I'm unpaid caregivers to parent in 90s for last 8 1/2 years 4 days and nights a week. I had to sacrifice so much to be a carer. Mom had a stroke so brother stepped up to plate with his wife for week. Cooked them gourmet meals foot rubs . Chilled forks heated plates. Now I'm back to slog. Paing bills running to 8 appointments in a week cooking cleaning . Father telling me I didn't warm his bowl, put right linen on his tray, milk wasn't warmed before I put it in tea cup, I'm fat and ugly I should have shots. He knows I'll stay to protect my mom. It's 4am not sleeping exhausted how do i cope???. Hard when it's 14 hours a day 4 to 5 days a week
Would she be willing to leave him to go to a facility?
I just want to tell you; "You DO NOT deserve to be treated unkind, your life matters!"
Your dad is out of line and you have every right to tell him so.
You have gone from a giver and natural caretaker to your dads doormat, for your well-being please, please stand up and get boundaries and stick to them.
Just curious, what does your wonderful mom say about the hateful treatment towards you? I would rip my husband a new one for being such a hateful btard to someone we couldn't live without, especially our daughter who is obviously forsaking her own husband to prop his ungrateful, entitled old self up.
What do your parents do on the 2-3 days you aren't there?
As soon as you arrive next time, tell them that you are done assisting your father, and giving them one or two weeks notice on assisting your mother. Take her to her appointments, but do not take him to his. He can call a taxi or uber or reschedule for when he gets a new driver.
Serve meals to your mother, but not your father.
Don't argue with him. He enjoys getting a negative reaction from you. Just cut him off and ignore him.
Do they have money to pay for in-home caregivers? If so, make an appointment with an agency to come out and meet with them. Let them into the house, tell your parents you're turning their care over, at their expense, leave, and don't look back.
Call APS and tell them that your parents need assistance. If your father is abusing your mother, tell them she needs protection from him. If he will not or cannot provide the care she needs, tell them that, so they can arrange for safe care in a facility for her.
Give the checkbook and any online account/log-in information back to them. They can handle their own bills or hire someone to do it.
Then walk away and rebuild the kind of good life you deserve. Don't throw away a single day more.
Then I quit.
I suggest you do the same.
Your parents need you more than you need them. Tell dear Dad that you are not your SIL and you will not be doing what she did. If he is capable of going for himself, tell him to do it himself. Use the "gray rock method" with him. Look it up. Its a matter of ignoring him. You do what you have to do but act like he is not there. You are helping in the care of your Mom, you deserve respect. And if he can't give it, you don't do anything for him.
P.S. why are you taking your parents to appts 8x a week?
If that doesn't do it, give your mother the option of being moved out. If she refuses, then leave her there and walk away. Make a call to APS and ask the local police to do wellness checks on them. If your mother is not being cared for, they will get APS to act and they will put both of them into LTC.
In the meantime, here's how you handle your father complaining about a bowl not being warmed or a napkin not being folded. You do what I did when my mother would start with the complaining and verbal abuse at mealtimes and what my aunt did when their mother (my grandmother) would do the same. Pick up the dish, tray, bowl, whatever you're serving it in, and throw it in the garbage. Then they get nothing. Let him go hungry.
He wants a cup of tea with warmed milk? Then he can get the hell up and get it himself. If he falls and gets hurt, he'll get put into a nursing home. Would that even be such a bad thing?
You chose to be your mother's caregiver not your verbally abusive, bully father's. So stop doing for him. Let him rot in his own verbal abuse. Tell your brother you will not do for him that he must make some kind of arrangement for him.
Why have you chosen to do this?
You know that people can get guilted into all kinds of bad decisions when they're lost in a F.O.G.
It sounds like your father is the a$$hole here, so perhaps it's time he gets a rude awakening, be you telling him that you will be resigning your unpaid position of caregiver by mid February, and that he'll have to now figure out and pay for care for both he and your mother.
You DO NOT have to "stay to protect your mom." If she is in harms way, then you call APS and report vulnerable adults living by themselves and they will come out and take things from there.
You deserve better than what you're getting here and you honestly don't owe either of your parents a thing. If they can't afford to pay caregivers then your father will have to apply for Medicaid and get their help with caregivers, or your parents will have to get placed in a care facility where they will receive the help they need, and where you can get back to just being their daughter and advocate(if you chose to)and get back to living and enjoying this one life you have to live.
You've given up enough of it at this point, so don't you for one second feel bad about quitting caring for them, as no LOVING parents would ever want that for their children.
Time to take your life back, and I wish you well in doing just that.