Help with MIL

OK Folks... I need some guidance and don't really know where to turn.

Sorry for the excessively long post... grab a coffee

Background:

My MIL is 72yrs old.

Contrary to the "usual" tale, I love my MIL to bits

She's always gone out of her way to help us and our four children out. Over the years she's been generous to a fault with all of us including, my SIL and her two children etc.

She's dotes on her grandchildren and they in turn, as we do, love her dearly.

My SIL lives a reasonable distance from my MIL so they don't get to see each other anywhere near as often as we do.

My MIL lives circa 30 miles away from us.

She helps us out each week during school-term time by travelling to ours on a Wednesday morning, arriving in time for my DW and I to head off to work and for her to do the school run with our 7yr old. Our 11 & 13yr olds make their own way to school and then she has the day with our 2yr old. We have him booked in to an hour long toddler's music class that she'll take him to and whilst there she'll have brunch with the other parents and then after that she has free reign to do as she pleases with him. This usually involves her taking him to the park, shops, cafe(s) etc or if the weather is poor, they'll just hang around the house.

She'll then do the afternoon school-run for the 7yr old and our 11 & 13yr olds will make their own way back from school. If there's an afterschool club for one of the kids to go to, we might ask for her to sort food for the kids prior to us arriving home from work - though usually this would be simple stuff (think chicken nuggets and chips etc) for her to just pop in to the oven etc.

We'll then arrive back home from work - usually around 17:30-18:00 and ferry around whichever kid(s) have after-school-clubs to attend. Upon return, either my DW or myself will cook dinner for whoever hasn't already eaten whilst the other sorts bedtime routine for the kids and we'll spend the rest of the evening chatting away with MIL- sometimes possibly sat working (laptops etc) at the same time - and she'll stay over.

Thursday morning she'll again do the school run for the 7yr old whilst we're off out to work. The older kids make their own way to school and she has the day with our 2yr old. She takes him to a playgroup for a 1.5hr session and again she's socially active with the other parents there and then once they're done there she has free reign to do as she pleases with the two year old until she does the afternoon school run and then usually, once either myself or DW arrive home, she'll head home herself.

The above arrangement has been in place since my DW went back to work after her maternity leave following the birth of our 2yr (almost 3yr) old. We recently discussed with her that we had concerns as to whether she was still "up to" the job (although we approached it more compassionately than that) and agreed to make changes going forward to make it easier for her until December this year, after which she wouldn't be required to look after our kids at all - though of course she's welcome to do so as much as she wants to.

She lives with her partner of some 20 years. They're not married and it's a... well it's a turbulent relationship to say the least. Not in the slightest bit violent but, well let's say that they irritate each other.

She swings from being entirely sympathetic to her partner's medical issues (he can no longer walk very far due to spinal issues) to not being remotely sympathetic and almost excessively inconvenienced by them. Sometimes these swings can be minutes apart!

The problem

Firstly... she's always been a compulsive liar. Nothing with any malice involved but plenty of tales of over (and utterly unrealistic) achievement which we're ultimately attentive to but usually take with a pinch of salt. There's lots of "he said / she said" which in some cases we know to be blatant lies. This has never really been much of a problem but in light of the following, it's certainly hampering our 'understanding' of whatever issue is at play.

In recent times, we've noticed some memory issues and strange behaviour on her part...

Forgetfulness

- She can ask a question, get an answer and then within a few minutes she'll ask the same question. During an evening when we're chatting away she might ask the same question multiple times.

- During those same chats we'll cover various topics and as you might expect there will be silent spells... she'll then sometimes start talking as though she's carrying on with a conversation we've JUST had but... she'll be carrying on with a conversation that we'd had hours before... sometimes it can be a conversation that we'd had that morning or even the day before - on occasion it can be a conversation we had the previous week. It's hard to describe... it's not like she's just remembered something when you might say "Oh yes, earlier when we were talking about X, I forgot to mention that..." etc... it's literally like it's a conversation we're already in mid-flow of and will leave my and DW scratching our heads wondering what on earth she's talking about until we either cotton-on or, we have to ask her to clarify.

- At times we've talked her through the itinerary for the day in the morning before leaving for work (e.g. if there's a change of her usual routine needed) only for us to get home from work with her having not only not remembered, but then deny all knowledge of having been informed of the change.

- Because of the above, we've progressed to leaving her a written list of "instructions" which we talk through with her before we leave in the morning. But then sometimes we've returned home only for her to claim to not have any knowledge of there having been a list - even when in some cases during the day she's crossed out things on the list that she's completed. When we've pointed this out to her, it's apparently not something she's seen before and it certainly wasn't her crossing things off the list.

Behaviour

- I came home from work not too long ago to find urine and poo marks on the bathroom floor next to the toilet. My first thought was that one of the kids had had an accident. My 7yr old was right next to me so I asked him what had happened. He told me that MIL had missed when emptying the 2yr old's potty in to the toilet - now... the 2yr old hadn't used a potty for quite some time so I'm not sure why he had that day but so be it - however, MIL has always been incredibly fussy about keeping things clean and although there had clearly been an attempt to at least pick up the solids, there'd been no attempt whatsoever to wipe anything down. Overhearing my conversation with the 7yr old, MIL came barging in to the bathroom pushing him out of the way in the process (I caught him and prevented him from falling over) shouting loudly that she knew nothing about the spillage and accusing the 7yr old of lying to try to get her in to trouble. This reduced him to tears and, she went about dramatically/excessively demonstrating the actions she took and motions she went through, in emptying the potty - it's hard to explain why but, it was blatantly obvious that she wasn't telling the truth. I didn't challenge her on it, I just agreed with her and went about cleaning everything up. Primarily to avoid further upset in front of the kids. Later - and many times since, my kids have asked me why she shouts at THEM so much - something that I/we haven't noticed first hand.

- She's becoming really quite nasty/malicious in the things that she's saying about her partner. She's saying things about him (to him) or shouting at him in front of her grandchildren and just recently, the grandchildren have started to ask us (and her) why she does so. Just recently, immediately after one of her rants at her partner, my 11yr old asked her straight out why she was always so nasty to Granddad - which went down like a ton of bricks and resulted in her storming off and going AWOL for an hour or so before returning bright and breezy as though nothing had happened.

- A couple of months back I had a conversation with MIL in which I explained that I was concerned about her in terms of her memory and mood-swings. She acknowledged that she'd noticed some issues herself and agreed with my suggestion that it might be wise to chat things through with her GP. A few days later she informed me that she'd been to the doctors and been given a clean bill of health. A score of 11/10 was given and the doctor had apparently observed her maneuvering her car in the car park and commented to her that if she could drive as well as she'd demonstrated she clearly didn't have any issues to be concerned of. Now... we have our doubts as to whether 11/10 means anything whatsoever, whether a GP would ever have the time to observe a patient parking their vehicle and not least whether they'd attribute that down to any bearing on their mental health and, for now we've marked it down as yet another tall tale. We don't believe she'd been to the doctors at all OR, that she did, and didn't like what she heard and doesn't want to share.

- It's been on the cards that MIL and her partner might split up for a while now and both my DW and SIL have suggested to the two of them that it might be wise for them to spend some time apart - it's pretty much constant arguing about really trivial stuff and isn't a positive environment to say the very least. This past weekend it was all but decided that they would go their separate ways and plans were being made for us all to help out in terms of finding somewhere for her partner to live and ultimately support the two of them through the split but... my SIL was with her grandchildren along with MIL and her partner, when MIL started again saying some really quite nasty stuff about him, with him out of earshot but young grandchildren around... SIL called her out on it and told her that there was no need to be so nasty about him and their split - particularly in front of the grandchildren. Only to then be on the receiving end of MIL's threats to take her own life (which she now denies ever having said) and accusations of her (SIL) having taken sides so their relationship (between MIL and SIL) was now over. SIL left with MIL's partner and brought him to our house (it was on her way home) out of concern that he may come to some harm if left with MIL... and he's been staying with us since until we can find somewhere else for him to live. The following morning MIL phoned SIL after she'd found something of SIL's and went about a perfectly pleasant conversation almost with no acknowledgment/awareness of the events of the previous day.

- I phoned MIL to explain that her partner was going to be staying with us temporarily until he/we could sort out alternative arrangements for him. That we loved them both dearly and intend to support both of them through their split and that it wasn't remotely about taking sides. Further, I stressed that I would not be forced to take sides by either of them. I've now received an email from MIL instructing me to sort alternative child care arrangements. That's it.... it literally just says, "could you please sort some alternative childcare out for children".

- The above email was received shortly before MIL's partner phoned her to talk things through and update her in terms of what he's been able to sort to date in terms of moving out of her house etc. During that conversation which was apparently pleasant and positive (she was happy to hear that progress had been made), unprovoked, on speakerphone, with my 11yr old in earshot (and her having been told that he was) she's ranted about myself and my DW having taken his (her partner's) side and stated that she's finished with us and our kids. Clearly my 11yr old was upset at hearing this.

- Amidst all of the above, there's been frequent accusations that we ALL are just after her money, possessions and/or house, along with threats that none of us will be getting a penny from her. She's been told numerous times that none of us have any designs on her money, possessions and/or house and that should she want to amend whatever will she has such that everything goes to charity or otherwise, any one of us will gladly take her to her solicitor to ensure that her will is in place exactly as per her specific wishes. This isn't just something we're saying to pacify her either. Both her daughters and myself and my BIL are in well-paid secure jobs - although it would of course be welcomed, we don't need her financial assistance to get by and wouldn't be put out at all if she chose to not leave anything whatsoever to us in her will. None of us (including MIL to my knowledge) have ever been materialistic.

There's plenty more things I could list but this post is far too long as it is... summarising as briefly as I can, it's apparent to us that my MIL has some issues. She's always been a loving, kind, generous, meticulously house-proud individual who has always doted on her daughters and grandchildren.

More recently she's becoming cold-hearted, nasty, malicious, spiteful, possibly even jealous... forgetful and prone to incredible (though often brief) mood-swings and some of this it would seem is being directed at her grandchildren of which the youngest is almost 3yrs old and the oldest 13yrs. It's almost like she's on a one-way track to self destruction pushing (or at least trying to push) family members that love her dearly further and further way - all very much out of character and far from the person I've known for the past ~19 years.

We're greatly concerned for her and how she'll cope if her partner does actually move out - for all the irritation he apparently causes, he does support her considerably but that aside, what we're witnessing in terms of the deterioration of her mental health is very similar to what we saw when her Mum started with and progressed through dementia/alzheimers etc.

SIL is a doctor and I'd hoped would be able to point us in the direction of getting some help for her but, apparently it's not something that WE can do. She apparently needs to self-refer to her GP but even then there's a fear that she's not "bad enough" to warrant any intervention. Though even if she did go to the doctors, with her tendency to lie about and exaggerate things in/to her favour (I guess as a defence mechanism) it'd mean we'd be in the dark anyway.

I'm assuming someone here must have been through something similar... How did you cope with it? How did you help the individual? Who did you turn to for help?

Help?