Is this the way to deal with loneliness as you get older?

Flat shares for oldies...why not and why would you need to be friends? Once they get you into a home you get communal living at huge expense and under a regime you have very little say in.......

I am just writing to Brad Pitt to see how he feels about sharing with me, oh and Cesar Milan because my dog needs walking............

Galen, Abbeyfield do run care homes as well, inc. specialist dementia - my mother was in one of these for nearly 8 years and it was very good.

However do agree that it's quite unfair to expect elderly non dementia residents - often by definition to some extent frail or vulnerable - to help care for people with dementia. Social services should not be making this sort of placement, though have to say from all I've heard over many years that social workers can be unbelievably clueless when it comes to dementia.

DH's 2 aunts, sisters, lived in the same town and saw each other very often, but didn't share a house. One, retired matron of a London Hospital, was an early bird, very neat and organised. The other stayed up till all hours, was a terrible hoarder and not over tidy. They loved each other dearly, but would probably have been unhappy living together, which they were sensible enough to realise. They were, however, both lucky enough to live independently until a few months before they died, one at 95 and the other at 97, which s obviously not everyone's fate.

I would love it!! I lived with people in my 20's and could do again in my 90's. We could live somewhere we couldn't usually afford. It would have to be spacious though, and you'd need to have meetings to iron out problems. I think loneliness is one of the great problems these days, my mum gets 3 visits a day from carers but never has anyone to speak to (she can't get to lunch clubs etc cos her home won't fit a wheelchair so we're looking elsewhere).
Abbey field houses are lovely & I'd love to go to one, but you do have to be fit, which defeats the point a bit. I suppose people are living longer but are often physically or mentally unwell.

We love watching reruns of Golden Girls, but know it's all rose-tinted glasses... but my SIL in Florida was thinking that she might have to do that since my brother died. Luckily she was able to pay off the mortgage as they had mortgage insurance and he died in surgery, so they paid up.

I think today's young professionals might have an easier time with this when they get older. We let to sharers all the time. It's almost like a carry-over from sharing at uni.

We have three girls who have been with us for 7 years and are now in their 30s. None have a live-in boyfriend, and only occasionally does one stay overnight. They seem to be dedicated career women and do all kinds of activities and weekends away together.

Maybe it's what you are used to... I always lived on my own and if DH goes before me and I am fit, I'd be happy in a rural area with just a loving dog and my broadband (is that an oxymoron, rural + broadband?)

No thank you. DH and I are fine (taken a good few years to train him) but no one else would put up with me I am sure. I like my quiet, we both do, we have our hobbies, interests and our dogs. If I were on my own I would probably be a real dog lady and talk to them. However, on mentioning this to family a while ago when we were talking I was told " neither of us would be allowed to be on our own, we needn't worry about that". I didn't think we were actually, bless them.

Perhaps it depends on background to an extent. If you've been brought up with lots of siblings & large extended family, it might be easier to make sharing accommodation work.

MargaretX & Irma - I haven't got one friend! The thought of the commitment is too much? I can't be the only one ?

I have only one good friend whom I love dearly, but live with her? Absolutely no way! She's far too busy for me! She is never in and I practically have to make an appointment to see her now! She would probably feel exactly the same way. I am a quiet, contemplative soul . Anyway, I live with the greatest friend I am ever likely to have, and wouldn't want to put anyone in his place.

I'd just say (firmly!!) that you're so set in your ways after all these years, that you'd be hell to live with!!

It wouldn't work for me. I like my peace and quiet too much.

When my brother offered me a house in the grounds of his family home I said - no thanks, I would be hell to live with

Cornergran did your friend have her tongue firmly in her cheek do you thin, or was she serious?
I would treat it as a joke and say 'B*gger off! There's no way I could live with you!'
I have one or two close friends I could live with, but I think I'd be too worried that it might be the end of a beautiful friendship.

There is one friend who has suggested this to me, should Mr C predecease me (fortunately very fit and healthy right now!) if anyone can think of a way to say 'no' without offending her then please share it, I just couldn't contemplate it.

Oh no, I don't think so!!! I've got lots of lovely friends, but none that I would actually want to live with, ditto the other way round I daresay!!!! Being an only child would stand me in good stead, plus a lovely son and dil, who I know would do what they could to help which ever one of us it was, on all fronts, when inevitably two turns into one.

No way, have lived on my own for just over twenty years

No thank you. I have lived with DH for 40 years and I am still struggling with training him to my ways. Certainly don't want to start with anyone else. :-)

Sorry it wasn't a Health Visitor it was an excellent District Nurse.

I think you are right Jane10. I had to do a lot of hard work, liaising with the GP and Health Visitor before anything was done to help my mother.

I guess I'm quite worried about my future in that respect but hope one of my sons will act on my behalf.

I'd rather not wait for a crisis to occur before social services step in and it would have to be a crisis before they did.

I want to stay in my nice flat until Social Services take me away. I wouldn't mind an Elderly People's Home too much as you have your own room, loo and wash hand basin. Mum was in a Home for 5 years and felt safe there.

My dh and I were so emotionally entwined that now he's passed away I don't feel the need to travel alone very much.

I have learnt to live on my own and sometimes like it that way.

As much as I like my 3 best friends, I really wouldn't want to live with them, a couple of us did share a hotel room many years ago, but that's it.I couldn't live with anyone other than my husband, we have adapted to each others idiosyncracies, not too many, over the years and I just wouldn't want to compromise with anyone else now. I really know how I like things done, I'm less adaptable now.

I have one very good friend who does not live remotely near me (thank goodness) but she wants to know all of my business, financial and social, there is no way I could live with her. She would be wanting to know where I was going each time I went outside the front door. A good idea in theory for some.

I've got 3 very good friends but live with them - definitely not.

Her next door's is a deputy manager in an Abbeyfield home.
She complains that they are getting 'conned' by social services into taking unsuitable people e.g. Senile dementia sufferers who need a lot of help. The problem is that the residents are supposed to be self caring.
Abbeyfield are residential not care homes.