If we have to put mom in a nursing home, I fear they will be calling me all the time. Any advice?

LOL. I like that part 'asking for a friend'. Tell your friend, that yes a person can be kicked out of a nursing home. They cannot be put out onto the street but a nursing home will transfer a resident to a different facility if they become too unruly.
Is your mother in her right mind or does she have some kind of dementia?
If she's still with it enough to understand and have an adult discussion, then you and your father should sit down with her and have an adult talk.
Explain to her that the constant talking, meanness, complaining, and fussing is too much for you and your father to handle. Then tell her that she is going on probation for 90 days. If her behavior does not improve a ten-fold in that time, she will be getting placed in a nursing home. Something like 50% of caregivers die before the people they are caregiving for. Ask her what she thinks will happen if your father has a heart attack and dies because he can't take the stress anymore. Then tell her that it will not involve you taking your father's place as caregiver.
Please give her the advice I have given so many of my stubborn and fussy care clients.

'Nothing gets a person a one-way ticket to a nursing home faster then being stubborn'.

All of you would be better off with her in a care facility. They are equipped to take care of her issues whereas it’s all new to you and your dad, so every day you are inventing the wheel ! Will this work, will that work, omigod I hope I didn’t hurt her feelings, maybe I better go check on dad, but he’s sleeping so I’d better take care of this myself, but what the heck kind of brace should I get for her wrist and will she agree to go to the doctor, and did the water bill get paid this month? It goes on and on. If all you had to deal with was a phone call every day from her or the care facility, it would be pure bliss. You aren’t required to twist yourself into knots for your parents. You deserve relief from this.

Her negative behavior can be managed MUCH more comfortably FOR ALL CONCERNED, including YOUR MOM, in a residential setting.

You and your family will have to adjust to the discipline of how to manage and ignore phone calls and visits, and learn to stand up say “I LOVE you Mom, but I gotta go”, when she is cantankerous when you visit.

Believe it or not, the staff who is caring for her will be unfazed by anything “mean” she says or does, and will have strategies for dealing with anything she throws at them.

Also, and very important, you may be able to have psychiatric/psychological testing done that will lead to a suggestion of small doses of medication. You may be surprised to learn that she has the capacity to be a pleasant, reasonable person, or at very least, a decent, manageable one.

Nobody, NOBODY—- WANTS to enter residential care, but safety and 24/7/365 care may be MUCH more important toner welfare (and yours) than what she wants, or thinks she wants.

She is not in any way entitled to damage the lives of those her love her. You have all tried Plan A, and found that it wasn’t working well for anyone

Time for Plan B.

It sounds a bit like you’re using “they might be calling all the time” as a last excuse to not place her?

The thing about a telephone is that you can let the calls go to voicemail whereas with mom at home, you can't 'turn off' the talking and listen to it later. If your mother is killing your father, then you have to think about what's best for ALL concerned. A nursing home may be the best answer, because at-home care must work for everyone in the home, not just 'mom'. Of course she 'wants' to stay home and be waited on hand & foot, talk incessantly which translates to complaining, and not take into account how it's affecting her husband and everyone else having to deal with her. But you have to take dad into consideration as well. If you place mom in Skilled Nursing, then you can all go visit her on YOUR schedule, as guests, and not as caregivers, and leave when the meanness gets ramped up. You can all go back to being family members again rather than caregivers, and that means you get your lives back, all of you.

Yes, of course you'll have peace back in the house once mom is placed! You choose to take one phone call a day from her if the calls become incessant, and that's that. In time, she'll develop a new routine in the SNF and acclimate. My mother lived in Memory Care AL for nearly 3 years, and in regular AL for 4 years prior, and had quite an active life there with activities, meals, side trips with the mini bus, movies, visitors coming to see her, etc. She also got great care from a team of people who truly loved her.

It takes quite a lot to get 'kicked out' of Skilled Nursing; the staff is used to complaining elders and have seen it all, pretty much. Just b/c your mother is chatty and irritating at home doesn't mean she'll act that way once she's placed. She can turn out to be entirely different in a new environment. My mother treated me like DIRT and the staff in her MC like solid gold. It's 'funny' how that works out sometimes.

Best of luck!

Gardnergirl, often times when you warn the elder that their behavior has to stop or they will be placed, and you are serious about it, they’ll act to quell the behavior.

You can control mother’s phone calls to you, and ask the facility to call if there really is an emergency. You can go back to being a daughter.

I’d suggest that you discuss the same system with your Dad. He can visit her as much as he likes, as her husband not carer. He can leave if she’s mean, and say ‘I’ll come back when you’re feeling happier’. He can skip days so that he has a better life himself. And he can also control any phone calls to him.

Keeping your Dad happy with this is an important part of making it work.

How does dad feel about this? Is it worth it for him to place her? Because if cognizant, this is HIS decision. There is no “we.”

your mom sounds like mine, (constant talking, being mean) but as my dad is gone she is killing me. (my dad died from Alzheimers four years ago and my brother claims he did not die from ALZ but from 60 years of being with my mom, he asked who could put up with that without going crazy

In my case, my mom first was in rehab for three weeks following a fall and now in senior (independent) living. In each case yes, she always called (calls), complains, etc

The workers at the indy living facility call me a saint for having to deal with her

Based on what you say it sounds like your mom would do the same but that is not a reason to not put her in one. You would have more peace than now and would have more control in just refusing to answer phone, etc rather than have her be there all the time.

And yes you can get kicked out. A friend of my moms got kicked out of her place for slapping an aide across the face.

I believe it was a wise man in ancient China who originated the quote "ringing phones need not be answered."

From what you're describing she belongs in a nursing home.