My husband has had his share of health issues, and I have always been by his side as he recovers - I have supported him through quite a bit and we've made a good team! Recently, he became quite ill and needed to go into a rehab/skilled nursing facility for about a month to regain the strength and coordination to walk. When he was released, we decided it was best for him not to go home to our home because he'd be alone all day as my job keeps me out for 10-14 hours a day. He moved in with his elderly parents, and was going to stay a few weeks until I could change my work schedule.
Just as he recovered and gained strength, his Dad started to decline. Classic dementia (inability to swallow) and sundowning. Dad went to the hospital and was released to skilled nursing. My husband remained at their house to look after his Mom, as she can't hear/use the phone and is forgetful (leaving food on the counter instead of in the fridge, etc.).
Sadly, Dad passed and with him went all of the support Mom depended on. She's never had an ATM card, paid the bills, scheduled her own appointments, or even called in a prescription. She doesn't drive and her days are spent sleeping until 10-11am, watching TV, and rummaging through the clutter in her house. She often asks my husband to go get fast food or takeout because she doesn't want to cook....which he does, on our dime.
My husband now has to deal with his Dad's affairs and keep an eye on his Mom...and this is not going to be a quick process as his Dad never set up a will/trust and my husband never got power of attorney for anything. I want my husband to come home and I believe his Mom needs to be in either a senior living facility or a skilled nursing facility. The home she lives in has a lot of clutter on the floors, and she has zero safety equipment in the bathroom...meaning she's getting in and out of a bathtub daily without rails or assistance at 92 years old! I'm truly afraid she will fall and break a hip, and not even know how to get help if no one is there!
My husband believes Mom is still independent and not in need of in-home care, but he won't leave his Mom and come home, either. When I suggest getting her some part-time in-home care he defends her every move...even things that he knows aren't safe or logical.
It's been six months since my husband and I lived in the same home and I just want him back. I am so lonely and depressed. We see each other at least every few days...but we are drifting apart. I can't see this situation continuing much longer. I was my husband's rock when he needed me, and I've literally been cast aside because he won't admit his Mom needs help or to move into assisted living.
Just a side note...Mom cannot move into our house. We don't have a downstairs bedroom or bath/shower. I also could not stay sane if I had to live with her, because she'd demand takeout one too many times....
1) You move into MIL’s house, perhaps Friday and Saturday nights each week for a while. You dictate the food, and insist that MIL cooks with you. No more take-out junk food – it’s expensive and unhealthy. Especially none that you are effectively paying for. Rock the boat.
2) You start chucking out the ‘clutter’ in MIL’s house. Get a bin of some sort and fill it up. If MIL objects, and H says no, ask him how he thinks it will dealt with in some other way. Or is he planning to stay there for years? Ignore the objections. Rock the boat some more.
3) Develop some jobs at your house, that H would normally do. Swap houses for a few days, so he goes back home and gets the jobs done, while you work on things being different with MIL.
4) How old are you? Develop your own social life, even if you would prefer H’s company. Brag to H about the older guys who find you interesting. Aim for jealousy. Don’t let him see you as just sitting at home waiting for him to come back any time he feels like it.
5) Where is the money coming from to keep this show on the road? Are you working? What is H’s income and where does it come from? Same for MIL. Open a bank account in your sole name, and put your income into it. Let the balance in the joint account run down so money becomes a bigger issue. (Transfer half the joint account balance into it if you wish) Don’t prop up the whole thing.
6) Face the fact that some men really will put their mothers first, for years and years and years. If this is not going to be acceptable for you, it’s worth finding it out now. At least set yourself up for separation, if that’s what is on the cards for the future. Don’t let it all get to be ‘normal’.
Good luck!
Your husband should go to an elder care attorney about getting POA or emergency guardianship so his mother can be placed in an appropriate facility using His Mothers money . Hopefully some other people post with other ideas of how to have your husband be able to get your MIL placed and for him to have access of his mothers funds to pay for her care , including selling her house if she owns her home .
He also should not be buying her takeout with his money . I went through that with my hubby the last 18 months. I finally got him to stop using our money to bring take out food to his father in AL . He now keeps the receipts and once a month pays himself back from his fathers bank account . Hubby is POA .
Good luck.
I'd ask hubs if he'd like a divorce since he's abandoned you for his mother? Tell him what you told us, that you're very lonely and depressed. That you've been his rock for ages, and now that YOU need HIM, he's cast you aside. Mother belongs in Assisted Living and he can manage her finances from your home. He can visit her there on a reasonable schedule. You're happy to help him sell her home and facilitate the move, but if he's unwilling, then you're considering it as abandonment of the marriage.
Good luck to you.
Lay it out to your husband, it is either me or her, pick one and go from there.
My mother is 98, MIL could live another 5 years or so, time for a reality check.
Good Luck!
In fact, you can use that line if you wish. Confront him. Tell him you're tired of it, and if he wants to stay married to you, he has to act like a husband.
The first consultation with a divorce lawyer is usually free. If you see one, and if you find out what your rights are, and if you tell your husband you've seen a lawyer, that might scare the bejesus out of him. It is absolutely not okay for him to dictate to you that you must live alone because he has to take care of this burdensome woman who seems never to have become a real adult. Now, with dementia, she never will.
If you see a lawyer, be sure to take all financial information to the appointment. Where the money is, how your marital home expenses are paid, information about mortgages, deeds, salaries, pensions, etc. You may find out that you're better off without him financially, emotionally and in every other way.
You get the house, he gets mom and her house, and you find a boyfriend who actually enjoys spending time with you. Sound good?
Don't say no
Don't say nothing's wrong
'Cause when you get back home
Maybe I'll be gone, oh
It would cause me pain
If we were to end it
But I could start again
You can depend on it
And I know I'm right
For the first time in my life
That's why I tell you
You'd better be home soon
Thankyou Neil Finn for these apt words. Apparently inspired by a speech his wife gave him when he was away touring a lot.
He said it saved their marriage.
He's keeping her out of AL or the NH.
Maybe she would be receptive to some type of home care in lieu of being in a facility? Husband could subtly suggest this?
The husband is destroying his marriage. And if his mother moves in with them, that will only accelerate the process.
As the saying goes, there's no "I" in team, and to me it sounds like the OP has been the team all by herself. And sadly there is no team when only one person is involved.
Obviously this is not true, mom is NOT independent. He is propping her up giving the illusion of independence.
Honestly I can not see your husband moving back home unless one of these scenarios occurs:
1) Mom has a drastic decline and he can not manage to care for her and he realizes that she needs 24/7 care. That could be in a facility or mom begins to pay for caregivers in her home.
2) Some catastrophic event causes mom to be hospitalized and then rehab. Maybe at that point she may need Skilled Nursing or he realizes she needs Long Term Care facility.
I really dislike ultimatums but next time you see your husband begin by handing him a box of a lot more of his possessions (things like books, and other items that he does not actually "need") and have a sheet of paper and begin talking about splitting possessions and assets. See what his response to that is.
Push will come to shove in all this as either Mom or hubby will have a decline. Until then I am afraid you are on your own, so make yourself a life best as you can.
If you do not want to divorce, consider yourself a widow. Start doing things on your own. Find like friends. They are out there. Your just going to have to make a life of ur own.
"Dad never set up a will/trust and my husband never got power of attorney for anything" POA stops at death so has nothing to do with Dad anymore. Husband needs to have Mom assign him POA before she is formally diagnosed with Dementia. He gets it for immediate so he can handle her finances and medical now. No need for a Doctor or Doctors to declare her incompetent. If she has assets, she needs a Will.
I too thought my life was going well. We bought a house, a year later we had our first child, and then...my ex came home and said he did not want to be married anymore. My life came crashing down. I had a baby and no job. I had to move home because the house sold in a week. But, I did find a job and moved out of my parents a year later. Starting dating a man I dated before I was married. We married, he adopted my DD, we had one of our own and have been married 42 years. My ex did me a great favor.
While my DH soesn't live with his mom, in many ways, he may as well be doing so.
ALL his 'emotional' energy goes to her. I get the dregs.
Nothing will change until she dies. I can see him moving in with her, eventually. He is so depressed b/c of AND FOR her b/c she has no friends. Not just becasue eberyone her age died, but b/c she SHOVES people away. Neighbors, family--she's lonely, yes, and that's sad, but she did it to herself.
Now DH is trying to fill all those 'lonely' gaps.
Funny, how he never thought about ME being lonely once all the kids had left the nest and he was still traveling 3 weeks a month.
I hope you have better luck getting your DH to listen to you. I have given up with mine. We went for a drive in the mountains yesterday and he snarked at me the entire day. By dinner, I was almost in tears. I KNOW it's displaced anger and depression, but by darn, I AM NOT THE CAUSE of his mom's issues. Somehow he turns all the blame around to me. We got home. I got into my PJs and went to bed to read. I know he felt bad---but he doesn't have the words "I'm sorry" in his vocab, so I'll never hear them.
I think the idea of living separately money-wise may be very good. And seeking for actrivities that don't include him. My DH plans his week around his mother's care and I get what's left over.
I can do this for 6 more months, but I think that's it. Something has to break--and I think it will be me. Right now, and for the past 9 months, we've lived and breathed for his mother. He forgot both my birthday and our anniversary, he was so focused on his mom. My kids were furious with him over that.
You can only take so much hurt before it really starts to deflate you.
IDK what you should do--but I hope you take care of you. Nobody takes care of me--but me.
Hold firm on not letting MIL move in. DH thought for a bit that that would be great---for our situation--and he quickly was disabused of it, b/c she would have taken over OUR bedroom and bath and been the queen of the hive.
Well--I would leave him if he did that, so I don't worry about it.
No, actually it only takes one to move the MIL into their home.
It also only takes one to file for divorce too.
The OP's husband is in no hurry to go back home and live with his wife. She deserves better than a part-time husband who can't cut the apron strings with his mother.
Tell your husband that he is not a child anymore and it's time to come home and live with his wife.
His mother can be moved into assisted living.
Don't take no for an answer.
Have you changed your work hours?
Look at our government ... likely shutting down again ... not paying our military. That is what I'd call sacrilegious.
And, don't get me started on the quality of nursing homes.
Where is God when you need her?
I decided to make it into a positive situation and maintain a positive outlook . I continued to work full time and put a lot of money away into my retirement savings. I rekindled friendships with old friends and went to lots of theater, out for drinks after work and had some great times with them, I took Zumba classes and never looked better thanks to dear MIL.
Fact is I had a really good time. It could have continued forever as far as I was concerned. Then she died and we had to readjust. I miss those days. I was out nearly every night. Lots of fun.
The other DIL was not pleased that I didn’t pitch in but I did not care one iota.
The moral of the story is when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.
I'm so glad we live far away from my MIL. There is a local DIL to her, and she's done some things for her (driving her to radiation treatment when she had breast cancer), but is not really doing anything anymore because her own parents are becoming so needy. I and another DIL are states away, so we won't be asked to do anything.
I bet the other DIL wishes she had done what you did, which is to leave any caring up to the children. NOT the DILs!
I was not willing to stay overnight at my parents , so when it became necessary first Dad went in hospice in a nursing home for 3 months until he died . Then a year later Mom’s dementia got worse and I put her in AL . She passed 19 months later .
Now it’s reversed . My FIL is in AL the past 18 months with dementia and is demanding etc . DH has asked me a number of times “ how did you do this so many years with your parents ?” . ( And I spent more time with my parents than he spends with his Dad). He drags his feet and dreads visiting him just to get more complaints etc ,
I hope this works out the way you both want it to.
What he does need to do it take HER to an attorney and set up POA, a will, and a trust ASAP.
With luck, she's not so far gone mentally to be unable to understand what she's signing, but he really needs to get this done because when she dies everything will be a mess. At the very least, he needs to take Mom to the bank and get on her accounts as a co-signer (preferably a co-owner).
AFTER he gets that handled, then he needs to make decisions about her situation and come home.
A few things I want to share based on what you've posted:
I am the breadwinner in my household. My work hours are steady, and my husband is self-sufficient now, so my work isn't really a barrier anymore. We agreed to have him move in with his parents right after he left the skilled nursing facility because we have a two-story house and theirs is a single-story, so he wouldn't be navigating stairs while home alone.
No conjugal visits, haha. We actually haven't been intimate in a long time due to his health. Yes, that depresses me even more, but it's a burden I've carried for years.
I do try to have fun on my own and "make lemonade" out of the situation...but I feel like my well is dry after living like this for so long.
We had a heart to heart (I didn't mention divorce) and he tells me he wants to come home and is going to talk to his Mom. But...he just doesn't see that she needs help. He sees her as self-sufficient, regardless of her communication gaps and forgetfulness. I believe it's going to take something catastrophic before the situation changes. In the meantime, I try to encourage him to take her to a lawyer, the bank, etc. to get her affairs in order. My biggest fear is that something will happen before he does...
1. Husband went to stay, for recovery, in a single story home. Good solution.
2. Husband's patents were coping, then his Dad declined & moved into care. Mom now alone.
Now Husband feels responsibile for Mom, is this right? Because he is living her life with her.
Back to 1. Husband is well enough to come home. So he can.
2. Mom's life has changed a lot. She is now living like essentually like a living widow, with a husband to visit in care. Mom needs to evaluate her new situation. Try it. See if living alone will be ok.
I don't wish to rain down on an elderley, recently separated woman (separated for health needs). Yet, how much has her life changed? She has a new 'man' around the house.
Mom is facing this big life adjusment, yet she is not.
Mom will not see she needs help or needs fo change while her son is there doing everything for her.