I guess I should've been more clear, I was talking about a scenario where the parent is sicker and lacks their own resources and it all, by default, is suddenly the in-town sibs burden simply because they are there. There seemed to be a lot of cases where communication between in-town and out of town sibs was not good and the in-town sib grew resentful and eventually overburdened.
This is what I say to my DH: Be sure you can live with the decisions you make.
My parents are both deceased-Dad first so Mom was there and when she did no longer want to be his caregiver, help came in. Mom's diagnosis was to be a rapid decline/death. My youngest sister and I cared for her those 7 weeks with 2 "reprieves" of a week by the 2 out of state sisters. Mom had the funding for all expenses and our in-town brother handled money.
I would tend to encourage that you and hub follow your life plan. To give up everything? I would not be able to live with that. Easy for me to say as my parents are long gone.
Your DH and his sister could have a long discussion about this if desired to come to terms with it all. She did move there of her own volition.
Best of luck with your decisions and your future.
You all are adults.
As others have stated, your SiL moved into town and knew/should have known this could happen during her watch. Not to leave her holding the entire bag; there definitely should be some cooperation in whatever you can do from a distance -- Dream City. You should move. Life can change in a hurry and it would be a shame to miss an opportunity you've waited 30 years to fulfill. And your parents will need to adapt. Right now it's too easy for them to play on emotions and history for help. If SiL were not in town and your move was work-based/not optional, what then? They would move or find people who could do what they could no longer do or ... especially since they have the money to do it.
Boundaries are critical here. So is the ability to say 'no' and have it heard by all concerned if you need to say it. All of you. I went through a lot of this with my mom. We're in a somewhat unusual situation because I'm her landlord. But, beyond that, if she needs to get to, say, a routine doctor's appointment, she can ask me if I (or DW) can take her or she can enlist our help in finding a time when we can take her (sometimes we call the doctor) or she can arrange her own transportation. There is no imperious "Oh, by the way, I have a doctor's appointment at 10 am Thursday" demand.
Oh, and my mom hated the idea of strangers coming into her house, too. That gradually wore away as she saw that the people were there to address her needs, not "case the joint" or whatever. They were there as part of their job and they did things she could do no other way.
Hang in there. Not to say you need to practice "tough love" here. But it's very easy to be manipulated. Don't let that happen. You have many years left of your lives to live -- all of you.
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington
One thing you can do is visit for a few weeks to give the SIL time off. when I was the one living out of town I did that.
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