Your first responsibility is to your husband. Don't forget that. Also, you MUST take care of yourself if you are to be able to help anyone. Sooner or later, your brother will have to go into a nursing home. You might not like to do this, but it probably will be unavoidable. Perhaps it is time to start working on that. He should be qualified for some sort of State aid for the disabled. Start looking around for a suitable place. Is it possible that you mother could come stay with you? It's only a matter of time until she also needs more help than she does now. It may be easier to move her now, rather than later. Please come and vent all you need to. We always listen. Sometimes we give poor advice, but we mean well. And sometimes, we give advice that may be very helpful. Take care of yourself and your husband. He needs you too.

auntjen ~ It sounds like your G & G will be fine, and I mean that sincerely. Yes, it is a monumental change, yes it does affect the whole family, but it's a very smart and unselfish move they made. Backstory: My dad developed Alzheimer's when he was in his late 50's. We know that now because when he was finally diagnosed (in the mid-to-late 1970's), there was little or no information, let alone research, available. As my father becamse increasingly affected by the disease, it became harder and harder for my mom to care for him. By the time she knew she needed help, they were both in their early 70's. She made a very smart decision by moving back to Manhattan where the resources and help were more readily available. I'm an only child and she got her support and strength from me. I lived about 2 hours away from them and would spend the weekends in the city with them, staying with my dad while my mom took a much needed break from being his full-time caregiver. Even though I was not the primary caregiver, I was married and working full-time, which made things a tad difficult to juggle. I thank goodness that, at that point, I didn't have children because that would have only made things more difficult. We had been researching various alternatives with the support of my dad's doctor, focusing on nursing homes, and we found a very good one that was affiliated with Mt. Sinai Hospital. She put dad on the "waiting list" and after what seemed like an eternity, my dad went to The Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged, part of Mt. Sinai. What a blessing that was, not only for my dad but for my mom, who was becoming increasingly worn out from caring 24/7 for my dad. Many family members could not understand how she could put my father in a home. Terrible, thoughtless comments were made and she was made to feel like a pariah. And this was when her family should have been there for support. Very few family members visited my dad in the nursing home. I'm sure they figured that he wouldn't recognize them. But what about my mom? Wouldn't she recognize them? Wouldn't she appreciate the small show of support? But I digress, except to say that I remember which family members were there for support (and which weren't). I have forgiven them, preferring to think that they really didn't understand the result of their actions. Your parents and you and your family are doing the right thing, even though it might feel wrong. Your G & G did the right thing for your family. They made a selfless decision for the good of their family. That's love.

The biggest age-related change I've noticed in my parents and grandparents is related to sweets. My dad (72) now stocks the house with cookies and such but he never ate any kind of cake or cookie before. My grandmother (90) will eat nothing but candy, cakes and cinnamon buns if left to her own. I think for her it's the taste but also the decadence of it that delights her. On the flip side, my mother (70) had a crazy sweet tooth all my life. If i was late for curfew, I knew to bring home a peanut butter tandykake, chocolate bar or a donut to soften the blow! Now she doesn't eat many sweets at all.. and she's taken a liking to margaritas much like your mother took to root beer! (lol) I have noticed many other changes in my father but he had a series of pretty catastrophic strokes 15 years ago. He's regained his speech to the point that you wouldn't know that he'd had a stroke if you met him on the street. He still odd pockets of memory loss and he confuses pronouns (mostly he/him for she/her). The biggest change is just in how he processes information. Again, while age may have compounded some of that in the recent past, it's primarily related to the strokes.

My parents were married for 25 yrs when they divorced. Their marriage didn't come first at all. I don't know that even us kids came first...LOL. My mother has not re-married, but my father has. I have been on both sides of the fence with step-families. I was an adult when my father remarried. I have taken my approach with my SS's from what I have learned as a child of divorce, and from the mistakes his wife has made. 1. The marriage to my DH is of equal importance as his children. 2. The children need one on one time with their father regardless of how good our relationship is as a family. Whether intact or not, children need one on one time with each parent. 3. If anything were to happen to my DH, the chilren will recieve all monies from his life insurance policy, any items of his that they want, etc. It has been made clear to me and my siblings that we are not welcome to a personal relationship with our father. We are allowed to have one with him AND his wife (which is fine, but sometimes you need one on one with your parents) When I got married the first time, my father was dating his now wife. He brought her to my wedding. That was the first time I met her. They had come from out of state (about 1,000 miles) to our wedding. I welcomed her openly. She was awful. Very rude to my brothers, my mother, and disrespectful to my grandparents. She made it clear that she didn't feel that I was old enough to get married, and that she would never allow her daughter (same age as me) to get married. (I was young...21) Six months later, her daughter married a meth addict. Nice.... Anyway, over the years she's pulled some pretty crazy stuff. Alienating one of my brothers totally, and pi$$ing of the rest of us. Here's the thing. I still invite her to all family functions becuase she's my fathers wife. I remarried a while back, and she was invited to the wedding, and she sat with my in-laws, etc. I would never dream of treating her with any disrespect. I don't have to like what she does, but she is my father's wife, and that is the choice he made. My relationship with my father isn't what it use to be, and that's pretty sad, but that is his choice. I love him regardless. So, understanding both side of things, my goal is to foster a positive, fulfulling relationship between my DH and SS's. They all deserve it. What's funny, is that my DH would never allow me (or anyone else for that matter) to come between him and his kids. Nor would he allow my SS's to be disrespectful to me. I've been lucky, my SS's are very good to me. I don't know what I'd do if they weren't. I know I'd be crushed. I just don't think it's ever OK to exclude a bio OR step parent. When my SS had his 12th b-day party, he was mad at his mother still (he had moved in with us a yr before)and I told him "you invite your Mom, or no party...period". He got the message. We're teaching him tolerance. It can go a long way, just like manners.