I have written before and am on the verge of burnout. The opportunity has opened up to move my husband's elderly parents to his sister's farm close to town. We live 7 miles away from town on a mountain. His mom is all for it but his dad, who has dementia, refuses to move and stop driving. He has had close calls driving and is 90. This move would be really good for them - how can we get him to go?
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She knows what you are dealing with, and she can do better? (He would probably be much better off if he were to go to Memory Care as long as you are moving him to another residence.)
Get your FIL to sisters house. (your are going to visit, you are going to stay the weekend while we get work done on the house....)
Get his favorite chair and any familiar furniture there and set up before he arrives so he feels at home.
Tell him his car can stay at "home" and you will bring it next week when he is settled in.
Next week tell him..
The car won't start
The car needs gas
The car is in the shop
Keep making excuses as to why the car is not being brought to him.
You can not "reason" with a person that has dementia. Most likely he will settle in having his wife with him as the person he is more familiar with.
"Daughter-in-law who sold her home and moved with her husband to live with his elderly parents. They are controlling with dementia (him) and heart disease (her). I am finding it very hard to di this a they have always treated my husband poorly. They also have another son and two daughters in the same town."
So, the caregiving of 2 needy people will now be dumped on your SIL? It won't be "good" for HER! Does she know what she's in for? If I were in your husband's situation, I'd work to get them directly into a facility, because the orbiting around them and burnout won't stop by just moving them to a new location. Their conditions are declining on a daily basis. Their need will increase and the situation *will* get worse (not *might*).
Is anyone their PoA? If not, and the mother can't be convinced to relocate to where she will receive proper care, then call APS and report them but everyone needs to stop enabling them and pretending they're "independent" and "aging in place". It's a farce that will be followed by a tragedy.
You can maybe tell them a "therapeutic fib": they have to go stay in a temporary apartment (facility) while their new home is being prepared. Then they get medical cognitive exams by a physician so that at least the father's incapacity is on record. When they ask when can they leave, the answer is always when the doctor says you can do your ADLs. This puts the responsibility back on your inlaws. Then there's the question of who is going to pay for that. I just read that VT has the nation's most lenient Medicaid program. Hopefully they'll qualify.
Your family needs to open their eyes, do some research and make informed decisions that won't wreck them. If they don't, at least you should distance yourself from it and refuse to participate. I wish you success in putting up boundaries to protect yourself.
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He can either come along to be with his wife, or he can stay by himself.
If you put it to him that way, do you think he's see that he needs to move? Of course if you leave him, you call Adult Protective Services and report him as a vulnerable adult. In that situation, the State will probably take guardianship.
The thing is, as we age, we can either make choices before we are incompetent to make them, or we risk having strangers make them for us.
Stubborn people rarely get good end of life care.