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Minor Deity |
One of the heartbreaking things that happens after one sib raids the jewelry box, other sibs consult a lawyer, case clearly made but the legal fees aren’t worth pursuing the case. The lost stuff often has huge emotional value but it would cost more that it’s worth to file suit. Jf
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
The best thing that has come out of my parents dementia spirals is that it has changed the nature of the relationship between my brother and me. We went from the annual birthday and Christmas phone calls to talking or texting almost daily. It’s a good thing, and would not have happened otherwise. It’s important to find the good things when the other things around you are really bad. My father passed away last week after a pretty horrific descent into a place nobody should have to experience at the end of life. I am thankful he is finally at peace.
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JodiHas Achieved Nirvana |
jodi, I'm so sorry for your loss of your dad. And I share your sense of gratitude that he is at peace. 
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| knitterati Beatification Candidate  |
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Minor Deity |
Sorry for the loss of your father. But as I experienced, I am sure you get that there are things worse than someone dying.
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana  |
It's so sad that these squabbles and deceits are so common. Having gone though this myself as the family scapegoat, my perspective is that the seeds for this kind of behavior are sown early with unhealthy family dynamics. When parents play favorites and use children as leverage against each other, theis kind of end-of-life awfulness is the inevitable result. In my own family it is multi-generational. My grandparents' generation suffered it with their siblings, my parents with theirs, and then in my generation as well. In all cases if only the parents had not suffered from arrested development and a belief in scarcity, the family might have been able to achieve the kind of peace among siblings that Jack and Jodi have been lucky to experience. But their legacy and the family dynamics made it impossible. Too many wounds.
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
Jodi, so glad for you that things are good with your brother. Deepest condolences.
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Minor Deity |
Very sorry, jodi, more for what you, your father and the rest of your family suffered than for his death. From what I have heard, he was essentially lost long before his physical death. (Though at far greater remove, it's happening with my own 99 year old mother who suffers from Alzheimer's besides deafness and blindness.) I am glad there is a silver lining (with your brother) to such long drawn-out suffering - that through your mother too.
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Minor Deity |
jodi, I am so sorry. I know what you mean as my Dad spent the last 15 years of his life in that slow spiral. Mom is back in the hospital. Sigh..My sister goes from freaking out to 'meh'. So I have made a decision. I am heading out now to go to NJ. I have packed for 2 weeks, will be working remotely so I don't have to take any time off. I will be camping out in my Mom's apartment so I can be very near and do her laundry, pay her bills etc. This way I can be there, get the details from the experts, support my Mom in person and not have to wonder...
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| Shut up and play your guitar! Minor Deity  |
Sorry to hear of your troubles, BeeLady. You are not alone in this as witnessed from just our small group here. I don't mean to pile on, but I have never actually talked about this outside of my wife and financial adviser, and just writing it was somewhat cathartic. When my wife started to take care of her mother, she became her full-time caregiver because after Dad died, Mom refused to stop drinking and could not safely drive to the store, etc. Sarah quit her job which was not an insignificant blow to the household income. She did this twice during our marriage. The first time was when we had our first child, she wanted to be a stay at home mom. I doubled down and found a way to replace her $36k salary at the time. She did it again to take care of her mom.It was not the same level of income but about 2/3 of that. Still, it was challenging to replace it. I have only recently been able to say I succeeded in doing that. Not that I am religious or anything, but my wife is a saint, if anyone deserves to be called that. She went to her mothers home everyday 7/365 for two years straight, to care for her and keep her company. Made sure she bathed, did her shopping, spent the majority of the day with her. Her mother would still sneak out to get her vodka and cigarettes, after my wife would leave for the evening. She was drinking and smoking herself to death. Minimum of 1/2 a bottle of Vodka a day and 3 packs a cigarettes. Every freaking day! She used to drink herself into a stupor every night, and eventually fell and ended up in the hospital where she was knocking on deaths door. They sedated her for a couple of weeks for detox. Then on to the rehab facility for a couple of months until Medicare ran out. Then she came to live with us for 3 years. During all of this, the other two children did absolutely nothing to help. Not even letting their own mother visit them. For those 3 years, they only saw her at holiday dinners at our house. We asked BIL to let her visit for a week while we were trying to take a break and actually go see my ailing grandmother. He refused. This made her so mad, she wrote both of them out of the will. She had a new will drawn up, made me the executor of her estate, and left everything to my wife. She is still with us, and is in assisted living now, due to my wife having a series of mini strokes which made it all but impossible to her to take care of mom. We manage her income, file her taxes, maintain the savings a long as we can but the costs are rising and that will be gone in a few years. We pay her bills, visit regularly, bring her needed supplies that the assisted living center does not provide. Make sure she goes to the doctor routinely, etc. IOW we are still doing everything and the other two don't even call her. My BIL is much better than my SIL now, in the visit department but maybe gets there once or twice a year. They both live in the general area within an hour drive or less. My SIL hasn't seen her mother since she entered the assisted living center in January 2020. It was Christmas 2019 the last time she saw her. They have no idea they were written out of the will. It is an official will, drawn up by a lawyer during the time when she was still competent. She no longer is competent. Dementia / Alzheimer's, is a horrible thing. I was in the room during the meetings at the lawyers but only as an observer and then only to accept the executor status, which actually came as a surprise. The lawyer told her to pick someone she trusted. She looked at me and asked me to do it. I really didn't want this burden, but I accepted. I do not look forward to the reading of the will. I am pretty sure it will cause a rift. The 401k which she has, requires draw downs, as you all know, that get larger every year. That will also deplete over the next few years. It has a substantial death benefit on it that is distributed equally to the "surviving" children. We are looking to keep it active even after her last draw down if possible just for the death benefit. At least they will get something. But the proceeds from the sale of the house/estate is left to my wife alone. It might not amount to much depending on how long she lives. She is only 76 so that could be quite a while. It is my understanding that the 401k is "outside" the estate and not affected by the will. It has it's own beneficiary list. Why do children abandon their parents like this? I could never do that to my mother. My mom is 87 now and still lives a independent life in her own home. My mother suffers from bad intestinal issues that are caused by the radiation treatments she received for ovarian cancer back in the late 1980's, early 1990s. She is an amazingly resilient person. Still tries to get out and play golf a couple of times every week. She lives in Florida and loves her home, and friends. I absolutely hate that she live so far away.  I have much empathy for what you and what others in like situations, are going through. | |||
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
What an amazing group this is. Hugs to all the caregivers.
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| Minor Deity |
Thank you for confiding so much about your family history, MarkJ. It helps me, for one, to understand another person's psychological trauma to do with parental death and sibling relationship ruptures. I agree your wife deserves the overused monicker of "saint", perhaps too much for her own good considering her strokes (SO very sorry to hear about that!). Your sacrifices in income and stresses on your household, are noteworthy too. It is hard to understand the lack of care of the other siblings, although it is possible the mother mistreated them in their youth in ways we can't know of. (I am assuming perhaps wrongly, that she was an alcoholic then too.) Frankly, I'm always amazed at grown children, abused or neglected when young, who care significantly for those same abusive parents when they become old. That's especially true when major sacrifice is involved - loss of income, opportunities, and even their own health. (If minor children are involved, care in the home of an alcoholic grand-parent can be disruptive to them, however much it sets an example of "filial" loyalty.) I give you great credit too, in the admiration/appreciation you show your wife and your mother as well (who does indeed deserve credit). Going along with your wife's decision to care in such depth for her mother in her present condition, is not one every spouse would support especially with all the sacrifice it has involved. I'm sorry your family has had to go through all this trauma. I hope the passing of your wife's mother's doesn't cause a rupture between her siblings (somehow I suspect there is already tension based on what you say about their unwillingness to provide you even minimal respite.) They may well resent her receiving the entire estate such as it is, even though they must be aware of the precipitating circumstances over which they had control. What's more, if their mother had not been cared for so conscientiously by your wife, it would have involved a spend-down of her 401-K to pay for governmental aid such that there would probably have been nothing left for anyone to inherit. That might involve the value of the house as well. (I believe if a 401-K involves a life insurance policy as death benefit, that should indeed be treated as such - with designated and irrevocable beneficiaries. Perhaps even tax-free.)
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
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they have excellent reasons. which you are lucky and privileged to never understand.
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| Shut up and play your guitar! Minor Deity |
I understand that not everyone has great parents but my parents and my in-laws were awesome parents. I knew the situation at the in-laws household where my wife's much younger brother and sister were raised. I have known them since they were infants. It was loving and caring. Her mother did not become an alcoholic until she learned that her oldest daughter was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to the liver and that she was going to die. She was racing Ruth to the grave and lost. Then it got worse. Then my FIL died. It got even worse. When she started drinking, the youngest two were grown up and gone from the house. Didn't stop my SIL from stealing from them all the time and lying about everything. Falling in with the wrong crowd, etc. I know why my BIL refused to let her visit. It was 75% his wife. They had a baby, but not a brand new baby. It sounded like too much of a burden for them. At least that is how I took their explanation. At that time MIL was completely dry and smoke free. Those were the only two conditions I placed upon our agreement for her to live with us. She was not allowed to drink a single drop of alcohol or smoke even one cigarette. She approached me one day after living with us for a month or so begging to have a cigarette. I only responded with, "what did you promise me? Are you going to break that promise?" She turned around in tears and never approached the subject again. I am actually quite proud that my wife and I got her to stay sober and smoke free and she is of course still sober and smoke free. We saved her life. And we don't regret it for one second. We would not have been able to live with ourselves had we done otherwise. She is the kindest, gentlest woman you could ever meet. Polite to a fault. Very religious. I often wondered what happened to her faith during that time. It's almost like she completely forgot about her god. | |||
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| Minor Deity |
I suspect it is difficult to maintain one's faith while watching your child die.
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