My parents have been scammed before, mostly small stuff that was easily fixable. My sister and I took away their Amazon account, and PayPal, and even disabled the debit card. I make sure her passwords are changed regularly, even more than my own tbh. But at least when my dad was alive they somewhat kept themselves in check.

Now it’s just my mom and she is willfully stubborn to the point that she won’t ask or tell my sister or I when something happens. Most recently she got locked out of her email and instead of asking for help resetting it she went on local Facebook group and a random guy came to the house. After 20 minutes of telling her why that’s not a great idea she acts like I’m the bully. Before that she got scammed by some handymen who went around finding things wrong to fix, fixing them poorly, and then charging her more to “fix”them again. She lost over $15k on that despite us telling her from the beginning the whole thing was fishy.

we are in the process of getting her out of her house and into independent care but not sure that will help too much in this matter. I have access to some of her banking but just short of being a co-owner because she has been told by her friends that your kids can take your money behind your back . She knows just enough to get herself into situations but not enough to get out of them. She still thinks her Facebook feed are friends sending her links to things and not random scammy ads.

What can you do? I got so mad recently that I told her I hope she has a plan for when she loses all dad’s life work. But really… what can you do to help our parents who don’t want to help themselves?

Hello, my parents are in their 80's and have always had, in my opinion, a dysfunctional relationship dynamic and it's just getting worse. My dad is super rigid and controlling, can be pretty harsh and insensitive at times. He's always been this way to some degree but as he gets older it's getting so much worse. My mom's response to his behavior her whole life has been to minimize it and make excuses. She's mostly been a very independent person as well - she had a career, was involved in a lot of community activities, etc. She didn't always have to spend a lot of time in the house with my dad. As she's aged, she's still pretty engaged in some things, but she's slowed down more and has to spend more time with him.

On some days, it's very depressing to go over to see them. My dad is completely withdrawn and won't really engage - he doesn't really talk to me or my kids when we visit, and seems apathetic when my mom tries to engage him. (Note: he's always been this way to some degree, but it's just getting much worse.) I think my mom is really drained by spending the days with him and she seems sad. She's been having a lot of nausea for the past few months, which I think it primarily psychosomatic.

In a way, I feel like I've seen this coming for a long time, but it's incredibly heartbreaking to watch. I really don't understand why my mom stayed in a relationship with my dad but I guess she had her reasons. My mom is a very caring person and it's really hard to how poorly he treats her. (Personally, since I was a kid, I always hoped they would get a divorce. He was a mean dad, too.)

Maybe a teeny part of me had some kind of hope that he'd gain some wisdom in his older years and start being kinder and more considerate of her. Rationally, I know that's not realistic, but I think there was a little part of me that wanted to believe it. Just wanted to vent. I'm going to go visit again tonight. I bring my kids and she loves them and talks and plays with them, but watching my dad become more distant, withdrawn, and difficult is very draining. Just needed to vent, I'm sure some of you are experiencing similar issues. Thanks.

My dad (89) has fairly advanced dementia that really become apparent about 4 years ago. My mom (83) has been caring for him in their huge home that they absolutely refuse to move out of. Her own cognition is starting to decline in pretty noticeable ways, her memory is clearly failing, and she recently got a 23/30 on the SLUMS test and refused further testing (which I only know about because I have medical POA and access to her online health records).

They're able to kind of muddle along, but she's starting to have more and more issues with household management. She was historically the one who's handled bills and finances but they're having issues with things like bill pay. I've tried to get some bills on autopay but they keep having to close credit cards and accounts. A sibling and I have a reasonably good eye on their finances and they aren't getting scammed or losing massive amounts of money, but things like getting the cable bill paid before services are shut off is getting increasingly problematic. They're also at the point where they can't troubleshoot tech, handle home maintenance, etc.

Caring for my dad is getting increasingly intensive and it's crystal clear that they should be in independent or assisted living but they've been refusing it for a decade. My siblings and I live out of town and help where we can, but aren't there day to day.

Has anyone hired a sort of household manager to go in and support their aging parents with things like bill pay, home maintenance, tech troubleshooting, etc? What type of security checks would exist since they'd have access to sensitive financial data?

Has anyone had success in making peace with a very elderly’s decision to ignore all suggestions concerning a safe living arrangement? My very elderly mother lives in her own apartment, she won’t wear the Life Alert, she will not consider Independent Living with call buttons and a 24/7 desk, and she talks like she will have a home care agency come but she cancels the service If I leave town. She doesn’t drive, and she can’t operate Uber. She does order her own groceries. Her apartment complex is very transient, and she doesn’t know her neighbors.

I’m the only person who helps her stay in her own apartment, and the stress is detrimental to my health. I realize I need to just let go of the stress and realize that I can’t control her or any crisis she may encounter. I have a milestone birthday soon and want to go on a short trip. She will be entirely alone without any backup plan for me. But I’m at an age where I could become ill or where my spouse could become ill. Again, there is no backup plan at all.

Does anyone have suggestions for how to accept this situation and to ratchet down my anxiety?

Hi all! My 86 year old grandpa recently was told he’s no longer allowed to drive. He’s taken this news very devastatingly and is a wreck over it. He also does not seem to understand why he can’t drive anymore.

Does anyone have any advice on how to communicate with him about why it has to be that way? He’s been taking it out on my dad (who has absolutely no emotional intelligence in the slightest).

Also, recommendations for clubs/activities/hobbies he can engage in would be appreciated. Part of why he hates not being able to drive is because he feels stuck inside his house all day. I feel so bad for him.

Thank you all!

I’d like to preface by saying I’m not asking for techniques in dealing with dementia related behavior.

My mother has dementia, and my father is her primary caregiver. My parents are married and live together, and I live about 20 minutes away. Most of his family and friends live overseas, and he typically travels there for 7–8 days twice a year.

Whenever he travels, I’m expected to stay at their house with my mother full time. Although she can still bathe, dress herself, make a simple meal, and get around independently, her confusion and disorientation mean she cannot safely be left alone for any meaningful length of time.

I work full-time, so I’m also responsible for arranging supervision for her while I’m at work. This most recent trip, I couldn’t find a sitter for two days and had to take unpaid time off work—money I really cannot afford to lose. This is something I really wish my father would make arrangements for, as it leaves me scrambling to find a sitter while I work full time and he is retired.

Caring for my mother is emotionally exhausting. Because of her dementia, she believes she is the adult in charge and becomes nasty or defensive when redirected or corrected. She constantly loses things, and much of our time together consists of arguments, searching for misplaced belongings, and trying to redirect her. I understand that her behavior is a result of her illness, and I do not to take it personally. I keep her occupied and try to avoid engaging in arguments, but that doesn’t make the situation much easier.

She also becomes extremely distressed when my father travels. She doesn’t understand where he is, why he left, or when he’s coming home. At the same time, she resents my presence and repeatedly tells me she doesn’t need me and wants me to leave. So I’m left trying to supervise someone who doesn’t want me there, while managing her distress and hostility for days at a time.

This is probably the eighth time I’ve taken care of her while my father has been away, and I honestly don’t think I can do it again. I feel clinically depressed by the end of my week with her.

I feel obligated to help because she’s my mother, and I want my father to have a break from his caregiving responsibilities. But I also feel that it’s unfair for him to travel without having a reliable care plan in place, knowing that I work full-time, cannot afford to miss work, and will be left managing her cognitive destabilization due to his absence.

These trips are damaging my relationship with my mother and creating significant resentment toward my father. I find very little joy in our time together during these periods, and I don’t want the time I have left with her to be defined by misery and conflict for both of us.
I don’t want to deprive my father of the opportunity to travel and see his loved ones, but I also don’t think I can continue sacrificing my finances and emotional well-being to make those trips possible.

Am I the asshole if I tell my father I can no longer be responsible for caring for my mother while he travels, even if that means he has to change his plans?

And, separately, is it reasonable for my father to continue taking these trips at all even if we can arrange alternative care for my mother, given how distressed and destabilized she becomes whenever he leaves?

learned my mom has Covid again and hasn’t gotten any better in 3 weeks. for context she is severely obese, it’s gotten worse over the years and now she can’t get up the stairs without clinging onto the railing and she’s severely out of breath with one flight. She used can hardly cook anymore without it flooring her and can’t go on holiday without struggling so much and the last time she struggled fit in the seats when even at a large size in the past we we’re able to go on holiday and she would be able to do things and fit on the plane.

I am worried because of how slow her recovery is, how badly her breathing has gotten in the last year, she now has two hernias which I think may be due to her weight because she hardly moves or goes out apart from grocery shopping and occasionally my dad can get her out on a walk but she just refuses. she has other health issues largely lipedema and swollen legsb which makes it hard to walk. But the lack of movement can’t be any better???

She knows she needs to make changes and she has a blood clot on her lungs last year but I fear nothing has gotten through and my father my sibling and I are just worried that she’s going to die / have a serious health event that she may not recover from.

GLP-1’s are designed for her and she was going to but then saw Tik toks about side effects and doesn’t want to do it. But I try to say her weight staying as it is, is more dangerous than the side effects which can be monitored by doctors. She’s in the 50s and I feel like every year it’s a worry if she will live because she gets flus and Covid regularly and recovers so poorly. I myself am disabled so I know the difficulties but I have conditions that are not curable, a lot of her struggles would be made easier with loss of weight and I worry she’s running out of time. I am not shaming her weight I am worried about the impact of what is morbid obesity is doing to her. It’s killing her and my whole family have tried talking to her, offering support for the journey and there’s nothing different in the last 5 years honestly.

I just needed to vent bc I am so worried.

My mom is quickly declining, Alzheimer’s and being confused.

I was thinking of throwing her a little surprise party so that everyone has the chance to tell her how very special she is to them and that they love her.

This way her heart is filled with so much love when she decides she wants to go.

Would this be a good idea?

Hi guys. Apologies if this comes out jumbled but I’m feeling pretty frazzled at the moment. Actually all the time lately. I’m sure a lot of you can relate.

my mom (70) who was fully independent and showed no real signs of cognitive decline previously spent some time in the hospital for a colon resection during which she was diagnosed as having hospital delirium. She was admitted August 28. I’m pretty sure it started after she came out of anesthesia for an emergency colonoscopy, at least that’s when she started asking strange questions like where her mom was (she passed 3 years ago). That combined with the noise, lack of food and sleep, and general discomfort of being poked and prodded every few hours did a real number on her. Then she had to go under again for the surgery which lasted several hours. I brought up her new memory issues to the anesthesiologist but everything happened so fast and he basically told me there was no other choice, and that she could be fine or she could get worse. It would just be a risk we’d have to take.

After being discharged to home it seemed like it had shifted to hyperactive delirium because she spent a couple nights unable to sleep, just literally talking all night (mostly nonsense or jumbled childhood memories). Then she had a fainting spell and had to be readmitted to the hospital for a bowel obstruction. After another 6 days there (so, 16 in total) she was discharged to an SNF for rehab. We spent 3 weeks there. I was by her side the entire time save for some breaks here and there and another overnight hospital stay due to a fall (hit her head, admitted to hospital for scans that showed a small brain bleed that stopped within a few hours). She was having terrible anxiety at night, basically sundowning and hallucinating bugs and rats in the room. She was put on low dose mirtazipine and trazodone to help her sleep, which only helped a little bit. Now she’s been at home for almost a week, and though the hallucinations have stopped, her memory is all over the place. Short term memory almost zero and long term is spotty at times too, or she’ll mix things up from her distant past like it’s on shuffle mode. A couple times throughout all of this I saw HER, the version I’ve always known, peek through. We even had a conversation once where she realized something wasn’t right with her thinking; she looked at me and broke into tears, apologizing for putting me through this and begging my forgiveness. It was as if her heart was speaking to me for the first time in weeks, and mine broke knowing it wouldn’t last. 💔

I’ve been reading almost every thread I could find on here about delirium, knowing it’s a waiting game now and it may or may not get better. It was just such a sudden change for us that it’s really turned my whole life upside down. The guilt and worry eats me alive sometimes, though logically I know there was little else I could do but get my mom treated. She also drank alcohol fairly heavily (she was functional but self-medicated that way), and the doctors were made aware of it they but they didn’t do much to address cutting her off cold turkey as she wasn’t presenting withdrawal symptoms like fever, tremors, etc. That compounded with everything else just has me questioning whether I’ll ever get her back. She was the strongest person I know, she ran the household and had everyone in check. I miss her terribly and yeah I know it’s so odd to feel that way about a person who’s still here, but I feel lost without her.

If you’ve read this far and have had any experiences with delirium or sudden cognitive changes like this I’d appreciate input. And just want to say I appreciate this sub and everyone in it. Thanks to you all.

My AP is constantly comparing what they're not allowed to do with what their friends, many of whom are older, still do.

It's as if they've decided that because they're not capable of driving in their seventies, their friend in their eighties is surely not a competent driver. Everything comes down to age these days, and they're comparing themselves to their friends harder than I compared my body to Britney Spears' in high school.

I don't like weaseling their freedom and privileges away. I hate feeling like I'm the "unfun" pseudo-parent. It hurts SO MUCH getting pitted against my sisters while we sort through the tangled web that gets woven when AP is particularly salty about a change.

And, some of these friendships scare me. One of AP's closest friends, one they call their non-biological sibling, is in their early nineties and still sharp as a whip. This friend is active, social, articulate, and independent -- I think their only change outside of aging was getting dentures. Otherwise, no surgeries, implants, or major health issues.

This unlikely beacon of health and hardiness is almost in a position of hero-worship to my AP. They're suddenly wanting to go on weekend hiking/camping trips because their friend does that. AP has had knee replacements but did not do the exercises and PT properly afterward and now they have a drunken/shuffling gait because of it; I'm on tenterhooks when they go shopping alone, never mind going hiking with a friend twenty years their senior, no matter how healthy! (Note AP is not a drinker and never has been but the best I can describe their walk is how drunk people move sort of side-to-side as if they're on a boat?).

AP took it in their head to go horseback riding...again, because this friend has a horse boarded somewhere and goes. Thankfully, AP could not swing their leg over the saddle with or without help/a mounting block so the stable refused to let them ride.

Those are the most recent ideas but they're never-ending. As I said, the elder friend is extremely active and since they're doing a holiday Turkey Trot, my AP has been heavily hinting that we should drive two hours out of town to a running shoes store so that they can join said friend for that.

AP has so far been rejecting invites and activities with their friends who are more suited to their mobility and other abilities, citing those as "old people" activities. I hope AP realizes that they are an old person soon, because this "I'm still twenty-one" mentality has me highly anxious for their safety.

Just a little background, my father (83, M) has had extreme anxiety his entire life, and I suspect he has undiagnosed borderline personality disorder. That will be relevant later. My mother (75, F) and myself (43, M) are the only other relevant parties for what I've written.

My father had a stroke in early August, and he got extremely lucky on several fronts. My mother (75) found him almost immediately the morning it happened and called an ambulance. They happen to live near one of the best hospitals in the area, the head neurosurgeon just happened to be on call that day, and he was in surgery within an hour of the first stroke symptoms. My father avoided paralysis and any major cognitive issues, but the stroke affected his cerebellum, which controls balance and coordination.

He was in the ICU for a week, and during that time he displayed symptoms of extreme psychosis, something the doctors said is fairly common for stroke victims in the ICU. He immediately started trying to rip the tubes out of his body and resist any attempts from the doctors to help or administer treatment, to the point where he had to be restrained and sedated. He also punched a nurse in the face and split their lip.

Things settled slightly after one week, and he was transferred out of the ICU into a normal hospital room. That first night, he climbed out of his bed to use the bathroom, and fell and broke his hip. The bed had an alarm but by the time the nurses got to him, he was already on the floor. They did an emergency hip replacement the following day.

For the rest of his hospital stay, and afterwards when he transferred to a different hospital for a 2-week stint of rehab, his behavior was so erratic they had to put him on seroquel, a drug usually reserved for people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. He was able to complete the rehab and be weaned off of the seroquel, and he was released to my parents house, to a room on the first floor in a rented hospital bed, where he has been since early September. I'm living with them temporarily right now, to help with the recovery, and I've been helping my father complete a laundry list of unfinished projects, most related to home or car repair, along with being a caretaker. For reference, I'm currently unemployed.

He's been recovering, slowly, and he gets around using a combination of a walker, wheelchair, and rollator, with help from myself and my mother. While he's more mobile each day, he gets dizzy whenever he sits or stands upright, and he's still extremely unsteady on his feet. I don't think a day goes by that he doesn't almost fall down again, were it not for myself or my mother being there. The hip is actually not an issue anymore, it's just the dizziness. He doesn't seem to be aware of his limitations or the possibility of injury again, or if he is, it's inconsistent. I just learned a word, "Anosognosia", which I think is applicable here.

Due to his anxiety and his tendency to ruminate, he's had issues falling and staying asleep, so his doctor prescribed a low dose antidepressant, Mirtazapine, which has helped even him out slightly. He takes it at night and while it does help him sleep, by around late morning the following day it's largely worn off and he's back to being anxious and irritable. It was a chore to even get him to take that low dose, and he's already refused to take it after an emotional outburst (he's back on it now, but he told my mother at some point to shove the pills up her ass).

There have been a few times recently where he's gotten up on his own, usually during an emotional outburst, which completely scares the crap out of myself and my mother. It seems to be happening at an increasing rate as he gradually becomes more mobile.

Today at 4:30 AM I heard noise coming from the first floor of the house, and I came down to find him using his walker to go to the bathroom in the dark. He has a bottle which he usually uses to urinate in the middle of the night next to his bed, and we've discussed with him the dangers of getting up on his own, but this is the latest example. I couldn't fall back asleep so I'm sitting here writing this.

I foresee a not too distant future where he re-injures himself, likely by breaking his hip again, and I don't know if there's anything I can do to stop it. There will come a time where either myself or my mother won't be there, like what happened tonight, and he'll just fall again, and then we're back to where we started. My mother and I have put our lives completely on hold for this recovery, and all of that time and effort will have been wasted.

I'm honestly not even sure if that's the best course of action but I feel like I'm grasping at straws. I think he needs a different or higher dose of psychiatric medication at least, which is going to be a challenge since he would be resistant to getting diagnosed. I desperately want to get the three of us into therapy but I'm having a lot of trouble finding a family therapist.

My mother and I have already talked about boundaries and what those might look like. She has said if my father has to return to the hospital, she's not going to be there 8 hours a day like the first time. She said she'll go there for 1 hour a day and basically leave him to rot the rest of the time. I'm prepared to talk with him when he gets up this morning and explain that I'm done helping him. I'll still stay around to help my mother with the house, but I'm not going to help with any more of his projects, or spend any more time and energy on my relationship with a man who so desperately wants to kill himself.

I'm not sure how to proceed, or if I'm doing the right thing.

Just found this sub and already thankful for it. Have read through many posts and have gotten some great tips already.

My mother, 79, fell on a trip out of the country and broke her elbow. She has not broken anything before but her balance is declining and she has fallen a couple of times. I do not live near her but I took of work at a very busy time to come help her upon her return to the US and to get her into an orthopedist appt. She is in a constant state of anxiety and denial about this injury. Just now at 2:30am she missed the toilet and fell on the floor. It took hs 5-10 minutes to get her up. She is overweight and obviously couldn’t use her arm so it was a struggle. After getting her all settled again she said “well I guess I have to carry my phone around with me all the time now.”

I know I have to let her come to the conclusion herself that perhaps some sort of assisted living situation is the best idea at this point in her life. It’s so sad to see this happening.

Thanks for letting me vent.

I recently took a 10 day trip to visit my parents in their home in Southeast Asia after much persuasion from my husband. I live in the US, and the last time I was at my parent's house was back in 2016. In between grad school, COVID, and limited PTO from work, I've only been able to see them a handful of times. I was in my 20's during this time frame, so like any other 20 something year old, I focused on my career, discovered who I was and dreamt about who I wanted to become, got ready to settle down with a partner, traveled, and lived a rather independent life. I called home about once a week, until we had a fallout in 2024, in which I reduced my calls to once a month.

For some background - I grew up in a very strict East Asian household. My mom and I were constantly butting heads over academics and my future. In general, my mom has been narcissistic, controlling, manipulative, invalidating, negative, and emotionally abusive towards me for years. There are still old wounds dating back from elementary school, and this ended up growing into a horrible grudge against her. With that being said, my mental health had hit rock bottom during high school, in which I made a pledge to myself that I would need to go the furthest country away from where my parents were for college, so that I could finally find my peace and live my life. During those years, I only communicated with my parents via whatsapp and phone calls. Then, when I got married in 2024, my parents and I had a major fallout because of their disapproval of my husband and his family. This caused a major rift between me and my parents, so bad to the point that my mom even threatened to disown me and take my name out of her will. She eventually apologized to me for that incident, but since then I felt like mending a relationship with my mom was hopeless, and thus I withdrew my contact from once a week to once a month. I had to seek therapy at that time because I was mentally in a very dark place. For 2 years, I worked with my therapist on how to improve my relationship with my mom before I decided for certain that I would go from low contact to no contact with her. I put in a lot of effort during my therapy sessions because I so badly wanted to maintain my relationship with my parents before I thought of doing the extreme.

Fast forward to today - the once a month phone calls were still ongoing, and my relationship with my parents was rather superficial. Every phone call is always about how I'm doing, how's work, how's your husband, how's the weather, etc. We eventually got to the topic of having them visit me, as we usually see each other once a year. That plan eventually foiled after they told me that they were not interested in taking a 13+ hour flight just to be here for a couple of days. I don't blame them, but when they told me, I broke down in tears. For a couple of days, I juggled the thought of whether it was worth going just to potentially risk another decline in my mental health. Would my mom criticize me again? Would she complain about my husband and in laws? The possibilities were endless. Ultimately, my husband told me that life was too short to not see family or to hold this much contempt in my heart. He encouraged me to see this as an opportunity to try to mend things the way my therapist taught me. I reluctantly agreed and eventually booked that airplane ticket.

When I got to my parent's house, something shifted. I felt a change of heart after seeing how much my parents have aged and seeing the state of their home. My parents are both in their 60s - my dad still works mostly for fun despite having more than enough for retirement, and my mom has been a homemaker for a majority of her married life. Seeing my parent's home, the one that I last stepped in 2016, was showing signs of wear and tear, which I attribute to the physical limitations that my parents are experiencing with their age. Growing up, my mom was a very organized person - things had to be put away and storage spaces had to be used with purpose to reduce clutter. Now that she's older, she's having symptoms of arthritis and thus doesn't have the stamina she once had to organize anymore. My parents had piles of expired OTC meds, personal hygiene products, and even food stacked on top of their credenza, dining table, and coffee table, and desk to the point that it looked like the beginning stages of a hoarding problem. I had to go through each one of them to make sure that my parents weren't using anything that was expired. When I asked them why they kept everything without checking, they said that they had a hard time seeing the expiration dates written on packaging. This broke my heart. Additionally, the fixtures in the bathroom were also deteriorating due to hard water damage. My mom was a very detail oriented person and was someone who could not stand seeing a single strand of dark hair on the floor or on countertops. When I saw the state of the bathroom, I was in shock. I could see strands of hair inside the sink, on the floor, and on the countertops. The faucet knobs had pink mold growing at the base. White hard water stains everywhere in the shower. When I asked my mom why she left the bathroom in such a condition, she said that her nearsightedness made it difficult for her to see what needed cleaning and what didn't. She also didn't have the energy to do deep cleaning. My mom's food also doesn't taste the same anymore. She was a great cook, and while it had been years since I had my mom's homemade food, the food she made for me was bland. She told me she lost motivation in cooking ever since my brother and I left home, and thus her skills were no longer where they were.

On my first night at their home and when my parents were asleep, I woke up at 2am (due to jetlag) and just laid in my bed staring at the ceiling. I still didn't want to believe how much my parents have aged and how they were starting to slow down. I became so restless that I started snooping around in the guest bedroom, where I found pictures of me when I was younger, my parents during their prime years, and baby pictures of my brother. I immediately started sobbing when I saw them. I never thought a day would come in my life where I would see my parents as vulnerable individuals.

After that night, I focused on what I could do to make this time memorable for all of us. I helped them declutter, looked into services that would help pick up items they didn't use for donation, booked a michelin star restaurant, went on a road trip to a nearby beach town, and helped them around the house. I spent as much time with them as possible. There was not a single moment when I retreated into the guest bedroom to do my own thing (which is significant because I grew up as a bedroom kid). Eventually, the contempt that I had towards my mom disappeared as I spent more time with her. As I learned about her life before she married my dad, when she had my brother and I, and the things she sacrificed for us, I felt deeply ashamed about how I viewed her for all these years. She was riddled with traumatic experiences, which explains the why behind a lot of her behaviors. I felt guilty for wanting to cut her off from my life. How could I have been so selfish?

Seeing my aging parents has wrecked me. Since returning home, I can't stop thinking about them without crying. As someone who once hated the thought of going home, I now can't wait to go back. My priorities have definitely shifted, and now I am motivated to retire early so that I can spend more time with my parents. I will be calling home more frequently. I am glad that I gave my parents grace, but I wish I had done that sooner.

If you got this far, thanks for reading.

Both of my parents are sicker than they realize, and I feel like all of the traditions are gone and we are just waiting for one or both of them to get worse. I moved across country after being away for 20+ years and that’s equally mind fucking me. I’m watching the relationships change between them, between us kids, and I do NOT want to leave them when they need me, but I need me too. The real me. But I don’t even know who that is anymore

My mom (76, widow) lives with us (empty nesters, 52 and 50) in the US 6 months of the year and independently in India the other 6 months. Over the last several years, I have found that there is barely anything in common between my mom and I and as a result, we have nothing much to talk other than the weather, her health, how the immediate relatives are doing etc.

A typical day at home:

we may see each other at lunch or dinner. Exchange pleasantries, finish our meal and move on with our day. She is religious but neither my wife or I are - so no intersection at her prayer times nor do we observe any of the festivals/rituals that are typical of south Asians. We have told her she can observe whatever she wants but she chooses not to.

Her entertainment choices are dramatically different than ours - she has no interest in US news, shows etc. while she can speak and understand English, it is not a strong suit. She prefers watching South Asian TV shows that I simply can't stand.

Between my wife and I, we split the chores of the house. So, my mom doesn't have to deal with any of that such as cooking, house cleaning, organizing etc. She does manage her own stuff like laundry etc.

She barely makes an effort to connect with her grand kids when they are home from college. She often blames language as a barrier but I simply don't see her being curious to sincerely know how they are doing. She was the same when the kids were little - no stories, no effort at making them a dish they would like etc. She would struggle to remember their birthdays or the specific schools they go to and what they are studying.

When we have my relatives visiting us, she would turn gossipy with them or with me and I usually dont tolerate it and cut it off very quickly.

She would often complain to anyone visiting that no one talks to her and everyone is busy in their own lives. Often comparing to the situation with her neighbors in India where the adult kids, grand kids live with their parents in the parental home and the space is a lot tighter so the surface area of contact between generations is very very high.

Typically any conversation with her other than the mundane devolves into complaining about the other person. I find that she has little natural empathy.

She wasnt like this when I was growing up. Perhaps the challenges of managing a family of 4 kept her occupied. I remember all the good times we had. My dad and she empty nested for over 28 years till he passed. She misses him but even her framing of that shows up like a rant "he left me alone to deal with life. I have to manage everything on my own now". It's never about what Dad is missing by not being here but all the things he used to do for her that she needs to manage on her own. E.g. house repair or maintenance when she is in India.

Economically, we are upper middle class. She is self sufficient in India and we are fortunate to bear her expenses when she is here in the US.

I feel I have, maybe, 5 to 10 years more with her. And I want to make sure I don't regret not making an effort to make her remaining days more joyful for her.

What advice do you all have on how I could improve my relationship with Mom?

Thank you for your insights.

Hopefully this won't be too long to read. My dad (76) changed statin in June and that set off a string of events he can't seem to recover from. (he's back on the original statin btw). His tinnitus got crazy bad, then he stopped being able to sleep well. His anxiety went through the roof and his BP was in emergency range. He was in and out of hospitals in June/July/August - in a psych facility then admitted himself trying to get in another psych facility and ended up admitted for a week for low sodium. The original psych facility added FOUR mood altering drugs to the one (mirtazapine) he was already taking. Then he was in yet another psych facility (all of this was him deciding he needed to go to psych because he couldn't sleep). Now he's been home about 5 weeks. Off of some of the drugs but currently obsessed with getting off temazepam to sleep because it's addictive and trying seroquel. ANYWAY. he says the depression is still always there. He has college football season tix and has given away the tickets to every game so far. He used to lift weights at the Y but now he says he can only be in there about 20 minutes before he gets overwhelmed. He eats out for lunch and dinner every day (usually Chili's - they know him by name in there) so he's still going out. He told me today that afternoons are the worst for the depression. I think he needs something to DO. He's just home all day other than taking a walk and going to eat. He's incredibly smart but doesn't have anything to fill his mind. He had a side project for years but it has slowed down. I recommended dog walking but the barking in the shelter bothered his tinnitus. I recommended meals on wheels but he said he emailed them and they didn't email back. Let me add that he does not have a therapist - how do you go to 3 different psych facilities and not have a therapist? He doesn't want to do zoom and he's in a podunk town with no good options. So I told him I was going to my aging parents thread to ask for advice :) Any thoughts on something he can do to keep busy and fill his days?

I'm worried about my mother (72) who lives with me.