Reader dilemma: 'My mother suffers terribly with arthritis – should I move in with her? I'd hate to lose my social life'

Advice: 'This is a problem that’s going to face most of us – or if it won’t affect us, it will affect our children'

'Would she really appreciate you moving in, trying to hide your resentment?' (AFP/Getty Images)

Dear Virginia

I’m about to retire from the Civil Service, and wrestling with my conscience. My mother, now 86, lives alone just outside London – I’m in Hastings – and suffers terribly with arthritis, despite the doctors’ best efforts. My sister lives in Scotland, but my brother, who is nearer, pops in a couple of times a week. Nurses come three times a day. I visit once a fortnight. My mother couldn’t live in my tall, narrow house, so should I go and live with her? I’d hate to lose my social life here, but she’s always been good to me.

Yours sincerely, Michael

Virginia Says

This is a problem that’s going to face most of us at some point – or if it won’t affect us, it will affect our children.

But I would resist making this move, however much you feel you owe your mother. She certainly doesn’t lack company, with the constant visits from nurses and your brother, and she seems to be coping reasonably well. Would she really appreciate you moving in, trying to hide your resentment at having to give up a carefully built social life in Hastings? That resentment would be there, however hard you tried to suppress it.

Could you not simply go up for longer periods – stay, perhaps, for two or three days once a fortnight rather than just nip up for lunch or whatever you do at present? Would it be possible to find something interesting to do in your mother’s area so that you wouldn’t just be twiddling your fingers when you weren’t unscrewing stiff jars or helping her upstairs?

I think, also, dogged by guilt and feelings of obligation – which show you are a very kind fellow – you are forgetting about your own old age. You live in a tall and narrow house, you say. It’s important, at your age, to keep yourself fit, partly by going up and down the flights; it’s said that older people who move into bungalows age far more quickly than people like you who use a lot of puff getting from one room to another. It’s also important to maintain the friendships you’ve built up in Hastings. Not just for your own sake – friends are a great support when you’re older – but because they, too, will be needing your help when they get problems. You have an obligation to your friends as well as to your mother. You don’t want to find, when your mother dies and you perhaps become disabled, that you’re stuck in a suburb of London with not a friend in sight.

If your mother can use the computer, teach her how to Skype – or buy her a phone on which you can Facetime each other. Nothing like the real thing of course, but if she has a daily phone call from you to look forward to every evening, her life will be much improved. And you will have news from the outside world – while, if you were to move in with her, you’d just have evening after evening watching boxed sets.

And who knows, since you’re clearly a sympathetic family, she might, were you to move in, feel very guilty at getting you to give everything up, and that would be a horrible atmosphere to live in. Your mother guilty and you resentful.

No, visit her more often, stay longer and phone more frequently. For the moment, that’s the best way you can help her.

Readers say...

Listen to your heart

Don’t wrestle with your conscience – listen to your heart and go and live with your mother. Do your duty as a son and care for a very special person in your life. You may experience difficult and testing times. I hope there will be laughs, joy and contentment as well. If your mother is happy for your friends to visit, and even stay the night, you can maintain your social life. If you keep your house in Hastings, possibly renting a room or two to paying lodgers, while keeping a bedroom for yourself, you could return to the town when time allows to keep ties with friends.

Peter Willmott

by email

Consider all the options

I’d like to say that your problem is unusual, but it’s something the UK’s increasingly far-spread families are having to face (or failing to face). We have an ageing and increasingly infirm parent each, in South Wales and Northern Ireland.

Presumably you’ve considered all the options, such as moving to a house that your mother could cope with, or adapting the ground floor. Of course if she moved to where you are, she would lose her contacts, friends and activities, as you would if you moved to her. Perhaps a family conference is the first step. They can get fraught, but it isn’t necessarily a one-off thing – it can even be a round-robin discussion. Your brother and sister need to be involved in any decisions and your mother will also have an opinion. She might not even want you to move in.

Whatever you do, don’t do it precipitously. Remember, your mother could live to be 100, and you moving to live with her could mean your whole retirement and any plans you’ve made are ripped apart.

name and address supplied

You need to plan ahead

You should consider the long-term situation. Your mother may well live on into her nineties, becoming progressively more dependent. You, once resident, will almost certainly be regarded by cash-strapped local care services as a full-time resident carer, 24/7. Friends and social life will gradually but inevitably vanish. If you wish to move in, you should arrange, beforehand, breaks when your sister or brother takes over. Consider buying at a halfway point between your mother and Hastings, to be a frequent visitor and available in emergencies while still being in touch with your friends. Incidentally, would your mother want you to live with her? Surely that’s the most important point

Betty Cairns

London N22

Next week's dilemma

I suffer from a phobia about dirt, and although I have done my best to keep it under control, and my wife has done all she can to help me, it’s getting worse. Now my wife says she’s come to the end of her tether. She says that unless I leave for a few months to give her a break, she’ll divorce me. I have very few friends and I couldn’t afford to go to a hotel, so I don’t know what to do. The only person who would have me is my sister, who lives miles away in the country, away from everything familiar. And her house is very messy and dirty. What shall I do?

Yours sincerely,

Paul