Oh nice. Good going, tying it to something that he’s proud of! I hope that works!
(Following this thread because we’re gonna be in this situation with my dad before long – just diagnosed a couple of months ago with mild dementia.)
Oh gosh, that last sentence… we need that. Thank you!
I agree 100% with this post.
Brilliant! Hope this works!
Is the whole “…army paying for it…” thing true? Not that it matters, but just curious. I know my FIL left some Vet benefits (Vietnam) on the table because he and my MIL failed to act on several messages from the VA urging them to sign-up before it was to late.
I hope you get to a place relatively soon that you are able to sustain for however long it takes. You don’t say how old they are, but this could be a several year-long decline. IMO, there is no right answer, just the best of various bad answers for you. (Well, I believe there is one right answer, but that would be tantamount to threadshitting.). And once you have decided how it is best for you and those closest to you (however you define that circle), you owe NO explanation to ANYONE.
Just realize, there are going to be more crises to come. How much of your life do you want to make caring for your dad for however long it lasts. And how much of your wife’s and kids’ lives as well.
Another thing - figure out how you will be interacting w/ the stepsibs WRT decision-making. There is little more irritating than a family member who lives at a distance and expects the near relatives to do the ongoing work, but then the distant family member feels free to put their $.02 whenever they feel like it. Don’t be that guy.
Good luck. Sorry you are experiencing this.
My dad did 2 years in the Army in Colorado, during the peacetime draft in the late 1950s. He had nothing good to say about the experience, until he found out he was eligible for VA benefits, which was a surprise to him too.
It never hurts to ask.
I will second that in spades. My wife spent about 4 years of her life almost completely dedicated to caring for her elderly mother. Almost destroyed our marriage.
And her remotely living older sister was exactly as you describe: didn’t lift a finger to help, but felt that she was “in charge” and had final say on everything.
In retrospect, mom should have been in a care facility at least two or three years earlier.
Heck, my FiL served in WWII as a signalman on a cargo ship in the Pacific. Just over a year in the service and he was eligible for VA benefits for home care assistance - as is my MiL, his widow, (and he’s been dead 18 years now).
It really never hurts to ask.
As a general matter, VA benefits were very generous for WWII vets and steadily shrank until they reached a real nadir for folks who served in the late Cold War 80s & 90s.
I don’t know much about how VA benefits have changed for post 9/11 era vets. But those folks aren’t ready for the memory care unit yet.
Point being, sorting out what actual VA benefits someone is entitled to depends very much on which years they served, what if any disability settlement they got upon separation, and their current financial situation.
But yes it’s certainly an excellent suggestion for the OP to dig into this with VA.
I came here to post the same thing. The Aging Lifecare Managers I contracted with were invaluable in getting my dad settled in a good memory care facility after being evicted from two different assisted living situations that originally claimed they could handle him. Once he was in a facility that’s actually trained to work with dementia residents, I get no complaints from them or from him. The Aging Lifecare caseworker also are able to take him to doctors appointments and capture everything that happens. They are expensive, but worth every penny. Similar to you, my dad’s on the other side of the country, so having a local advocate is huge. The outfit I work with only charges for services rendered, so some months are a couple thousand and others are nothing.
Having not had children, I’ve been asked more than once, “But what if you need someone to take care of you?” I guess I’ll take some of that retirement money I was able to save up because I didn’t have children, and hire people to do all that.
And even if I had children, I wouldn’t want them to destroy their careers, their marriages, and their relationships with their own children on account of me.
@Happy_Lendervedder, I am so sorry you’re dealing with all this. You’re a good person. I hope an acceptable resolution is found and you can get back to your own life soon. It’s really hard when they choose to live far away.
My parents did the same thing and it’s their choice. I respect that. They had their reasons. (I personally think their reasons are dumb, but they’re adults so not my call. I have never shared this thought with them.)
However, I made it clear that if they chose to move far from me, then I could not be put in the position of providing care. I will help as I can, but I’m not available to them as I would be if they lived nearby. As a widow, I have many responsibilities and limited resources. Those are simply the constraints under which we must all live.
A year ago, my dad got sepsis and I couldn’t go down to be with him. We were amazed and relieved that he pulled through. We all thought he wouldn’t survive. The problem was, by the time I could have gotten transportation sorted, it would have been too late. I knew if he lived through the night he would make it. Fortunately, he did and I went down to see him when he had largely recovered a couple months later.
Had they moved near me, I could have been right there and would have been happy to help with whatever I could do for them to support their needs.
I don’t think it really hit home for them until then. It’s too late for them to change their minds now, and they’re too stubborn to admit they might have made a mistake in any case.
Like @TreacherousCretin, I agree with every word of @Stranger_On_A_Train’s post. All you can do is live with the consequences of their choices, but it’s not a fair ask for them to expect you to step in as if they live just down the block – no matter how much you may wish you could.
Living in South Florida as I do, and having run a 150-unit retirement condo complex I’ve learned a bit about this.
A LOT of retirees move down here shortly after they quit working.
A decent fraction of them move (back?) to wherever extended family and especially their grown children live as they age into encroaching infirmity. Then eventually move from an apartment or whatever “up there” to end up in some flavor of elder care facility depending on their needs.
And yes, some are too stubborn to move although they know they should, or they wait until they’re simply old enough that the logistics have become overwhelmingly large to their slowly but inexorably diminishing capacity. The other bad outcome is they’re fine and fully self-sufficient until the stroke or fall or car crash throws them overnight into a whole different world.
All three of these latter cases often end ugly.
Here is a recent thread on-point that both you and I participated in, plus many, many others. Lotta good info there. Somebody else here might find it useful
First and foremost, sweetie, let me say that I’m so sorry you are going through this anguish. Besides the stress produced by the situation itself, you are also dealing with the pain involved with seeing someone you love decline towards the inevitable end. You are a good person and a treasure to your family. 
I’m afraid I have no solution to offer that would please everyone. I do think that, despite your dad’s strong feelings, he is going to have to accept home care or be placed in an a facility for the those suffering from dementia. It’s just an the inevitable reality of his situation. I have a friend, a former colleague who is now retired, who went through this with his mom. Placing her turned out to be the unavoidable solution. She got great care there, had other seniors around her to talk to, and was visited regularly by various family members.
Quoting myself from a couple posts ago for context:
Here’s something I left out of my earlier post that I had intended to say about @Aspenglow’s parents’ POV. Which is one I’ve heard often enough from my own elderly residents.
Moving away from family then back near them again later is not necessarily a sign that the move away was a mistake. Retirement consists of several phases and the best thing to do in each phase is different. Newlyweds moving from an apartment to a house when the first child is on the way then downsizing from that house when the last kid has moved out doesn’t mean the house was a mistake all along. It just means changed circumstances need changed logistics.
Moving away can be a burning of bridges, or be taken as a burning of bridges, and that’s unfortunate when it happens. It sure doesn’t need to mean that.
But the need for change now is not evidence of a mistake back then. We all should fight the tendency to see things through that “mistake” lens. And help our elders not see it that way either. Because that in itself is a mistake, and often a paralyzing one.
Thank you. That’s what i wanted to say, and i was struggling with wording it. I wholely endorse this post.
(And the rest of it, too. But this is the most important part.)
Thank you all so much for the kind words, advice, commiseration, and encouragement. I don’t have the time to reply now but know that you’ve brought a tear to this old bear’s eyes and a bit of warmth to my heart this morning.
And if anyone has ever wondered what an extroverted chatter is like with late-stage dementia: NON.STOP.TALKING. Oy vey, the talking
We had to use tough love with my mom. She was stuck on a chair in the living room. Physically too weak to walk to bed. I found her badly dehydrated and 20 lbs underweight, because walking to the kitchen sink was hard.
It was painful for me. I took control as guardian and had her admitted to assisted living. Thank goodness she had signed that medical release a couple years earlier. I could make medical decisions when she wasn’t capable.
Mom put PT through total hell the first three weeks. Yelling and refusing to cooperate. Bless those wonderful thick skinned therapists! 
Mom finally came around and got to work.
The doctors did tests and gave IV Fluids.
I had a meeting with the doctors after 90 days and it was decided to let her go home. We sold her home and moved her to a house 1/4 mile from family. We purchased that smaller house and banked her profits into her account.
The doctors, PT, and me agreed that she was able to walk and do the absolute minimum to live by herself. She was supposed to use a walker. That didn’t last long. 
She declined again 3 years later and continued refusing home PT. She went into a nursing home and died 7 months later. But, she made it to 90!!
You can’t be weak and soft dealing with a hard-head stubborn senior. 
Btw, what I did was from love but it also is legally necessary. My mom was very clever in carrying on normal telephone conversations and being reassuring. I lived 140 miles away.
The State takes a dim view of elder abuse. Social Workers can and will step in and throw your loved one into a nursing home.
I was warned not to let it reach that point. Rescuing them later means dealing with weekly home inspections by social workers. They’ll get up close and personal into your business asking hundreds of questions.
Step in and take charge before your forced too.
If anyone reading this later skips thru the very correct comments in this thread - this is the one of the major take-aways. Not only do they not recover, they wont get any better - it only gets worse - and it’s only a matter of degree and how fast.
Don’t delude yourself thinking “Oh, it’s not THAT hard. Mom only needs to be reminded to take her pills, and occasionally she clogs the toilet with too much TP, and she does not eat that much, and needs help remembering to pay bills, and, and…and now we have to give her a shower, and administer shots, and take her to the ER three times a month when she complains about heart pain…”
Caring for an infirm adult is best left to people trained in this area, which is not most families - best to get out in front of this now - better to err too soon than too late.