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Go back to your own home with your children. Please take your kids to their doctor to make sure they haven't developed any infections from living in these unsanitary conditions. Your first duty is to your children. I feel sorry for your husband, but he'll have an easier decision if you and the children are not there. His choice will let you see where his priorities lie and you can make YOUR choices after he reveals his character by his actions. You might call Adult Protective Services after you are out of mils home. They may be of assistance in getting your husband to see the light.
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Is the dog old and incontinent or young & untrained? Lordy I would not want to inherit that floor replacement. That kind of thing can't be cleaned with soap & water. You have to get an enzymatic like anti-icky-poo, and soak the underlayment & subfloor with it. It can take a long time, and you still end up having to replace the floor, not just carpet.

Personally, that dog would go tomorrow if I were there. One way or another.

Get yourself & the younguns situated, and then maybe you can help,your husband take care of one thing at a time.
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Take your children and get OUT. No conditions, no waiting, no excuses.
MIL needs to be in a nursing home and attended by a doctor.
Your husband can figure it out at this point, but as others have said... The very devil himself would not keep my children in a nasty place like that. Small children and dementia patients do not go together.

Your poor teenager. This is hell on earth to him, I promise. Not having a clean home to come to with friends is affecting him, I promise you that. You will reap his resentment if you don't end this ridiculousness.

Living somewhere else doesn't equal divorce, but those children are #1 to you. Look at what you are doing to them - it will be real & permanent damage, which is cruel in its own way.
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Back in Feb, your intentions were good, and you saw the extra benefit of living rent free. Six months later if the place is a pig pen, don't blame anyone but the gal in the mirror. I take it you have no furniture either, since you are sitting on hers. The decision for a nursing home belongs to her sons, you knew this at the beginning. If she goes into a nursing home, the house goes to Medicaid.
So start looking and start planning, because you are moving soon, like it or not.
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Walk out the door today.

My sister died taking care of our mother and at the rate you are going, your MIL will out live you, too.
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Why didn't you bring MIL to live with you in YOUR home?

Something is very strange about this arrangement, in my opinion. The day I'd bring my two-year-old child into this environment would be a very cold day in hell.

To let you know MY advice, if I knew who you were, I'd call Child Protective Services.
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You should not be in trouble for Mom as long as you kept trying to make sure she had access to food...but you could get in trouble for keeping a 2 year old confined to one room in what is otherwise a stinking poop and pee house. And, odors stay in the memory. You really want to have your children's earliest memories to be of filth and confimement? You are NOT supposed to get used to animal feces and fur all over the place. Why does your husband need to be so much more loyal to his mom who has already put one caregiver in an early grave than to you and his children? Maybe nearly as important - why can't the dog be trained to go outside and walked often enough by people who care about it more than the humans in their life? Why don't some of those people brush the dog so it sheds less? WHY did ANYONE "have to" GIVE UP THEIR LIFE, in your SILs case, literally, to try to maintain a person who never learned to take care of themself and yet has free rein to run things as they see fit, which is not fit at all. If someone is physically or mentally disabled and can't take care of themself, it may not their fault, and having a loving caregiver committed to taking care of them WHO IS ALSO IN CHARGE of the situation is a real gift all around, but situations like this are not blessing anyone.

YOU ARE NOT THE BAD GUY IN THIS!!!!! Quit feeling so sorry for him (OK, sure I feel sorry for him too, it sucks to see your mom like this and acknowledge the severity of the situation) and start feeling more sorry for your kids, and maybe yourself. He doesn't want to break her heart?? He'll ruin your lives and the kids' early years, which only come once, though?? Look around, if your regular home you would normally live in is too far away, is there a relatively inexpensive residential hotel nearby you could live in while hubby gets done what he needs to do, if he needs that much of a push to get it done? Just pack and go if you have talked til you are blue in the face and nothing is done. You can visit him and he can visit you there when brother comes over or if you can get any other respite. And if MIL goes into a care facility, you can both visit her and the kids could have a pleasant memory or two of the situation, instead of what they have now.
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id get rid of the filthy dog. its not going to get better and your stress will only build . dog people live in denial . my renter called me upstais last winter because a 10 sq ft section of the carpet was soaking wet , the walls must be leaking . no . when the dogs would piss in that area her and the old man both would shift their gaze and refuse to see it . it wasnt the fault of the inbred , filthy , neurotic animals but since they dont pay rent they were the ones voted off the island . it was sick , living in a dog kennel . i regret putting up with it for as long as i did .
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bethy13, he doesn't want to break her heart? Think about it, we usually tell our parents we will never put them in a nursing home back when our parents are mobile, healthy, of clear mind, and living independently. No one at that time thinks about what happens when the elder has memory and cleaning issues.

As for her dog, the dog can eventually be trained to piddle on indoor doggy pads or learn to go outdoor.
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cmagnum, I think you're right, but I don't want to get in trouble for the living conditions here. My husband and I just argued this morning about it. I told him she was going to starve to death and they would get us for manslaughter! We argue every day over her. But today, he did something that he's yet to do...he called his brother. I guess because he needs to hear someone in the family say it's okay to have her put somewhere. His brother doesn't come over here at all and never calls to check on their mom. My husband knows what he needs to do, but he doesn't want to break her heart by putting her in a nursing home. I feel so sorry for him. She's drives him nuts and every day he has to deal with me complaining. He's in the middle.
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freqflyer, my sister in law was only about 55 years old. I seen her everyday and there were no sign of any illness. She just didn't wake up one morning. She was completely stressed. Her and my mil had a huge argument 2 days before because my sil was trying to clean the place by throwing an old dishwasher out that hasn't worked in years, and my mil had a fit about it. So, the dishwasher is still sitting in the kitchen.
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We had to move in with her because she can't live alone. She can't cook, she doesn't even know how to work the microwave. Just before we moved in the neighbor found her going through her shed at 4am looking for my sister in law. If we weren't here, she wouldn't even clean up after the dog. My husband either does it or has to tell her to do it. She isn't the least bit bother by the dog mess. She is losing her mind. We certainly didn't do it because we wanted to! My husband owns this house she lives in, but we also have our own house that we've lived for 13 years. Our home!!! This isn't home!

I know the dog just doesn't know any better, but when I have to keep my 2 year old confined to a bedroom and the dog goes where ever it wants I've come to hate the dog! I wasn't raised up having a dog in the house, and I just can't get use to there being dog mess and dog hair all over every thing.
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It sounds like your husband has chosen the care of his mother to be more important than you and your 2 year old. He either needs to put her in a nursing home or you need to leave. It sounds like to me if adult protective services or a social worker were to evaluate life in that house that your MIL would become a ward of the state and removed from the house and placed in a nursing home.
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bethy13, Curious why your sister-in-law died? Was it the stress of caring for her mother? It has been shown that 1 out of every 3 caregivers passes on leaving the love one they were caring behind.

And what would she have done if your husband hadn't move in? Of course, she probably would have gone to a retirement community.
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If she cannot live alone perhaps an assisted living community would be best for her. I'm curious as to why you "had to move in with her".

As far as the dog is concerned, it's not its fault. It just doesn't know any better and with the over feeding is probably obese and likely to have health issues. I inherited my mother's little dog when she went into a nursing home - obese, obnoxious and not particularly house clean, but now slim, sweet and 100% clean. It's not animals, it's the people that have them.
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