Dear Lisi: Every year my sister holds a crazy Halloween party for all our friends. We’re close in age and grew up very close with many mutual friends and matching sibling friends. We always set up the house together and get our boyfriends (of the time) to help set up the garden.
My sister was married for less than a year to a man who owned his own home. He was successful for his age and time, and a smart investor. As soon as they married, they wrote out wills leaving everything to each other. A few months into their marriage he was diagnosed with an incurable cancer that had been growing asymptomatically.
She now lives in a beautiful house on her own.
The problem is that she doesn’t like my boyfriend, I don’t like hers, and they don’t like each other. No one wants to decorate the garden. What do we do?
Halloween Hate
Tell your boyfriends to stay home and you go bond with your sister. Decorate the garden yourselves, or ask some tall, strong friends to help you out. Halloween parties are for fun, not for fighting. Your boyfriends need to grow up.
Dear Lisi: I have a question about dealing with stubborn senior parents. My mom is 75 and a full-time caregiver to her 85-year-old common law partner, my stepfather.
He has three useless kids who won’t help. The only time we see them is at Christmas when they come with their hands out. Their dad always gives them money. His daughter then whispers to my mom what a jerk she thinks her father is.
Recently, Mom has had some health issues. She needs cataract surgery and someone to take care of her while she recovers, and someone to take care of my stepdad.
I have literally written down the name of every nursing home and home care option in our area and given it to my mom. My stepdad refuses to let any home care come in to help. Mom wants to go stay in a nursing home for a month to recover. We can’t afford this.
I’m a disabled adult on government assistance. I can’t afford to pay for a nursing home, but I have offered to come take care of both my mom and stepdad for free. My stepdad won’t hear of it. My mom also won’t let me do that.
I’m an only child and trying my best to help. I’m so stressed out, worried sick and at the end of my rope with this. I don’t know what to do. Or how else to help. I want the absolute best for my mom, but I feel like I’m dealing with two very stubborn people. I feel like my best isn’t good enough. But I don’t know what else to do.
In need of help
You’re a good daughter for wanting to help your parents in their time of need. But you can’t physically or financially manage this on your own. You must reach out to your step-siblings. Between the three of them, they must figure out how to take care of their father. And once they have some care in place, that needs to stay in place — in some way — even after your mother recovers.
There are several ways this can play out, but you must talk to your stepsiblings to figure out what is affordable and plausible for everyone. And then you need to weigh the financial pros and cons (starting your seasonal job and getting help for your mom vs. not starting this early to care for your mom) and decide which is feasible.
FEEDBACK Regarding the lost spouse (Aug. 30):
Reader – “Your wife needs medical attention now. And it’s time for your family to start learning about mild/moderate cognitive impairment, dementia and alzheimer’s. This may not apply, but the progress described sounds familiar.
“I strongly recommend reading about “the 8 A’s of aDementia”.
“Has anyone researched her family history? Is there anyone in her family who may have been ‘forgetful?’ Unfortunately, many people who suffer feel shame and then try their best to hide the problem.”
FEEDBACK Regarding tipping culture (Sept. 3):
Reader – “The Canadian restaurant industry is diabolical. They used the pandemic to bake government taxes into the total amount, so we were conned into tipping on the tax. As much as I believe that restaurant staff are underpaid, I don’t like being conned by the industry who refuse to pay a living wage. We are very malleable consumers.
Lisi Tesher is an advice columnist based in Toronto. Send your relationship questions to [email protected].
