New - Desperate

sasheena

Hey there. I'm new here. I haven't looked around, but I will. But I'm desperate for help, support, advice, direction, ideas, or just a shoulder to cry on. 

I'm 54. My father is 82. He invited my husband and I to move in with him in 2015. The idea was that he'd purchase a house in all three of our names (hubby, Dad, and I), and when he didn't need the house any longer it would be my inheritance. 

Hubby and I uprooted ourselves and moved across the country and established our new life with my dad. 

During the Covid lockdown, hubby and I started to realize that Dad wasn't quite as sharp as before. He started to complain about how horrific the atmosphere was in our home, which never made sense. Then, on January 1 of this year, he declared that the house was going to be put on the market. We had a big brouhaha, and the next day we had a heart to heart, sort of resolved many of our differences, and then he had what seemed to be a TIA. He left our rural area to stay in the San Francisco Bay Area to be closer to doctors. Then he returned in February with plans to kick hubby and I out of the house and sell it. My neice, her man, and my hubby's brother are also all living here. When I pointed out that my father had spent the last 8 years in what he termed a "labor of love" in improving this house, investing in it, as a way of making this home as perfect as possible, he said "well I've changed my mind." 

Our problem is that he spends time with his lady love, and/or his brothers and tells them about all the ways that things are awful here, most of which are based on his rapidly diminishing mental capacity, and they only listen to his side of the story, and they encourage him to basically disown my husband and myself. 

I don't think my father is competent to make these decisions. The house ended up being only in his name, and the concern I have is that if I fight him on his plans to kick us out, if I try to focus on his diminished mental capacity, he'll be irreparably hurt. But it seems to me that he's unhappy because he has a broken brain, and he wants to find happiness, and he's not going to find a fix for what is wrong. 

There are so many details I haven't included, but I guess the bottom line is - what do you do when your elderly relative - who is being influenced by others - is making decisions and choices based on a mixed up perception of reality. I feel dreadfully alone. 

This has affected both myself and my niece negatively. Stress has impacted us both immensely. In her case, stress affected the way she was managing her type I diabetes and she came super close to dying of diabetic ketoacidosis. It took the hospital 8 hours to get her blood sugar levels down below coma-inducing levels. Then the next week my blood pressure skyrocketed and I passed out and got a very severe concussion. My niece and I have both been in "Ostrich mode" and haven't asked for clarification of the situation. The day after she was hospitalized, he declared that he wasn't going to sell the house, and only an idiot would sell the house, and the day after that he declared he was selling it. 

I'm sorry to be scattered, but I feel like I'm drowning, at a time when my own health mentally and physically requires me to focus on my self, and I need a lifeline. 

I've considered that my husband I need to just accept that my father has been convinced that he hates me, that we should cut ties, move out, etc., but we've put down roots here. Among other things I have a herd of sheep all fixing to lamb in the next two weeks. It's contract time for teachers, and we moved here to be with dad, and wouldn't remain if we moved, but for a teacher, one must explore alternative living options and alternative jobs earlier than late March. The cost of moving will be expensive, and if we're going to have to move, we'd want to find someplace for our new forever home. But if we do cut ties and allow my father's influencers to create this negative divide between us, it won't bring him happiness, and it won't bring us happiness, and we've been paying half the taxes on this place for eight years in anticipation of inheriting this place. 

I'm sorry.... any help would be appreciated. 

M1

There is a 24/7 help line, I'd start there. You have a lot to unpack. 1-800-272-3900. They can probably put you in touch with some local resources.

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sasheena

Thank you so much for your reply, Victoria. I can't believe how terrified I've been. There is so much on my plate right now, and insecurity about my living situation is top on that list. 

A year ago my sister's daughter asked if she could move out and my father said it was okay. They were going to rent a room, but have spread out so that they've effectively got half of the house. My brother-in-law has lived with us on-and-off for the last six years. he's disabled, and my father was always in the loop. In fact, my dad is planning on allowing my brother-in-law to stay and be the "caretaker" while dad's getting the place fixed up. Never mind that hubby's brother is an alcoholic who is paralytic 4 out of 7 days of the week. I know I shouldn't take any of this personally, but it feels as if my father is literally trying to find ways to cause me as much pain as possible. 

I do have a you-tube video from last summer/fall where my dad speaks and discusses what is in his trust, what his plans are/were. We always paid my dad the money for the taxes, but we have paid all those other bills -- garbage, electricity, cell phone, cable. I believe  that my dad became disaffected (and started to deteriorate mentally) during Covid. As late as January of this year he was saying that the house, and his truck as he didn't feel like it was safe to drive any longer, would be mine. But now he's reclaimed his car keys and I'm frightened he'll kill himself or others. 

I will try to make an appointment with a lawyer for next week. We got a certified letter from my dad (who lives in the same house) that I know my dad even got notarized, and it's probably some formal "eviction" notice, though I doubt it's a legal document. I don't know because I have my own issues I'm working on, and mentally the stress of my father's seeminly deliberately hurtful actions have made me ill. I can't face reading his letter right now. I passed out from my blood pressure skyrocketing (that's the best that the doctor's can tell) and while I didn't break anything, I certainly risked hit because I hit the ground HARD when I fell, with bruises on hips knees and toes, along with a severe concussion. I have had to take drastic steps to try to keep myself together and keep from getting ill. (I'm suffering from long-covid on top of everything else). 

I have a sister who my parents bought a house for when she got divorced about 28 years ago. She's never paid rent or anything at all on it, and she's set to inherit it when my father passes. The house I live in was to be my share of the inheritance, though we've never lived rent-free with my dad. We've always pulled our weight. It is my sister's daughter who is living here. She likely got another of those certified letters today giving them their marching orders. I'll call the help line, perhaps in the morning (I always get to work a couple hours early for some peaceful down-time before the stress-filled day of teaching math to teenagers overwhelms me)... so I'll try to call the help line and go from there. 

I feel like I have so many hats I'm wearing. I'm the concerned daughter not wanting my father to be unhappy, concerned about how the advice he's getting is unlikely to lead to happiness (Unless he really is the sadistic jerk he's recently manifested).... I'm concerned about my father, and I love him, and I don't want to cause him distress. Then I'm also the emotionally fragile daughter --- the 2nd daughter who was always forgotten and ignored, treated as the "spare" child, whose parents focused all of their attention and love on their daughter and son, and whom the relatives always -- literally -- forgot existed. I guess we never really grow up. The part of me that felt an easing of that childhood hurt over the last eight years as I've been in my dad's house and gotten to know him better as a human instead of as a dad.... has felt tricked into believing that I really do, and always did, matter to him. That same part of me that now feels as if my father is trying to do the absolute maximum to bring me pain. It feels focal and ferocious. I keep wanting to write a letter to my uncle to ask why it is that he HATES me so badly that he's pushing my father to disown me. 

Then there's the part of me that is worried that dad will be nickel and dimed to death if he doesn't have someone watching out for him. He doesn't remember but he's spent many many days trying to fix password problems, and reset his password more than the maximum allowable. He saw a realtor about selling the house and she's got a convenient contractor hubby who is more than willing to get paid to do a fix-it-up on the house before helping him to sell the property. 

As for being a caregiver for my dad, when I moved here to live with him that was what I thought would be one of the roles that hubby and I would take on. Hubby is retired, but I still have another dozen years of teaching before I can retire. But hubby and my brother-in-law are both home full time and with me home aside from work, the intention was to care for dad. 

I know I sound scrambled, part of it is that I'm just processing and trying to come to grips with my own issues and work through things by writing about them. It feels like an enormous task, impossible to figure out where to start. I've taken the first step, which is opening up and reaching out for some emotional and practical support. I am seeing that seeing a lawyer is the only real choice I have unless I want to just bow out of my dad's life. Of course that's easier said than done. Aside from all other considerations, I have to sign a contract soon, but don't necessarily want to stay here. 

Oh there's so much that I feel alone. Unable to discuss it with my uncles who are siding with my dad, also unable to discuss it with my sister and my niece because they can't help but hope that I WILL be on the outs with my dad, because then they would receive either all of, or most of what my dad has. Dad has also categorically stated that if I fight him on this "eviction" he'll make sure I get "nothing".... 

I feel like I'm being punished for (A) believing my father's promises, (B) caring for his happiness and health more than material gain, and (C) believing the best of those around him, that they'll try to discuss things logically and with an eye towards justice and fairness. Ironically, my dad's mom was talked out of her original intentions as far as what her five kids would get, and the result was a bitter permanent separation between my dad and two of his siblings. Now he's doing to me what he has railed against his mother doing. In fact when he set up his trust, he set it up with me as the clear inheritor of the house because he didn't want what happened to him to happen to me. And now he's doing to me what he felt was totally wrong. 

Sorry..... rambling. Thanks so much for listening. That helps me more than anything else. 

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