Caring for in laws

[jb190281]

Would you be willing to care for one or both of your in laws if they needed it? Would you be happy for them to move into your house? Or would you rather they were in an appropriate care home or hospital environment?

Does it depend on your relationship with them? Or is your relationship with your spouse more important - in that you'd do anything for them, and if that means looking after their parents, so be it. Does it also depend on why they need care? Are there degrees of when and why you wouldn't or couldn't care for someone?

[ladyalex]

I could not have contemplate having either my in-laws or parents living with me.
Thankfully this was not an issue. Caring for them in their own homes was quite enough and left both me and lordalex totally frazzled. We have one elderly relative left, so are still 'tied'.
We have constantly emphasised to the son-and-heir that when the time comes, we are definitely to be transferred to care homes or whatever. On no account is he to have the decade and a half (and still ongoing) that we have had.
As other posters have said, who ,exactly, is going to do the caring and whose life is going to be disrupted most ? Maybe a condition of MIL moving in when unable to manage on her own any more should be that her son gives up work to care for her.

[karenmac60]

Absolutely not - and I think MIL would drop dead at the merest suggestion of lowering herself to breathe the same air as me!

[RATTER15]

My Carakeels Mother lives with us, no worries, she is 94

[langara]

Just putting in my twopenneth, my husband picks up the elderly from care homes etc,
to take them to day centers, to do various hobbies etc, the majority love their care home, so don't write off these places until you have investigated what they have to offer. I could not have looked after my now deceased m-in-law as nothing would have been right for her. Father-in-law already has offers from the Chelsea Pensioner homes , he's 93 and quite fit, but we keep saying have you put your name down yet, it's something we all laugh about thank goodness, I don't think he would want to live with any of his children but that will be a future issue, which we all have to face.

[ladybirder]

And as a MiL I can tell you that never in a million years would i want to live with my DiLs. And I'll make the decision if and when I go into a home not them. I wouldn't want to put myself on any of my children. We chose very carefully when my mother had to go into a home at 94 and she absolutely loved it telling me many times she wanted to stay there for ever.

[bestmum]

Sadly my MIL passed away 18years ago, she died suddenly she had a stroke and if she survived she might have been unable to care for herself and i knew that if she lived she could come and live with us. She was a lovely women and she would do anything for u. My mother who has also died would have been a very interesting situation. My Mum and I had a good relationship but she always like to butt in in my relationship with oh. My step-dad is 81 and we share looking after him but he would have to stay in his own home as he is stuck in his own ways and wont change but i still luv him.

[coccinelle]

Think of this scenario: your MIL comes to live with you and something then happens to your husband. You are then stuck to live with your MIL on your own... could you do that?

[dotty.]

It depends on the level of care for one thing, mine are both long dead and i don't miss the mother-in-law, had 24 years to get by without her. My youngest was 2 weeks old when she passed and my eldest 5 years old and so they have no memory of her.

[weas]

with in-laws you reap what you sow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for me nooooooooooooooo