Hi all.
I’m 34. My mum is 76.
My elderly stepdad is slowly dying of late-stage pancreatic cancer. He and my mother live in a 3 bedroom council house, 4 hours away from me and my partner’s house.
This isn’t about my step-dad.
After my stepdad goes, I am wondering what to do with mum. I know that she can stay in that house - but the right thing to do would be to “give it back” to the council to find a family who need it. She also outright says that she does not want to live in a 3 bedroom house by herself.
She has expressed tat she wishes to move in with us. Well, she seems to teeter-totter between wanting this - and being in denial and talking about living here for a “few more years” with her husband… but my stepdad was given a prognosis by his Dr of about 6 months. I know it could be more - but not years.
Mum is Filipino and I suspect that she has always had some kind of mild learning disability - because after +30 years living here in the UK, she still cannot speak or understand the English language fluently. She also always has had difficulty in learning tasks that should, over time and repetition, become easy, such as learning how to use her Doro mobile phone, how to use the TV and DVD player etc.
She is quite traditional and timid, in a way, in that she has always bowed to both of her husbands. Her first husband, my dad, forbade her to work when she came to the country for fear of it affecting the benefits they got.
This happened with my stepdad, too. So, she always remained as a house wife, completely and utterly reliant on the Husband. She never worked so she never learned to do things for herself. She hardly has any savings. What little she has is shared in a joint bank account with my stepdad. If his mind were to “go” before he dies, and he were to take the money out, she would have nothing.
(I tried explaining to her that her own pensions [she has 2] should go into her OWN bank account. She wasn’t bothered/didn’t see the problem. I gave up.)
She does not even understand/remember how to use an ATM machine. She is almost, utterly helpless.
I give all this background info because I have a problem and would welcome any insight.
I love my mum but I don’t particularly want her to live with me and my partner. We have a small house which is just right for us 2 alone. If my mum were to move in, there would be little to no privacy and nowhere to “escape” to, when she annoys me…
On the other hand, I am certain that she would be very vulnerable if she were to remain living alone.
I expect the council/housing association would let her stay but really entice/cajole her into moving into a smaller place. I just hope that it would be a place specifically for older persons and not just some random flat…
As I said, she has no income or much savings to speak of. And so I also feel resentful that I am now in a position to perhaps pay for her - who never worked, nor put one advanced thought to the situation she is in, now - to live in an assisted retirement facility. I don’t think that’s fair.
Aren’t I terrible? Oh well. There’s no direct question I’m asking here. I guess I just wanted to get it out…
Anyone who has been in a similar situation - how did it work out for you? Help!!
of course