My mother in law, 80 years old, has dementia, steady moderate stage, been 6 years since diagnosis and lives with us (we are both working, in our 40s and have two little children). Due to cultural circumstances, we will never put her in a care home. She is in very good physical health but has the delusions, constant foul language and accusations of stealing, complaints about food which is geared towards me primarily. She loves her five children to death but hates the two daughter in laws like hell. I do everything I can to take care of her including cooking fresh food, cleaning, laundry, taking her for shopping etc., My husband is a highly dedicated caregiver, spending most of his free time with her, feeding her food and snacks 8 or 9 times a day (resulting in me cleaning the toilets every day), taking her for walks, putting up with her delusions and agreeing with anything that she says or does. When my mother in law yells and curses me and complains about anything I make, he does not utter a word. I try my best not to retort but once in a blue moon, if I lose my cool, he comes at me fiercely. I feel I am always fighting for myself and nobody to defend me. On top of that, my husband does not like to maintain a relationship with my side of the family, and tries to restrict them from visiting me or me going to them (they reside in another country). I cannot like my mother in law mainly because of my husband’s attitude. Also, I feel very frustrated that my whole life is dedicated towards my husband's family whereas my own widowed mother is not getting any care or attention from me in spite of me being the only daughter apart from my brother. I wish that one day when my kids are grown up, I can leave this guy and escape this living hell. But by the time, I don’t know if my mother would be alive. Any suggestions how to navigate this?
Read the entire thread above. This situation seems to come up a lot. Taking care of MIL, it becomes too much, no-one listens to you.
There IS a way out but it does take action on your part.
Seriously, read that whole thread & I sincerely hope it helps you get some ideas.
I wish you strength for your journey.
First of all, let me say that you are equally as important as your husband and your mother in law.
I do not know what your culture expects of you and I do not wish to disrespect your culture in any way. Since you have reached out for help, I will respond to your posting.
You say that you want to leave when your children are grown. Why wait? Why show your children that you aren’t an equal to their father or grandmother? This isn’t a healthy environment for your children.
Don’t you want your children to know that you are an equal to your husband and mother in law? You are not ‘less than’ they are!
Your mother in law is disrespecting you. Yes, she has medical issues but you are still being abused and not appreciated for your kindness and incredible caregiving.
Your husband feels that you should accept this. Honey, pack your bags. Pack the children’s bags and go! Is it possible for you to leave soon?
Do you have your own money? Can you get alimony until you are able to find work? He will have to pay child support.
Why does he not want a relationship with your family? You deserve to be a part of their life.
Wishing you all the best. Please keep us posted. We care.
You pack your bags and you leave.
My guess is that you have little access to your own spending money but gather what you can.
Contact a Woman's shelter if you have no friends or relatives that you can stay with. You will say.."A Woman's shelter is for abused women, not for me" I beg to differ, you are being abused. Maybe not physically but emotionally you are. Probably financially as well.
You sound more like an Indentured Servant not a wife.
By the way I am not one to jump to "Divorce the person" as a first option but it truly does sound like your husband will not change and he would not accept change from you. Because of that no matter what is suggested here your attempts to try to get him to change will fail. At that point the only things you can do are.
1) Leave the situation
2) Accept the situation.
I am in agreement with NHWM, I do not mean to disrespect you, your culture or his. But the reverse side of the coin is respect and it does not seem that he respects you or your family. You and your feelings are just as important as his and his family's (would you want your son to treat his wife like this, would you want your daughter being treated in this way? At some point even with cultural differences being treated fairly, respectfully are more important)
We are on the same page, Grandma!
I see what you are saying. No one wants to confront an elderly woman with a debilitating condition. No one wants to see their children go through a divorce. Children survive divorce. Yes, it is painful but they will come out ahead and thrive.
I am glad that you are weighing the pros and cons. That’s smart!
I will share a little bit more since you did reach out for answers.
I am not trying to offend you or your family in any way. I am looking at this through objective eyes. You are right smack in the middle of it all. Perhaps too close to see things clearly.
Your husband is not being a good father regarding how he is treating you. The best gift that a dad can give to his children is to show love and respect for their mother. By doing that he is showing them how to love.
Now is not the time to ‘keep the peace’ or ‘not make waves.’ Now is the time, quite frankly, to shake things up!
I realize that you will need time to process the information that you are reading from myself and other posters. We truly wish you all the best. I don’t see a ‘fairytale’ ending here.
In the end, I sincerely hope you will find the strength to move forward in your life. You and your precious children deserve a happy and peaceful life.
Take care.
When anyone finds what this means, let me know.
I must say that it is my experience that when older immigrants come to our country there is little change for them; they stay steeped in their own culture (middle eastern cultures especially) and their ways. The second generation and younger first generation immigrants are often quite tormented about what to do. They are very torn.
In almost ALL other cultures, the cult of the male in not questioned. Nor is his dominion over all family choices for himself, his wife and his children.
Few of us who are third generation Americans at the least can even begin to imagine the turmoil of being hobbled by this fact. By the third generation most children have adapted to America in ways their grandparents cannot have imagined, cannot recognize, and don't approve of.
It is quite easy for us to say "Go to a battered woman's shelter". But what we do not recognize is that this is not a battered woman. This is a woman who is living what amounts to another culture while in our own country. The likelihood of leaving with her children? Well, let me say, in my experience that is NOT very likely without a risk of real violence and/or trauma to this family.
I think what I am trying to say is that it is easier said than done in this case. That if you have little experience of other cultures you often cannot imagine the inner workings of mind and heart well enough to advise.
Melissa is going to have to make her own choices here IMHO, and her choices may be more dangerous, carry more repercussions than we can know. They will be made the more difficult from the fact she wasn't raised with the "Frontier mentality" (look it up; it's a THING).
I wish her luck with all my heart. I cannot imagine being a woman and thus handicapped to an extent that I am almost imprisoned, my only choice to set forth, likely without my children (or risk real violence in taking them and trying to support them).
Can you have your own wages put into an account in your name, and agree with DH who pays for what in the house? If all the funds are in joint names, DH can remove the total any time he wishes. This can make it very difficult for you to leave in future – no money even for a rental bond. You need to keep some of your own money separate.
Can you get MIL to say any meal she likes, then cook and freeze a lot of it in meal-sized portions and defrost a serving for her every night? If possible, can DH feed her separately from you and the children, so that you can eat in peace? You can say that it will be less annoying for MIL (and you). If that fails, give her a boiled egg, which is difficult to complain about.
You say you are cleaning ‘toilets’ plural. Can MIL use only one of them? Why does she make a mess if she is physically capable? If you and the children have a clean toilet for yourselves, you can leave MIL’s for DH to clean. For myself, I’d get a commode for you and the children, tip it down the toilet and still leave that for DH to clean.
Can you find ways to focus more on your own family? Do they have the best technology, or can you provide if for them (another reason to have your own money)? Can you make a date for a long session with one of them a couple of times a week? Perhaps time it for the meal time, so you don’t have to listen to MIL (and also so that your presence won’t bring out the worse in MIL)?
If you have always been doormat, actions like this will change the dynamic. It may get worse, but then it may bring it up to DH and make him reconsider the way things have been. If MIL doesn’t like it, you can suggest AL. Stop thinking 'we will never put her in a care home', it's the same as 'he will never change' and 'I cannot leave'. Things simply do change. The most important change is to have your own money, even if you say it is because you want options once the children are grown.
Best wishes in a difficult situation.
Do what's best for you and your children. Break free now.
He is teaching his children to treat their spouse the same way and or he is teaching them to be subservient to their future partner.
He does have a bad habit. He repeatedly treats you with disrespect.
He may be a good provider. But is it for you and his children or to his family? (I almost do not think he considers you and the children as "his" family)
If you can not leave him now then it might be a good idea to just step away for a bit. Take the kids, visit your family, let the kids get to know another Grandma and Grandpa and the other relatives they have.
Take that time to recharge and refocus.
Your husband will be able to care for his mom. And may be more willing to accept help that he can hire that will help you with day to day things.
I doubt it would work and I hope the time you spend with your family would be a step to make the transition permanent.
I am going to be brutally honest in what I see. I am not trying to be cruel. I want you to wake up and see what you are dealing with.
You may have stated that you want to leave your husband but I don’t believe you. Something is holding you back. Do you fear him?
Why are you making excuses for him? You have justified his actions. There is no justification for his behavior.
Stop being selective about what you see and don’t see. Stop having selective memory. Start seeing him for who he is. He has shown his true colors.
Look at the entire picture and see how destructive your husband’s behavior is in your life. You and your children deserve better!
Are you going to wait until you are sick and tired of being sick and tired? That’s too late! You will regret it.
And I'm so glad that you are working on suggestions. Yours, Margaret
is there someone in your home culture who could help you escape with your children? Can your mother or father help you?
Please consider seeing a counsellor together to discuss your family issues - which are more than just your MIL living with you. I am very concerned about your children enduring tense situation with the verbal abuse from your MIL.
My son-in-law grew up with 2 abusive grandparents that needed assistance from his mom. After caring for them until they passed, his mother and my son-in-law have anxiety issues that can be off the charts at times. I would hate to see you or your children suffer mental health issues because of long-standing problems that never get resolved.
"She loves her five children to death but hates the two daughter in laws like hell."
WHATEVER culture or background, this is often a very common theme! I was merely the vessel that brought forth the grandchildren to my former MIL. My own mother NEVER thought any of our spouses were up to caliber. I got sick of hearing all the stuff she would say about my SILs, most of it just pure garbage. One, no longer married to my brother, passed away after surgery. YEARS later my mother was bad-mouthing her. It'd make me sick and angry. I vowed to lash into her the next time she did that (she DIDN'T have dementia or any health issues at that time.) Sadly I never got to do that - she started down the dementia path and I never heard about the others since. Rather ironic coming from a person who DETESTED her own MIL! I swore I WASN'T going to be that kind of MIL.
"In short, my main issue is him not standing up for me when my MIL yells at me, lack of understanding of my frustration, his constant caring to the point of irritation and sabotaging relationships with my side of the family/ friends."
Please understand that what I'm about to say here is in NO WAY intended to defend your MIL or belittle you for feeling as you do.
Very often with dementia there is a lot of anger, hurt, accusations, lies, etc. This is too often brought on by the condition AND too often directed at those who provide the most care. Not knowing any of you, perhaps some of what she exhibits may have been how she was all along, just exacerbated by the dementia. Clearly you feel she didn't like the "in-laws", so that can play a role, but the delusions, accusations of stealing, language and complaints are often some of the behaviors displayed by those with dementia.
That said, we often read and say to others to try not to engage in arguing, explaining, disagreeing, etc, basically not engaging in the behavior displayed in any way. This is, on some level, what your husband is doing: "...putting up with her delusions and agreeing with anything that she says or does. When my mother in law yells and curses me and complains about anything I make, he does not utter a word." Now, how he is dealing with her "bad" behavior is what is often recommended - defuse the situation, be agreeable, non-confrontation, etc. BUT, he should also be mindful of how this makes you feel. If possible, during a quiet time (hopefully you two DO get some peaceful time together), have a CALM discussion with him about this. Agree that you need to curb your reactions (and you need to try more, even if it's only once in a blue moon), but you also need his support. That doesn't mean he needs to chastise her for what she says or does - this doesn't work with dementia. It means he NEEDS to understand how much this hurts you and to "make up for it", try to give you time away from her, time to visit local family (non-local hopefully later, if/when this virus is gone!)
Avoid her as much as you can. IF she starts a tirade. take a deep breath and walk away. You aren't going to change her behavior and he likely can't either. You can only change how you react to what she says and does. It isn't easy to bite one's tongue, but in the end it's better all around for you to make the effort.
Some people get like this with dementia (or were like that and get worse.) I'm thankful my mother is rather pleasant in her MC and staff like her! She could be nasty before, but hasn't gotten worse. I'm also thankful she has assets to provide for her care, as I'm not able and my brothers are useless.
Any chance husband would agree to marital counseling? If not, can you get some outside support to help you cope with the situation? He might have some cultural predispositions, but still sounds like a very caring person. It just happens that most of his efforts, when not working to provide for everyone, are devoted to caring for his mother. Better than some get - their hubs dump ALL care on the wife!
Actually if hubby is not arguing with mom, he is handling the dementia in the best way. You cannot argue with a broken brain. No point in you losing your cool over things she says either. You're frustrating yourself over something you can't fix.
Quit dedicating your entire life to the situation. Do what you need day to day. Then plan a visit to see your mom. If you can't get there, can she come closer to you where you meet at a nice hotel and just enjoy each other's company? If nothing else, you TELL hubby she is coming, period. Your marriage and duty to hubby does not include severing ties with your family unless you allow it. Don't blame him, be mad at yourself and make changes that include your mom and sibling. You know, you are woman, let him hear your roar!!!
Everyone should ROAR in this scenario!