My dad visited my husband and me along with my brother tonight (Saturday). I was under stress myself with issues relating to the dinner, but clearly noticed my dad was sitting on my sofa in distress. He was saying how overwhelmed he is with bills and financial matters. He looked like he was on the verge of crying, but I confess I tried to distract him from his woes rather than talking to him about them. My brother, who lives with him, angrily said he'd help dad, but my brother can barely keep on top of his own stuff, even living at my dad's for free. Plus, my brother's offer sounded insincere.

In the recent year, I have been managing to do most (not all) housework, chores, and errands and put both a nice breakfast and dinner on the table almost every day. I also have weekly therapy and my psychiatrist every three weeks, plus occasional other appointments. We have a housekeeper come every other Monday, which we can't really afford, to do really nitty gritty cleaning. I've offered to fire her, but hubby doesn't trust that I would be capable of doing what she does, and he doesn't want to end up having to do it. We like a clean and tidy house. My husband handles all of the bills, works full-time at a job he hates, and does a few minor chores to help me.

So today is not the first time I've felt I needed to start helping Dad out. Besides him needing help with financial stuff, I've wanted to help him clean up his house a bit. Would you believe he even has a weekly housekeeper? But she's a joke. The last time I was at his house I told him that the furniture looked like it hadn't been dusted in a year. The time before I drew his attention to enough cob webs to qualify for a horror house. The rest of the house looked horrible, too. The floors are never properly cleaned. I told him to get a better housekeeper, but my dad seems to "feel bad" for the woman. I offered to dust his house, but he refused saying he would ask the housekeeper to do it. Why does she need to be reminded to dust?

My dad's house is a mess mostly because my brother is an extreme mess. His crap is all over the place. There was a leaf blower on my dad's dining room table the last time I was there, and beehive paraphernalia in the room, too, among many other things. The dining room table is full of stuff! My sister, who lives down the road, never complains because her husband and son are hoarders. She, like my dad, basically gives up on having an organized clean house. She does, however, handle her bills properly. But my sister works a full-time job and then comes home to cook and do the few chores she does manage to do (i.e. laundry, cooking). I can't expect her to help that much. Her husband and son do nothing! Her husband "retired" in his 40s, and my nephew is partially disabled with an autism spectrum disorder.

I guess my point to this is that I feel that my dad needs me. My husband wants me to start helping my dad with financials. Same husband that never trusted me to do ours. I feel like I should spend a few hours every month cleaning his house. I feel like if I could do a good straightening up of his house (tame my brother's junk) that maybe I could convince Dad to get a better housekeeper. I feel like his only child that cares enough for his well-being. But at the same time the prospect of all of this feels overwhelming.

My dad has been ill for a while. I'm still sort of ill. How does one disabled person help another person who is becoming disabled? And how do I help tame the chaos around him?

My husband and I may be moving to Europe in a few years because we can no longer afford where we live. I'm concerned.