About 2 years ago; my elderly mother informed me that she needed to move in with me because things were not working out living with my sister. I allowed her to move into the spare room after my grown daughter moved out and I knew she'd depend on me to get her to doctor appointments, take her to the store, etc.
Little by little, she started wanting me to start taking more and more responsibility for things I'm not willing to be responsible for. I don't want to be handling her business matters. I don't want any of her assets when she passes either; and honestly, she doesn't have a lot to pass on. My dad put all their money into precious metals; which is just the worst idea I've ever heard. She can't spend it like a liquid asset; it has to be cashed in with the same company he bought it from. (If anyone is considering falling for that scam, just say no.) Her helplessness extends to the point where she will ask me to wake her up in the morning and that tiny little abdication of responsibility is indicative of the problem I have with her.
I don't want her financial business to fall to me. I had my life arranged in a way I could cope with and I'm doing everything I can to avoid what she keeps wanting to plop into my lap. Even her emotional needs are too much for me to attend to. I avoid everything I can, and resent everything I can't avoid. I am 59 years old, divorced and my youngest kid had JUST left home when this all started. This was supposed to me my time. I'd made room in my life for that. I'd downsize; I'd simplified; I'd KonMari'd; I'd cancelled cable; and, I never installed a landline. I'd planned on traveling overseas; going on fly-fishing road trips, camping. I planned on many trips to visit my new grandchild. I planned on eating cereal for dinner when I felt like it. I'd JUST GOTTEN SOBER.
This situation has ruined my life; and the only way it could be worse, is if I had to be responsible for managing her business too.
Unfortunately you let your mother move in with you.
That is going to make it ever so much more difficult to remedy this all.
First of all explain to your mother that you are very sorry, but your limitations don't allow you to care for her in your home, nor is it working out for YOU to live with her. That she will have now to go into care. Then hire a fiduciary to handle your Mom's finances, to arrange all of her bills so that they are automatically withdrawn or are sent to him or to her. This is often about 90.00 an hour and once arranged takes only several hours a month at most to do the work. This is something Mom will pay for, just as she would if she did not have a daughter.
Tell your Mom exactly what you are willing to do and what you are not. Tell her she will need care so she can access transit to appointments and so on.
Be honest. Tell her you will not abandon her, but that sadly you are unwilling to take on her care in the home. That you will assist her when Covid is over or she is vaccinated or care places are vaccinated to find a good placement choice given what assets she has now that Dad squandered their funds on a bad scheme.
There is no reason to sacrifice your own life on the next several decades of misery, nor your sobriety.
I wish you good luck. This is again something without a good answer. Not everything can be fixed. There is no easy answer to the fact our elders now live on to the age of 100, leaving us 80 years old and bereft of everything we should have enjoyed in some of the last carefree years of our lives. Some choose to sacrifice their lives on this altar. I would not be capable of that. Only you can decide if you wish to do that or not.
How do you get her out of your life? You may need to talk to an eldercare attorney about evicting her and arranging to have her placed in a facility.