Follow
Share

I have recently sold my home and I am moving back to my home state. My elderly parents are 87 and 90 and live at home with a caregiver that comes for 3 hours, three times a week. I arranged the caregiver during a health crisis earlier this year. She does light housekeeping and meal prep and laundry and can run errands if needed. She has been fantastic and has reduced my worry and stress. I have arranged lawn care so that is taken care of. My parents have funds to pay for these things and they are paying for them. My mother still drives and picks up food and groceries. Both of them are independent with their self care and manage their own finances. I am an only child. However, I know this can't last forever and I find myself worrying more about what is to come. I have asked and pushed a conversation but neither gives any real answers. I think they think I will just handle it, when the time comes, like always. My parents have a difficult marriage and mother has complained since my childhood of how miserable she is. I was parentified and my emotional needs were not met or attuned to. My mother has no friends and has cut off from most relatives save a couple who she manipulates. She cajoles some neighbors but I would not call them friends. She was not interested in mothering and had a full time job 25 miles from home since I was 1 year old. I had a series of babysitters, family, neighbors, tenders, and paid caregivers. People who meet her say she is Great and so charming but that is the public face. My mother has been emotionally abusive to me and physically when I was a child. She interfered with my love relationships and gave silent treatments that could last for months and was very critical. She raged when I was a child and it was scary. My father is just emotionally shut down and probably has always been. He enables her and has made hurtful comments and has very limited empathy. They both had difficult childhoods. I have done therapy and self healing work and have learned a lot about covert narcissism and borderline behavior and the enabling relationships like my parents. I understand they will not change. My Grief work is ongoing. I call or text them once a week and have reduced my visits to 3-4 times per year unless an emergency. I no longer want the stress of waiting for the next phone call or wondering what will happen when she can't drive anymore or when I will get the next call from the ER and have to rush to the airport and get on a plane and put my life on hold. I want to be close enough so I am within driving distance from them but I certainly dont want to live with them. For my own convenience, it would be nice to be in their same town but it is smaller and about 25 miles from a large city. I would prefer a larger city but that is 3 hours from them and I dont want to go through all the hassle of moving only to find I am still caught up every Sunday, talking on the phone, and wishing I could just stop by for an hour, say Hello and then leave. I am considering buying a place in their town because it would be the most convenient for me (and them) and give me the most control over decisions that will come down the road but its not really where I want to live. I am 55 years. Has anyone faced a similar decision and what did you discover? Better to live really close for your own convenience with them even if its not really where you want to be and make the best of it? Or live where you would like, a 3 hour drive away, try to enjoy it and worry about the future when it happens? Did living close undo all the self healing work and create new trauma? I have been looking at homes and rentals in 3 different cities for months but I can't seem to make a decision and I think this dilemma is at the root of my indecision.

This question has been closed for answers. Ask a New Question.
Find Care & Housing
Most emergencies can be handled by phone in the immediate need.
So if you live 3 to 4 hours away that would be far enough that they can not depend on you for day to day things but close enough that if need be you can authorize treatment and then get to them if the emergency requires it.
You can assess how they are doing, also be in contact with the caregiver. If at anytime you see or the caregiver feels that they need more help than 3 hours 3 times a week then the time and number of days could be increased.
If they are not going to discuss the future all you can do is wait. It might be that they will be fine. Or something will happen that will force them to make a decision. This is up to them.
Helpful Answer (2)
Report

My answer-move them close enough that you can be there to deal with a true emergency but not so close that every day there is an emergency that requires your in-person attention.
Helpful Answer (2)
Report

I hear this question over and over again. If there was a toxic relationship and it is still not good, I don't care what the relationship is or was - you have NO obligations. If people do not love and respect one another, why on earth are they in your lives. Commitments and honoring etc. flies out the window when there is no bond or love - do not fall victim to that trap. Do what you can but take care of YOU first - you owe that to yourself. People do things and say things and you are just supposed to ignore that? No way, what you sow is what you reap and if you don't do this the right way from the beginning, I say they are on their own and have to live with what they did - not your problem.
Helpful Answer (1)
Report
Beethoven13 Jan 2022
Thanks for the very helpful reply. My mother will use triangulation with a family member who lives nearby to try to make me feel guilty for not being there. I don't know if the family member has any real bad intent but she doesn't communicate much with me and its mostly pleasantries. I have tried to talk to her about the difficulties with my parents privately on a few occasions but she doesn't seem to understand. I told her once that my mother makes her good cop and I am bad cop and she said, I'm sorry, I didn't know that was happening. I have kept a pleasant relationship with her so I am not completely on the outs with her. My father recently made a hint of not leaving me their home after they are gone because he didn't know if I wanted it, since I don't want to live there now, with them. They have substantial assets. I sometimes wonder about family members helping them because they also know about the assets. I have had some very frank discussions with my parents about inheritance and wills and as far as I know, it is all going to me as only child. I do wonder because they won't provide much reassurance or speak about it in a calm and loving way. Its more of, it'll be yours when I'm dead, sort of thing. Nothing else to say. I'm sensitive that this reminds them of their very real mortality and that is not pleasant. So, thats as far as it gets discussed. Curious comments in the last month have been: Father made a point of saying: don't buy us anything else for x holiday. I had given them each a small gift and spent 2 weeks with them cooking, spending time, decorated their home for the holiday, got some necessary repairs done. (I wondered if they didn't want to feel guilty?) He said, I just can't do this paperwork anymore. I asked, what type of help do you need and I will try to get it for you? No answer. Implied, I just want you to worry and be here, but I still want to control it all. I have bluntly asked about accounts and amounts and he has shown me the balances and my name is on all the accounts. All accounts are in all 3 names. All that I know about, at least. He won't give me the reassurance that I don't need to worry or I can count on it now, as I make big decisions. I often hear, "who else would I leave it to?" as the answer to my question. I do not have financial difficulties. They do not provide me any financial support for over 25 years. I have bought and sold my own homes and vehicles and pay for all the necessary things. Father has purchased things for me in my 20's and paid for my education and I have always expressed thanks and made it known that he did those things. The more the money thing comes up now, years later, the more I feel guilty for asking about it and the less transparent they both seem. They do say, do what you want, choose what makes you happy, but there is a track record of if you don't figure out what I really want you to do and do it, you will pay. Either emotional withdrawal, isolation, removal of support. From the stories I have heard, both of their parents did this to them. its just toxic and superficially "nice' if I try really hard. But we are late in the 8th inning and I am not prepared to walk away completely for several reasons.
(0)
Report
Move where you wish to move. I would make it clear to your parents that you are going to be living where you wish to live, that they need to make arrangements for themselves when it is time to do so. This is the last best time of your life when you are free, functioning on your own to build solid community, to travel, and etc. I had the most wonderful parents in the world. They moved first to an elder community, into a duplex, then as they needed it to more care gradually. I never lived in the same state they lived in. If I didn't move to the same state they were in for the best parents in the world I would certainly not do it for parents that (for whatever human limitations) were NOT very good parents.
Living close will pull in any vulnerability that still remains (we can get excellent help from therapy, but our inner child remains within, and vulnerable throughout life) and may cause you great misery, and need for boundaries and therapy to maintain them.
Go. Make a life. Be frank with your parents that they must make plans. Do not agree to be POA for them; encourage them to hire a financial fiduciary for bill paying when needed.
Your choice will be your own. It is unlikely to delay your life more than a decade. But at that point you will be 65, the time when we tend not to make a lot of changes, when we tend to pull back from travel and risk and so on unless we have excellent support systems emotionally, a partner; or unless we are financially very well fixed.
I know you have access to therapist and encourage you to discuss with him or her, your best guide. That person knows you, your history. You can consider also consulting a Social Worker trained specifically in life transitions to work a path toward this with discussion with your parents. And how to discuss. Never descending into argument helps. Just saying what your plans are; and offering to make them as comfortable as you are able to with those plans.
I have two children. They neither live in my own state. Though I love them very much I will not be moving to their States. Nor they to mine. And this has been discussed for many years (I am 80.)
I wish you the best. Good luck with your decisions.
Helpful Answer (3)
Report

You are still young and should think about and plan for what you want for your own life and future, as well as your responsibilties to your parents. Will you be working? Your responsibility to them is to make sure that they are cared for and age with dignity, but you don't have to be the one to do the day-to-day caregiving. They can have aides come in as much as needed, or can move to assisted living (those are their basic choices). Plan for a time when they'll need more care than one person can provide. It's important that your parents have all of their paperwork in order with powers of attorney for medical and financial matters, living wills with their medical directives, a will if they have assets (it sounds like they do), most financial institutions have their own POA forms (banks, credit card companies, etc.), and you need to be on file with Medicare and Social Security to be able to speak on their behalf. This can be done with a phone call with them sitting next to you to agree that you are the one to speak for them. I'm assuming that you are the POA. If not, it will be the POA(s) that will make decisions for them if they become unable to make their own decisions. If it comes to a point where one or both of them have to move to assisted living, it will be easier if they move close to you.
Helpful Answer (1)
Report

Beethoven13: I had to live out of state to care for my late mother in her home. It was very difficult.
Helpful Answer (1)
Report

You deserve to be happy. As I tell my own kids, take care of you and your own little family and go where you WANT to be. Your parents had their life and did what they wanted . The future will work it’s own way out. They still have EACH OTHER. They need to figure it out like we all do. Good luck 💜
Helpful Answer (4)
Report

"I want to be close enough so I am within driving distance from them".

Beethoven13, can I ask why?

"For you own convenience" to avoid the long flights/drives you already said. OK.

But will the convenience of Sunday visits in person, rather than a phone call be worth the inconvenience of moving your whole life to this smaller town?

"but I certainly dont want to live with them". 

Sounds wise. Big potential to be sucked into the vortex of their daily life (like 100 %).

Will living in a separate home, in the same town protect you from the vortex?

"I can't seem to make a decision and I think this dilemma is at the root of my indecision".

You know.. I think this being a bit stuck is meant to be - for now - because you are not ready to choose.

The indecisiveness may not be a hindrance - maybe it is actually protecting you!

Coz right now you are not drowning - so no need to quickly grasp onto any passing boat. Just continue to float along. See what other thoughts & feelings arrise.
Helpful Answer (6)
Report
Katefalc Oct 2021
Great advice !!
(0)
Report
I think it's better to keep your distance but check up on them to make sure they're okay and make other arrangements should you have to.
Helpful Answer (2)
Report

What I am reading between the lines is that this was not a good, loving relationship with your parents and it does not seem to be so now. There are obvious problems between the two of them and I don't think either one wants to face reality and cooperate with what may take place down the road - and I see you have tried in every way to do the right thing. My first question is this - why do you feel obligated to do anything given the history? Why are you willing to risk YOUR life and welfare to take care of two people who obviously don't care and won't work with you. Why? Is it guilt? You sure do NOT deserve to feel guilty. I would talk to an eldercare attorney and ask for input on how to handle this if they don't cooperate and also talk with Social Services professionals. Please DO NOT MOVE WHERE THEY ARE AND DO NOT LET THEM INTO YOUR HOME. God help you if you do. There are solutions but in cases like this, I think it is better to face the facts, think of YOU first, and do what you can to make some kind of preparations for them when the shit hits the fan - but that should NOT be your worry based on the past history.
Helpful Answer (5)
Report

I just wanted to say that I really feel for you - I am in the exact same situation as you are in terms of everything you described...it's uncanny. Your description of your mother and your father's personality and all that you've described - how they raised you, treated you....and where they currently are in life - it's been my experience as well and I am currently living it. It's really unnerving.

It seems that you're getting a lot of great feedback from others on this site - which I'm going to read for my own situation as well. The only opinion I can really give is I would suggest living where you want to live - which is 3 hours away from them - it's still reasonably close enough, yet you're still able to be where you want to be. And in time, you may want to increase the in-home assistance for your parents and just keep assessing the situation as time goes on regarding what's needed.

Wishing you all the very best ~
Helpful Answer (3)
Report

So much of what you wrote could apply to me...from being the only child to having a mother who was completely narcissistic. I won't go into all the details of my past. Let's just start when mother was 64yo she moved to be closer to me- in another state, leaving behind all her friends. Every neighborhood/ community she moved to, she alienated those around her due to her personality and traits, leaving me to deal/help with her. As she aged, it became more demanding, more time consuming, more emotionally draining for me (and of course, nothing I ever did was ever right!). I always lived about 30-50 minutes away from her - close enough to be there when 'needed' (although our relationship was the best when we lived thousands of miles apart...)

As she aged, she refused to move to AL and as such, lived in her own townhome until a few months before she passed away at the age of 95. Because I was nearby, she wasn't agreeable to "outside" help no matter who I hired. I did, though, hire a geriatric care manager. They were a lifesaver for me (mother would call them instead of me, they would help deal with her problems and issues) but unfortunately, in the area I live, they were incredibly expensive for her/our budget. So, it went back on me.

There were times I wanted to move to another state- a warmer state because of my medical conditions. I weighed that decision carefully because I knew that mother would have ongoing problems and issues I would have to deal with, and living further away from her, whether in state or out of state, would put a big burden on me - time, travel, cost wise - in dealing with things. I chose to remain close by, even though it created a lot more trauma for me - in the long run - less hassles for me. Just imagine if I moved out of state, and every time she had a problem, I would have to fly back, stay at a hotel, rent a car, etc etc. Some would say - live your own life, she created her own life 'mess'...but being the only child, and one who does have a compassionate heart, I couldn't just walk away. Also, when you get that call at 11:30pm on Sunday night - whether from your parents, or the EMT's or whoever, how close do you want to be to go deal with things?

I never thought I would become my parents parent, but when you are the only child, unfortunately, that does land on one's shoulders. You have to make decisions for not only you, but for them as well. Decisions that, when you look back, will you be at peace with them?
Helpful Answer (4)
Report
dseag2 Oct 2021
Thank you for your post. I can so relate to your situation. I'm an only child as well (male, no less) and my father left their home of 40 years to move close to me. He passed away 4 years later and I have been taking care of my mother now for 21 years. Like your mother, she alienated her neighbors and was always dependent. She never worked so she never understood the demands on those of us who do. She continues until to this day to expect other people to make decisions and take care of her. When she was living on her own, I had in-home caregivers visit and she would turn them away. It has been exhausting at times.

I guess I was lucky in that she never fought me over their estate and just expected me to make the financial decisions. She was happy to move to another state because I moved there and she had no choice. She was happy to move to AL because I insisted. I have basically overseen her finances, life and happiness for 21 years. She is now near the end of her life and I have no regrets. I've made decisions that have kept her comfortable.

As you said, as only children we have no choice but to take care of our parents. Whether we feel it is fair or not, we have obligations. But we need to make decisions that ensure we still have a balance in our own lives.
(2)
Report
Hi. It amazes me how many people deal with similar situations. I appreciate reading your dilemma in the way that it also helps me to see mine from another perspective. We are similar in the way that 1) our parents were not there for us as children and their actions created hardship. 2) Our elderly parents need support. 3) We are in the phase of life where it is now or never to do the things we want to do while we are able, and to set up what we want our own elder years to look like.

I really respect that you have made boundaries for yourself with how often you contact them, and with hiring support. You have already set a precedent for their care by acting as manager with check ins. This inspires me as it seems to be win-win. They get support and you maintain your life.

It's almost like coming to a turn-style on our path. We can consciously move through and carry on down the path that we are on, or we can stop and turn around.

Turning around means changing your own life course to care for theirs. Moving through means continuing to build on the life you have created for yourself and continuing to build on the support system you have created for your folks.

This is where I am too. I feel guilt and fear of blame or shame for not meeting an ideal of familial dedication. These feelings can be paralyzing.

Perhaps these angels that we can hire to support our elders are also our angels. They are there to help those of us who have survived childhood abuse and neglect so we don't have to go back.

I wish you and all of us who are in this situation the strength and courage we need so we may do what is truly best for everyone.
Helpful Answer (5)
Report

I am 57, my mother is borderline, vulnerable narcissist 80 with Parkinson’s. She lives with my quadriplegic 46 year old sister.
They overspend, make bad decisions and me moving 3 hours to their town only separated me from my support system, my doctors, my friends and all the places I love. They do like to isolate you with them.

They have no one bc they drive everyone away by running them into the ground with serious boundary issues. Then blame caregivers for what they do.

The only thing I did coming here is add me to the equation. Instead of me pulling them out, they are pulling me under. And being that personality type they feel entitled to do it.

Good luck in that difficult decision
Helpful Answer (4)
Report

Well I’ve been on both sides of the coin.

We lived close to my husband’s parents. They moved near us so when the time came they would have help. There was
lots of help required. But at least they did make choices that helped in that regards.

I am an 2-3 hour drive from my moms each direction. After my dad died we tried to get her to make decisions about her future that would help us care for her when the time came. Her bottom line was “No one is the boss of her”. (This is her edited response). Because she would make no decisions or plans, providing care for her has been a HORRENDOUS journey.

As much as they think they will be able to continue to care for themselves, THEY WONT. My mom thought she would never need help and she sure was wrong,

My point is near or far it will be a large load, especially if you are an only child.

i do have my husband and brothers to help and that made the physical work easier but I also had different and difficult childhood and that made this load almost unbearable.

Good luck
Helpful Answer (5)
Report

Unless you plan on being at their beck and call, 3 hours is good.

The closer you are the more that will be expected from you.

If you go every Sunday and then miss one because of other plans, it will be treated as betrayal and near end of the world. Be mindful of setting precedent with your actions and be a bit unpredictable to ensure they don't start depending on your time.

Most toxic parents only get more toxic with age, so try to have a bit of a plan for the "in case" situations that can be handled by others with you as the advocate.

You will be a better advocate and daughter for them if you are leading a happy, fulfilled life that doesn't orbit around them and their needs. Sacrificing your life to prop them up so they don't have to make changes or sacrifices is never a good plan.

Best of luck finding the best solution to this season of life.
Helpful Answer (11)
Report
Beatty Oct 2021
"beck and call"
Yeah - you got it!

1 x Sunday visit - 2 x weekly, 1 x day - 2 x day - 3 overnights...

Depends on independence level, medical needs & VERY MUCH on temperament/personality how fast this slippery slope can be... May be a decade long mission creep or a greased lightening decent to h3ll.
(2)
Report
I think you should live in the bigger city if that is where you would rather be. Your relationship with your parents, esp with your mother, makes full-time, hands on care for them something you do not want to do. You can continue to help arrange outside, paid help just like you have done for their needs up until now.

Do not move so close that you and your parents just assume you are taking over their care.
Helpful Answer (10)
Report

You said in a comment, "I want to be involved in their medical decisions when they need to make them but I would like them to have some consideration for how their lack of a plan affects me. But it appears to me at least, they don't in any real way."

Harsh and difficult as it is, take it from the child of a similar narcissist and (now deceased) enabler couple: They have not and will not have consideration for how their lack of planning affects you. Ever. They have already proven that in all the decades already past in which they failed to make any plans, and that will not change. It's a painful reality, and one I have spent the last seven months getting slapped in the face with after decades of begging for, and failing to receive, just such consideration. But you need to face that now, with eyes wide open and with full radical acceptance, or else you are setting yourself up for an even greater, more painful fall.

As for your OP: You are only 55 years old. You have decades of adventure and opportunity ahead of you. This life is the only thing you have that is truly yours. Do not give up your life trying to make up for your parents' deficits. Do not sacrifice yourself to their failures. Choose yourself. And do so in all the ways they never have. You are worthwhile. You are worth it.
Helpful Answer (16)
Report
MountainMoose Oct 2021
Preach, tidablue!
(3)
Report
See 2 more replies
Stay where you are. If necessary, locate a little place you can stay in occasionally (hotel, Band B, whatever) and stay for a few days if some special situation makes it easier for you. You aren't going to create a happy parent/daughter situation by leaving the place that makes you happiest. But you can be in good shape to take care of your parents to the extent your ethical beliefs determine. But take care of yourself first of all.
Helpful Answer (4)
Report

First, you are only 55. You should be living in a place and doing things that makes you happy. I am also an only child. I tried the moving back years ago to “help” and that was a total disaster. It reopened trauma and set me back emotionally, financially and personally. I left with a job transfer and pursued my own happiness and cut off communication. When there finally was a crisis and I chose to step back in, I moved my mother to a facility close to me for MY convenience. Why would you move and upend your life for parents that didn’t really nurture you? To a town you don’t like? You are helping from afar. You can continue to do that and increase services as needed. If you said, “I always wanted to move back to my hometown because it has so much to offer me” that would be a different story.

Knowing what I know right now, I would never relocate for an emotional abusive parent. NEVER. You need to be planning your life first. It sounds like you have the funds to be able to make choices - so why are you thinking you have to just “make the best of it?” Have your parents even prepared legal documents giving you the power to make decisions? There is also no need for you to be schlepping back and forth every time there’s an incident. I manage my mother’s care (even though she’s physically close to me) from afar. I don’t really visit due to the history. I communicate with staff and doctors and she’s in a safe facility.

Listen - even with strong boundaries and doing the self care work, just having to manage my mother’s care and finances has caused me great anxiety and interferes with my life in many ways. It has brought back a flood of negative memories and emotions. I had to take antidepressants and anti anxiety medications when this first started. I still have bad dreams. I cannot imagine if I was in a town that I didn’t like all alone. If I had to do this again, I would have let a state guardian take over.

If you are having some doubts - then listen to yourself!!! Stop doubting your intuition!
Helpful Answer (13)
Report

Tough decision. I moved 720 miles to live near my mother. I sold my home..went from a peaceful River town to an urban setting. Our relationship has been loving but she has always felt ok about criticizing me. I had many hurt years. I decided I would sacrifice some years of my life to help her. She is 88, I am 70. She has Lewy Body but is fairly clear headed most days. I had 2 good retirement years. I do not strive to make her happy but I have found her a great assisted living facility and I take her on appointments, do her finances , shopping, and to church on Sundays…about 20 hrs a week on average. My job is to keep her safe, well fed and a good roof over her head. This is not what I planned for my retirement but despite her not always being perfect she is my mother and meant well. She did her best. It took a year to stop feeling sorry for myself and resenting my sacrifice. Now I joyfully {most days} take on this job and even moved myself into a retirement community apartment on the campus where she lives {another big sacrifice}…. {I sold a little condo in the city}.
we all need to live with our decisions guilt free..I will. Good Luck.
Helpful Answer (4)
Report

My situation is somewhat similar, though in my case it was my mother who made the decision to move to live in *our* town. My mum sounds very like yours except that she never had a fulfilling job. Based on what I have learned, she is a covert narcissist and my father enabled her for 38 years. She was widowed at 62 and swore she would never move from our childhood home, and for many years she managed, with a few voluntary jobs and then relying on neighbours when she had a fall and wouldn't use the bus any more to get her shopping.

In 2017 my husband, whom Mum likes more than me, decided to retire - and next thing we know she is buying an apartment in a supposed AL block a few minutes from us. It's since become clear that she intended to co-opt my husband as a replacement for my dad - without asking what we thought about it - and she has made no attempt to create a new life for herself or have any kind of interests or social life apart from what family provide. I could cope with seeing her three times a year, but three times a week was too much. All my old childhood insecurities came back and my marriage suffered because my kind, confrontation-hating husband at first just did whatever Mum wanted 'for a quiet life'. I even considered leaving them to it and moving myself at one point. I too had a year's counselling and now accept that I can't make my mum happy and it isn't even really my job to do so, but her presence and 'needs' still cast a heavy shadow over my life and my physical health has suffered too. My brother is only 25 miles away but works full-time and has a dysfunctional family life, so he can't do as much as we can and never will, as he is only 55 and says he has to work till he's 70 to pay his bills.

What is worst is that Mum is not happy here and regrets her move. She had two bouts of blood clots on the lung in 2018 and 19 that might have killed her had she been still living in her old home, but what is hard to say is whether she is better off now, declining monthly (mild dementia too now), not happy, never well though not really ill, and a burden to her family. A shorter but more pleasant life might have been nicer for her, but we will never know.

None of this helps you with your choice, I know, but I just wanted to say be very careful what you take on and do consider your own needs too, as you matter as much as your parents.
Helpful Answer (7)
Report

I had a similar childhood. I loved my father even though he physically, emotionally, and psychologically abusive. He was a narcissist, manipulative bully. I am one of five…he was horrible to the first 3 sibs, and less so with my 2 youngest sibs. My mother was extremely passive and never stopped him from the abuse. She has been dead for 28 years. We are in our 50’s and 60’s…his behavior has negatively affect all of us. My sister and I were sexually abused as well. I was always trying to get him to love me…he did not. I also went through 3 years of therapy when I started to repeat his behavior when my children were preteens. The therapy freed me from the claws of parental abuse. It allowed me to heal my broken heart, and purged the guilt and feelings for my father. I care, but no longer love him. I sometimes feel guilty about that…but I quickly recall his abusive, manipulative behavior, and the guilt vanishes. He is 91 years old, has dementia and has “forgotten” how abusive he was (this was before he developed dementia. He lives 10 hours away…It is a blessing. My older brother is his POA and EX. I deal with the medical issues. We do this via e-mails, texts, and phone calls to the Memory Care and nit: My sibs and are close. We have discussed our perilous childhoods. I am sorry you have had been deal with your parental control toxicity without any he benefit of sibs. You have suffered enough. Glad you are working through your feelings with a therapist. You are entitled to live your best life. You are NOT required to put your parents’ needs before your own. You need to do self-love. Your parents are safe, their needs are met. You do not need to visit them at all. I hope you will find happiness.
Helpful Answer (6)
Report

My God, we have similar lives. My situation is alot like yours. Im also tormented and emotionally abused by narcissist mom. Dads an angel but useless because he listens to her and enables her. Have a brother but a narcissist. Got a condo for them 25 minutes away but who knows if they will come. They’re in a different state w brother. Mom doesn’t want to be with my dad nor cook for him and he just got out of hospital with major heart issues. Make sure to take care of yourself. Make decisions so you don’t regret
Helpful Answer (5)
Report

Live in the city unless you want your dropping in to become daily and longer whilst you take on more and more. 3 hours is a distance you can be there in less than half a day in ab occasion of real need, but is far enough away that you cannot be expected to just drop in.
Helpful Answer (5)
Report

Sounds like you don’t really want to be near them but you have a responsibility to help them . Rent something short term and if it doesn’t work go where you will be happy . They won’t be around much longer and you don’t want to feel guilt after they die .
Helpful Answer (3)
Report

At 55 you should be thinking about where you want to live, have friends, etc. when you retire. Otherwise you will end up moving and starting over again when you reach retirement.

Nothing on this planet could convince me to live in the small town my mother chooses to live in, and I don’t have the parental issues you have.
Helpful Answer (6)
Report

Do what will make you happy. The ages of your parents suggests that you will soon have a longer time without them than with them. Make sure to keep in close contact with their caregiver. The most likely scenario is that your parents will need a caregiver during the day every day of the week at some point and then progress to needing round the clock care unless they die of sudden illnesses like stroke or heart attacks. It would be a good idea to check with your parents about securing powers of attorney for medical and financial issues. This can easily be done at a local lawyers' office.
Helpful Answer (2)
Report

Before making any decision, read the book Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast. That book came highly recommended to my husband and me when we were dealing with a similar decision about his parents. We ended up moving them to independent living and moving 6-miles away and we were driving the decisions, not them. Good luck.
Helpful Answer (6)
Report

The closer you move to your parents, the more excuses you will need for not coming right over. There are some successful caregivers who caregive from a distance.

You can choose to move anywhere you want, with a plan in place.
This sounds harsh, but will protect your privacy:

Get a private mailbox with a street address. Never give them your real address, and never take them to your home. Give them a cell phone number with a different area code than theirs. You are not obligated to even say you have moved! Become low-profile, become stealth.

At 55, you can live in a senior only neighborhood, planning your own retirement.

Take your time, you will find something promising when you discover you no longer have a need to be a people-pleaser.
Helpful Answer (7)
Report
cwillie Oct 2021
"The closer you move to your parents, the more excuses you will need for not coming right over. " 👍👍
(13)
Report
This question has been closed for answers. Ask a New Question.
Ask a Question
Subscribe to
Our Newsletter