My mom (84) has lived with me (60) and my wife (56) for the last 5 years She was living alone So I, being the good son I, moved her in. And my wife was her caregiver for all those 5 years. Up until last Thursday when i got a call at work that she had left me under the stress of 5 years of being told your stupid get me this get me that do this don't do that among other horrid things.
Me and my wife love each other deeply and our marriage will survive If i can just find a place for Mom.
Hello mother, goodbye me.Goodbye us and our marriage I don't even know this angry, frustrated, and burned out man I see in the mirror. I just want to have my life back without guilt. I am the the only son left my brother passed away Oct of last year
I don't like this person I've become. How can I be this bitter? My mom has always loved me. She's been a good mom. So how can I resent her so much?
She can still get around with a walker but she won't. She sits in her chair and refuses to do anything for herself. She wants me to serve her - period. She won't eat at the table, she wont go outside, she just sits in her chair and when I come home from work she expects me to wait on her
My marriage can be saved but i just don't know what to do with mom. Funds are only 915 a month that's it with blue cross/medicare. She cant get Medicaid because she is in my home and they go by household income.
This is all new to me and i am lost as to what to do She is in the hospital right now and i am trying to have her placed into a nursing home medicare will cover 3 months and i can apply for her Medicaid then because she will be out of the home.
But i am getting this sick feeling that they are going to release her back onto me ruining any chance to get my wife back and put our marriage back together. I am met at every turn with six to eight waiting lists at places she can afford to live on her own. help i am losing my sanity and my hope
Be kind to her but don't run around after her, keep your distance and most importantly look after yourself. Good luck!
I pray the coming days and weeks will bring a balance back into my life and I will once again smile and find purpose and reason for all that has happened these past 10 days.
You might also check local hospitals to see if they have caregiver support groups; sometimes the AL and SNF facilities do as well. I've found that the most support groups are generally with the larger hospitals in an area with good medical facilities, such as Ann Arbor, but that's too far from Monroe. The Henry Ford Hospital system is another large one and it may have some support groups.
Wishing you peace in your heart as you travel this strange new journey.
Can you explain how it works for $400? Any assistance?
Good luck. (the devil, as you know , is in the details...)
How does your mom feel about being on her own?
About your depression. It is only natural. You are exhausted . The suggestions to get help, personal and marriage counseling, are good ones. In the midst of a crisis in 2008, I started therapy and all I could say afterwards was: why did I wait so long?
In the meantime, may I offer the "fast rack" to feeling better? It is gratitude. No matter what happens, there is always something to be grateful for--and that attitude of gratitude (don't laugh) really lightens the spirits. In your case, you can be grateful that:
your wife hung in there for five years!
she seems to be on your side and happy about the new arrangement,
you seem to be healthy (what a gift!),
you seem to be intelligent (only an intelligent person would see through your mom's co-dependence as clearly as you have)
you seem to be a problem solver and a seeker of help,
you seem to be strong and resilient,
you found this site,
you found help from the VA and meals on wheels,,
you found a place for your mom,
you are still young enough to have a great many happy years.
Good luck!
Take care!
Agree with marriage guidance & counselling but would suggest also that you "woo" your wife again. Remind her why she stuck by you through this, by being a loving, lovely partner now.
Also give yourself a break All children a pre-programmed for guilt! Believe me I had 2 parents who so badly abused me as a child that I'm severely disabled with mental health issues and I still took care of them at each of their ends of life. 1 for 6 years & 1 thankfully only for 1 year directly but 5 years at a distance.
Good luck for all your futures.
We'd take a walk together (I could still walk then), no where special just out and talk about anything/everything. We'd play games from childhood, cook for each other. Listen to music, read books together looking up from the pages just to smile at each other. In today's busy life it's good to take time for simple pleasures. Now I'm widowed I have those memories to look back on.
After the hurt of the last 5 years maybe you & your wife might like to try this.
I'm glad to read of your progress. Your delima and journey take place more often than you might think.
You have been given wonderful advice and I definitely agree with the idea of wooing your wife back. I'm glad you are in therapy and will see this person again soon.
Your hands a very full with both unpacking what you have been and are going through with new insights, plus rebuilding from where you are now with your wife who sounds like a very wonderful person that you have been blessed with.
One suggestion that I have often given people in a rebuilding wooing stage is to think of the things that you did together at the start of your relationship and try dong some of those once again. Overall, I think far too many couples get so caught up in the serious stuff of adult responsibilities that we forget to breathe, loosen up and date each other, So, try gong out on some dates both planned and spontaneous and enjoy being alive and with each other in whatever you two do.
I wish you the very best in all of the various dynamics of this whole situation.
Please, please do let us know how your mom does. I am really interested to hear how she handle s being on her own.
When I left my first husband I was sure he would commit suicide. He had become so completely dependent on me for everything. No such thing . a few weeks later he was Mr. Responsibility, paying his own bills and handling life. It was I who had been the weak one, submitting, bowing and scraping. I was co-dependent.
Good luck to you and your mom! And wife, of course!
You and your wife have been through so daggone much concerning your mom, I think I'd keep her at an emotional and physical safe distance while you focus how daggone much remains on your own place both as an individual and as a married man. I hope you don't mind the play on words but daggone, Dagan, you have survived quite a daggone trying journey so far that is not over yet. So, take some daggone good care of you and your wonderful wife, daggone it, ya'll deserve it! :)
I am very happy for you that she moving tomorrow. Move her out and move on with your own life.
If someone were in my house who wished that I had died, I would fulfill their wish after moving them out by living like a dead person as far as her, but live like an alive person otherwise.
Loving mother's don't wish such things like she said. They don't abuse their DIL and they are not homewreckers who damage marriages.