By Donna Marie Thompson, Ph.D.

The Difficult Journey with my Mother

As I was approaching my planned early retirement date, treatment of my mother’s Alzheimer’s disease compounded by a debilitating medical error was my sole focus. Arranging the best care for her made it a very trying and emotional time. There were no right answers.

The Betrayal by My Fiance

As my retirement date approached, I was very excited. My fiance was renting a house that I purchased in a retirement community as a placeholder. The house had appreciated quite nicely and it was time to sell it to free up my retirement capital. But my fiance had other plans; he vehemently disagreed to the sale.

The house was only meant to be a placeholder and was very expensive to maintain. Even without a mortgage, the expenses were outrageous. My choice was to either forcibly evict my fiance while my mother was terminally ill or to put my retirement in jeopardy. Because my fiance was helping out quite a bit with my mother I thought I would be reducing her care if I evicted him, so I deferred.