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I think it is important to mention that his parents helped the husband with his recovery - in fact, both the husband and wife agreed that he should move in with them. So for a number of weeks, both thought it would be best for him to be recovering with his parents. The parents would have been on his "team" to help him (and been his "rock") while the wife continued with her life as usual.

With the husband's own health issues, his dad's decline and passing, and then his mom's re-adjustment to her new life, he is now facing a lot of challenges.

I understand that why the wife is, now, feeling lonely and depressed with the way that this situation has unfolded. This situation is difficult for everyone - the husband, the mom and the wife.

Yet, this scenario seems to be presented as being so polarized - his mother versus his spouse. The husband is suddenly forced to deal with not only his own grief over his dad's passing (and any estate issues), his worries about his mom and her health/needs, his health but also now, his wife (his purported "teammate") pushing him to choose between his mother (who needs him, for right or wrong) and her.

Being put into a forced choice situation between a wife and widowed mom, could (and frankly should) make the husband resentful. A true team would be working together to provide the widowed mom with the support that is needed. The only issue preventing her from living with the widowed mom is because she "demands takeout"? I wish that the wife would have some empathy for her husband as well as for the widowed mom - the wife is not being "cast aside" - her husband and his mom are struggling with the many losses that have occurred. Give them both some grace and maybe she can actually be the teammate that the wife purports herself to be, one who understands that her husband and his family have gone through a lot rather than becoming demanding herself.
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anonymous1732518 Oct 2023
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Please don’t say “his Mom cannot live in our home. We don't have a downstairs shower/tub or bedroom”. The next step after that is a nice little addition including a shower and bedroom. Just stick to “Mom cannot live in our home”.
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Maryjann Oct 2023
Not everyone has the yard space to put in a nice little addition. Maybe they live in a condo. Maybe they’re financially tapped out from student loans or caring for their own children. The OP wasn’t looking for an argument over her ideas of care.
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It's 6 months , OP is reasonable in thinking by now her husband should have gotten the mother some help coming in her home, or have her in assisted living so he could return to being a husband to his wife and not his mother.

My FIL's wife died last year. He was living in independent living in Florida but needed more help. We had been down to Florida 5 months earlier and tried to talk to FIL and his wife about assisted living. They refused. When the wife died it was apparent my FIL had declined since we saw him 5 months earlier. IN a matter of 6 WEEKS this is what was accomplished.

My husband picked up his Dad planned the funeral and we took him to his wife's funeral in NY.

Then my husband flew back to Florida with his Dad for a week to collect belongings to be sent to us and empty out apartment. And I might add, traveling by airplane with his father was a nightmare. His father was also horrendous during the packing process, He just wanted to be taken to his MANY favorite restaurants one more time before he left.

While they were in Florida I scheduled tours for AL for when they returned.

Then my husband and his father flew back to our house in Pennsylvania. He stayed at my house for 4 weeks while we toured assisted living facilities. FIL could not be left home alone, he would use the stove . I work out of the house. My husband had to work from home everyday instead of hybrid . By the third week of FIL staying with us his boss was getting annoyed. Husband had already taken time off with the funeral and flying back and forth he hadn't stepped foot inside the office building in weeks.

The weeks that FIL stayed with us were horrible.
First of all , he could not get up the stairs. My son had to come over and we moved a bed downstairs to my husband's office and moved my husband's desk upstairs . I ran to Target and bought a waterproof mattress cover. FIL wet on my couch 3 times. Left BM messes on the floor, faucet handles , fan switch , wall by the toilet paper, left wet wipes with BM top of the back of the toilet etc in the 1/2 bathroom, which became FIL bathroom while he stayed with us. He dragged BM on floors outside the bathroom that got on his shoes. I came home each day from work and cleaned. In the middle of this we took him on multiple tours for an AL, late afternoons.

We had to take him over to my daughters apartment to shower, she had an elevator in her building, but it was a bathtub. We had to help get him in and out of it which was more difficult then we thought it would be. After that we paid for a handicapped hotel room a couple of times just to use the shower.
When FIL finally chose an AL, the day he was moving out of my house he attempted to extract promises. He said " I'll go to this place but I want to be taken out to dinner twice a week and one day on the weekend. "

And my husband had to do all this and take his Dad to a lawyer to get POA, open a bank account local to pay his bills, get his Dad a PA photo ID at DMV. I"m sure I left something out. as a side note It took DH a year to figure out the financial mess that his father left .

If all this was done in 6 WEEKS while we worked, I think this OP's husband should have made enough progress by now to get home to his wife. OP's husband is long overdue in coming home.
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Southernwaver Oct 2023
Sounds like a nightmare but that was a great idea to rent the hotel room just for the shower.
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My ex DW was a LonelySpouse…we were just last month divorced after forty years…in large part because I along with two siblings divide the year into thirds, taking turns caring for my 90-year-old mom with dementia in her home…which is only within driving distance of one of us. There is a care team in place as well, but for less than 40 hours per week.

We tell ourselves that we are doing the right thing, and being empathetic to our mother, who needs someone on her property all the time.

We think we are living according to the golden rule: treating our mother the way we would like to be treated (but almost certainly won’t be) if we were in her shoes. And I sincerely told my wife that I would embrace her spending 1/3 of the year caring for a parent. If life gave me that lemon, I would have zero problem making perfectly good lemonade from it.

So LonelySpouse, even if your spouse is only gone 33% of the time, it could torch your marriage.

And to other readers/commenters: what’s so bad about giving your widowed mother so much time and attention in the final 5-10 years of her life? Is this a case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions? Also, is it just my imagination, or do lots of husbands have a much easier time with their wives being wrapped up in caregiving for a parent than vice versa?
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MargaretMcKen Oct 2023
Tiger Dog, haven’t you answered your own question? “What’s so bad about giving your widowed mother so much time”? Answer: Doing it without your wife’s agreement has ruined your marriage. Unless you are blaming your wife for not agreeing with you, then you have to blame yourself. You had other options. She chose other options too.
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It sounds as though DH and mom have a co-dependent relationship.

He says that she's independent, but he needs to stay?

Does he have cognitive issues? Mental health concerns?
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Your husband hasn't accepted what is going on yet. Sometimes it takes a LONG time for the actual child of the person to come to terms with going against their parent's wishes for their own safety and wellbeing. That was me for a long time, but moving house was never an option in my marriage, I knew that much. I am sorry. I hope he will figure it out soon.
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Grasping for straws here....an idea.

You say that you are the breadwinner?
Now, it's "I am the breadwinner in my household. My work hours are steady, and my husband is self-sufficient now, so my work isn't really a barrier anymore."

Does "self-sufficient" mean financially-an inheritance from his father maybe?

If he no longer needs your money, maybe he feels independent from you now.
Finances are always a big factor. One woman told me that if her husband had his own money, he would leave her. And he did when his parents passed and left him an inheritance.

Something to think about. If your money (which is yours, his, ours) in the marriage is going to support your husband to live at his Mom's, then you could say this to him:

"I respect your decision to help your Mom". Then proceed to quietly cut off any and all financial support of him until, and if, he returns home. His Mom, and his inheritance can support him over there? She can pay his medical bills too. There is absolutely no need to give him any more money?

The shared finances will return when he returns home.

Think also about: Is there a possibility that he does not want to share his inheritance with you?

See an attorney to protect your financial investment in your marriage.

The man who left his breadwinner wife sued and won support from her, got 1/2 of the house value from her etc. On top of not required to share his inheritance from his parents. (This is separate property unless he co-mingles his money with yours.)

Sounds like a legal separation, doesn't it?

I really don't know why I am sharing this with you, for all the heat I will be taking on from others for saying it out loud. And I hope it all works out best for you both. And you get your husband back soon.
The world all seems so upside down now.

Can you start to go out on regular and pleasant dates with him?
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