My husband is adamant about moving our family into his father's home and taking him out of assisted living to care for him. Advice?
My father in law's mobility and mental health has rapidly declined over the past three years. We moved him into an assisted living facility about a year and a half ago. He needs assistance with almost everything besides eating. My husband was laid off from his job and I personally think it was because he was constantly taking off work for his dad. He can be very aggressive and inappropriate at times and my husband is usually able to calm him down so he feels inclined to go to the assisted living facility every time he’s had a incident at the facility. He’s had a few falling accidents with one resulting in a hip fracture because he’s so restless. The assisted living facility is the best in town. We feel like he’s had good care there, however, because he has a lot of behavioral problems/sleep disorder, it seems that they’ve over medicated him at times. They put him on an antipsychotic which completely sedated him to the point where could barely carry a conversation on with us. Since my husband hasn’t been working he’s been at the living facility making sure his dad is calm so they won’t give him anymore sedatives everyday all day long. Now my husband is adamant about not going back to work and having his dad pay him what he is paying the living facility and our family moving into my father in law's home. I stay at home and care for our 4 year old son and have 2 older sons from a previous marriage that are with us every other week. I’m also taking college courses online but I’m about to start full time in school Monday through Friday. I have serious concerns about our family taking over the role as caregiver for his father. Our marriage has been rocky at times and now even more because I feel like his father has completely consumed us. I feel like it’s all we talk about and we’ve gotten into numerous arguments and fights over it. His dad is constantly giving my husband a guilt trip about putting him into the assisted living facility. I’m worried about what kind of toll moving his dad in will have on our marriage. I’m also worried about what kind of toll it will have on the kids. He is always saying inappropriate things and begging my husband to “buy him a women” if you know what I mean. He has outburst and yells constantly through the night which is another reason the facility put him on a sedative at night. His father’s house is only 1700 square feet so I feel like we’ll be living on top of each other. He’s already made rude comments to my 13 year old son when we’ve come to visit him. I don’t know how I could handle that day in and day out. My husband said we can just explain to the kids his condition and not to take it to heart. No matter what we say to them, it won’t stop them from getting their feelings hurt. My husband’s made me out to be the bad guy because I don’t think it would be good for our marriage or our family. It hurts my feeling because before we moved his dad into the assisted living facility, I took him to all his doctor appts, made sure he had groceries, and even cleaned his whole house a few times while dragging my toddler around with us. It was hard but I did it because I love my husband and his dads well being is important to me. So for him to now give me a guilt trip and imply that I don’t care, totally sucks. Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
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Too, too often we see people coming here with a similar situation. They're either unemployed, under employed or their jobs just aren't making ends meet. So the person figures: mom/dad need full time help, and I have no job, so I'll give up my place to live and go stay with them and take care of them. Seems like a win/win at the time - caregiving child has a roof over their heads with living expenses taken care of, and mom/dad have the care they need.
What they don't ever seem to take into consideration: when the care needs become too much, more than any one person, no matter how willing they might be, can keep on top of, the caregiving child finds themself in a real jam. With no other place to live, the prospect of figuring out how to pay for care becomes all-encompassing. Either mom/dad run through all their savings, and have to look at Medicaid, or sell the home to pay for care. Then caregiving child finds themself with no place to live, and possibly unlikely unemployment prospects. So the child becomes somewhat "stuck" in a caregiving role that they are ill-equipped to deal with.
If your husband, who has been the primary income source for some time, decides that he can charge dad for his care, you had better make sure there's a contract in place; you had better make sure you declare the income on your taxes; in other words, treat this as a job. Because if the day comes that dad runs out of money and needs Medicaid, they're going to look at the payments as a gift of dad to son, and there are going to be penalties attached that might make dad unable to qualify.
It' a shame that much of this has to come down to dollars and cents, but it's better to discuss all of the possibilities BEFORE you make such a life-wrenching decision.
Your FIL belongs in a Memory Care ALF, not a regular AL, if he's in a regular AL, I don't know.
None of you are equipped or qualified to care for an elder with advanced dementia who stays up all night, wanders, has hallucinations, uses inappropriate language with the CHILDREN, etc. etc. What experience do either of you have caring for elders with dementia? What makes your DH think he can handle his father, the outbursts, the incontinence, the staying up all night, all of the chaos and the bedlam that goes along with dementia??????
And your children: why on earth should they be subjected to such chaos from their very ill grandfather? What kind of an environment is it going to be for THEM to grow up in? That is the main question, really, that should be addressed before your DH goes running off half cocked to whisk his father out of the AL and off to live in his own home with the two of you looking after him, and your poor children embroiled in the middle of the lunacy!
Your FIL wants your DH to 'buy him a woman' wink wink. Well, along with dementia for many men comes something known as ISB or Inappropriate Sexual Behavior. This can easily translate to him making sexual advances towards YOU or one of the children. The brain is broken; they don't know what they're saying or doing, yet WE are the ones who have to suffer the repercussions of their ISB many times! Then what? Will that be okay with your DH? The ramifications of dementia are many fold; people w/o experience have no idea what all they're signing up for when they agree to live with a person afflicted with dementia.
It sounds to me like your DH is thinking AHA! Now I won't have to work a real job anymore and I'll be able to take the $$$$ dad was paying to the ALF every month and pocket it, and 'all' I have to do is devote my family's entire LIFE to caring for him! Voila! What a great deal! Except what sounds good on paper often turns into a living nightmare in reality! Why do you think your FIL is being 'medicated'? Because his behavior is impossible to control, yet DH thinks YOU and HE can control his behavior without meds?
This is a horrible idea and you know it. Let your DH move into dad's house alone with him for a month. Let him take over the care and management of his father with no help from anyone to see what it's all about. In under a week's time he'll be furiously making phone calls to see where he can place dad once again b/c he'll be out of his mind with grief and lack of sleep. Watch and see. Just tell him you want him to do it alone for ONE MONTH to see how it goes first, before you and the kids decide whether you want to join him.
That's my advice and suggestion to you. Let DH fall flat on his face and then you won't have to do anything except say I Told You So under your breath.
Wishing you good luck and Godspeed as you travel this road with your family.
There are so many red flags. Your FIL sounds like he requires 24/7 care. You mention that your husband would expect your FIL to pay him what he is paying the assisted living facility. I'm no expert by any means but that requires legalities and contracts or you get into dangerous territory with gifting and messing up Medicaid eligibility as CTTN55 mentioned and that is not something you want to start delving into or your family could be on the hook for paying out of pocket for private care for FIL if you can't care for him at home until the amount of money he paid you is paid back. He can't just pay your husband to care for him without some kind of paper trail/contract in place that covers your family legally to be safe.
Your husband is trying to 'do the right thing' for his father at the expense of everyone else. My gut tells me that since you have already done a lot of FIL's caregiving you will still end up with the lion's share, plus taking care of your children and trying to go to school.
As others have mentioned, there is more at play here than just FIL's care. Your husband does not appear to be taking all variables into consideration. Caregiving can do a lot of damage to all parties. It is 24/7 work - your FIL has to be SEDATED at night to control him. Is your husband prepared to NOT SLEEP at night to deal with his father to allow the rest of you some peace? Your children need a peaceful place to sleep to live. Extreme case of course but let's say your children are showing up to school every day falling asleep in class and the teachers start asking why and they tell them that their grandfather is getting violent every night and keeping them awake - all it takes is one concerned (mandated reporter) teacher or school administrator to call in a CPS report and you potentially have a CPS and an APS investigation on your hands. That's not meant to scare you and it's a worst case scenario but it's not outside of the realm of possibility.
You already know this is a bad idea. Your husband probably knows it is a bad idea. He just can't see it for the fog he is in right now for a number of reasons. A couple of things come to mind. You say he isn't working right now. Is he afraid he can't find work? Or doesn't want to go back to work? And this justifies that? He clearly feels an obligation to care for his father, but there are ways to care for someone that don't include hands on care, especially when you already have other people to care for. The problem I foresee is that your husband doesn't really have any idea of how much work this is going to be. And it is going to be much more than he imagined. And once he gets into it, he is going to expect you and the children to help because he is going to be bitter and angry about HIS choice very fast and think everyone else should help make HIS choice work for him.
I have other questions I'll add in another post.
Where I'm going with this is that his income is not infinite - your husband could pin your family's future on your FIL's income. What about YOUR family's future finances? What happens when/if your FIL has to return to a SNF? What if he needs more help than you can give? Or if he threatens or worse, one of your children or you? What is your husband's plan then? And moving your family into his father's house. What happens if the house needs to be sold to pay for your FIL's care?
I know you have thought of all of these things. I think your husband may have too - but I think he needs a calm, rational opportunity to discuss these things away from his father. Maybe with a counselor. But he needs to be able to see all angles of this BEFORE he makes any decisions because if he brings his father home he will expect everyone to make it work. And that is not what you want.
So...ask yourself....is this something you want to put your children through? Will his space be away from the rest of the family to ensure that your children get the rest they need or will they hear him every time he gets restless at night? Will your Dh be up with him all night every night to care for his needs? When will DH sleep and will that make him your responsibility during the day? To care for him and your children? Your DH hasn't thought the logistics through.
How do you explain to a four-year old why this elderly person flips out in the middle of the night and starts screaming and yelling? Your little kid will be terrified and traumatized if you all move in with your FIL. Please don't do it.
Your husband is making you the bad guy and scapegoat because he knows you're right but feels guilty about it. That's something he has to work out for himself, maybe with a therapist. Do what's best for you and your kids and what's best isn't to move into your FIL's house and take him out of AL. Your husband knows this too.
Good luck & hugs 🤗
My MIL (abusive, narcissistic, complete madwoman) came to live with us last August because it became apparent that she could no longer care for herself in the condo (we owned, not her).
It is so hard. So much harder than we thought it was going to be. We have two children (a 5 yr old and a 7 yr old) and they don’t like her, and she doesn’t like them. She does nothing but yell at them, complaining that they’re too loud, or that they’re scowling at her (meanwhile, she’s scowling at them).
However, unlike you, my husband sees her for what she is. There is no love here - this is a duty, one that we’d love to be rid of tomorrow if possible. We are limited on choices, but really we’re waiting for the day when we can’t take it anymore and refuse to pick her up from the hospital.
My grandmother lived with us while I was growing up, so I’m not biased against multigenerational living. It has to work for everyone involved otherwise it doesn’t work at all. What your husband is doing is sacrificing his own family for his father. Not sure what the reason is - maybe he doesn’t really know. But, to save your marriage, you both need to be calm and honest with each other. One person cannot be dictator deciding en masse what is going to be done. It’ll never work.
Right now you are in a horrible position, but please hold your ground. However hard you imagine it to be, have no illusions - it’s 100 times harder.