My 92 year old MIL has been a near victim of scams several times in the past 5 years THAT WE KNOW OF. We have managed to act quickly to intervene in about 3 major scams (meeting strange people in parking lots to collect her "big win," stopping her from wiring money to God-knows-who at Walmart, stopping her from depositing a fraudulent check in the amount of over $6000 to pay the fees and insurance on her "big win," etc.). After my FIL died in December there was over $50,000 missing from assets she previously claimed she had. My DH's only sibling, a brother, died in a motorcycle accident 5 years ago, leaving my DH solely responsible for his mother. DH is under evaluation for Dementia (he must be re-evaluated every 6 months) but I believe his real issue is HF Autism. He lets his mother manipulate him and has, thus far, refused to take over her finances. Our attorney told him it is now time to do this, after the latest scam attempt last week. MIL's bank agrees and has drawn up all the paperwork to give DH, who is Durable POA, access to all accounts. He is at the bank right now with his Mom.
We have only been married 5 years and this situation has affected our entire life. We were supposed to be away camping when this last scam happened. We canceled due to the heat wave and storms. Had we gone, we would have had to come home to deal with this latest scam on our second day away. MIL refuses to move closer to us, to the lovely independent living community just down the street from us. She is in independent living 40 minutes away and she still drives. Her income since my FIL does not cover her rent and bills because they lived beyond their means and did not plan for FIL dying first and most of their income ceasing. I need my husband to be a man and do what needs to be done to get our life back. He is 67 and retired. I am 58 and retired early to enjoy retirement with him but I find myself wanting to go back to work just to have a "life." Has anyone had experience with a spouse who is intimidated by their parent(s) and will not do what needs to be done to secure their parents' future as well as their own? I cannot live my life like this. I am the one who wanted my MIL to move down the street from us do I could visit her often, take the dogs to visit, have her at our home for meals sometimes and save my DH from having to travel so far to visit her and rush there when she is sick or is scammed again, etc. It would also help to monitor her cognitive health if we saw her more often and for more than just an hour or two at a time. My SIL calls to tell us that MIL is "not right," confused, sounds bad, etc and my DH just does not want to deal with it. The other day my MIL mentioned to my DH on the phone that she was having diarrhea for several days and there was blood in it and he did NOTHING. He did not even mention it to me until hours later. He says "Oh, she'll go to the doctors."
Just looking for some support and advice from you wonderful people who have been through so much and may have some good advice for me.
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Your MIL having bloody diarrhea is a perfect entre for you to offer to take her to the doc because you are "concerned". No guy really wants to be in a doc appt with their mom. If you get this far, at this appt have your MIL sign the HIPAA waiver so that you can give and get medical info for her. Also slip the staff a note that you want her given a cognitive test and urinalysis for UTI. And find out what the bloody D is all about, which may determine next steps with her anyway. Hopefully she'll be appreciative or at least cooperative with you, even if she doesn't allow you to go into the exam room with her. When I took my MIL (because she suspected a UTI) I offered to hold her purse while she went in. While I was holding it I photographed every important thing in it (license, Medicare card, health insurance card, CCs, blank check) because she kept "losing" her purse or she said it was "stolen" but she was actually having memory issues and kept misplacing it. Once I had this critical info DH and I were more able to help her on a broader scale (my DH was DPoA so he knew everything I was doing). Once we had her checking acct # and cc info he set up online access so that we could monitor any activity (and also to make sure critical bills were being paid on time. They weren't). To prevent scams and financial elder abuse you will need to lock down her finances.
So 2 things you can try: get answers to her health issues; get her critical info so you can protect her finances from scammers. This is enough for now, keep us updated as you make progress (or don't). Try to make tiny forward progress each day so that you eat the elephant one bite at a time. Soon others will offer up good ideas. Good luck!
Even if your DH were showing more signs of being interested in his mother's welfare, there would still be a huge question mark over his retaining her DPOA because he's being investigated for dementia, and apart from that you yourself seem to be questioning his mental function for other reasons. The role of DPOA is ongoing and increases in responsibility. I wouldn't blame your DH for a moment, but it seems pretty obvious that he is just not up to the job.
Your MIL is 92 years old and needs urgently to be brought to the attention of the right social workers in her area. That might mean APS or it might mean less crisis-focused teams, but *tell* *someone*! DH might be annoyed, might feel humiliated, might be angry with you for "reporting" him and his mother, but that matters less than his mother's welfare. I doubt if he intends to neglect her, I doubt if he doesn't want to deal with it, I suspect that he can't deal with it and doesn't even understand it's so. If you and SIL can agree to act together, you can intervene and get MIL the support she urgently needs.
Re-reading: it sounds as though SIL might be on the brink of doing this anyway. Have you discussed the issues with her yourself?
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Go back to work.
I do not say this in opposition to the “family meeting”-style advice.
I say this in addition to.
You have made smart, proactive recommendations to DH & his sis. For years.
Your forward-thinking advice has been dismissed -- in favor of magical thinking, passing the buck and garden-variety denial.
Has anyone in the mix advocated for your sanity? Mentioned that your self-care is important? Didn’t think so.
A smart, capable woman who marries into dysfunction is a sitting duck.
No matter how great a guy DH is, he will decide that your free time is his free time. If he hasn’t already.
DH has been pretty clear about his emotional limits. And his rational limits.
You need to double-down on your personal boundaries.
Wanna know how this can spiral, if you don’t protect yourself? Read the “I am disheartened and angry” thread by Dorker - on AC Forum.
Need an example of tough boundaries in action. Start following “guestshopadmin” on AC Forum.
You can be loving and supportive - while exercising your right to not be used as an untrained (and unpaid) nurse, taxi, hoyer lift, accountant, maid and life coach.
The best time to stop “mission creep” is before it starts. 🧡
I am concerned. You say that your DH is being evaluated for dementia every 6 months? Has he had an MRI? Are there changes they are concerned with. How could he conceivably be capable of handling MIL finances if he is being evaluated for dementia. And if they BOTH have their names on an account how does that help with the scamming situation? Is he taking over all the financial, because trust me I am doing that and it is a lot, a burden even when simple. If he is not handling all the accounts then MIL is free to do as she pleases still. It is sounding very much as though she needs placement now. SIL calling and DH not responding? Perhaps it isn't that he doesn't want to, he just has no idea what to do. What do YOU think should be done?
I don't see a good answer here at all. I wish I did. You are correct in that if MIL is not closeby you two can do nothing. If she IS close by then increasingly you have no life to live yourselves. Where does SIL live--seems in same town with MIL. I think that your DH taking on the POA for financial is not only problematic if he has no control over what Mom may do with the account. I recall your original post about the scamming.
Given that your DH is having problems clearly whatever they are I think it is time to take control of your own lives and live them while you are still able. I honestly have no answer as to where that leaves your MIL except in another town in difficult circumstances. I hope some others have a clue as to what to do. This sounds like a trip to town where MIL and SIL live, a family conference listing all that is going on, and some decisions made as who will or who CAN do what. Yikes, so sorry for the tangled web you are in. Wishing you luck. Hoping to hear back how it is going for you.
If hubby wants to leave her some independence try having dollar limits on 1 bank account & a low level credit card but he should open new accounts for that for her - make her present account joint with him so he can access the money but she needs his signature to access that money - the banks are happy to set something up - hubby may need it placed in front of him so it might be best for you to start gathering the info then put it on a tray to present it to him .... lol
My mom used to feel like she had to ‘return’ every phone call, (thinking it may have been important) scam alert, as soon as the person calls back they are hit with international phone call charges that are hundreds of dollars that have to be removed from the bill. What a pain! This happened to us.
I had to drill into mom’s head, do not return any calls. If they are truly important they will leave a message.
To ensure it further, when people ask for her phone number I give my number instead. Of course, this doesn’t stop the crappy robo calls. Those are the calls that are truly awful. Blocking doesn’t help. They call back with other numbers.
Don’t pick up because then they know it is a ‘live’ number and will pester the hell out of you. It is recommended that you just let it ring.
What about the robo text now too? So freakin annoying!
I went thru the scams with my mom. I finally took over the finances. The biggest threat to her account though was my youngest brother. She would call me to get her groceries and I would. The next day or so she would call him to come take her to the store and he would drive the 20 minute drive to take her. Only he filled her buggy with junk food and food for him and his girlfriend and her family. Also, he had her fill his 20 gallon gas tank every time and cash a check for $200-$500. I hit the roof and chewed him and her out which left me feeling horrible. I refused to give her a blank check after I took over. In 6 months, I had her bank balance built up from $200 to $4,000. She was given $50 a month for him. I wrote checks for everything else. I took her shopping, to the doctor, picked up her meds and delivered them, etc. I wish you the best. Maybe your DH will learn to not let her control him. The money in her account was a blessing because she was put in memory care and skilled nursing for 3 years at the end. And it wasn't cheap. There wasn't enough left in her account to pay for her final expenses and my husband and I paid it from our savings.