How does someone handle a parent that wants you to give up your life and care for them and refuses to go to nursing home?

Feeling guilty definitely belongs in this picture, and it is your mother who should be doing it! Expecting adult children to give up their lives is very unhealthy and selfish. If she has done this all her life perhaps she has some mental health issues. If so, that is sad, but It Is Not Your Fault and not your responsibility.

I hope that your brother truly just checks in on her, and doesn't try to become her hands-on caregiver.

I like JessieBelle's suggestion to get a needs assessment for your mother. A social worker can help her understand her options for getting the care she truly needs. Maybe that is something you and your brother can work together on by phone and email, after you leave.

I don't know how to tell you to shut off the guilt feelings. Those can seem to have a life of their own. But I do urge you to make sensible decisions in spite of the guilt feelings. Push those feeling way to the background.

Continue to love your mother. Be an advocate for her and try to see that she gets good care. But DO NOT think you must provide the hands-on care yourself.

Donald.......I can guarantee mom will come down with some malady while you are gone. She wants you there. Please listen to the people on this site. Mom requires more care than you can provide. Your home is to far away to come and go, so your family suffers. Tell mom that you are making other arrangements for her care. If she had been doing the PT like she should, maybe she could stay out of a nursing home, but when she refuses, what does she expect? If she won't go, wait until the next crisis trip to the ER and tell them there is no longer anyone at her home to take care of her. You are allowing yourself to feel guilty for something that isn't your fault. You are doing the best you can and it isn't enough. You brother can't do it either.
An assisted living doesn't sound like a good fit for her. They aren't at her beck and call and she will have to do for herself. She has made this bed and you don't have to lie in it with her. Get going. You can do this.

Assisted living isn't an option. She can't bath herself or dress herself she can't afford personal care because of bad decisions she made. finances are limited. I pray when I leave her eyes will open to the fact that her best option is a nursing home. She will either get better when I leave or continue to go down hill. The dr says she can gain her strength back if she will push past pain and do the exercises but right now she refuses. I feel leaving and going back home is my only option for my well being and hers. I'm to the point where let the chips fall where they may and go from there. Yes I will be getting counseling and much prayer and look for a support group to join. I'm so glad I came across this site. Thank you for all the advice and support

My mother outlived my sister. My sister worked herself into an early grave.

Now, mom is healthy and enjoying life and being waited on hand and foot, at the NH. She will be 96 on the 30th of this month.

If your mom made no plans for her health care, later in life, that isn't your problem.
(Yes, I know it is difficult.)

Check out the assisted living places, they are very different from nursing homes. I found a beautiful one for my mother, and it changed my whole life back to normal. They took such good care of her. You have nothing to feel guilty about, she knows how to manipulate you and will keep playing the guilt card because apparently it works on you and your brother. After you find a wonderful place for her, you and your brother will need to stand up to her together and let her know she's going or she is on her own. She will put you both in an early grave if you don't !!! Good luck, you need to do it for your brother's sake, let that be your guiding strength.

Another flaw in fearcrionna's logic is that when our parents raised us, they were young and healthy, and their parents were healthy and taking care of themselves. Now that our parents need help, we are also suffering our own health problems which limit what we are physically able to do for them.

Did your mother go into a rehab facility after surgery? That's the usual thing and it's far better than trying to rehab at home. If she ever is in the hospital again, check with the discharge planners whether she's eligible for facility rehab to get her an her feet again.

I'm disturbed by the picture that you paint of being expected to wait on your mother, even in your childhood. It sounds as though she has some serious issues. In addition to seeking a social worker to assess her situation, you might try to find a therapist to help you sort out your feelings of guilt, and help you identify your true obligation to your mom (keeping her safe arranging for her care paid for by her) as opposed to her unrealistic demands ( being waited on, supplying her with "happiness").

Are you her POA? You need to call you local Area Agency on Aging and arrange for a needs assessment. Her doctor may also have indicated to you what her needs were. Does she have the financial ability to hire in home help?

help me, I wish my mum has been more understanding about a lot of things too but she has made it to 102 and is not understanding. She is needy, self centered and manipulative. She always has to come first - before me, before my hub, before my kids, before my grandkids. Your mum is not going to change unless it is to get worse. She wants all the attention and resources to go to her. It doesn't work. if she doesn't want to help herself that is too bad. She lives with the consequences. You need to get her out of your house soon as you and the baby coming don't need this stress, nor does your husband. I agree start making calls. ((((((hugs))))) and good luck and keep us updated.

I have the same mother as you. She once told a nurse that she couldn't move in with me because I had a husband, kids and a dog. Ha ha! The nurse jokingly told me I should leave my husband, my kids and get rid of my dog. Give up my life and take care of my mother. That is exactly what my mother wants. She doesn't have much of a life and she thinks I should join her misery. No thank you!

You cannot and should not give up your life. Our mothers truly believe we owe them for bringing us in to the world. My mom thinks that is my duty. I really do not mind helping her and doing for her, but she is so ungrateful and expecting of my help. It has been around 4 years now and my mom now lives in AL and hates every minute of it. I know she is taken care of and that puts my mind at ease in that department. I have other issues I worry about with her, but it is not her care. I too am an only child and feel trapped.

I wish I could tell every single person facing the unreasonable demands of a parent - or really of any human being that they love, and feel they owe a debt of love to - that the right answer to unreasonable demands is usually NO. Meet real needs - not whims and wishes, when meeting them is unbearably costly to other human being. Offer reasonable options, exclusively. There is a time and place to give someone something they want just because they want it, but this is NOT it.

People like this who have no limits set for them only becoming increasingly unbearable and usually no happier for it, ever. It is hard emotionally and rationally to have to be the adult in charge, but you have to be the adult in charge of making and sticking to these kinds of decisions. Loving and caring for someone does not mean doing everything they think you should do for them. It doesn't work in raising children, and it doesn't work in helping aging loved ones. And you don't need to feel guilty about not doing it.