Can someone marry their partner who lives in a care home who suffer from Dementia?

Interesting. Sometimes people who have been married that long are looking into a divorce, for financial reasons. I am really curious as to why after 45 years and 6 children they want to get married now. Not that it matters to the answer -- but I'm just nosey, I guess.

Would your brother-in-law be considered competent to enter into a contract or to make legal and medical decisions for himself? I don't think that anyone could argue that SIL is a gold-digger coming in to take advantage of the man! But I don't know what the rules might be concerning competency. I'll bet that a call to the Senior Helpline in your area could answer that.

I'm curious about why they want to marry now also, but possibly it has to do with asset protection and other benefits that marriage conveys. The only hurdle might be your brother-in-laws competency. Has your SIL spoken with his doctor about this? She might want to speak with an elder attorney. Good Luck and I hope things work out well.

You know that common law goes a long way but in this situation it sounds like she is protecting herself and the family since they are no merried a family can come up and snatch everything from her because they are not merried, legally she cant even make arragementts for him cause they are not merried,. i seen this first hand with my sister and her ex husband , they were divorce but when he got sick he went back to her. and when he died she didnt get anything the FIRST wife got it and his brother had to make all the arrangments and that is so mess up to me ...In a another situation a live in caregiver of a client i was taking care of she ended up merrying him cause she has been taken care of this man for 5 yrs she had the family (gr daughter) estrange from her grpa made sure she didn want her to come around and she was raised by her gr parents so when i started seeing signs she snuck and had him to merry her before he was legally diagnoised with dementia cause she felt that if he died she wouldnt get anything so she merried him he was 86 and she is 61 she was dirty to do that she wouldnt even let the gr daughter come around and see her own grpa, when she called she would lie and said he was busy with me excersing or he was napping, the gr daughter didnt get anything , i came friends with her and she CRIED on the ph she didnt even get her fathers picture that her grpa had of hi.. so if she is gonna merry him she is doing probably doing it for protection ...

They actually decided to marry a few years ago but my brother-in-law suddenly fell ill and ended up in hospital and was in for about 6 months then had to be put in a care home. They have never properly dignosed him with dementia because he would get in a right state when they tried to scan his brain but due to all the signs they class it has dementia. So you see sadly they never got to marry because it happened so quicikly. How ever my brother-in-law keeps asking my sister-in-law to marry him and so she wants to makes his and her's wish come true, so it's got nothing to do with money which they both got nothing any way. I hope this explaines why they want to marry.

Thanks, tigerlover, for satisfying my curiosity. I'd say go for it. And if it turns out to be invalid on some technicality, who cares? They'd be no worse off than they are now, and they'd have had the meaningful experience of saying the vows they've lived by all these years in public.

Is there anybody at all who would be likely to get their undies in a bundle and contest this marriage? If there are no disgruntled relatives on either side, I'd say start buying confetti and offer to take SIL out to buy a nice dress for the occassion!

just letting you know how things do go sometimes..i have seent it...but im the case i guess its no crime actually...but if he waa diagnoised with dementia it would have been hard to do..(legally)

My SIL spoke to the manager of the care home and she said she has no problem with the marriage but advise her to seek advise from solicitors to make sure there is no problem. Thank you all for your comments xxx

Tigerlover: Don't worry about solicitors. Just get a justice of the peace in and do the vows. No one will be hurt by this. Encourage your SIL to just get it done. If you are close by, be a witness. Maybe you can help your brother-in-law look like a groom and your SIL to have a nice dress. Bring in family and a cake and make it special. No worries, only happiness. Don't wait too long. Love and best wishes to the bride and groom, Cattails.