Partner’s Grandmother
Up top, I’m going to provide a legend for names and then I’ll get into the story.
Partner- my partner who I am writing this on behalf of, who has approved me writing on this.
Mother - Partner’s mother who has guardianship over the grandmother.
Grandmother- my partner’s elderly grandmother on my partner’s mother’s side.
This started years ago when my partner’s mother agreed to take in the grandmother from an Aunt against the advice of my partner. The aunt and the grandmother both lived in America at the time, the grandmother was moved here without real understanding or consent given as to what what was going on. The grandmother I believe was under the impression she was visiting, but the Aunt sold the house in the US out from under the grandmother and pissed the money away, and the grandmother has no money for her retirement. This isn’t about what happened there, that’s its own issue.
Since then, my partner’s mother has gotten more controlling of the grandmothers movements in the house, as the mother is disabled and has set up cameras and locks around the house to monitor her, as the mother isn’t well herself and needs to go to work. The grandmother seemingly has dementia and will regularly try to pack her bags to go back to the US, she doesn’t know what is going on, but she does understand how my partner’s mother is trying to control the grandmothers movements in the house and is rebelling against these constraints. It should be noted that even when she had her full faculties, the grandmother was abusive to my partner’s mother growing up and they both held resentment against each other to this day, baring dementia.
Ultimately, the situation is this, them living together is untenable. They can’t put her in an aged care facility here as she’s a non-Aus citizen and the path to citizenship, even if she wasn’t handicapped, would likely be too long a process to get her in. The mother cannot afford to pay for a US aged care program, nor do I think she’d be willing to if she could. The partner’s aunts are of no help, they dumped their mother her and have either pissed away the money or will claim they are not in a position to help, they both live in different countries. At this stage, the best idea they have is to let the visa lapse, something my partner has spent a considerable amount of time working on against her own will, to get done so the grandmother could live here. The grandmother would be sent back to America where she’d effectively be homeless. It should be noted and emphasised, the grandmother is not an Australian citizen, she does not receive any form of aged care or pensioner support from the government. Even though she is an American citizen, she is not receiving any social security from America because my partner’s aunt messed that up too.
They are struggling with this impossible situation, if there is any advice for something we haven’t thought of, it would be greatly appreciated.