Sorry, I am back again. I just spent the better part of my evening driving my MIL with my wife around because she could not sleep. I ended up crying in my car afterwards. I want out of this. My wife still is struggling with the idea of placing her mother. We toured a bunch of places but the only places her and my MIL liked were the ones that were criminally overpriced, one placed wanted 12k a month.
I thought about divorce and spoke to attorneys it is cheaper to keep her. I just want to ghost. I am in a dark place, I feel trapped. Cannot really talk to people about this because I always get reminded remember your vows.
I did all I could to try and get my her placed, my wife refuses because she is doing well. Great she is but I am going f**king mad. Life is sick joke, it does not pay to be a good person because no one f**king cares about you.
Your wife is "struggling" placing her Mother? How old are you two? Do you both work full time? How did you get stuck with your MIL living with you? I would tell you to STOP holding your frustration in. You will give yourself a heart attack!
Speaking of VOWS....You must sit wife down and tell her calmly and clearly, she made marriage vows to YOU, not her Mother. That both of you are not medical professionals, that MIL needs 24/7 care that requires 3 eight hour shifts of caregivers. She is cheating her own Mother out of proper care. She made vows to you that didn't include her Mom! She may think Mom is doing great, but that won't last long at all! MIL will get worse as time passes. Wife needs to read up that Alz is a progressive and terminal disease.
You DO NOT PAY for MILs care. She can find a place that will take Medi-Cal when MIL's money rums out. You need your own money for your own care when you get older. Mom has dementia, and will not need a deluxe facility to live! As she gets worse, she won't want to bathe, for starters! Why does your wife think spending $10K.month for MIL's facility is reasonable? Are you filthy rich?
Stop the torture. Tell her to find MIL a place. Board & Care homes are cheaper and MIL gets decent care in a cozy place. Ask your wife to honor her vows she made to you, or you will have to leave her and MIL to fend for themselves. Make it clear you are serious, you are a couple, not a trio. Legally you are not required to financially support MIL. MIL was not in the vows. This isn't fair to you and you are already wearing yourself out.
DON'T BUY the "culture" excuse. You live in America, not Korea. Wife is who is not honoring vows, NOT YOU. So what that MIL is doing good? Alz is a progressive disease. Don't help her with MIL to make her think it's so easy!
See a lawyer about your state laws on alimony. Always smarter to be the Petitioner and throw the first grenade. Give a deadline, and mean it. Tell wife she made vows to YOU, if she can't keep them, you are GONE. Your are not going to pay for MIL, period. Wife is trying to make you pay, knowing you can't....so MIL stays forever. Nice try.
You could be dodging a bullet, instead of going broke for MIL. None of this is fair, period.
My wife's night vision is not that great so she really should not be driving at night. We cut back on the night aides because it was getting a tad expensive, so I help my wife out at night cause I do not want her to do this alone it would not be fair to her.
Call me a sucker, but I still love my wife to pieces. Granted my wife does have a point because she was transparent with me when we got together and married. I just did not think it would happen so soon, or be this bad.
Yes, indeed, private pay for some nursing homes are ridiculously expensive at about $120,000.00 a year.
When people tell you to “remember your vows”, you should let them know that when you took those vows they were meant for you and your wife and not for your MIL.
Since your wife doesn’t want to place her mother in a facility, you should step away from this situation and let your wife handle it herself. Tell your wife that this is affecting you mentally and physically and that you will not be helping her to take care of her mother if she does not place her in a facility. It will be a rude awakening for your wife and when she becomes burnt out from taking care of her mother all on her own and she will then agree with you to have her mother placed in a facility.
Wishing you peace.
If you think that your wife is effectively being controlled by her mother, it may be that taking her to a Counselor could help sort this out. A couple of counseling sessions are a lot cheaper than a divorce. If your marriage started off with love, it might be worth checking this option. Perhaps leaving for a week or two will help to make your wife take seriously the possibility of a divorce, and then try this option first.
Then again, it may be healthy close bond they share. With long held family/cultural traditions to always care for elders. The Wife may simply WANT to provide a home & care for her Mother HERSELF.
This is her choice.. based on her morals & values. Yet choices have consequences.
I wonder if this codependency now with the mother is a way for her to stay at home and not face her own issues . The thread also mentioned the wife not being able to handle the mother being on Medicaid . Poor OP is being milked supporting both of them . Unless things start changing with the mother being placed , I would not blame OP for leaving and filing for divorce.
Your MIL is a candidate for MC. As long as she is up and walking around (regardless of her cognitive state) she is MC and not LTC ready.
This is why it'd be helpful if you posted what state you are in. Some states, like Michigan, do cover some custodial care (like AL). But most do not. Until you know this, it is a waste of your wife's time to tour Medicaid facilities if she's not assessed for LTC need. Then she'd have to also qualify financially, but that part seems like she's already there.
Please consider hiring an in-home aid. Maybe the condition is that the aid comes during the day so that your wife gets a break but also gets a job to cover for this expense. Your wife can also consider a WFH job, like customer service. Maybe you need to have a financial planner crunch the numbers to show your wife that financially it is unsustainable to keep paying for your MIL's care.
Care.com, or
Check local agencies. Get referrals for agencies or caregivers on Nextdoor.com
Hiring aids privately (meaning not through an agency) often makes you an employer in the eyes of your state's Dept of Rev. You don't need this complication. Agencies also do background checks and provide subs when their employee is sick or on vacation.
In Jan 2023 I was searching for a facility for my 100-yr old Aunt who had fallen and broken her hip. She had advanced dementia as well. Even with her broken hip she was still attempting to get out of bed and walk (which is how she broke her hip in the first place) while still in the rehab. Because she was still "mobile" I was having a hard time with the placement decision and finding the "right" type of care/facility for her. Mercifully she passed in her sleep the day before she was to be interviewed by a facility rep.
If your MIL doesn't have any other health problems (like my Aunt) and only memory issues, she may not be LTC eligible for a long time. My Aunt started having noticeable dementia in her late 80's, so about 12 years before she passed. Just boring you with this story so that you understand how long this can go on for and hoping it will motive your WIFE to come to a different perspective and for you to have very clear and strong boundaries.
When she was sundowning we would give 200 mg at 4 pm and 200 mg at 6 pm.
Other times we gave 400 mg at 6 pm and Mom would go to bed at 8.
Make sure to use glycinate version to prevent loose stool.
"The benefits of magnesium glycinate
Magnesium glycinate has been shown to have a variety of benefits, including helping to:
relieve anxiety
promote bone health
manage blood sugar in people with diabetes and may lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes
maintain regular heart rhythms
reduce symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS)
amplify exercise performance
reduce pain"
Source: https://www.healthline.com/health/magnesium-glycinate#benefits
It only helps if one has an actual deficiency. What is your source that says it does anything for sleep?
I am only 6 weeks in taking care of my father and I do NOT see any end in site at this point.
Everyone has their opinions and what they would do in my situation but until you are the one in it and it is your parent you can't 100% understand.
I can only imagine how your wife is struggling with making these types of decisions. I struggle since my dad is mentally 100% and can voice all his opinions too.
I have to be able to live with all the choices we make and for me, worrying about my dad in a nursing home is at this time not something I can live with considering he was physically and mentally abused after being in rehab for 5 days.
Hang in there
I had three children under five and a full time job, but I cannot imagine the stress of this.
Does the mother have any money of her own? Social Security or pension? Inheritance? Can you hire help, either for housework or an aide? It seems very risky to me to allow anything to disturb your sleep. If your work or your health suffers, or heaven forbid you have an accident, this whole house of cards comes tumbling down.
Then, allow the house of cards to fall down. That’s the only way that his wife will take him seriously and learn to acknowledge that it isn’t his job to care for her mom.
Where I live, an emegency service was set up yo trial during Covid - video triage attached to a major hospital. Reported to be very sucessful so now being rolled out elsewhere. Website says will triage, advise whether to call EMS for immidiate transport, family take patient direct to ER, or more minor issue to see a Doctor soon or ask a Pharmacist. Collected triage info sent direct to next service, hospital, Doctor etc to save time.
Now I would never suggest bloating up symptoms or lying to make a situation sound ER worthy. (Those health heros have lifes to save).
But I would suggest speaking up.
Your distress is real. I don't know if your wife is fine or not. If she is stressed/depressed, angry, sad or what. But if the BURDEN of care is too much - it is OK to say so. To seek help. (Start with your general Doctor for advice).
Even pleasantly confused elders get brought to ER for query UTI or stroke. Frequent fallers are brought for falls investigation.
ER is not a solution, but in a crises can give a small breathing space.
An vulnerable confused elder is better dropped off at a hospital than left to wander the streets & be hit by a car (as my neighbour was).
A. 100% healthy
B. Under someone else's care, whether it be another relative, hired caregivers, or a nursing home
C. Dead
everyone wants a resort hotel to retire into at the end of life. Almost none of us get it. IMO, a low-end NH would work fine if your wife is committed to providing extra support there. Really. And Medicaid would pay!! Not sure why you are even looking at self-pay places when mother is on Medicaid. Self-pay in a NH is either a short-term solution, or only for the VERY rich.
They are expensive because they are paying five trained staff people for what you and your wife are trying to do alone.
To a degree their is an aspect of entitlement, she does feel her mother should have the best care, in general she feels our elderly should get the best care across the board, we have no excuse not to give them the best,
It is a long story.
You need to be her priority. I am from a second-gen immigrant family. Cultural mismatch is a killer.
As part of your marriage you both have to have priorities and also be spending quality time together. If she does not want the same thing as you and her priority is her mother then it’s better to divorce now even if it is costly unfortunately. You can’t put a price on happiness and every day is gift not to be wasted.
It sounds like she is controlling the situation and the marriage which is not a partnership.
she is not recognizing you or respecting you and your needs in this relationship. If that does not change then make the choice to change your situation.
there are lots of articles and books on relationships and happiness -please google if you have time.
Remember in a healthy relationship your partner should hear you out if you are upset and their goal is make changes to avoid upsetting you again in the future(find a meet in the middle solution) , not to debate whether you should be upset to begin with.
Your feelings are not up for debate.
Make choices and make change.
There were four siblings in my mom’s family. Her family, and the extended family that lived around were tyrannical. The other siblings ran—and had lives; my mother was the one who “helped” her parents, also known as “looking after them” or “taking care of them.” Like it’s no big deal.
The parents were ALWAYS my mother’s number one priority. They were both in bad health, and my mother spent all her time at their home cooking and cleaning, at the hospital with her mother, mother came to live with them for a long time before it got really bad… then my mother put her mom into an apartment near their home and cared for her until my mother placed her in assisted living/NH.
This totally consumed my mothers life. Her focus was never on her marriage, or on her own children, but always on her parents— supposedly out of necessity because they were sick.
I have spent an incredible amount of time thinking about this, and what should have been different. One main conclusion I have come to is that my mother never had “decision control” in this relationship. She was always the little daughter running around behind her parents to try to make them “happy”. Her parents never thought a second about whether it was right for them to consume all of her time and energy. They even suggested at one time that my mother moved in with them, because her family was self-sufficient, and she wasn’t needed there. (!)
I had always considered this to be a cultural issue, but it may be a religious issue, and the expectations might come from there. Or maybe it is just what happens when you come from poverty.
No matter what, the mindset is very IMMATURE. It was immature and irresponsible for my grandparents to expect that from my mother, and it was immature for my mother to give that kind of over-the-top care. She destroyed herself with it, and to a great degree destroyed all her other family relationships.
My mother did not help her parents. She was their servant. Big difference.
I have several friends who have abnormally close relationships with their mothers. That is a destroyer of marriages.
The point I want to make is that I come from two generations of experience with this, and what I see is that your wife is being an immature servant to an immature mom with wrong expectations. Just like in my own family. My dad retreated into his office, but handled all the big financials and estate planning, etc. for his in-laws. and he was forced to structure his career around the care of my moms parents.
And this part is important too— my dad‘s well balanced, well, educated, highly competent parents got totally left in the dust. There was NO attention or care given to my dad‘s parents. I don’t know a lot about them, as they lived in another town, so maybe there was a tough relationship there, too. But what I know is that the people who were very good at taking care of their own needs ended up in a very bad place, with zero support from children, because it was all being poured out on my mother’s parents.
I think you both need to go into counseling, especially so that your wife learns healthy boundaries.
Short term… my mother put mother into an apartment near our home. You can hire companion care people to come in at about $30 an hour to do light housekeeping/cooking. Or, I know people who have hired a live-in. This would likely be cheaper than the kind of care center you would need.
Are there siblings? Where are they?
I am only sharing my personal story because it resulted in a total train wreck for two generations. I have thought a lot about this because I want something different for my children. I have been forced to make many very difficult decisions. It is hard, sadly.
Many points you raise have given me much to think over.
I also know women with abnormally close relationships with their Mother who ceased to stay married.
I have also wondered over the cultural, religious or financial reasons behind this 'daughter as servant' pattern.
Yet I have seen it accross many cultural backgrounds, dfferent religions (or atheists) & different financial situations too. I've come to believe those may be factors but not THE whole driver.
A lovely women I befriended was in this daughter-servant role but blind to it. She was 'on call' for her older folks. Not religious, 5th gen so no real 'other' culture, very comfortably well off moneywise. Demanded daughter be the *help*. The cook, cleaner, chauffer. Demanded she come clean their bathroom accident on a Sunday morning. It appeared an ego booster to be able to say their 40 yo daughter still obeyed them..? The woman had been so conditioned that when I asked what would happen if she said no, she had no words. As you say, no "decision control".
Your wife's mother is her priority, you are not, it is just that simple. If you want to spend the next many years being a third wheel that is up to you, stay...if you want to have a life for yourself and a relationship of two, then leave and start rebuilding your life.
In the meantime stop driving Miss Daisy and her caregiver around in the middle of the night. Let Miss Daisy hire a chauffeur, this is just plain crazy.
Your MIL is not doing good, she is not independent you and your wife are her crutches, only you can stop this insanity. Best of luck to you!
Hope that you get this figured out,
Dumb system lol.
My wife refuses to entertain the idea of a normal Medicaid Facility.
If you are spending so much money on your mother in law’s care now, what does your wife think about not having any money left for her care or your care in your senior years?
Doesn’t she realize that no one has unlimited funds? You can’t afford to be spending so much money, even if you do earn a good living.
Prices keep rising on everything. All of us have to watch what we are spending these days.
Somehow THIS seems to be what needs to change.
Basictakes, if you did leave your wife, start a formal separation of assets.. what would she do then?
If your home was to be sold, maybe rented out until longer term decisions were made..
You have a job & income. Have the means to rent a place to live.
She has no income & a Mother requiring care. Even with some sort of alimony.. could she support herself & her Mother?
You wife has become dependant on you. She has limited her own choices.
As another female, I see a dangerous path for your wife. If I was one of her girlfriends, I would point this out to her. I would think a women's counceing service would also advise her: aim to be more realistic about your Mother's situation & get yourself a job.
Been speaking with my therapist and the reality is as they told me, using force to change her mind will just prolong the damage and we will most likely end up divorced. She would grow to hate my guts for putting her and her mother in a situation which I agree no one should have to go through.
As my therapist asked me if I want to stay married to my wife I will need to be the one that changes not her. Forcing her to place her mom, forcing her to work will only lead to resentment, it would not foster love. That is the price I would have to pay to stay married to her.
If I do not want to pay that price then I am better off divorcing her now, letting her hate me and move on with my life. Which is what I am leaning towards. I love my wife, and I hate the fact this disease has claimed another life and marriage, but I have no desire to keep doing this.
I know she will blame everyone else but herself, because in her head she does not have a choice. She loves her mother, her mother gave everything for her and this is the least she could do. My own family feels the same way they feel what she is doing is noble and I am just being a selfish POS because I want out when the going gets tough.
My family claims I will have a hard time finding someone else after they find out the truth why I divorced my wife, cause way they are spinning it yeah it does not look good, I am leaving my wife because her mother has a disease with no cure that will rob her of everything, and I just could not deal.
Maybe they are right, maybe I will forever be alone, but I cannot live like this anymore.
Let's say the mother died tomorrow what would your life with your wife be down the road with her limitations and her own needs? Would you be able to deal with that? Being your wife's caregiver for 20, 30, or 40 years?
My neighbor's wife has all kinds of medical issues now that she didn't have 10 years ago and he has become her caregiver. The man looks like he is on deaths door and has aged 30 years in just the 5 or so years he has been doing this. He has memory issues and said he just doesn't know how much more of this he can do or can take. Yet his wife is not sick enough to go into a nursing home and has all her mental faculties but just needs help in general because of chronic pain and back issues.
Maybe you did rush into the marriage for whatever reason. You were advised not to get married by friends too and ignored all sound advice. I would recommend not remarrying if I were you. Your family is weird talking about you finding a new wife when you haven't even divorced the current wife yet.
All the options in front of you are basically crap. Whether you stay married or get divorced you are the only one who loses in either scenario. Why you would want to repeat that potentially in the future with a new marriage escape me. Clearly love doesn't conquer all and it doesn't make things any easier when you are facing what you are facing.
But Basic bent over backwards at a young age showing commitment , just for this wife to come to the conclusion that her mother is entitled to better care than Medicaid and that Basic was expected to pay for it . Basic is the one being taken for a ride from his wife and her mother .
That doesn’t preclude Basic from taking some lessons with him and starting over in another marriage someday . He is young . He hasn’t done anything wrong that I could see. He fell in love and made a commitment . It turned out his wife could not detach from her mother enough to honor her marriage commitment .
It was made clear she would care for her mom if she got sick, you get married and poof! Mom is sick. Red flag
Your wife can't work but, she can provide 24/7 care to her mom. Which is waaayyyyy harder then an 8 hour job. Red Flag
Mom qualifies for medicaid but wifeypoo thinks mom is to good for public assistance facility. Red Flag
You work and support all of you but, mommy can't sleep and wife won't get her vision corrected so you, after working all day, need to drive them around for hours. (I know 1st hand that glasses can and do correct poor night vision, I dealt with it as a teenager learning to drive.) Red Flag
They saw you coming and caged you up nice and tight is my opinion.
During the divorce, be sure and bring up the can't work but can be a 24/7 caregiver, your attorney will love that bs.
You and your wife took vows, she chooses to flush hers down the mommy drain, leaving you in a wife-less marriage. Who is disregarding their vows?
Getting divorced sucks but, it happens all to often and is not the end of the world. Be sure and learn something from this education you are receiving.
Oh and be sure to not get her pregnant or you will never get out of this with half your hide.
Beggars can't be choosers.
No, it does not "pay" to be a good person. It's not supposed to. You do it because it's the right thing to do. Not because you're expecting a reward.
As for being reminded of your wedding vows. You did not make a promise to love, honor, and keep your mother-in-law. She's not part of that.
There was no reason why you should have driven your MIL around all night because she couldn't sleep and was "fussy". That is ridiculous. If your wife wants to drive her mother around all night because she's being fussy, toss her the car keys and go back to bed. Or let your MIL fuss and cry all night long. She'll wear herself out and go to sleep.
For your own sake, take back some of your manhood. As a woman who was married twice myself and remarrying hubby #2 in May, I will say no woman will ever have any respect for you if you have none for yourself. Letting your wife treat you like a doormat and take advantage is no kind of marriage. Get a divorce, no matter what it costs. Even if you are left with nothing but the clothes on your back, and I've been there myself though it's rarer when it's a woman, you will have something that money cannot buy.
Self-respect and dignity.
So you lay down the law with those two today, cowboy. You're the one paying for everything so you are king. Your word is law.
Tell your wife that your MIL is going to be placed in the first Medicaid facility that has a bed. In fact, you both will be doing an 'ER Dump'. This is when you take MIL to the ER and ask for a 'Social Admit' because she cannot be safely cared for in your home anymore. They will admit her and keep her until they find a facility to place her in.
After that's done, you tell your wife that either she has two weeks to start bringing income into the household. Either she gets a job, goes on welfare, or she goes out and spends 8 hours a day with a cardboard sign and a tin can panhandling in a parking lot.
She'll get her act together if you're serious. If not divorce her and start again with a woman you can make a real life with where you're not a meal-ticket to her and her mother.
Good luck.
I'm guessing(and hoping)that you meant after healing and taking time for himself to reflect on why he allowed what he did to happen in his first marriage, so that he won't make the same mistake in his second marriage if and when he decides to try it again, as all too often men(and some women too)want to jump right back into things while bringing all their old baggage along with them instead of unpacking it and leaving it behind, before they enter into a new relationship.
I'm hoping and praying that the OP will learn from his mistakes before entering in any future relationships.
Her mom is a cool person, she was not always sick. Shit happens that is all, I know my wife did not plan for this. I know she will be hurt by my choice. I make a decent living and have a high earning potential if I had the money I would gladly pay for a higher end faciality.
When I say being a good person does not pay, I do not mean in terms of reward. It just sometimes does not pay to do the right thing. The right thing here would be to stick to the understanding I made when I married my wife when she told me about her intent for care for her mom. Doing that would destroy me as a person.
I never thought she would get sick, she was always full of life and vitality. This disease robbed my wife of her mother, and life. I know this is far from her ideal situation, and I do not like that I cannot just push through and smile letting love conquer it all.
For what it is worth, please curb the theories that my wife is doing this out of malice. Yes, I am taking a back seat, but my wife has always been one of the most caring and loving people I know. She is the type of person that would give her last dollar to someone else in need because they need it more. I thought I could maintain the same, but I did it for different reason. I did all of this because I love my wife, and wanted to be with her forever. She does this because she cares. Yes she has a sense of entitlement, it is her mother who would not want what is best for their mother. She has every right to be entitled, does not mean she is going to get what she wants, but she has the right to feel the way she does.
I am also not going to make her choose between marriage or her mother, that is not my style. I rather her hate me for leaving, instead of hating me for making her stay. I will always love my wife, I do not even know if I will ever love someone as I love her. I hate the situation but not her. I mostly hate myself because of my own weakness.
My family saying the things they do because they are just going through the paces. If I divorce, logically I would seek some kind of partnership or whatever in the future. I can see their argument how it would awkward conversation when brought up. I am going to be honest, I just could not deal with the burden of caring for someone with dementia. At the core this is what this is about, I would gladly do all of this if my wife was sick, in a heartbeat. For whatever reason I just cannot find myself willing to keep doing the same for her mom.
You are extremely articulate and well written as well as being well thought-out. I trust you completely to come to some sort of compromise that is the best you can do in a life where there simply are things that "cannot be fixed" and must be "endured". It sure isn't a case of happy-all-the-time, and I say that as an 81 year old who has been exceptionally lucky from birth. And it isn't about making OTHERS happy all the time either. Sometimes you need time for YOU. You will get resentful if you can't find/make room for that.
Do your best. Try to figure out what you need most in life, and what you are capable of giving, and then come to some compromise that gives you good times, good friends, good activities that are YOURS and are about you.
You said above that you don't regret your marriage, that your MIL is a cool person, and that you know that s**t happens, and that you aren't going to make your wife choose between her marriage and her hubby. I think you got this. Now I want to hear you say that you know your wife's dance card is full, and there are times you have to be happy just to be out of her hair, and on your own. Without your needs conflicting with the pile on her plate.
People ask me if I am "happy".
I am 81. I am CONTENT. I have had an enormously LUCKY life.
There's a world of difference between happy and content. Who can remember "euphoria" and the fantasies of youth? I sure can't. Can't even remember if it is garbage day anymore!
Best of luck to you Basic. I think you got this.