Follow
Share

My 81 year old Father recently suffered a stroke and that is on top of already present dementia. I am a only child with no outside help, my wife doesn't fully understand how stressful and all comsuming this really is. My dad lives next to us and he lives alone so its pretty much 24 hour care on my part. Just looking for tips on how others deal with this situation and keep your sanity, lol. Thanks for listening and any tips you can give.

Find Care & Housing
Your wife doesn’t deserve this. Find a new plan for dad that doesn’t take all your time and attention. This isn’t fair or healthy for anyone. You won’t be able to sustain as is, dad has too many needs to be met solely by you. Time to accept some truth. I wish you peace
Helpful Answer (2)
Reply to Daughterof1930
Report

It's time to look for a good facility for your dad where he can get 24/7 care. Start touring places now.
Helpful Answer (2)
Reply to JustAnon
Report

Fawnby and Lealonnie said it all. Your health and your marriage are at stake. Move your dad to memory care, at his expense, where he’ll have 24/7 appropriate care and you can visit him as a son instead of a stressed out wreck.
Helpful Answer (4)
Reply to MG8522
Report
Beethoven13 Apr 11, 2026
Agree. I was living 2 states away when this happened to my 92 year old father. I am also an only child, 62 year old. I upended my life for 4 years to manage everything for my elderly parents. They had funds to pay which made it possible. It completely took over my life and I rented a townhouse 5 minutes from them and kept my professional job. My health took a major hit. If you want to try keeping him at home, as I did, here’s my advice: do a trial period of 3-6 months, hire private caregivers with his money for 8 -12 hours per day 24/7. They do his hygiene care, shower, toilet, do his laundry, change sheets, arrange his clothes, make his food, do grocery list, order groceries online, and help him eat, clean his house and wash his dishes and care for any pets he has, take him to get haircuts and pick up groceries and prescriptions. Clean and trim his fingernails and take him to podiatrist for toe care during their shift. If you pay privately, no agency, this will cost about $120,000 dollars per year. If he needs 24/7 care at home, it will cost more than $200k plus. Agency care costs more. You are still overseeing everything and have to handle all financial things and yard care and manage grocery shopping which will include copious amounts of disposable pads, underwear, supplies and doctor appointments. If you choose hospice. Hospice will provide supplies like diapers and chux pads and a hospital bed and Hoyer lift and bath aides who come twice a week to give him a bed bath and change his sheets. The nurse comes once a week and does vitals and orders more lorazepam and comfort meds. You have to be there at least once a week to advocate for him. The social worker and chaplain are helpful. We got 5 days of respite care in a local nursing home per month with hospice. Hospice covers all costs. I never chose to use it because it was so disruptive of our care schedule and my father was not cooperative. It is so, so, hard and difficult, is my point. People told me to place my dad in a facility. I did think about it and did the research and visits. I chose to spend his money on his care and keep him at home. 15 months on hospice plus agency and private caregivers. I kept my job. I did not live with them. My health suffered. Take this information and take what is helpful to you. Leave the rest.,When it was all over, in retrospect, I would have not moved back. I would have supported from a distance. You live next door. That’s great and not good. Use it for convenience for you but don’t let his care take over your life. Hire help with his money or place him with his money when the time comes and don’t feel guilty. Your life matters as much or more than his. He’s had his life. Don’t expect your spouse to do this. Become a team together and get him in a care facility and you just visit and use his money to pay his bills. It’s completely sobering a a major wake up call to what is ahead for all of us. I want to add: my elderly parents both had LTC insurance policies for many years.They worked 42 and 45 years respectively for big companies. They paid every month for many years to a well known insurance company. I found out when I called for them and they needed it, that They have facility only coverage which means nursing home care only, no home care benefit, no assisted living or memory care. They need to qualify medically- need documentation of need help with many activities of daily living like toilet, bathing, eating, medicine. There is a 6 month ramp up where they pay out of pocket before LTC insurance pays anything, and life time max payment of 160k dollars. Less than a year in a nursing home. Look closely at whatever LTC insurance they have and know the facts before you count on anything.
(1)
Report
How others deal with this is (often) to expect their spouses to step up and "share" the experience, just as they have shared so many other setbacks in their marriage. Seldom does this work out. Then the requesting spouse becomes resentful. The put-upon spouse becomes resentful. Everybody is miserable. No one knows how to get unmiserable because, well, we're obligated to take care of our parents, aren't we? And parents-in-law. And every sick relative that hobbles down the pike and claims kinship.

Dad should have discussed this with you long ago, and you could have all laid your cards on the table. But apparently you didn't have a chance to do that. Dad didn't plan not to be a burden. He expected you to be his lifeline. You even live next door to each other, so your lives are intertwined, probably, until death do you part! But your wife never made that vow. She never had a chance to voice concerns. And here you are, victims of yet another elder who didn't plan an alternative self-directed care plan when he was able, who basically just dumped his end-of-life problems in your laps.

Taking care of someone with your dad's issues at home is almost impossible. Even with one of his health problems, it would take 3 caregivers for 24/7 coverage, which is what dad requires now. You aren't them. I hope you have his POA. Even with full caregiver coverage, you and wife will have to manage the whole caregiver enterprise, fill in for them when they're sick, deal with taxes, insurance, and give up pleasurable things in your own lives to Take Care of Dad because that's now your main task. Neither of you will like it.

Dad needs to go to memory care where he'll have a professional team of caregivers to do everything for him. I took care of both parents hands-on and with shifts of caregivers in their home, an experience that I still have nightmares about (5+ years of their dying). I took care of another relative at their home post-stroke for 2 years, hands-on, only me. My husband, stage 7 dementia, currently is in memory care after years of my taking care of him alone at home. When I tell you emphatically that your dad needs memory care in order to save your happy home, your marriage, and your wife from becoming a care slave, believe it.

Step up and do the right thing by getting dad into a fine facility and exempting your wife and yourself from becoming trapped in a no-win situation. Take wife a bouquet of flowers while you're at it, and hire a company to clean out dad's house before you put it on the market to pay for his care. Good luck!
Helpful Answer (3)
Reply to Fawnby
Report

Dad really needs full time care in home (not by you) or to be placed in Memory Care Assisted Living. You cannot expect to maintain a happy marriage and be a full time caregiver at the same time. Your wife should not be expected to understand you being gone continuously while she's now alone, because your first priority should be her. I was an only child too and chose Assisted Living for my parents care because it's too much for one person to manage.

We've seen lots and lots of posts here from spouses asking about divorce after one of them disappears to take care of a parent full time. Don't become one of those statistics. Look into dad's finances and see what he can afford. His home can be sold to finance his care, don't forget. You matter too and so does your marriage.

Best of luck to you.
Helpful Answer (3)
Reply to lealonnie1
Report

Does he have a Care Manager?
Helpful Answer (0)
Reply to Beedevil66
Report

Ask a Question
Subscribe to
Our Newsletter