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Should we somehow take the phone away so my hubby and I can have our life back. MIL is killing her son, he is so exhausted and says he goes to see her after work to appease her so she won’t call or text and interrupt our time together but it doesn’t work. He ask her not to call so we can be together uninterrupted but she will call and text anyway. She calls to complain about a worker, or no one has come to remove her dinner tray or to say she had diarrhea earlier and what she did about. She talks about how bad the food is.. she gets three choices per meal that is ordered in advance, restaurant style. She’s not nice to people, has no friends and doesn’t care to make friends. She expects people to come to her. Someone, another resident came to see her and she bragged about how rude she was to them and called them crazy. She only wants her son to visit and do everything for her. Her husband died 2008. Her oldest son looks exactly like his dad. Someone said, right in front of me, to her, at my FIL’s funeral, ”If you have your son, you still have your husband!!!” What does that even mean??? All I know is that it left me in shock, especially when my MIL said, “YES!!! I KNOW!!!” She has always been so possessive of him and in front of me will demand kisses several times on arrival and especially when he is leaving. She used to always kiss him on the lips, but I told him how uncomfortable it made me so he stopped it. And SO many, “I love you’s” over and over! I’ve come to learn when hubby is leaving from a visit with her or too much phone talk from her, he has to say, “I love you,”over and over which really means, bye! He hates it. She has never treated her son like a grown up. She has ALWAYS, even before we were married wanted us to move in with her, thank God we didn’t!!! Oh yeah, save lot’s of money but at the cost of living in pure hell. She is bipolar/ obsessive compulsive/ hyper vigilant and not pleasant at all to be around. She doesn’t want to have a hobby because she’s left handed and can’t do anything. Doesn’t like puzzles and thinks card games are a sin of great portions. She won’t go to activities, doesn’t like crossword puzzles. Thank God I got her reading a Kindle but all she wanted to read were trashy erotic love stories. It was SO strange! We recommended Christian books on Kindle but she would say she got so many of those books at a discount so she has to read them??? It felt almost rebellious on her part being mad at us for not moving in with her.
Now she’s in the ALF and she’s kicking and screaming and playing stunts to go to the hospital to get some real help, she says. Then expects her son to be by her side every moment. It’s just been exhausting for both of us with the tantrums and hateful attitudes. Do people, children commit subside or die from the stress of all this???? Do we need counseling???? Any advice? She’s 85 afraid of her power chair, afraid to stand or walk with walker. Physical therapy not working. In wheelchair, in pull-ups and goes to the bathroom every few minutes. Never has enough toilet paper and the list goes on and on. What should we do about the phone??? Any advice???

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If your husband won't block her number and stop giving into her temper tantrums there us nothing you can do but hope she dies soon before hubby dies from the stress she is creating for him. I wish your husband could just cut off his mother.
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Smart phones have filters now.

Create a filter to keep from receiving her calls.

Tell her facility to call you, if there is an emergency.

Tell her that you will call her every day at 6. You will visit on Fridays.

Make her a list of items that she can request from you. Give her a copy each week. Pick it up when you visit, then give her a new copy for the next week. She can circle the items that she needs.

Finally, stick to your boundaries. There’s no other way around this. You guys are in charge of your own sanity.
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Be happy and grateful the woman is living in AL and that you DO have the choice to block her texts and let her phone calls go to voice mail.

What she chooses to read on her Kindle is none of your business, really.

If your husband is okay with all the outward shows of affection towards his mother, then that's a subject between you and him. How often do you get to witness this anyway??

If the woman needs extra help or supplies (like toilet paper), then it's on her to pull the string or push the button in her AL and ask for what she needs. You are not her handmaidens and she's paying through the NOSE to live in AL where she has services on call. Suggest to her that she use those services and let her know you'll see her once a week on X day at X time and that's IT. You'll have to get DH on board with you to set down those boundaries and then stick TO them like glue, b/c MIL is looking for cracks to slip through. Don't let her, that's my advice.

Women like this live for drama; my DH calls it ADATT: All Drama All The Time, and we have a daughter who's prone to that behavior 24/7. She lives about 90 minutes away, thank God, so our exposure to her is very limited. That is the only way to deal with the ADATT people: in small doses and on YOUR schedule, not theirs.

Once you block the texts and let the calls start going to vm, she will see that you're not fooling around. That's how you get to take your life back & stop agreeing to be held hostage by an old woman who isn't even living with you!

Best of luck.
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She is an adult. She can read what she wants, and if it makes her happy, no one should judge. Anyway, what's "trashy" and "erotic?" What's "Christian?" Once you and hubs stop trying to control this aspect of her life, you can move on to what is really important here. Like kissing your husband on the lips - I judge that to be creepy. Expecting son to be with her every moment - I judge that to be too demanding. Afraid of the things that could help her, like the power chair - I judge that to be a psychiatric issue, and so is lip kissing her son and demanding he be present every moment. Get a psychiatrist on board and that might help, especially if she could get calming meds. If she goes to the bathroom every "few" minutes, and that would be about every three minutes if what I was taught in elementary school is correct, she should be under the care of a urologist. She may have a bladder infection. She may have a condition, interstitial cystitis, that feels like she has to go so often. Sometimes it's called "overactive bladder," but it's an inflamed bladder that sometimes has open lesions that bleed. It's extremely painful. It can't be cured but it can be treated. A change in diet might help. No coffee, tea or booze. No chocolate, pepper, citrus or tomatoes. Uribel and Myrbetriq are two of the medicines that might work for her. I don't need to know that she won't accept psychiatric treatment - a geriatric psychiatrist can stop by to see her in the place where she lives, and most are so skillful she won't notice she wasn't talking to the maintenance staff. PS. I hope you'll read a "trashy" novel sometime and let us know if you still think it's "trashy" after you get to the happy-ever-after ending, which it will most certainly have. That's why people, including but not limited to lonely old ladies and incarcerated prisoners, read them.
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Between this post and your profile post, I am exhausted.

Who is paying the $4K/month for the AL? (I hope not you and your H!)

How many siblings does your H have? Does she ever bother any of them?

Why won't your H block her calls, at least during certain times?

Does your H have POA/HCPOA?
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He doesn’t have to answer each and every text or phone call. He can turn off his phone for a time. He can block just her calls. He can set up a regular weekly visiting time and that is it. There are so many things he can do to ease his burden he just has to be willing.
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If all MIL uses the phone for is to call your husband and others to do nothing but complain, lose it. But tell the Staff you have taken it so they don't spend time looking for it. Request that she not be allowed to use the facilities phone. If Staff have an emergency they can call.

Your husband can block his mother. He can threaten if she does not stop making these calls, he will shut off her phone. I will assume she is on Medication for her problems, maybe time for adjusting them. She needs to get used to where she is. Rely on the staff. Maybe DH should not visit for a few days. Take the phone away saying she can have it back when she starts relying on the staff and not him. He cannot be there for her 24/7, the reason she us in an AL.

The house, you cannot buy it for a dollar at this point. She may need Medicaid in her future and in most States there is a 5 yr look back. You will need to sell at Market Value. The proceeds going into an acct that is only used for her needs. No gifting. So, get the house cleaned out. Sell what has some monetary value and out ut in her acct. At 85 there is not much she needs and if LTC is in her future, she will need even less. Do not ask her what she wants or doesn't want. Just do it. Don't even tell her the house is for sale. She is not returning home and it will only add on to her anxiety problem. Just get in there and do it.

Nice that you DH is easy going, mine is too. But, he would have told his Mom, enoughs enough. He would have kindly put her in her place long before the age of 85. But TG, she moved 900 miles away and we only needed to visit 1 or 2x a year. My DHs attitude, it was her decision to move away from family.

There is a book called Boundries by Townsend and Cloud. Its Christian based. My daughter read it and liked this:

When saying No, you are not responsible for the reaction u get.
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