Independent Living Aids

Hi all! One of my much older friends is having a financial and a retirement crisis. He’s 67 years old and he just retired to get Social Security and Medicare benefits. However, he gets no pension from anywhere else. He’s been working for over 50 years and he’s very depressed and upset because he says he feels like he’s worked all his life for nothing. His wife died about 10 years ago and left him nothing but a mountain of medical bill debt. His children have gone on their own and have forgotten about him. He told me he gets about $850 a month from Social Security and he’s in the process of losing his house to foreclosure because he can’t make the monthly housing payments. He’s also disabled in several different ways. I’ll never tell him this but I think he’s got no one to blame but himself. He should’ve planned his retirement out very well when he was much younger and, if he did, I don’t think he would be in this sad, unnecessary situation day in and day out. I’m still in my twenties and I make a lot more money than he does. Also, the government says they can’t help him because they said he makes too much money from Social Security. hahaha! I still can’t believe that political bull sh6T. No independent adult can live off of a low $850 per month. What do older, disabled people do when they’re officially retired but they don’t have enough money to live on? When I look at him, I also see how many Americans will probably end up one day in the future if they don’t plan their retirement out well when they’re young and healthy. Remember, we live in a world now where pensions are almost non-existent, outsourcing, and downsizing are common. Does this kind of situation scare you as well because you could very well end up like that one day if you don’t have enough money to live on? Thanks!

Wow.. that sucks..
My parents are going through the same thing (my dad suffered a stroke), but they paid off their house so the money they get from their pension plan (we live in Canada) is enough.. plus their savings…………………..
Honestly.. he’s stuck in a rut he can’t get out of.

No blame game here…simply arrogantly self-stupid observations by a truly hurting me. I deeply love my wife, but her family hurt, and still hurts her so badly that at 50 she has left her third husband, me, (though she says she is coming back) and I know why she is so messed up, but her inner demons won’t even allow us to talk about it. We have good insurance and have been in therapy for a while, but she is so charming she fools the therapist (s).

I am not perfect. I have problems. I am a good man. I am strong. I have been hurt and alone in the world like so many others. I am a fool who sees the folly in this world too well at times. I have been loyal and fought great, great battles to save my wife’s life physically for over 7 years. Now, I now am powerless to solve my wife’s one great illness…a fragile soul.

She watched her bio father beat her mother for 2 1/2 years. Her mother left her with an emotionally empty and abusive grandmother for four more years. Her mother and step-father treated her well, but never really the same as her half-siblings. She played basketball and was on the dance team in high school, working to pay for the uniforms, camp fees, and the like. When she married too young, her mother disowned her because the boy was black (I know him. Good guy, problems too though like all of us.) After a few years, my wife divorced him after he began cheating because her expectations were so unrealistically high that she cut him off, like her mother "punished her to teach her a lesson." She became sarcastic, demeaning, disrespectful and stopped the cariños (she’s a South-Texas Mèxicaña) in and out of the bed. He has gone on to be an attorney and a junior college president. In her early 20’s she’s back in South Texas at a university studying, living, having 20 something lovers, mostly naval officers in flight school, while avoiding anything close to responsibility to or for others. ( It’s ironic, we lived one building away from each other then and went to the same college at the same time) She had lots of girl friends but was so lonely and hurting inside she quit life and her professional job and moved to Austin in her early thirties. Worked as a state auditor, suffered as she partied away, found God, found husband 2, not a nice guy…but not that bad either…resentfulness, irresponsiblity crept in while pretending to herself to be responsible…cuts him off like #1 and he cheats after she leaves him, and she blames him for everything. Divorce.

Along comes me, also divorced from my 1st after a 20 year marriage and 3 kids.

This time we live two doors and a stairwell away from each other. I offered to and helped her move a sofa to her apartment with another neighbor. I wanted to get to know her, but thought it would be to creepy to knock on her door and ask her out. One year later she knocks at my door with a petition trying to get the drug dealing kids next to her evicted…I sign…give phone #…next day same kids are threatening her…I rushed over and made kids behave respectful as they move out…scared them (I was a soldier and street urchin in the hood back in the day). It’s summer, she’s a teacher and beautiful. I’m a teacher and thinks she’s cute…we play tennis, hike, bike, fall in love…marry a year and half after I convince her I’m decent…I had to show my credit report, back-ground check, hire mariachi’s, learn Spanish better to talk to her older relatives, prove I was tamed Tiger…I’m a bolillo (white-boy) who lived and fought in the tough hispanic streets of south and west San Antonio and raised myself alone literally (dad and mom slipped away one at a time) since I was 14, but who got to go to college (GI Bill) anyway. She was afraid I’d leave her and cheat. I fought to get her. And now I’m fighting to keep her and not be # 3. She’s at her parents right now because I’m driving her "crazy" because I want to talk about taking care of our future.

I’m an English teacher by choice, a romantic by calling, and one lean, mean earning machine with an MBA who has made some damn lucky investments over the years, am only four years away from a full, paid retirement, and live in a state that is paying for me to attend a great law school part-time (being a soldier and staying alive was good to me)… what a great life…problem is the woman I love always runs away from responsibility…yeah, she ran away from Austin after about 8 years too, and every time she ran she financed it with her retirement money. She is 50, has no money, not enough time to actually earn a retirement from teaching like I have, or earn more in a second career like I hope, and I am willing to (and do) finance independent retirement accounts for her, but she is running away from me because she is insecure and afraid that after law school and some young cutie thang will seduce me away. She is unable, and I mean unable to talk about any real issue honestly, no she is not a liar, just supremely avoidant.

I’m rambling forgive me.

I worked at bringing her family back together, but I did not know they had isoloated everyone in the world due to some great unknown fear that I think comes out of the past (her family suffered greatly during the Mexican Revolution of the early 1900’s…great depravity occurred…war really is hell…my wife’s family won’t answer their front door, answer the phone until after a message is left, and is flat broke because like her they won’t think about the now or the future because of whatever ghosts haunt them from the past…they think I’m crazy because I’m not afraid to negotiate with repairmen, tell street thugs to keep their distance, or because I challenge religious frauds. I can not let the world hurt me. I would have died a long time ago. And, I have three children, and I thought a wife, to shepard. And now she has run away from me for the third time…and every time it is the day I must take my children home after a longish vistitation. And, they love her, she loves them, but she can’t love too much or she gets so damn afraid she won’t answer the telephone of life and slams the door of love.

It’s driving me insane. Help! Help! Help! How do I live with a woman who can’t love too long without resenting getting loved, or won’t think about her future, or won’t make love to me anymore even though I’m a giving, faithful lover…a woman who has run away from me because she has been running away from herself her entire adulthood to keep the dad who beat her mom out of her mind, to keep the mom who refused to feed her when she asked at 23 yrs old out of her mind as punishment because she married a black man, who ran away from another man and his children because, because, because, she runs away….

I’m empty

I survived incredible evil as a child, endured and still suffer the from the evil of war, lived after my three babies were ripped from me by divorce, fought arrogant and ignorant doctors like hell to keep this woman I cherish alive, but…………..I can’t fight this demon inside her that is tearing me apart and creating a void in my soul that I think will never go away if she stays away like she has the other two husbands and other lovers before me.

I never knew agape love before my first daughter was born. In fact I think my first wife left me because I don’t think I could love at all back then. Now, I love my lover and best friend like I’ll never be able to love again…

She tells me I talk too much. She yells for me to "Stop Yelling!!!" when I whisper I love her after trying to explain to her calmly that…Yes, she really does need to know where the natural gas cut-off valve is in this beautiful house of ours. She tells me I’m crazy as she breaks the beautiful things we have collected during our travels.

She has left me because "You are driving me crazy!!! It’s your sanity or mine. Why do you have to talk about things? Why can’t we just love each other like my folks? We don’t need to talk!" She lies about herself to the therapists and to herself.

I love her. I’m not cheating. I found my soulmate, but the devil found her first.

I’m a teacher of English, forgive my lack of brevity, my sloppy style, my non-proofing, Faulkner -esque stream-of-bullsh*t.

As she pleads, I’ll stop talking.

Ladies, please…how do I make her come back and stay with me until we die together like in the books I must read?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh I read that WHOLE thing and I don’t know what to say, but after havign read it all I feel obligated to say something. Sounds like you are smothering her maybe a bit too much, expecting things of her that are important to you, but not her. Take it easy, do as she says and relax. Yeah she should know things like how to turn off the natural gas, but really, how many women know how to do that and strive to actually learn things like that? So once you get her back actually stop all the talking and maybe start listening to her. Stop sweating the small stuff. You guys are in your 50’s you say? A little late in the game for her to make any real lifestyle changes about the way she thinks so your ONLY option is to cater to her way of thinking….that is if you want to keep her. She sounds very stubborn but like I said, you’re not going to change her, you can only meet her at least halfway which is all that is expected in any relationship. Good luck to you Sir.

My Father died 3 months ago and my Mother is now 90 years old. She sometimes wants to stay in her home by herself. She changes her mind a lot. I want her to move to and Independent Retirement Community near her church and friends — especially since her neighborhood is extremely dangerous, with gangs roaming the streets, and where there was an attempted break-in at her house. She sees the dangers and tentatively agreed, but my sister-in-law convinced her she should stay there alone anyway. Now my Mother thinks I’m trying to "put her in a home" and thinks she can safely stay at her home. (Everyone except my sister-in-law and brother agree with me that the independent living place would be best.) I’ve been beating my head against a brick wall and getting no where. I’ve decided to just let them have their way, but I worry about my Mother’s safety and her loneliness. Any suggestions about how to deal with this situation?

MAKE AN APPOINTMENT WITH THE HOME AND TAKE HER OVER THERE FOR A TOUR AND A MEAL. THEY ARE SO NICE AND HAVE SO MANY THINGS FOR THE PEOPLE TO DO AND VISIT WITH. SOUNDS LIKE IT’S THE BEST FOR HER.

cont.

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the following services?
a.Skilled nursing care
b. Assisted-living facility
c. Independent Living facilities
d. All of the above

D

www.paralysis.org
www.christopherreeve.org

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So I have a great aunt who lived in a retirement community in South Texas. She was at least 10 years older then anybody else there and decided that maybe it was time for a little bit of help. She decided to move back to Illinois closer to the family to something similar to an assisted living facility. They cook her meals, do her laundry, and things like that even though she is still totally capable. As it turns out though, those things that occupied her time now no longer do, she is bored, and wants to go back to Texas. At 90 years old she has fallen a few times but as I mentioned is fully capable (no broken bones, no mental disease, none of it - still drives even).

We’re trying to locate a place for her other then her own home that’s a little less in to what she’s doing now. Is there any type of place where there’s somebody nearby to check on you and they’d help you with those things if you wanted, but if you dont they’d stay out of your hair. She’s just not at the point she needs full blown assisted living, but independent living isn’t quite either. Is there anything in between? Help! Please!

yes in altamont ill there is a nursing home that has indivdual little houses right on the grounds and you can have 100% (food housekeeping) or pick anything less — phone number is 618 483 6136!!! if i can be of any help email me!!!