<p>Is the FIL likely to leave an inheritance? Are their affairs in order? I would see if you can find a will (snoop?) and what’s in it.</p>
<p>My ILs are also difficult people. I think you are expressing that while you are willing to turn this over to H, that is probably not going to get the result you want — which is FIL does not drive himself, and neither are you constantly obligated to, either. H is going to “hire” a driver, the driver will arrive at FIL’s house only to discover FIL has left on his own. I hear your concern about his endangerment of other people, those seem valid.</p>
<p>I would tell FIL/H you can only drive him x times a week/month, and let him figure the rest out. In the end, you cannot control the state that gave him a license. You can’t control his decisions. Try that for a single month, and see if anything changes. He might surprise you and badmouth you the whole way to the shuttle service. Think of him as a job, not a relative, maybe that would help. </p>
<p>And I agree, mention how smart he was to see through the scam. He’ll come back badmouthing your son. You rise above it by not giving him ANY traction. As if he mentioned aliens. “Haha…of course your grandson wasn’t the one on the phone, what a silly idea”. Forgive him, not because he deserves it, but because you do not want to carry this, too.</p>
<p>
Be careful about being caught.</p>
<p>When my parents were quite old, somebody was trying to sell some investment to my parents. (I knew this because that financial adviser contacted me because my parents wanted to involve me in this financial transaction but did not find they need to tell me about it in advance.) Because one of my parents had always been open to us about what his financial status (e.g., insisting that I took a printed copy of his bank statement home when I visited them, some “bragging” factor involved here, as he “boasted” to neighbors/relatives and sometimes even somebody new to him, kind of “scary” act), I sat down and read some of their opened financial statements at one time when I visited them and tried to find out whether they could afford this investment (some kind of life insurance which they needs to pay a significant amount each month for the next 10 years when they were almost 90 yo. One of my brother arranged this deal but wanted me sign it somewhere but did not want to tell me about it in advance) The other parent saw that I was reading that statement lying on the coffee table, and became suspicious about my motive (kind of “challenged” me on the spot). After that, I would never want to get involved with any of their financial affairs. BTW, my parents are those who would be not happy when their grandson got into an ivy league school because it may use up too much of my money on their grandson.</p>
<p>I would present the scam information, congratulate him on not being taken in–that it wasn’t your son on the phone, etc. And remind him to let other people know that it is a scam and it wasn’t your son. This way he has a new story to tell–he’s so much smarter than everyone else he wasn’t taken in my the scam.</p>
<p>As far as driving, I get it. I would start making the dr appts myself. It might be that only Wednesdays are available. All errands, dr appts, etc are on Wed or whatever day. Then let your H and BIL know that other than that day, you are not available. If you went 6 weeks without dealing with him, it can be arranged so you can go 6 days at a time.</p>
<p>Then let it go. When thoughts of this come into your head, “switch channels”. Consciously think of something else…yes, plan it ahead of time. When I think of FIL, I will stop and think of _____________ instead. It may sound crazy, but it works. And it lowered my blood pressure.</p>
<p>He did fall for the scam. He believed it was his grandson. What he didn’t do was either believe his grandson needed money or care enough to send it.</p>
<p>
Well, she drives him to his appointments, so she knows when he’s not home…and both kids should certainly have keys to the home, in case of emergency or what have you…</p>
<p>If you fear he will drive the car if you won’t provide taxi service, why has no one disabled his vehicle? Get his own mechanic to recommend the best part(s) to take out of it, and work out a deal with the mechanic to keep it in the shop for a long time if FIL notices that the car isn’t working. That might buy you enough time to get his license pulled.</p>
<p>No need to triangulate with the mechanic. Get doctor to pull the license and then rig the car so that it’s inoperable. You’re just doing what the doctor ordered – making sure he doesn’t drive. Too bad if he doesn’t like it. My dad doesn’t either.</p>
<p>On the car, get the note from the doctor that he can’t drive, and have your husband take his keys away. If he wants to call the police he can do that. You’ll have the note from the doctor.</p>
<p>Have his son sit down with him and explain that his wife is no longer willing to drive him around because he cannot be nice and show appreciation. If he agrees to change his ways and attitude, give him ONE more chance. Otherwise, distance yourself. He’ll figure out how to get places.</p>
<p>My sympathies, fishymom. Please get yourself out of this arrangement - protect your state of mind by limiting what you’ll do for your FIL. You say he has means. These means should be used for his care. Even if you were his daughter, you would not be obligated to make profound sacrifices for the sake of his convenience and so that he can dictate every aspect of his life to his liking.</p>
<p>I understand that you don’t want him to drive himself. How does he still have access to a car? In my state, there are procedures to have driving privileges taken away from people who are no longer healthy enough to drive safely. [New</a> York State Office for the Aging - Caregiving - Older Driver - Chapter 3](<a href=“http://www.aging.ny.gov/Caregiving/OlderDriver/DriverChapter3.cfm]New”>http://www.aging.ny.gov/Caregiving/OlderDriver/DriverChapter3.cfm) Here’s what an MD can effect here (only one of several available avenues):
You say he threatened to call the police when you tried to take his car away. You could always call his bluff and let the police show up. If he’s blind in one eye and significantly impaired in the other, he would not pass a vision test and his license would be revoked.</p>
<p>He’s manipulating you with his car and his money. He should pay in-home care to do for him what you don’t want to do.</p>
<p>We had the doctor tell my Dad he shouldn’t drive. Then we pointed out to my Dad how much it would cost him monetarily if he got into a bump up while driving against the doctor’s advice. It worked wonders.</p>
<p>I hope you find a way to extricate yourself from the primary caregiver situation. It is too much.</p>
<p>I heard of a story that, immediately after the old parent’s car was taken away by her children because of her age (86+ yo), she went to the car dealer to get another car. She would drive even if she did not have her valid driver license.</p>
<p>But still, neither she nor any of her children would like to live closer to each other (I am not talking about living in the same house here. I am talking about living within the driving distance, say, 80-100 miles away.) I heard her house was in a mess because she was unable to take care of it anymore.</p>
<p>Boundaries. You need boundaries.
You have decided to allow your FIL to take advantage of you. </p>
<p>We are in a similar situation with my FIL. He is still married and my MIL does everything for him. Then they began to ask us to help and we were happy to do so. Then the requests became more frequent and more onerous. We simply decided to be less available. Suddenly, lo and behold, they were able to hire help. They could have done this a long time ago but they didn’t want to spend the money. After all, we were free. Having them get (hired) help improved things for everyone and we stopped being resentful. </p>
<p>You see, we simply put up a boundary and held firm to it. We were only available when we wanted to be available. </p>
<p>You can also choose to only be available, say one day a week. Let him decide how to handle his appointments on the other days of the week. You mentioned that he does have options. Let him decide which options he will choose. If he chooses to drive, then it is likely that he’ll have an accident (hopefully a small one) and perhaps you can talk to the shop owner to have him keep ‘working on it’ for a few weeks so FIL will be forced to look into other options. </p>
<p>Or just pull the plug in the tire (no damage to the tire that way). He’ll have to get that fixed before he can drive and this will also force him to look into other options that keep him from behind the wheel.</p>
<p>You are entitled to have a life also.
Boundaries are your friend.</p>
<p>Oh, goodness, just glancing through the thread, but I have to make some points, advice, warnings.</p>
<p>In regards to hiring help. Some warnings. While this seems to help you for the time being, in the end, it may hurt you. If your FIL is a manipulative type person, he will begin to manipulate the help. He will ask the help to go to the store and buy him things. Being cheap, as you say, he will not want to reimburse that person for things. Guess who will be asked to reimburse them? You. And, likely, the help will be intimidated by him and/or think he’s made of money, so if he asks for something extravagant, they will bend to his wishes, and you will be there holding the bag.</p>
<p>I know this from experience with two difficult old people, my mother, who is still living, and my FIL, who just passed.</p>
<p>We were moving my mother from the family home, and I hired help to clean out the house. While the help was there, my mother proceeded to send her to the store to pick things up for her. My mother, being cheap, told her she would barter for the goods. For instance, she’d give her a nice gumbo pot in exchange for the woman buying her Godiva chocolates. (Not kidding). The woman of course confronted me, saying, Your mother was joking, right, she’s going to reimburse me for these groceries? She then proceeded to produce almost a thousand dollars worth of receipts that my mother had run up in the two weeks the woman was there. So, the moral of the story, I was able to get a little help in cleaning the house, but boy, did it cost me.</p>
<p>Similar story with my FIL. He decided that he wanted round the clock sitters while he was in the hospital because he did not want to wait for the nurse to come to assist him to the bathroom. So, he ran up, on a credit card, eight thousand dollars in less than one month on private sitters. Now, this man was never alone in his house or a hospital where he would need private sitters. The hospital he was in was wonderful, well staffed, and a family member was always there at the hospital or in at his home. Yet, this is something he wanted, insisted on, and we had to respect his wishes.</p>
<p>I could go on and on, but let me just say this about demanding that your husband help you out. Many will guffaw at this, but as their wives, we do this for our husbands because we love them and we want to support them. Even though this man is your FIL, he is your family, and what you do for him affects your whole family, distant and close. You are also setting an example for your children. How do you want them to treat you when you get older?</p>
<p>It may be hard for you now, and people may not come out and thank you for all your hard work, but know in your heart that you are doing the right thing, and your family does appreciate how much you do for this man, whether they tell you so outright or not.</p>
<p>“He did fall for the scam. He believed it was his grandson. What he didn’t do was either believe his grandson needed money or care enough to send it.”</p>
<p>Cartera hit the nail squarely on the head. My FIL just called, I had no intentions of confronting him on the phone, but he was insisting that I cancel jury duty to take him to his elective surgery. I do not want to cancel jury duty because if I do have to serve, now is a relatively convenient time for me. When I told FIL I would not cancel, he said something that set me off! Funny thing is, I got so angry I don’t even remember what he said. Anyway, he insists it was my son who called, doesn’t believe me about the scam. I asked him why he didn’t call my husband or myself if my son was introuble and needed money, he claims he couldn’t reach us because we were out of town. Later in the conversation when I explained to him that my son had no need to call him for money, he has a good job and knows that there is nothing we wouldn’t do for him if he was in trouble, he told me he had been calling him for years asking for money. He said he told him he was in jail and needed money and my FIL said he told him he could just stay there. I asked why he never called us then, we could not have been out of town every time and he said he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Oh and at the end of the conversation, he asks if I am going to cancel jury duty so I can take him to the hospital! I called my husband to warn him and also my SIL. He has called my BIL 6 times since our conversation, he is golfing and won’t answer the phone, probably what I should have done when he called! BTW, it is my son’s birthday, he had absolutely no clue. My husband’s birthday is next Saturday, has no clue about that one either, pretty sad.</p>
<p>Sorry to say, at that age, they really only care about themselves. My mother, when told sad news about someone else, or even happy news about their grandchildren, will simply ignore it and just go on and on about what she needs, what she wants, when are you going to come do this or that for her. They are like children at this age, the world revolves around them and their needs. I pray every day I don’t live that long.</p>
<p>Perhaps you have covered this, but I haven’t read this entire thread. Is it possible your FIL has dementia/alzheimers? It could explain a few of these behaviors. If so, that needs to be considered and discussed by family and professionals when developing a plan that allows for his safety, the safety and well-being of everyone else (including you) and protecting his finances. Just a thought based upon my experiences in dealing care taking for some extended family.</p>
<p>
It really sounds as if he doesn’t have all his faculties. Just because he seems perfectly lucid much of the time doesn’t mean he isn’t declining mentally.</p>
<p>^^Exactly. It can be quite frustrating to care for someone with dementia and frustrating dealing with others who don’t understand that the person suffers from it. Having a frank discussion with both family and medical professionals can be helpful…but it takes time, patience, and perseverance.</p>
<p>^^^Oh, yes, at this point, your husband should at least be on his checking account. If he were to pass suddenly, this will help in paying incoming bills.</p>
<p>But, if his mental faculties are not all there, you need to have some control over his finances.</p>
<p>He seems too strong willed to give up control over his bank account, but I would be very careful, especially if you do hire outside help, to leave him with the ability to write checks on his own.</p>