How close to live to elderly, sometimes toxic, parents?

My mother has lived about 15 minutes from me for the past 10 years. The minute I retiree she will expect me to move in with her. I visit when I can ( not enough for her) stay as long as I can ( not long enough for her) and take care of things for when I can ( Never enough and never good enough). There are days when this works and days it doesn't. When I was about to get out of college I had a serious offer to move to the Pacific northwest. To be honest I wish would have maybe my mother wouldn't have moved to be nearer to me if I lived there. If I lived with my mother that still wouldn't please her because I would occasionally have to go the the bathroom or God forbid spend more than five minutes away from her. If your parents have been miserable together all their lives they will continue to make you miserable even if you are less then 5 feet from then 24/7.

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.

Yeah, a catch-22 this is, definitely. I too am an only child. The situation was reversed, though: my elderly parents lived in FL and I lived in CO when my dad had 3 fender benders back to back & decided himself to stop driving. My mother-the-queen would not take on the driving, even though she had a license, so there was no other choice but for me to move them close to me here in CO. They sold their house and moved 5 miles away from me to an Independent Living senior apartment in 2011. I was 54 at the time. Mind you, I cried before they made the move; my new DH was stupefied. Why was I crying? Ha; he would learn a lot about why I was crying b/c I have/had parents just like yours. Mom is the bully, dad was shut down after years of tolerating her abuse. I was in heaven b/c for the first time EVER, they were thousands of miles away from me and I had my own life, now they were coming baaaaaaaack.

I helped them move, unpacked them, all of it, and got them set up with doctors and everything so they could live in the new place. I visited once a week, picked up their RXs at the store, did pretty much everything for them with mom complaining (as usual) the entire time. Then dad fell one night & broke his hip in July of 2014; all hell broke loose; he had to go to Assisted Living now and mom was making a federal case b/c she didn't want to go. Long story short, I had to find an AL that would take him, move dad in after rehab, then liquidate their apartment, and move my screeching mother in with dad to a small AL unit. Horrible. He died 10 months later in June of 2015 and by then, I knew mom was on the dementia highway.

Fast forward to now: she lives in Memory Care Assisted Living 4 miles down the road from me, is just under 95, and the only thing worse than a covert narcissistic mother is one with advanced dementia who's fallen 80x, been in and out of the hospital and ERs for the past 10 years, rehabs, specialists offices, doctors, neurologists, you name it, she's been there with me taking her b/c I am all she's got. And I'm the POA for both medical and financial. They signed their $$$ over to me in 2014 when dad broke his hip and I've been managing their lives ever since. As an only child, what's the alternative? When the $$$ runs out soon, I will apply for Medicaid on her behalf and off she goes to a Skilled Nursing Facility with a roommate, God help me.

I pretty much speak to her daily on the phone, or more if she's super confused and blowing it up. I visit once a week and it's normally not a fun visit. Again, this has been going on since 2011 and even though I don't do 'hands on care' I'm burned out to a crisp. If I had it to do all over again, what would I change? Nothing I guess. I set pretty strong boundaries about what I'll do/not do, when I'll visit, etc. It's still awful b/c my mother has the personality of a snake and I have a lot of resentment. But again, I'm all she's got. I have to be her advocate or there will be nobody else to do it. And while I may not 'deserve' it, it's my cross to bear, that's how I look at it.

My DH now knows why I cried in 2011, and why I still cry, except now, I think he silently cries WITH me, to be honest. Walking this path is the hardest thing I've ever done in my 64 years of life. Bar none.

In your case, move close enough so you won't have to drive for hours to be there when the crises hit, and hit they will. Their house will have to be sold (probably) at some point to finance their care in AL or whatever; these are things to think about. And what boundaries YOU will set down and enforce for your mental and emotional wellbeing. Otherwise, you'd have to make them a ward of the state and IDK how you'd feel about doing such a thing.

My stomach hurts for you, as it always does for myself. Wishing you the best of luck and Godspeed as you enter this phase of your life. I pray that you will take care of YOURSELF while embroiled in their lives. You matter too.

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!

I read through your post twice. Are you an only child? The 9 hours/week that there is a caregiver there won't be enough after a while. Did you arrange that for them? You arrange the lawn care. Why did you have to arrange these services, if your mother can them herself. Is she mentally competent? Do you have POA?

You don't have to be in the same town as your parents. While of course being across the continent isn't ideal, if they have adequate care, certainly a few hours away should be enough. It sounds like you are accepting that you are going to be their services manager because your mother expects it? And I'm betting she will also expect you to be on-site as they need more and more care, unless they have the finances to hire fulltime (24/7/365) care.

As long as they are competent to make their own decisions, do not let your mother bully you into doing everything for them as their needs increase. Considering the emotional and physical abuse in the past from your mother, please know that you do not owe them anything. This just sounds like a precarious situation for you in that you are already imagining you have no other choice than to become involved in their lives every single day. And you don't want that. You don't need that. You deserve better!

You should never physically care for your parents nor move in with them, and not live in the same town. There are lots of posts on this forum where children abused in some way are taking care of parents and now can't get out of it.

Your next talk with Mom and Dad should not be what do u have planned but that they should be planning for their future because they should not plan on you physically caring for them. They should get a POA and you can be that but POA does not mean ur at their beck and call or you are legally bound to care for them physically or financially. Its a tool, a tool you can use when they are no longer competent to pay bills and make decisions where they should be placed. You have to make it clear, you will not be caring for them or living with them.

If you want to live in the city, live in the city. You go where you will be happy. Mom made sure she did what she wanted raising you, you have a right to do what you want.

Don't move closer to your parents. You have no intention of becoming their caregiver and certainly don't want to either.
I certainly understand when people do not want to become caregivers to their parents especially abusive ones, so no judgments here on that score.
It's important to be honest about it to your parents though and make them understand that you will not be available. Move to the larger city that is further away if it's what you want.
If you do move closer and they lose independence, being available only for 'emergencies' will not be emergencies. Being out of ice cream will be an emergency. Boredom becomes an emergency. A fabricated health crisis when you have plans made in advance that you're excited about becomes an emergency.
They won't have a serious talk with you about any future plans or living arrangements because they probably think that you'll take care of them if the time comes when they can't anymore.
Make them have a talk with you. Don't back down. If you don't want to be their caregiver, you have to make them listen.

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.

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.

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.