Asked a question 2/2/2010 at 11:10 am
My FIL is 91, and still lives in his own home. He is generally a wonderful man, and my husband and I love him and do quite a bit to help him along. I accompany him on Dr's appts, stay with him when he
...Read MoreMy FIL is 91, and still lives in his own home. He is generally a wonderful man, and my husband and I love him and do quite a bit to help him along. I accompany him on Dr's appts, stay with him when he his hospitalized (not often), and make extra food for him when I can. I work a flexible job partially so I can be available to do those things for him, and part of the reason I'm sticking with that is to make sure we can be there for him. At his request, we spent part of our Chrismas holidays looking at independent living places for him, and now he's not interested in seeing them, so we anticipate his needs for us to care for him will continue to increase. We went to meet with his attorney (at his request) yesterday, and reviewed his POA, living will etc. We added me as a backup to my husband on those documents. Then the attorney brought up his will, and asked him if he'd like to designate me or someone else as his heir should something happen to he and my husband at the same time. At that point he talked about how he had some favorite cousins (who never visit even though they live close). As that went on and he seemed ill at ease, I said it sounded like he needed to take some time by himself to think about it. Anyway, I don't want his money, but am finding myself hurt and resentful that, apart from my husband, he seems to value his unseen cousins over me. It is 100% his decision, and I will not interfere, but I've been in tears today just feeling hurt. In the meeting, he also brought up (again) that his wife had died on my birthday 12 years ago. That is also hurtful to hear over and over again, but I've always felt that his grief trumps my feelings on that. Anyway, I guess I'm just looking for some validation (or not) that feeling hurt in this type of situation is normal. I'll be continuing to pray through this, and I've confessed these feelings to my husband. But I don't feel it would be productive to express them to my FIL, and that I would just come off sounding to him like I'm "after his money". Any thoughts on working through these hurt feelings from those who have been there/done this?