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Elderly FIL with sepsis "wants to go home" from the hospital before cleared of infection. I said I wasn't ready to be a nurse. My fiancee's children came for Christmas and one had a bad cold. We ALL caught it, even my 3 month-old. It appears that myself and FIL got the worst of it. We had to call 911 after two days. He couldn't walk, staggering to the bathroom, urinating everywhere, my fiancee crying. They took him via ambulance to the hospital two days ago. Found sepsis, a stomach infection, pneumonia, and his o2 (which he has had chronic issues with but refuses oxygen because the concentrating machine and subsequent hose that connects to him is an inconvenience) was 84.
Honestly, these last two days were HEAVEN for me. I am sure it sounds selfish, but every day for three years FIL has always, ALWAYS come first in my fiancee's eyes. Everything from fetching him water, fretting over any tiny anxiety he might have, dealing with falls and nighttime wanderings and living with someone who sundowns has eroded me, once vital, down to a shadow of what I used to be.
Regardless, he somehow convinced the doctor to check him out because he is and has ALWAYS been so dead set on being at home. I left to go to the store, came back, fiancee tells me that he called the hospital to check on his dad and that his dad is doing what he did the last time he fell and broke his rib. Wanting to go home even though he CLEARLY is not ready based on symptoms. With sepsis? WHY would they even release an 85 year-old with cancer and sepsis?!!! I can see if he were recovered, absolutely. But still symptomatic? To come home just because he says so?
I looked at my fiancee and said without thinking, "I'm not ready to be a nurse".
He launched into a tirade the likes I have never seen. He was so enraged that this was my comment, though I had so much more to say (i.e. - what if the sepsis isn't gone? How will we possibly know? Now he is incontinent. Will I be expected to change his pants and clean his accidents? How do I make sure he is okay?) Keep in mind that I have two little babies. I do not feel it appropriate to see my FIL's private parts, and frankly do not see myself cleansing him and changing his pants. It feels wrong to me and unfair to presume I would naturally take over that role. That is no longer a companion. That is a nurse.
I guess that is where my head was at when I said it. My fiancee just screamed and raged at me and how selfish and horrible I am and then essentially wrote me off and left to go get him and now I am on silent treatment.
How in the world do I deal with this? What happened to my precious two days? Was what I said truly worthy of the intensity of the verbal abuse I received as a result? I am reeling. And now, once again, hating my life.

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You are hating your life.

Change it.

Stop living with a man who doesn't respect you, who puts his father first, and has to get his own way.

There are two ways to make that change. The more difficult one, and the one least within your control, is to change the nature of your relationship. Get counseling. Work on making the situation workable. There is currently on the forum an example of a wife and mother who is going through that process. It isn't easy. She is determined, she is getting support from a therapist, and most of all she has a husband who was ultimately willing to start putting his wife first.

The other solution is also hard, but at least more within your control. Separate from this man. Consult a family law attorney and figure out how to go about this, how custody of the children will work, details about child support, etc.

Change the situation or continue to hate your life.

As to the intensity of your partner's response to you, I suspect that he was just as dismayed as you that Dad is coming home, and he may have been thinking along the lines you were. He doesn't have the balls to turn Dad down and he was feeling terrible about the situation. Your comment gave him (in his mind) the chance to dump all that at you. He obviously would rather be mad at you than at Dad.

Can this relationship be saved? For the sake of the children I think it is worth trying. Start by getting counseling yourself. But don't let it go on indefinitely without some significant changes. Don't hate your life.
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worriedaboutdad, good heavens back in August your husband [fiancé?] got upset with you because you forgot a couple of grocery items. I would take a really hard look at this life and ask yourself is this worth all the stress to you and your child or children. If you're stressed, so will be your child(ren).

The hospital decides who gets to come home and who isn't ready.... they wouldn't let your fiancé's father go home unless they felt he was ready to leave. Insurance companies feel people recoup faster a home, sure if Florence Nightingale and Marcus Welby lived in the same home. Hospitals send home patients after major surgery in less than 24 hours.

Think about it, you have a baby who demands your time almost 24 hours a day. How on earth does your fiancé think you would have time to deal with a grown man who would need the same type of care? You would need to clone yourself. Tell your fiancé that he needs to hire a full-time Caregiver to help with his father, unless he himself wants to take on the care of his own Dad. Let your fiancé deal with cleaning his Dad's private parts.
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Thank you so much for the replies! I admit I was pretty desperate there, hitting refresh to see if someone had an insight. Maybe my normal compass has gone WAY off course because of living like this for so long. When my fiancee screamed that I have done NOTHING for his dad, and I know that I went so above and beyond in the earlier years, giving him injections, fawning over him all the time, trying so hard to care for him, etc....I get angry. He invalidated every single thing I have ever done for his dad, simply because three years in and two children later, I am exhausted with ALL the house chores and my loss of life but, also, honestly, the loss of what I had anticipated. Building a family with my husband where we focus on our lives and our kids. I have seen my fiancee sink so deep into depression it scares me. But if I call it what it is and offer a way out (our independence), his unrelenting anger comes out and I know this is a childhood enmeshment with his dad never acknowledging him and him always in search of that recognition that will never come. I know it must hurt him. But it also ends up RULING US. And that I take offense to. My life has come to depend on how much his dad will recognize the ultimate sacrifice his son has made. With my own mother, her father NEVER did. Even to his last breath. With a lot of people, I suspect, they hold on dearly wanting that validation that will simply never come. And everyone, everyone, pays the price. :( So unhappy.
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You have hit upon a key point the "hanging in there" until the parent finally gives the child the approval that they have needed all their lives. We see that here and other places to the detriment of the adult child and their partner and any children involved,. As with your mother, it most often does not happen. The leopard does not change his spots. It sounds like your depressed fiancé needs counselling. Jeanne's analysis is good. For your life to improve you either need counselling or to see a lawyer. I agree that going to counselling by yourself is valuable if your fiancé will not go. Ether way, I think you are the only one who can start the process of change. What that change will be depends on him and you. You might start by setting some boundaries regarding your man's behaviour towards you, i.e. insisting on respectful communication, regarding what you will and will not do for fil...
Let us know how you make out. (((((((hugs)))))))
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