Don't like elderly mother living with me

Well, I suppose if you and your mother don’t get on very well I understand that, but I had a good relationship with mine and I wish she was still around for me to talk to and tell her things. Miss her like crazy. She was my rock, always there for me and I did look after her when she was failing, but she ended up in a care home for the last couple of years which was hard thing to do. It’s 11 years last week since we lost her and I’d give anything to have her back. She was with me at the birth of my dd 33 years ago. We were very close.

3dognight : brilliant idea! Ipads for the old and socially incompetent. One of my sons gently introduced me to the internet via a pc twenty years ago and now I am 87 the internet is a large pleasure in my life.

My mother lived with us for ten years. It worked fairly well. My mother and DH were both very well mannered and considerate people. But it was a tie. We did not have the freedom as a family to go out for the day and so on. And I think it affected my marriage and some of the decisions we took. I would not want to live with either of my children. Much as I love them. Because I love them.
Perhaps look for other accommodation for DM.

I can’t help feeling sorry for your mother as well! it can’t be nice to feel like an unwanted burden and I imagine she thinks chatting to you is being friendly. It sounds like she was depressed before she came to you and I wonder if it might be possible as others have suggested that she goes in to sheltered independent housing. Living with relatives takes adjustment and compromise on both sides and to be honest it sounds much as you hate it your poor mother is in an unenviable position too!

Agree eazybee

Then I feel guilty for having awful thoughts. We have never been close and, if I'm honest, I know she doesn't love me and never really has

I am sorry for the OP; it sounds as though she has regretted her decision about her mother, is having a rant, and genuinely asking for advice. Plus the fact she feels guilty.
When I was a child I, and most of my contemporaries, had an elderly relative living in the spare bedroom; I know at least three women who had/have their mother and mother in law living with them for a good proportion of their married life; it is very hard work and extremely stressful for the whole family. Today most adult children work full time, live a distance away and cannot care for their parents; (I have no expectation of mine doing so); but it does not mean they don't feel guilty.

So easy to criticise and pontificate about what people should do.

Sielha

I know how you feel, I couldn’t have considered having my mother in law to live with us, even before she started developing dementia

We did try and keep her in her own home, by having carers in every day, but eventually it became impossible, the manager of the apartment block kept ringing us with complaints, and we were constantly anxious

Eventually we decided to look at dementia homes, she cried, and begged us not to send her away, we eventually told her it was for a couple of weeks, of course she never went home

The staff were lovely, but the different degrees of dementia made some of the patients very volatile, it wasn’t a happy place

I think we will always have guilt about it, but I don’t know what else we could have done

A very difficult situation, you have my sympathy. I haven’t experienced it myself but I did experience the guilt of arranging for my mother to go in a care home once it became obvious that vascular dementia meant that she couldn’t look after herself. Whilst I acknowledged that I could not have provided that sort of care for her in my home, I did massively regret the only alternative and forever live with the guilt. So I guess you’re between a rock and a hard place when faced with this sort of situation. She probably hugely appreciates what you’re doing for her even though she can’t express it and you feel that she doesn’t love you. I suspect she really does. Look after yourself, hugs x

My friend cares for her mother but it has destroyed their previous good relationship. She does what she does out of duty, not love. I think that it's partly that we are brought up to be good girls and this is a part of it. Personally I would never live with my children and I expect they are very pleased with that decision. The time to decide what to do is usually well in advance. I would suggest that you carve out a life for yourself as best that you can.

While on the subject of mothers, there's a documenatary about to start on Channel 5.....,.My mother the monster.....

I loved my mum and she loved me but I said years before she died that I would never have her to live with me in her old age and have told my children the same about me. As much as I loved her we both knew that it would never work we liked our own space, had our way of doing things and and have/had forceful personalities, we would have ended up being very unhappy and resentful. I spoke to her nearly everyday and saw her 4 or 5 times a week but no way could we have lived together again. I also agreed with those posters who say that despite our mothers giving birth to us not all give the love and care one would expect from a mother after all not all may have wanted to become a parent. I am a good mother (so all my childten tell me) and my children have grown up to be caring, loving responsible adults but I'm happy they've moved on and out and I have no intentions of living with them again.

"she is your mum who presumably gave you unequivocal care and love from your birth."

If your mother did that, it was because of who she is/was. Not because she was a mother. There are as many types of mothers as there are types of people.

Go figure.

MawBroonsback You say:
"You’d know about a judgemental and preaching tone Tillybelle"

You do not know me. What do you mean by this?

Aepgirl. In a way you do support the OP because so many here suggest that she is remiss for complaining about the total loss of her own life, her freedom to enjoy her home, to be in it doing the things she wants and needs to do without interruption and without her privacy being intruded upon. You have supported the OP because you so deeply understand, as do I, that having one's elderly mother move in when we ourselves are getting old, simply does not work in many cases. The reasons may be many, but the truth is, it does not work.

It is not at all helpful to the OP when people see an opportunity to stand on the higher moral ground here, and jump on this thread as a chance to say how wonderful it would be to look after an elderly mother in your own home and how they wish they could do so, criticising the poor OP for her very understandable feelings of distress at the terrible end this has brought to he life as she knew it, at a time in life when she is least able to cope with it.

I think you believing that she didn’t & doesn’t love you has a lot to do with how you feel now & I think that must be difficult for you.
I’m not suggesting a deep heart to heart, but is there any way you could build bridges?
I do hope your situation improves, miserable for you both otherwise.

You’d know about a judgemental and preaching tone Tillybelle

I just wonder how many of those throwing up their hands in horror at the situation will react in 20 or so years time when they are dependent on their adult children.
Just don’t preach at me ?

MawBroonsback.

Before you start the judgemental and preaching tone saying:
"she is your mum who presumably gave you unequivocal care and love from your birth."

Perhaps you should re-read what Imm6 wrote in her OP:

"We have never been close and, if I'm honest, I know she doesn't love me and *never really has*"

Also, for somebody to be so brave as to make this post, it is clear to me that the OP is struggling and at the end of her tether. It is so easy for those of us not in her position to think we know better. I hear the words of a person on the edge of a break-down who feels she has no peace or privacy and cannot feel at home in her own home.

I have said above, those of you who had loving mothers can easily say how much you would love to care for them. Maybe it is only those of us whose mothers were not the kind to give us "unequivocal care and love from our birth" who can understand the stress, the absolute desperation, that the OP feels.

Having a relative living with you, whatever their age, can be very taxing, and should really be thought through in advance. My mother lived near me and constantly suggested how we should sell both our homes and buy one larger house. I resisted this as I knew we wouldn’t get on. Sorry this is not much help to you.

crazyH. Me too! I have 3 daughters. I know they would take me in if something awful happened - but I would refuse to go! I refuse to mess up their family life by imposing on it. I would become "The Lady in the Van" first (I've got a van - at the moment anyway!)

Saggi. You've mentioned how unhappily married you are before. You know, just because he is disabled, you do not have to give up your life to being abused by him! It is abuse too. A person never even noticing when you are ill - that is unbearable. I should know. My husband walked over me when I collapsed outside the bathroom. My daughter, then aged 8 had to phone for a Doctor. That was just one instance. Eventually I could take no more...
You have said how very unhappy you are several times. I feel so upset for you. Really, now you are in the "Granny" stage of life, start putting yourself first. Think how you can get away from this terribly unhappy situation.
Wishing you all the best.

Lolly69. Please forgive me replying after you asked us not to comment. I had to send you my deepest commiserations. My mother has died too. But she had to go into care because of Alzheimer's. I believe many mothers do favour boys, particularly our mothers' generation. I have an older half sister whom my mother favoured. I can wholly sympathise with you. I did not have to nurse my mother in her last years, but in my father's last illness I tried to help him and my mother was so terrible that I cannot talk about it. She was 14 years younger than he and did not like the attention being given to him. She made my life miserable all my life. I hope and pray that you are able to enjoy your life now without thoughts of the past. You deserve to be happy.

Luckygirl. Thank you so much for saying: "I do not think we can judge the OP on the basis of our own relationships with our mothers". You are so right!
Everybody has a different situation. I understand those who loved their mother - I loved my dear dad - and would have liked to have looked after her in her 90s. But this is not the answer to the OP. To say the OP should be glad to look after her mother is to miss the point entirely. Her mother is not like those amiable mothers! Her mother does not even love her as your mother loved you!
We are all different. Some of us do have similar backgrounds or experiences. This is why I feel so deeply sorry for Imm6 and Lolly69. I have had some experience (not all) in common with them - enough to help me understand the pain and distress that they suffer.

lmm6. You must get help. Please go to your Doctor and don't hold back, tell him/her it is driving you absolutely to the end of your wits and you cannot take any more of it.
There are day centres but I think you need somewhere for your Mother to stay.
I could not do it. My own mother has died, I am your age. I know I would not have been able to look after my mother. I would have become suicidal, and I'm not joking.
You have all my sympathy. Please tell your GP you cannot take any more of it!

strange I was thinking during last night, how back in the day, families did live together, more than one generation,, wonder how they managed... seems we have lost something...

They didn't necessarily "cope"
There just werent other options. Doesnt mean it worked well

Anniebach the idea is different from the reality.

Its one thing to say you would do it, quite another to navigate the realities.

And if your only real experience of multigenerational living was as a child, you were probably shielded from a lot of the issues that came up

Not only did I still feel my home was my own when my elderly mother came to live with me, I rejoiced that she thought it was her home too.

Are you and OP sisters?
Because every family is different. Your mother may have been a pleasure to be around, doesnt mean the OPs is!

Mothers are just people after all. All kinds of people.