By proceeding, I agree that I understand the following disclosures:
I. How We Work in Washington. Based on your preferences, we provide you with information about one or more of our contracted senior living providers ("Participating Communities") and provide your Senior Living Care Information to Participating Communities. The Participating Communities may contact you directly regarding their services. APFM does not endorse or recommend any provider. It is your sole responsibility to select the appropriate care for yourself or your loved one. We work with both you and the Participating Communities in your search. We do not permit our Advisors to have an ownership interest in Participating Communities.
II. How We Are Paid. We do not charge you any fee – we are paid by the Participating Communities. Some Participating Communities pay us a percentage of the first month's standard rate for the rent and care services you select. We invoice these fees after the senior moves in.
III. When We Tour. APFM tours certain Participating Communities in Washington (typically more in metropolitan areas than in rural areas.) During the 12 month period prior to December 31, 2017, we toured 86.2% of Participating Communities with capacity for 20 or more residents.
IV. No Obligation or Commitment. You have no obligation to use or to continue to use our services. Because you pay no fee to us, you will never need to ask for a refund.
V. Complaints. Please contact our Family Feedback Line at (866) 584-7340 or
[email protected] to report any complaint. Consumers have many avenues to address a dispute with any referral service company, including the right to file a complaint with the Attorney General's office at: Consumer Protection Division, 800 5th Avenue, Ste. 2000, Seattle, 98104 or 800-551-4636.
VI. No Waiver of Your Rights. APFM does not (and may not) require or even ask consumers seeking senior housing or care services in Washington State to sign waivers of liability for losses of personal property or injury or to sign waivers of any rights established under law.I agree that: A.I authorize A Place For Mom ("APFM") to collect certain personal and contact detail information, as well as relevant health care information about me or from me about the senior family member or relative I am assisting ("Senior Living Care Information"). B.APFM may provide information to me electronically. My electronic signature on agreements and documents has the same effect as if I signed them in ink. C.APFM may send all communications to me electronically via e-mail or by access to an APFM web site. D.If I want a paper copy, I can print a copy of the Disclosures or download the Disclosures for my records. E.This E-Sign Acknowledgement and Authorization applies to these Disclosures and all future Disclosures related to APFM's services, unless I revoke my authorization. You may revoke this authorization in writing at any time (except where we have already disclosed information before receiving your revocation.) This authorization will expire after one year. F.You consent to APFM's reaching out to you using a phone system than can auto-dial numbers (we miss rotary phones, too!), but this consent is not required to use our service.
*If I am consenting on behalf of someone else, I have the proper authorization to do so. By clicking Get My Results, you agree to our
Privacy Policy. You also consent to receive calls and texts, which may be autodialed, from us and our customer communities. Your consent is not a condition to using our service. Please visit our
Terms of Use. for information about our privacy practices.
If you unwillingly go along with her wishes now and are “desperately fearing” her decisions at the beginning, you are sentencing yourself to a life of “Yes, dear. As you wish, dear.”
Mom may be in your lives another 20 years. Think carefully about that! And think even harder if you intend to start a family.
You and your fiance need to have an honest heart to heart talk about this before you say "I do".
In my opinion, two adult women under the same roof with a new marriage is a mixture set for trouble. Has she ever heard of leaving one's parents and cleaving to one's spouse or it that a boundary issue for her?
Some people do pull this kind of situation off beautifully. But living with one of the parents is normally something that happens when the parent is ailing, and AFTER a couple has had time alone to build their life together as a unit, and make their relationship strong. In this way, they learn to present a united front. You won't even have a chance at that. And it's not like marrying someone with a child and becoming a stepparent. Taking care of aging parents is not remotely like raising kids, even when they are in their childish dementia phase. Because kids grow and develop, become better humans, become more independent as the years go by, and eventually leave home. Aging parents become sicker, forget things they knew how to do, sometimes become worse humans, become more dependent, and don't leave till they go in a care home or die, to be blunt.
Personally, as someone who is staying with my mother (I won't say "living with," because I'm still maintaining my own home, and I wouldn't call this "living," either), I would never bring a new partner into this situation. I don't think it would be fair to that person AT ALL. For one thing, my mom and I have had decades to work on our dynamic together, and it's not all roses and sunshine for ANY mother/daughter. Once my mom started getting dementia, it went straight back to the unhealthiest aspects of our dynamic. How is a new person supposed to even navigate through that? For another thing, it's an obnoxious amount of work once a parent's health and/or mind starts to go, and that's just unfair on the new person, plus that parent likely won't be able to live on their own in an in-law suite forever.
Your fiancee has basically said she and her mother are a package deal. You want your fiancee to change for you. That's the problem, I think. We can ASK for change, but we can't expect others to change for us. We can only change ourselves.
To put it bluntly, her enmeshed relationship with her mother is covert emotional incest and is a bond that is not easily broken without much work in therapy. There are books written about this and this is what they call it.
As long as she is enmeshed with mom, she will not be able to emotionally bond with you and thus your marriage will lack the intimacy that it could have had otherwise. When I speak of intimacy, I am not talking about sex. The intimacy that a married couple can have goes far deeper that sex itself, but enriches one's sex life as a couple.
She's 30 in terms of years and yet has never really left mom emotionally. That is a really deep enmeshment. Some men are likewise emotionally enmeshed with their moms and can't really bond with a wife.
I suggest finding someone who has their own identity with healthy boundaries in relation to their parents instead of someone who is grown, but is emotionally still their mommy's little girl.
When I was little we had 4 generations under one roof for awhile and it worked great, but, I don't think that is the norm. I'm not sure how old her mom is, but, depending on this, the arrangement could be a 30 year deal. I'd get it straight before the marriage though. Once, mom is included in the arrangement, I suspect it would be hard to change it.
It seems to me that finances may be the biggest codependency. Seek information from your office of aging about senior housing. Low income senior housing brings an abundance of benefits. Socialization for the resident as well as access to other needed services can help your MIL now and even more so as she ages. There may be a waiting list, but get her on it now.
See All Answers