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Is Anyone Else Here Coping With Aging difficult child Parents?
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<blockquote data-quote="1 Day At a Time" data-source="post: 60115" data-attributes="member: 3704"><p>This forum has actually given me a greater understanding of my aging mother as well as my difficult child son - thanks to you all! For most of my life I have known that there is something radically different about my mother - she was never like the other kids' mothers :smile: , but I didn't know exactly what to "call" it. She had had marginal adjustment in her life for many years and my father was really devoted to her - even in their most difficult years and he really hung in there. There was, however, constant drama and strife, and their fights were violent, messy, and loud - a continuous background noise to my life as an only child. Needless to say, I exited that environment as soon as I could - I was seventeen, and I never went (or looked) back except to visit periodically for a day or two. I moved very far away and this made everyone happy and kept the balance well, because truly my Mom preferred me being out of the house. My father died in 2000, and I knew that responsibility for my Mom would fall to me. I wasn't exactly happy, because she is so very prickly and demanding - but I tried my best to step up to the plate. She has constantly tried to engage me in fights - because that is the way she experiences closeness, but I have continously refused - because I just don't do that and I don't want to do that with her. It's very difficult because she tries to start a fight with every contact - but I have my strategies!</p><p>It took seven years, but I was able to convince her to sell her house (in a remote location on top of a mountain- beautiful but not good for an eighty year old lady!) and move into a "cluster home" in a retirement community. Selfishly, I wanted her to move nearer to me, my family, and my job - but she refused and I knew I couldn't win that one. She is four hours away from us. She is very demanding and I spend much more time driving that four hours than I like given my busy situation here. My biggest concern is the next step - when she is no longer able to live independently. I'm trying to visualize how I can continue to manage her long distance, deal with our own unresolved issues, and keep my sanity. Do any of you deal with this issues - and how do you do it? Thanks for letting me vent :smile:</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="1 Day At a Time, post: 60115, member: 3704"] This forum has actually given me a greater understanding of my aging mother as well as my difficult child son - thanks to you all! For most of my life I have known that there is something radically different about my mother - she was never like the other kids' mothers [img]:smile:[/img] , but I didn't know exactly what to "call" it. She had had marginal adjustment in her life for many years and my father was really devoted to her - even in their most difficult years and he really hung in there. There was, however, constant drama and strife, and their fights were violent, messy, and loud - a continuous background noise to my life as an only child. Needless to say, I exited that environment as soon as I could - I was seventeen, and I never went (or looked) back except to visit periodically for a day or two. I moved very far away and this made everyone happy and kept the balance well, because truly my Mom preferred me being out of the house. My father died in 2000, and I knew that responsibility for my Mom would fall to me. I wasn't exactly happy, because she is so very prickly and demanding - but I tried my best to step up to the plate. She has constantly tried to engage me in fights - because that is the way she experiences closeness, but I have continously refused - because I just don't do that and I don't want to do that with her. It's very difficult because she tries to start a fight with every contact - but I have my strategies! It took seven years, but I was able to convince her to sell her house (in a remote location on top of a mountain- beautiful but not good for an eighty year old lady!) and move into a "cluster home" in a retirement community. Selfishly, I wanted her to move nearer to me, my family, and my job - but she refused and I knew I couldn't win that one. She is four hours away from us. She is very demanding and I spend much more time driving that four hours than I like given my busy situation here. My biggest concern is the next step - when she is no longer able to live independently. I'm trying to visualize how I can continue to manage her long distance, deal with our own unresolved issues, and keep my sanity. Do any of you deal with this issues - and how do you do it? Thanks for letting me vent [img]:smile:[/img] [/QUOTE]
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