My fiance takes care of his mother & step father full time whom I believe both have dementia (but is un-diagnosed). It is obvious to me that he is burnt out, but he seems to refuse to do anything about it. He refuses to put his mother in a home, I have made suggestions for him to get help and a diagnosis, but he says he doesn't have time to go get help & his mother doesn't want any body else to help her. It would be fine, but he is very angry most of the time, yelling at his mother & step father about the smallest things & when I am over there it is very uncomfortable & highly stressful for me. The last time I was witness to this, I spoke up and told him to stop yelling. I just cant sit by & do nothing, it is borderline abuse. His mother is only 68, this could go on for a long time. She can't move one side of her body & can't be left alone.
In your position, I would call APS in confidence and get their advice. Say that to them, literally: "I need advice on what to do in a situation which I've become concerned about."
I'm in the UK, so of course it isn't exactly the same, but professional social workers are professional social workers the world over, and in my experience social workers specialising in services for older adults know their business and do not rush at things like a bull at a gate.
How did your fiancé respond when you pulled him up short that time? Was he angry with you, relieved, defensive? I'm wondering if his response might tell you anything about how receptive he'd be to professional advice.
The ideal would be to gain his agreement to a needs assessment. There are so many possible options that would help him and an assessment would bring the information to him.
I would say you cannot “fix” this situation and you are only frustrating yourself by trying. Your fiancé will need to decide for himself when and if he will accept help. APS is bound to come out to investigate, but unless there are obvious signs of abuse or neglect, they cannot open a file. For your own well-being, you may want to consider taking a break from this relationship. It will be much more difficult to do so once you are married.
Please do try to get in touch with social services. Whether he's in the mood to recognise it or not he clearly does need help, as you've recognised. It's so difficult, because when you're backed into a corner as he is then the slightest suggestion can feel like a hostile criticism even when it isn't. I think professional advice must be the only way forward.
And what about you? How are *you* doing?
She's 68, young enough for her dementia to be early onset and aggressive, which could even also fit in with her romantic but questionable marriage - "look what I found on the night train!"
Or, this could be the latest act in a long, long drama which he has been more or less patiently bearing with all his life.
Or both, I s'pose.
In any case, though, the man needs help. He needs help with the care, which means he needs to be brought to accept that it is not reasonable or realistic for him to do the hands-on providing. And possibly he needs help for himself, if he's the victim of a lifelong dysfunctional relationship.
You have been absolutely correct in that no matter how much of a nightmare his mother might represent to him, as long as she is in his home he must govern his emotions towards her. I know myself how difficult that can be when the fact is that one is dealing with a good deal of historic anger.
If he won't listen to you, can you think of anyone he might listen to? Anyone he knows, anyone you know?
Two last (promise!) questions:
How long have you known him/been engaged to him?
How long has his mother been on the scene?
Before all this began to go south, how would you have rated the idea of his becoming his mother's full time caregiver, just hypothetically?
As I remember it, even when you do have a diagnosis and you have worked hard to educate yourself about dementia and think you're getting the hang of it; even then, it can still feel very much as if they are "doing it on purpose." You feel that it surely can't be a coincidence that the worst and messiest disasters happen at the worst and most frustrating possible moments.
So if he isn't yet ready to accept that there could be sound neurological or physiological causes behind his step-dad's behaviours, I can imagine he, fiancé, is backing himself into a very painful corner indeed.
Isn't it bizarre? Is there any other medical or psychological condition that we'd approach thinking "I may not know the first thing about this but what the heck, I am the best and only person to deal with it." But I'm sure that among people whom caregiving creeps up on (like me) or ambushes (like him) many of us must fall into that trap.
What if you were, in a quiet and peaceful moment, to ask your fiancé how he would feel if he were to be told in six to twelve months' time that his defiant, annoying, attention-seeking, trouble-making stepfather in fact does have advancing dementia?
What other fields of expertise does he think he could step into at short notice and cope with unaided?
I don't know why we feel we "ought" to be able to do this job, just like that. It makes no sense. But we do, don't we.