Originally Posted by
susang
I am finding this thread interesting and it makes me feel guilty. My mother is luckily in good health, but elderly and forgetful. Last year, after a fall, (and many years of talking to her about moving) we moved her 60 miles to a senior apt near us. She is furious. Still. She can't be in her own house, the neighbors have told us they have helped too many times, the doctor said she has to go. She DOES want to move into my house, but here's the catch: This is a bitter, self-centered woman - My kids are all 4 in their 20's & I've been married 30 years. In all that time, my mother visited a lot, but she NEVER babysat , changed a diaper, cooked a meal for us, took the kids anywhere etc. She constantly complained about how hard her life was (it wasn't), how poor the kids' manners were etc. Meanwhile, we visited her, did repairs on her home, I housecleaned and mended for her etc. Now, she wonders why my 4 siblings never visit and rarely call, and why none of her 15 grandchildren call or visit. And she can't understand why I am not enthusiastic about welcoming her to live at my house. OK, I guess I love her, but I don't respect her nor do I enjoy her company. Am I an awful person???
Susang, you have done what you could to get your mother closer to you, but since she has such hard feelings for your husband, and can do nothing but find fault, DO NOT move her in with you!!! You can go and visit her, and then go home and heal from what guilt she might try to heap on you. If you were to move her in with you, she'd find fault with every thing you did or said, and possibly wreck your marriage.
When I was young, my mother found fault with all of my friends. They weren't good enough.. and so on. I lived in a very small town and there weren't a lot of kids to pal around with. None of my friends were drinkers, nor smokers, it was before all the drugs, and all graduated from high school and have lead productive lives, so they didn't do badly, and neither did I.
When my mother was ill, I went up to my mother's home and stayed with her for about 3 months until she was well enough to be brought down to my home. My youngest daughter was in middle school at the time, and stayed with me up there until she had to come back home for school in the fall. My mother would sleep on the couch in the living room all day long, and my daughter couldn't even watch TV as it would bother her. What do you do with a young girl at that age with no friends around? I'm sure it was very hard and lonely for my daughter to be there. There were no neighborhood girls her age to get to know. She was alone.
After we brought my mother here, she found fault with my daughter in almost every thing she did. My daughter was a very respectful and quiet girl, and didn't deserve how Grandma treated her. My husband and I would go on long 'sanity walks' in the evening while my daughter was home with Grandma so we could talk and get things off our chest about all the things we were going through. Finally we decided she couldn't stay here any longer. My older brother said he'd take her into his home, but I had to talk and talk almost until I was blue in the face, to get him to put her in the adult care home in her home area. I told him that she'd pick on his step-son and break up their home. Finally he agreed and Mom went back to where she was familiar with. I think she was happier there.
I'm not sorry that we tried to take her in, and am sorry that it didn't work out well. I don't to this day know what I could have done to make it work. I found out how much pressure I was in after we all decided to send Mom back to her home area. I was driving my car into a grocery store parking lot, and felt that I COULD FLY!!! I was under that much pressure!!
So, those of you that it does work out and everyone is happy with the arrangements, I am so happy for you. But also take care of yourselves and if you do find it is too much on your family, make other arrangements. I'm happy that we did. If we hadn't, I don't know if our marriage would have lasted through it all. By the way, we've now been married 46 years!