Hello.
I’m so glad I found this forum although I’m struggling with how to start. I just know I need some support. And to just get it all of my chest.
I’m 41, and an only child. My parents were older, and my father died after a long illness when I was 18. Basically all through my teens I became a carer for him with my mum. I also tried to provide a counselling service for my parents, which was pretty unsuccessful as I was just a kid.
As I’ve got older, mum has continued to struggle to live alone. She is late 70s now, and recently we decided it would be a good idea to purchase a house with an annexe.
I thought it would make life easier, but since we’ve moved in, she has told me I’ve been treating her like a child, making her feel infirm, making her depressed etc etc, because I try and do things to help her when I can see she is struggling. This turns into vicious attacks, and I’m now on medication for anxiety and in therapy (this isn’t all due to the home situation but it doesn’t help). I feel so resentful, and am starting to feel very bitter. I feel so much guilt that she is lonely, and I just want to make it better but when I try I am sometimes subjected to these awful attacks on me because I’m “making her feel incapable”. Am I a bad person? Am I handling it all wrong? I even feel like writing this here is a betrayal.
My head is a mess and I just don’t know how to go forwards. I would really appreciate any advice anyone can offer, thank you.
I’m very sorry this has ended up being such a disaster.
Did mum contribute to the house purchase?
Is the Granny Annexe quite separate?
After a car accident I couldn’t climb the stairs, so my eldest son moved into the upstairs of the house, and I sleep in the garage…after he converted it into a lovely en suite bedroom.
I seldom go upstairs now.
He does the garden and looks after the vehicles, and pays all the utility bills.
I cook tea every night. I pay for all the food.
We didn’t write anything down, we get on well.
Maybe it’s time for you and mum to have some “Ground Rules” or family contract?
Here are a few ideas.
You will only go to her when she asks for help.
She will only come into your house when invited.
If you are shouted at, you will leave immediately, and only return after an apology from mum, and vice versa.
Decide the hours when you will make yourself available to her.
If she wants more help, she has to have Social Services carers.
Hi & welcome Ellen
You are not doing anything wrong. How lovely you moved in with your Mum. And gave up your life to help Mum in her later life. Perhaps you and Mum didn’t really appreciated how things would change. Moving in with someone else relative or not is a big change in one’s life. It’s no different to couples etc. It’s another dynamic no matter how much you love someone. Living together as adults is totally different. As has been mentioned a family plan should always take place. Expectations of the relationship how individuals will get their own space etc.
**we decided it would be a good idea to purchase a house with an annexe.
Who is the we?
**
Are you in a position if you wanted too move out. As you could have a conversation with Mum. If things aren’t working. The annexe could be a future use for live in carers. Who also can proved a person with daily company.
Who lives in the annexe? I assumed it was mum. Is it you and …?
Thanks so much for all the comments.
My mum lives in the annexe, and my partner and I live in the house. Generally things are good, mum has always been massively supportive of me and my life/career/relationships etc. She doesn’t come over uninvited, and we bought together. It’s just sometimes, like today, things blow up way more than they used to, and I am so unused to her being so angry towards me.
I think the point that it is difficult for adults to get used to living together is a good one - I am finding it hard now that I can see how hard some things are for her not to keep stepping in, and I think by keeping doing this I might be making her feel a bit taken over. It is such a difficult balance to get right. Thank you so much for the replies. I’m so grateful to just be able to talk about this and have an outlet.
Is access to the annex through the home or only accessed from the outside. Does the annex have it’s own door bell etc.
It important to make the annex feel like a separate home. And Mum needs to feel like she did in her previous home. Additional the same for you and your partner.
When we converted our garage for my bedroom, lots of people thought I’d have a door into it from the lounge, but I walk through my double glazed conservatory to get there. This was so that when I need care towards the end of my life, my carers can come and go without ever coming into the main house. I’d stayed in someone else’s garage/granny annexe on holiday, I could hear everything that went on in the kitchen, they got up at 6am and woke me every day! My conservatory if very much my own space, as I and my plants love the sunshine and heat. Eldest son with auburn hair, very susceptible to sunstroke, absolutely hates it!
I’m sure most of us have had enough of the virus etc. My eldest and I never argue, but I had to bite my tongue hard last weekend. He has been working harder than ever due to the pandemic and wanted me to do something for him when I’d been thinking of bed time!!
However, we both know that there are huge advantages of us living together too. Mum still has a home of her own, not residential care. You are protecting your inheritance. With fees of £1,000 a week savings diminish very quickly!
There is a proper front door and back door to the annexe, and although there is an interior door (through a small room that is only used occasionally) we are all careful not to treat it as an interconnecting door etc. I still think the house ground rules idea is a good one, especially the ‘only help when asked’. Mum is very independent, and struggling a bit with the fact she is starting to find some things harder (e.g. blow drying her hair some days when her shoulders are bad) so me constantly jumping in when she doesn’t need it probably really doesn’t help this.
Thank you all so much for giving me space to talk through this, it has helped so much
Why not get a home hairdresser for mum? Then it can be a special treat which fills her day a bit.
Also a home beautician for a facial, manicure etc.