AIBU with elderly parent

You probably are being unreasonable. It’s hard for us to understand what being 86 is like until we get there. I don’t think you should compare him to other elderly people you know. We are all different. Maybe just let him live his final years in the way that works for him.

I think you ABU as it sounds like the poor man is deeply depressed…get him an appointment with the GP

He surely qualifies for carers allowance? Contact your local AgeUk who will help you fill in the form. The money will help pay for a cleaner and a gardener (but don't put that on the form).

Take the dog to your home - you are taking care of dog 100% of the time anyway

Let go of how you would like your father to live

Threaten him with taking his dog away from him. In other matters permit him to be as slovenly as he desires. if he is actually wasting away as a result get him sectioned

What a horrible suggestion! That sounds like abuse.

If an older person (or any person) has capacity and chooses to live in squalour and not have strangers in their home that is their choice. Its not up to relatives to make the choice unless there is a real safeguarding issue of life and limb. I know that my relatives would get the lash end of my tongue if they chose in interfere in my life in that way.

Curiousdan you have actually become your fathers unpaid carer. There are hundreds of people doing what you do voluntarily every day, some get carers allowance some don’t. However most of them do it because their loved one is ill, frail or immobilised. We all have a choice although is is extremely hard when it concerns a loved one.
If you are working on top of running two homes you will grind yourself in to the ground, if you are not but married your marriage will definitely suffer.
Write down what makes you crabby and why, you can’t change your dad, it sounds like he has always been like this. Losing your mother has made him lose interest in life after so many years of doing very little together. When we get to the late 80s/90s our bodies start to slowly close down, particularly if we are not active nor engaged with anything stimulating. This is was is happening to your dad and HE is not worried about that you are.
I would have a calm conversation with him, saying that you are exhausted and can no longer clean,shop, nor walk the dog for him, what would he like to do about it. Then stick to it and see what happens. Naturally you will still visit once or twice a week offer to take him out, offer him food and chats, but if that is declined leave it, there will soon come a time when he has to have some help. Have you got both POAs you are going to need them. Good luck with whatever you decide to do, I really emphasise with how difficult this is for you.

It often goes unrecognised, but apathy is often among the early signs of certain types of dementia, especially Fronto-temporal dementia. Vascular dementia can also sometimes first make itself apparent by apathy. The person's lack of action will not trouble them in any way, and they may well give plausible reasons for not doing things. Worth considering in your father's case.

Caleo

You are applying too much carrot not enough stick.

Threaten him with taking his dog away from him. In other matters permit him to be as slovenly as he desires. if he is actually wasting away as a result get him sectioned.

What a callous thing to say.

I hate to say it but some men are just that way in my experience. The dog sounds fine with you keeping an eye on it and is probably the only thing your dad opens up to so I’d say leave the dog with him, it’s his dog, it’s walked and cared for and quite frankly it’s your dads only real company and his companion when you’re not there. He sounds a bit depressed, which is quite natural as he’s lost your mum. Look at it from his point of view, he’d probably had his ‘mate’ for decades before she passed away and although at the beginning of his grief would of felt lost and alone it’s something he’s had to just learn to live with and his way of life has probably become a habit to him now, again in my experience from dealing with 5 parents (inc a step parent) the older they get the more habitual they will become! My father in law sounded like your dad, wouldn’t let anyone do anything in or outside the property, had his habits etc and stuck to them rigidly and just sat in front of the TV all day sleeping for much of it but we now realised he had dementia at the end because he kept my mother in law awake at night talking and walking about until he got nasty and we had to have him sectioned. But we never put 2 and 2 together until his death. My DH has now got vascular dementia and that is how he started off, dropping off to sleep mainly at night then hallucinating dreams he started acting out. Maybe this is happening to your dad? But he wouldn’t know it’s happening, my husband denied it for a couple of years until he saw the state I was getting into with no sleep and illness he was causing. During the day for the first couple of years you wouldn’t of really known there was anything wrong with him apart from DH kept falling asleep in the chair half the day.
Your dad is 86, still independent and as much as it might annoy you the way he lives I’d just say keep an eye on the situation and his dog obviously but let him get on with his life if that’s the way he’s chosen to live now. He won’t change if it’s his choice as much as you want him too, so don’t stress yourself or him up by trying to force him it’s honestly not worth it, you don’t know what goes through his mind if he’s happy to live in his own little way and let’s face it none of us know how much we will want to just sit on our backsides in later life, it’s his choice to do as he pleases. One last thing, are his iron and Vit D levels up as that can cause not only tiredness but depression especially in the elderly.

I would take the dog to your house for a few days under the pretence it is being kept in at the vet and then have no contact with your dad during that time.
See how he copes then.
He'll never change the way things are.

"If you do what you've always done, you get what you've always got".

I am 82 and live alone. If your dad needs help remember you are his daughter not his carer You may need to be very firm and insistent about the cleaner and gardener. You shouldn't be his dogsbody and do the chores all the time. By all means take the dog if he no longer cares about it. It at least deserves your care. If he is capable don't enable him to sit around and sleep.

He sounds exactly like my mother was after she lost my dad. I despaired of her doing anything, except lying on the sofa, smoking and watching TV. I did find out that the medication she was on was causing a very low mood. Might be worth exploring that? A visit from a competent doctor would be a good idea.

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. Sitting in a chair, falling asleep and doing nothing is not helping his health at all and he will suffer for that by losing all independence.
As VioletSky says, you are enabling him. You are the only person who can stop that.
It is not fair on you or him if you are getting tetchy although it is perfectly understandable. Get a Carer's Assessment done through your Adult Social Services Dept. They will primarily look at your needs but will also look at his. You do not have to have his permission to do this and you might find an outsider will make more headway than you.

I have a friend in a similar situation. I think the important thing is to create boundaries that protect you and not to expect him to like it when you do. He is an adult and can choose not to clean or employ a cleaner but that does not mean you have to do it. Be clear with him what the options are and that you cleaning is not one of them. His options are 1. to clean to a minimum standard (not necessarily yours!), 2. employ a cleaner or 3. eventually get into such a state that he will not be able to stay in his home. It will be tough to do this though, I hope you have support around you.

Germanshepherdsmum

If he has a dog he has a responsibility to care for it. Frankly by the sound of it he shouldn’t own any animal. He needs, at minimum, a cleaner and a dog walker. If people want to sit in squalor in front of the tv that’s their prerogative, but NOT when they force an animal to live like that. I hope you can do something for the dog who, unlike your father, has no choice in this,

I agree with this. If he can't be bothered to look after his dog he shouldn't own one.

Poor man - he's 86 but still a free agent. Maybe if you stepped back a bit he would sort himself out. Good as you are, you might be perceived by him as nagging. And I'm sure some kind person would take the dog to the vet for him if you were not there; he could be agorphobic, have you thought of that? I would concentrate on your own household and ease up.

You must accept that this is how he has chosen to live his life. The lyrics in a Culture Club song come to mind:

Somebody else's life cannot be mine ...

Lockdown may have been an added factor in this. Many people realised that they could get by perfectly well within the limitations that were imposed and have never really returned to how they lived before, if indeed your father was living differently before that. Somehow, lockdown gave “permission” to be solitary and to be happy with that state. He has his dog for company and you are taking care of the animal’s needs.

There was a very recent thread here when someone was irritated with a neighbour who kept cajoling her to become involved in community activities which she didn’t want to do, implying that she must be lonely when she wasn’t. It wasn't exactly the same thing. She had a social life but it was the notion of being watched and judged which was annoying and intrusive.

The way you describe your father is exactly how my stepfather was, exactly how a close friend’s father was, exactly how a neighbour was. Nothing wrong with them psychologically, just strong-minded, rather tacit men who were happy in their own company; watching an old war film, televised cricket, the news or whatever interested them. They all lived into their nineties despite living in a bit of a mess, dining off ready-meals and taking next-to-no exercise.

If the house is a mess then don’t let it turn into a health hazard but a ring around the bath, dishes left in the sink for a few days or a bit of peeling paintwork does no harm. TV is also responsible for that, of course, making us thing we have to live in a sanitised showhome. We don’t. Keep an eye on him but step back.

Curiousdan

Yes you're right it's his life not mine. I've been tryign to get some perspective on this really, to stop myself getting irritated. I've spoken to Age UK and they said basically the same thing. There's lots of help and stuff out there for older people but if he won't accept any of it then so bit it!
I rather love that there is so much concern for the dog. I'm an animal lover too and I love the dog. Fritzy is his name and he's a shi tzu and no trouble at all. I'll keep on keeping an eye on my father but I will quit worrying or expecting him to suddenly change.

lots of typs - no edit button!

Yes you're right it's his life not mine. I've been tryign to get some perspective on this really, to stop myself getting irritated. I've spoken to Age UK and they said basically the same thing. There's lots of help and stuff out there for older people but if he won't accept any of it then so bit it!
I rather love that there is so much concern for the dog. I'm an animal lover too and I love the dog. Fritzy is his name and he's a shi tzu and no trouble at all. I'll keep on keeping an eye on my father but I will quit worrying or expecting him to suddenly change.

Callistemon, one thing any depressed person needs is to be in touch with reality so they can save their own life.

I am assuming that the OP has given us a balanced picture of what is happening with her relative. If so, then the old man is at risk of dangerous self neglect and needs to know how to survive, if possible.

try as we might we couldn't get him to go out anywhere apart from the supermarket occasionally and he doesn't even go there now. He does his own washing and cooking but seems to have stopped taking responsibility for everything else.

He says he's unable to do things yet he goes to the local shop on his scooter.

So he is going out, he still washes and cooks but the place is a mess.

Oh, for goodness sake, poor old man!!

He's 86 for flip's sake.
He's stubborn, yes, but threatening to take his dog away??
As long as the OP can just ensure the dog remains well leave him be.

How cruel.

You are applying too much carrot not enough stick.

Threaten him with taking his dog away from him. In other matters permit him to be as slovenly as he desires. if he is actually wasting away as a result get him sectioned.

Curiousdan what you are saying is that your father is not leading a life that you find acceptable. or enjoyable, but you must remember that he iis not you and the life he has now is perfectly acceptable to him and is not a lot different to the life helived when his wife was alive.

I think this, too.

Please don't rehome the dog as some posters suggest; he's probably happy just running round the garden and losing him could make your father even more depressed. As long as you can make sure he's ok.

At 86, having lost his wife, and perhaps a lot of his peer group, your father might just be feeling quite down in the dumps and not have the wherewithal to suddenly start leading an active social life!

We've been to so many funerals over the last year or two, a lot of DH's pals and it can get quite depressing. ☹ He doesn't have his life partner to chat to about how he might feel.

Farnorth, no, he's never walked the dog ever.
There's a huge garden so the dog has space to run when we're away and can't take him out. He's only a small dog and doesn't really like long walks and he's ten years old even though I still call him the puppy