Mom 78 fell back in Jan 2019, was very sick which I am sure was Covid, they just weren't testing for it then. She stayed 8 months in nursing homes where they did diagnose her with Dementia. We moved in to her home because it was most cost effective. I was paying my mortgage, had taken over her bills and home, and nursing home at $3700 a month alone was killing us. The medicines were keeping her down and confused til a NP took her off all of them and she was so much better. She begged to come home so we did bring her home. Now I live with my husband of 20 years, my mother and my 2 children 18 and 22. There is not a separate living space for her. She stays in the living room from the time she wakes up till she goes to bed at night. Will not go to her room to give our family any privacy. She thinks that since it's her home she deserves to stay in her chair. And dare I mentioned to paint or redo anything in the house she gets mad and quits speaking to me. She is also depressed and sits all day and eats.
I just want to somehow live under one roof. I have tried asking her to let my family have some time to watch a movie in the living room together but she won't. So my whole family resorts to going to their rooms and closing the doors so they can get some privacy. My family has never had to do this. It's so hard and I do feel guilt and resentment towards her. I would like to hear your advise, tips of what you have done to cope with this. Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving!
Remind her that you and your family can go right back to living in your own place with your own things as you like them.
Please, don't ever let it slide when she starts up or even insinuates anything like 'doing you and your family a favor' or 'letting you and your family move in'. Do not tolerate that for one moment.
It's time for you and your family to go back to your own place. Hire a live-in caregiver/companion for your mother who will be paid for out of her funds. Let the caregiver/companion sit with her 24 hours a day.
Families always make an idyllic image of multi-generational living in their minds which is never what it actually is. People think it's going to be like a Hallmark Christmas movie when they move themselves and spouses and kids in with the grandparents, or move the grandparents in with them. It's never like this.
The truth of it is elderly people will double-down on the complaining, instigating, and orneriness because there's a bigger audience to either get attention from or to stir up trouble with. If it's the family moving into the elder's home, well God help them because their lives become an unbearable misery. Multi-generational living does not work today in western cultures.
Go back to your home before your kids and husband start to resent you for making them live how they are now.