My father is going into assisted care in early February. I have been at his house 12 hours a day caring for him now. I asked my brother if he would come by a few nights to give me a break., He said "If you would have let us (him and his wife) put him in assisted living months ago you wouldn't of needed a break. So now you take care of him until he goes there." . It was my father's decision to not go into assisted living before, not mine!
I called my uncle, my father's brother who lives thousands of miles away to tell him what's happening. He hasn't returned any of my calls since I got here several months ago. I finally was able to reach him. I told him what was happening and that I could never have imagined my father would have had the type of aliments he does. He says "I did. I would be an a**hole if I didn't." The implication is that I'm an a**hole because I didn't know. How was I able to know for example that he would lose nearly all the strength in his arms? This is an uncle that when I heard he suffered some major emotional and relationship problems years ago I made it a point take him out to dinner and offer all my support to!
Can someone please tell me if I'm right here? Is my brother and uncle just insincere jerks? Or am I missing something? I know regulars have told me to just leave and I will once my father gets situated but until then I need to put up with this.
Am I right? I am asking because I have no one to talk to because my work and family was my first priority for many years and I only have one close friend, who lives far away, and who is actually going through far worse problems in their life.
We are not members of your family. We cannot conceivably know the ins and the outs of your family dynamics, let alone who is right and who is wrong. While it is interesting to see a new character enter the serial, I suspect this is getting a bit old for those of us who are regulars.
I again would suggest that you consider therapy to discuss this ongoing saga.
I wish you the best of Happy New Years, and I hope that eventually you will remove yourself from this drama whether that takes a move of some miles, or just of the brain and the heart.
My best out to you, your Father and your brother and sister-in-law, all of whom I feel I know more intimately than I should.
My answer isn't what I think you want: that you are right.. let me explain.
You can ask for help.
It would be nice if brother/uncle/whoever said yes. But other people can decide how they wish. To say yes or no.
The key words are *ask* *nice* & *decide*.
People are free to choose as they wish. They are not obligated to choose in a way that works out for other people. (If there has been tensions or bad feelings, that may even sway people away from helping).
You may call their behaviour selfish. They may call your behaviour selfish for wanting your way.
Choosing for yourself is all you can do. Being responsible for your own choices.
Does that make sense?
I'm sure February will make things a whole lot easier.
Your uncle is presumably much the same age as your father. He probably has health problems of his own, and his friends do too. So he is not surprised that your father has problems. Your sympathy for him didn't come when you were up to your ears in the same issues. He may not have expressed it well, but it doesn’t make him an “insincere jerk” either.
Get whatever help you can with father’s care, for the next month. Don’t trash all your family relationships because you can’t go through with your original plans. It’s a hard time, just cope as well as you can. xxx
If you made a mistake, so be it, we all do, our emotions mess up our thinking. It is not uncommon for people to try and think with their heart rather than their brain, although the heart is not designed to make valid decisions.
Let it go and move forward.
IF your father’s thinking was already damaged by dementia, he may have been incapable of making a valid and reasonable decision considering the best and safest care for himself, and sad though it may be for you, your well intentioned offer of care MAY have made it even more difficult for your brother and uncle to finalize the plans to get him to the care he needed.
Perhaps all of you were both right and wrong, and are now being a little harsh when responding to each other?
You can’t MAKE family provide hands on care, and you can’t expect someone to relieve you of responsibility that you assumed, against their recommendations and advice, because you disagreed with what they were saying.
If you want to continue being a loving supportive network for your dad, you’ll need to forget what you think was “implied” by whatever anyone said, and focus on the goal of getting your father into the care setting that serves him best.
You have done what you thought you should, as a faithful daughter would. Be grateful that you were able to offer what you could.
If you know you did “right” by your father, it may be better to relinquish your focus on what others think.
Hope all goes well for you moving forward.
And there you have it. What your brother and possibly your uncle are pointing out - in the nastiest possible way, perhaps - is that it was your father's decision to decide not to go into assisted living. But it was your decision to become the full-time caregiver, not your father's.
I'm glad there's an end in sight, though.
Your posts are tiresome bud, bc you are unable and unwilling to keep an open mind and hear anything BUT "gee you're right and the rest of the world is wrong" while you toot your own horn for perceived great services you performed for others 20 or 30 yrs ago, bringing up something you said in middle school for petesake! That doesn't make you "honorable"! You only want to "associate" with yes-men and people who prop you up for all of your successes while ignoring your failures. Your family members cannot tolerate you, is the truth. You have but 1 real friend, why might that be? This constant and chronic insistence on making others "wrong" and yourself "right" may be a good starting point to figure out why. Intensive therapy and counseling may be your only hope here, or a psychiatrist who can help you sort yourself out.
I hope your father gets the fulltime care he needs, which is not possible in AL. I hope you and your brother can put aside all this petty nonsense in favor of helping your FATHER get the care he needs. Stop repeating heresay about what you've heard about AL, SNFs and 100 days of rehab and do some REAL research on your own in an effort to figure out what's best for dad. Not you....DAD. It's ridiculous the histrionics you write about between you and your brother, all while DAD has continued to decline under the "care" you've both given him! To the point where he hasn't the strength to open a refrigerator door??! 😑 Dad needs to get away from this madness now and into some managed care facility where he can be properly looked after, finally.