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I have been taking care of my Mom since my Dad passed away seven years ago. We currently live in her house in Florida. I hate it here! I found a nice little house in upstate NY and would like to move. The problem is her! How do I convince her to move a thousand miles away from everything. Her burial plot is here in Florida. I know she wants to be with my father. So how do I convince her, that she will eventually still be with him? She has beginning dementia. She is with it most of the time, but is subject to temper tantrums, and pouting. I passed the idea by her, but she wasn't very responsive. How should I handle this? Also we would have a very long drive. I figured I could break it into several days stopping along the way. I'm not really sure how this would affect her. She is 93 and fairly frail.

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First I'd get her a complete checkup and see if her doctor thinks she's up to making such a long journey. 93 and frail I doubt it. Even if she could make the journey I assume she has friends there and it would be very hard leaving everything behind. My mother utterly refused to move 200km when she was still fairly able and had no friends or social life to leave behind so I ended up stuck in a city I hated for four hellish years.
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Ok, you move. She probably has friends in FLA, so let her stay and arrange for in home care if she needs it. A housekeeper once a week would be good. The temper tantrums are for your benefit, I doubt if they will continue. Of course when you move to NY, she will call and announce her imminent death. My MIL said she was "in agony" and she had not taken her meds. We told her to take the meds or call 911, and call us back when she decided what to do. She took her pills and felt better. Tantrum over. She had already been carted off by the EMT's three times for crises of various kinds. We did not go to the ER to witness her theatrics. Nobody rushed to the hospital, which spoiled her plans to make us all panic. Once she realized she could not manipulate us with a crisis, and she had big co-pays for her "illness", she stopped her shenanigans.
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Can she live on her own? If so, I would consider moving to NY and letting her stay in FL. We ended up moving from VA to FL to take care of my mother. Even moving her two hours away from all of the rest of the family and her friends - within the same state - isolated us both. And doing this alone is HARD.

Think about if you want to do this alone with her, regardless of what she wants. Now if you already have lots of friends in NY to support you in your caregiving, taking her with you might work (if you eventually convince her).
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^5 pstegman! The day after a fall Christmas eve night when my mother was taken to hospital to have a finger stitched (she takes blood thinners so it wouldn't stop bleeding) she gave me the devil. "I fully expected you to come running through the door to hold my hand and keep me company".

I live on a dirt road in the middle of fields and forests. Pitch black out here, surrounded by snow drifts and ice with a hip replacement I don't go out after dark in the winter. Tough luck toots! In the end you learn to stand up for yourself, stamp on their shenanigans and avoid them.

Move to where you can be happy and rebuild your life. Change your phone number if you have to. After having a mild stroke from a lifetime of stress from madam, that's what I did.
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OK thanks for the answers. No Mom has no friends or family here in Florida. What family we do have is in NY. I would worry about her making the trip. Right now, I think I have decided to just bite the bullet and stick it out here.
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