that you are stuck with Mom. She is, as you mention, living at 88 with a metastasized cancer. So she MAY pass within the next 10 years some time. Or, of course, she may NOT.
I think that you must not have consulted any experts in what you have done with this paying a mortgage for your mother for 25 years. I doubt one would ever advise you do so. I guess all in all you made a decision, and you seem above to know all the facts, and have accepted the bargain. So you are correct; you carry on carrying on.
Lots of family caregivers get caught in this trap, unfortunately, thinking their parents' lifespan will be similar to that of their grandparents.
My mother's parents passed at 83 and 86, literally 'here today and gone tomorrow', with no long period of decline. My mom never had to do any caregiving or even accompany them to doctor appointments, among other things.
My mom is 97. We moved her to memory care a few months ago, because keeping her at home was no longer feasible or affordable.
She needs help with all of her ADLs. Even so, at every doctor visit, which I've been attending with her for nearly a decade, they cheerfully tell me "her numbers are great"...
Whatever your plan is, make sure it works for YOU, because you have already gone above and beyond. It's perfectly ok to redraw your boundaries to a level more sustainable for you. Your mom has had a long life, thanks to you and your husband.
Once we get settled, we can decide next steps, which likely will include selling her house and putting her in a care home.
My mom lived several states away, but never (so far as I'm aware) made any offer to come help her parents...yet she seems to think we should help HER. Yes, we HAVE been helping her (again, partly because I felt put on the spot by my uncle, and other things), but that will be coming to an end once we sell our house (in the city ~3 hours away) and get settled in a near by house here. There just are too many moving pieces to do all of this at one time.
I REALLY can't see myself dealing with her for another 10 years or so.
I disagree that the money is for sure gone. I think there is a fair chance it is not, but only an elder law attorney can tell me for sure. That is on my list of things to do the next time I go to our house in the much larger city, as unfortunately there are no elder law attorneys in this fairly small town.
But agreed...learn what NOT to do from me. I should have let her find a way to take care of herself 25 years ago, and not stepped in.
This house will have been in the family for over 60 years, but maybe it's time to let it go. That is becoming more and more doable in my mind as time goes on.
LoopyLoo: I've not left my husband. He's been supportive, but he knows (I told him the other day) that if it comes down to her or him, I will choose him. Neither of us have liked the separation, and we talk pretty much daily when we aren't together. Until a couple of weeks ago he was still working. Now he is retired.
Luckily, he is in agreement with wanting to move from the city our house is in to this town, as it's a better, friendlier, less expensive, slower paced, place to live. I've been really lucky to have him, and how well I know it! First my dad (with dementia), and now this...but neither time did I suggest (or want) them to move in with us.
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