Sibling frustrations and denials. Any advice?
(1) My sister is in denial about 24/7 care for my mother who is under hospice care, bed bound and has limited use of her hands. She compares it to taking care of baby, which it is not. Will she come around?
(2) I'm a nurturer and hostess by nature. I loved entertaining family and friends, pre COVID. My sister who lives 3 hours away is the only visitor now and she visits/baby sits when she can so I can take care of things outside the house. During her most recent visit, we had a huge blow-out because she was just eating up certain food items and not being considerate of me. Going forward, would it be rude of me to stop being hostess and disappear? I did make her bathe and help mom with eating etc. something she's never had to do.
(3) During our heated exchange, my sister threatened to move my mom in with her and her family: husband and 3 children. I told her to go right ahead and to make sure she arranges health and hospice care and anything else. BTW I'm POA etc and she knows it. Just curious, how far will she get?
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lives in fantasy land of mom will get better.
it’s really pointless to fight with her, I asked her recently if dad dies would she prefer to take over care or put mom in nursing home “till mom is better” (still 4 years after moms massive stroke, non verbal, bedridden) and she pick NH. Which isn’t shocking because she hasn’t gotten her hands dirty, every visit she has ever had with mom has been like her visiting a person in a hospital while others do the stress and real work.
Are we siblings lol? Sounds just like my sister right down to visiting a person in a hospital. You described it to a tee.
When was this last exchange?
I'm not going to aggravate you by pointing out - oh. Well I suppose I AM going to risk it, then - that your sister is driving three hours to come and support you, and you rip her head off because she eats something you had other plans for?
What is sounds like to me is that you are BOTH stressed and hurting, and the heated exchange was the result of pressure on BOTH of you (in completely different ways, of course).
She won't get anywhere, of course. She'd probably already thought better of it by the time she got home, and besides surely her husband would have something to say about it wouldn't he? It's not a real idea. It was a shout.
What do you want to do about all this? - that's mainly why I asked when it happened. Has it been long enough for a cooling-off period?
The exchange is very fresh...and yes I agree we are BOTH stressed and hurting.
Just to add, my sister wears rose colored glasses and we have always tried to protect her from hurtful experiences which is not good especially now.
It's very tempting....but what is not going to happen is that my mom is moved back and forth. I know my sister has no clue what it will take to care for mom since she always compares it to caring for a baby.
My siblings never helped me. A lot of siblings don’t even say thank you for caring for mom.
So sorry that you are dealing with this.
I had sibling trials during my mom's last two years. Sometimes I think the anger they exhibit is cause deep down they know that they should be doing more and rather than admit that, they turn their self doubt into anger towards those who are doing what they know they should be doing. Yes, I am maybe psychoanalyzing a bit here but I believe there is almost always something deeper going on.
Ignore her. Oh, and maybe tell her to contribute to your grocery bill too if she's going to pig out when she comes over.
I agree its something deeper for which we will both have to get to the bottom of. I'm willing, not sure about her though.
BTW, I'm just not going prepare meals anymore as I plan to disappear during future visits. She'll have to cook when she gets here like I do everyday.
If she prefers denial then so be it. It's her life!