Quote:
Originally Posted by Botnst
You need professional legal, medical and social advice.
I cannot imagine how to untangle this problem and also maintain strong relations with your wife. Aside from the (easy) opinion, above, I think your first duty is to your relationship with your wife and all other relationships are secondary. So in furtherance of that goal, I would encourage and support your wife as she makes the decisions concerning her parents. Perhaps if she had legal, medical and sociological advice to guide her, your support through these difficult, heartbreaking struggles would be golden to her.
Kerry, that is a tough, tough situation. best of luck.
B
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On the legal and medical end, I'll trust the professionals. On the social end, I expect to find as good insights here as from some professionals.
At the moment, it's hard to get good legal and medical advice since their doctors are in the UK, and the attorneys would need to be barristers.
It's not causing any tension between my wife and I at the moment. She's not particulary fond of her mother, at least partly because of the way she's been treating her father for a number of years. My wife is not sure what is the best course of action.
The situation is complicated by immigration and pension issues. My in-laws immigrated to Canada in the 50's, then to the US in the 60's. My father in law worked for a religious organization and as a consequence did not pay US social security. As he aged, he realized his predicament and moved back to Canada to continue working for a few years where he earned a union pension and Canadian social security. The children remained in the US, except for one who returned to Canada a few years ago. The economics of the situation precluded them moving back to the US. This national divide may have added to the hostility between my mother in law and her kids. She may have even come to blame her husband for this. Even a visit to the US was a risky or expensive proposition because Canadian health insurance did not cover them outside of the country. But all her kids have visited them at least once a year, or more often for those living closer.
I suspect my mother in law's dissatisfaction may be rooted in regrets she has about living her life the way she did.
The British social system is much more friendly to the elderly and they now live within a few miles of where they were born and grew up so it's not a bad place to age and die.
I've looked up their local county council and am planning to call the elder care division in the next few days to get a clear idea of the choices available.
We recently met a couple who have had a similar situation with elderly parents. They had to separate them because they could not get along any more. The father moved in with the children and the mother stayed in the house. When the mother became ill, they moved the father out to an assisted living facility and the mother then came to live with the kids.
It's a little more challenging trying to sort this out at a distance.