Why should I be responsible for my mother’s care while my sister goes on long vacations?

“Isthisreallyreal” is 100% on the money! Take her advice! My mother is 97 and was still living alone. Dad had played the stock market with their money and lost a ton. Mom isn’t destitute, but does not have enough to afford assisted living, so she lived in a small senior housing apartment with no services. My sister, who is married with no children, is fairly well off, does not have to work, had a big house on 5 acres on the water, rental properties, and plenty of money for multiple big vacations. Neither of us had a good, loving relationship with Mom growing up. Five years ago, sister and Mom had an argument and sister left. They sold their house, moved 17 hours away and have not been back. They left me here to shoulder this entirely alone. We have no other family around here.

I have been divorced since my children were 2 and 3 years old, working as a secretary trying to make ends meet often without two dimes to rub together. Mom lives an hour away from me. I have been left to drive an hour each way to care for Mom, to get the calls when Mom falls and is taken to the hospital, to leave my job and race to the ER, to take days off work to sit by her bedside, etc. I’ve taken ALL of her anger and resentment. Mom also refused to allow anyone to come in to help, even my daughters. Travel became one of the most stressful things in my life. Why bother trying to take a vacation when I had to call her twice a day and hear her ask, “When will you be home?!” About 1.5 years ago I started to think that Mom might have a little dementia. I retired so that I could spend more time helping her, and my visits quickly escalated from twice a week to every other day. It was exhausting and mentally draining. When she went into the hospital this July, it became wildly apparent that the dementia is worse than I thought. When she was in her home surroundings, she was able to hide a lot, or I was able to ignore a lot. She was diagnosed with Major Neurocognitive Disorder. Now she is in a wonderful nursing home and, after 5 years of stress and tears, I can finally breathe.

I wrote to my sister just to take the high road and tell her briefly what’s going on with Mom (I stupidly thought that maybe she’d want to make amends, since Mom can not remember why sister left, and cries all the time that she’ll die without ever seeing her first born again). Sister wrote back saying that she still wants to have a relationship with me, but MOM ruined this, and MOM did that, and MOM turned you against me, blah blah blah. Mom didn’t do a damn thing in that regard, sister is the one who suddenly moved and left me here!!

Anyway, getting back to the point ... “Isthisreallyreal” is right on. You do have to enact the strategies she outlines. I had to, and it was the hardest thing I ever did. I had to set boundaries. I had to say, “I am not 12 years old, Mom, I am 61 years old! I raised a family, I held a good job at a big company for many years. I pulled myself out of poverty to a point where I am finally comfortable. AND YOU CANNOT TALK TO ME THAT WAY ANYMORE. If you calm down, I will stay. If you continue to yell at me and verbally abuse me, I will go. I will not come back until X date.” I had to do that a few times. Her episodes didn’t disappear, but they became less frequent.

Also, she is totally correct about how everyone involved in your mother’s care will ask, “Why don’t you bring her to live with you?” It really caught me off guard when people started asking me that! I would stammer, “I live in a tiny 800 sf house. One bathroom with a tub that she won’t be able to step into. One bedroom is only 9’ x 9.5’. There are stairs up to both doors into the house. I just got married last year after being divorced for 22 years!!” And they would just stare at me, like none of those are valid reasons. Even my 27-year-old daughter would say, “It’s none of their f***ing business why she can’t live with you!”

very good advice. Thanks!

Baileyparker’s advice is a bit to the point and maybe difficult to follow.
You may wind up there anyway regardless your effort.
I know it’s hard, but do it sooner rather than later.
Its really the best for your mom and you.
Like you said, you have to work to provide for yourself. Your sister is not going to do it.
Call an attorney tomorrow.

I had a similar experience, first with mother, then with husband. I have two daughters who have been absolutely fantastic in helping me deal with the needs, the care, and the support of both loved ones as well as of me during several years of dealing with old age (mother dying at 104+) and Alzheimer's taking their dad at age 81. However, my brother and sister-in-law didn't want any involvement with our mother, and felt totally overwhelmed by even a two week stay of her in their home while we went on vacation every few years. However, instead of allowing myself to be resentful, I decided that I wanted to be there for them both, even though my mother had always been somewhat narcissistic and difficult and critically demanding perfection from us. I'm glad she lived as long as she did, because we actually solved many of those resentments when she admitted to me that she had never had a "best friend" and that she finally had realized that she felt that I was her best friend. How much joy, as well as pain for her feelings, that brought me, and I realized that she "had arrived" at age 103!! I told her that I had waited 70 years to hear those words, and that I loved her more than she could ever know. When she died, her request to give each of her 5 grandchildren $10,000 from her remaining money could have possibly caused there to be nothing left for me or my brother. However I had also managed her money for several years, and after paying off the kids, still had substantial amount left which I divided between my brother and me. My mother had said the year before she died that she wanted me to keep all the money that might be left, since I'd been the one who had done everything for her through the years (she lived with us for 23 years before going into assisted living wheelchair bound for the last 6 years). I told her, "No" that I wouldn't do that as I didn't want any bad feelings from my brother and sister-in-law. However, when I called him to say that I had one-half of her inheritance for him, he was totally surprised and said that he had assumed that he would get nothing since they had never really helped with anything! His wife had died four years before our mother did, but he still hadn't done much except visit a bit more frequently. I could have said that in that case, I'd keep his half (!), but didn't feel it worth the possible hard feelings. My husband was another matter--such a decent, kind and tolerant person he was, so it was an honor to be there for him. We each have to decide how we deal with stress, deprivation, and I am in no way trying say that I don't understand the sheer wearing down and out of those who have to do it ALL! I did have support from my own family, however, and that made all the difference and is probably the reason that I was able to hang in there to the end without major emotional or physical stress. I can only say that I agree with others on this site that sometimes one just has to get "tough"--my mother always said, "The wheel that squeaks gets the grease!"

Good luck with that depends on mom's mental conditions

I have much less time and much less money. So I should be much less obligated. My mother won’t accept outside services.
My sister thinks I am more obligated because I am single. I have responsibility for myself only, whereas she is a “wife, mother and grandmother.” I never met the right man....and now I’m being punished for it.
I may have responsibility for my self only...however I have no support system so I have to do everything for myself. I had cancer in 2016 and had to go through that without the help of my family.
Thats fine...I will take care of myself. But if my family isn’t willing to be there for me, why should I be expected to care for my mother.
I should not be expected to have a full time job AND care for my mother. If I had the time and money that my sister does I wouldn’t MIND caring for her. If I had the money I would pay for outside care...despite the fact that my parents should have prepared themselves financially for old age.

But it I don’t have the time or the money.

Lol! Thing is, I have lived in this building for 20 years. For the first time in 20 years it doesn’t feel like my haven. I love my mother, but I need my own space. The one good thing is that my mother is afraid of cats. I have cats...so she doesn’t come up to visit.

THERE ya go! !!!!