Wife refusing to pitch in with help with aging mother

[Anonymous]

Totally with your wife. Talk to your sister. You two work it out. You obviously didn’t speak up when your wife needed help. This is on you and your sister. How can you possibly think otherwise?

[Anonymous]

Just remember this and if anything happens on HER side of the family, please ignore and Do Nothing.

If your family is not worth her effort then certainly do not inconvenience yourself for hers.

If she understands that your mother is precious to you then the love in marriage should enable her to understand you need her to help you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just remember this and if anything happens on HER side of the family, please ignore and Do Nothing.

If your family is not worth her effort then certainly do not inconvenience yourself for hers.

If she understands that your mother is precious to you then the love in marriage should enable her to understand you need her to help you.

Her parents are dead

[Anonymous]

I still say the story doesn’t add up. OP doesn’t even mention coronavirus, you know, the biggest thing in the world right now? He says his children are going to “after school care.” OP is a troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Your wife is doing your whole family a favor, OP.

The level of dementia your mom has is unlikely to be handled well with check ins. It will get worse. You and your sister and dad want to pretend otherwise. All of you need to come up with a long term plan NOW while you have a little bit of time. You need to look into nursing homes or adult daycare centers, something. It sounds like you, your sister and your dad want to stick your heads in the sand and pretend that if you “pitch in” everything would be okay. It’s not.

All of you need to wake up.

The wife either needs to help this family find a placement for her MIL or she can STFU. No, she is not being helpful. She's be obstructive and unhelpful as a matter of fact. What kind of a woman (a social worker of all things!) guilts her husband for wanting to help his own mother?

While I agree that Mom probably does need some sort of LtC facility, that isn't going to happen overnight and in the meantime Dad needs help. He can not do this all alone.

Oooo you have issues. I bet you have a sil you hate. Dad needs to get real about his wife's deteriorating condition and change his work schedule. Op even stated that his family is used to and expects others to do for them. From that you get all this vitriol toward the wife. Like I said, YOU have issues pp. I also think the op is a troll and maybe you are op as well.

No. I have "issues" with spouses, especially spouses in helping professions, who would give their wife/husband a hard time for wanting to help out their own parent during a crisis. What Op's dad is dealing with right now is huge and Op needs to be there for his dad. No one is saying that he has to commit himself to providing long term dementia care for his mom.

What is happening with Op's mom did not happen overnight. She's been sick for awhile and, if Op has any relationship with his parents at all, he knows that something has been wrong with his mom for awhile, so does SIL. It has just now come to a head where their dad can no longer handle this alone. He needs help while he figures things out. I just find Op's wife's attitude disgusting - she appears to have little concern for her in-laws and zero empathy for what Op is going through. It's all about how this inconveniences HER and how SHE doesn't want to get involved and how SHE doesn't want to pay for a sitter. She is absolutely awful and Op shouldn't allow her crappy attitude to dictate his response to his parents' crisis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just remember this and if anything happens on HER side of the family, please ignore and Do Nothing.

If your family is not worth her effort then certainly do not inconvenience yourself for hers.

If she understands that your mother is precious to you then the love in marriage should enable her to understand you need her to help you.

Her parents are dead

So is her heart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just remember this and if anything happens on HER side of the family, please ignore and Do Nothing.

If your family is not worth her effort then certainly do not inconvenience yourself for hers.

If she understands that your mother is precious to you then the love in marriage should enable her to understand you need her to help you.

Her parents are dead

So is her heart.

That is some fantastic melodrama. Well done.

[Anonymous]

I would not burden this onto my husband. Team wife!

[Anonymous]

OP why did you mom not help you/your wife? Was it because she did not want to or was already busy with your sister’s kids? Was you wife the one that did not want your mom’s help?
I think this is important. If it was your mom or sister’s fault, than I think your sister now needs to pitch in way more than 1 or two days... maybe she does 4 days and you do 1.
However, if it was your wife that did not want your mom’s help (like it is with my SIL) then no... you/your wife should be pitching in equally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I still say the story doesn’t add up. OP doesn’t even mention coronavirus, you know, the biggest thing in the world right now? He says his children are going to “after school care.” OP is a troll.

Unfortunately, coronavirus or no coronavirus, family members are still having to deal with early onset Alzheimer's. It is a horrible, overwhelming thing in the best of times and I'm sure that this virus has made things even more of a nightmare to deal with now. During normal times a caregiver might be able to get a break with adult daycare. But I doubt that's even an option now.

Op's dad is trying to hold down a job while caring for a spouse who is no longer in her right mind. He is worried that she might burn the house down, wander off, leave the water running and flood the house or some other equally bizarre thing while he's at work. He needs help while he tries to figure out what to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP why did you mom not help you/your wife? Was it because she did not want to or was already busy with your sister’s kids? Was you wife the one that did not want your mom’s help?
I think this is important. If it was your mom or sister’s fault, than I think your sister now needs to pitch in way more than 1 or two days... maybe she does 4 days and you do 1.
However, if it was your wife that did not want your mom’s help (like it is with my SIL) then no... you/your wife should be pitching in equally.

This is not about Op's wife. It just isn't. Making it about Op's wife and why she is feeling so resentful towards SIL is ridiculous. She clearly needs to stay out of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Paying $40/day and traveling so much just to check on your mother for a few minutes is stupid.

If I were your wife, I would put my foot down too even if you didn’t have siblings to help.

1. Tweak med schedule so your mother can stay until your father comes home. Magnesium supplements are a good idea.

2. Hire a neighbor (retiree, high schooler, college student) to check on your mother. $10/hr.

3. Work on getting your mother in a nursing home. There are waiting lists, so plan now.

An older person who is alone in there house for 4 hour stretches is not medically fragile. DH can't afford the agency who runs a minimum of 4 hours per visit. Yes a neighbor could stop by briefly and be paid to heat up a meal in the microwave or pull a sandwich out of the frig. A high schooler, certainly a family member is competant of doing this. Early on in alzheimers it is almost like doing a welfare check. Mom is late stage alzheimers and I still would not call her medically fragile.
We've had to use the neighbors at times and we've had to use a college student.
OMG. You do NOT pay a high schooler $10/hr to check in on a medically fragile elderly person!

DCUM...where a nanny must have a PHD and be fluent in 5 languages to watch your sleeping child while you and your spouse go on a dinner date---but let any random 16 year old provide medical care for the elderly.

I feel the same about the suggestions to get a neighbor to fill in. I don't know a single person who would agree to this even if paid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just remember this and if anything happens on HER side of the family, please ignore and Do Nothing.

If your family is not worth her effort then certainly do not inconvenience yourself for hers.

If she understands that your mother is precious to you then the love in marriage should enable her to understand you need her to help you.

Her parents are dead

So is her heart.

That is some fantastic melodrama. Well done.

Helping out family does not come with a scoreboard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Paying $40/day and traveling so much just to check on your mother for a few minutes is stupid.

If I were your wife, I would put my foot down too even if you didn’t have siblings to help.

1. Tweak med schedule so your mother can stay until your father comes home. Magnesium supplements are a good idea.

2. Hire a neighbor (retiree, high schooler, college student) to check on your mother. $10/hr.

3. Work on getting your mother in a nursing home. There are waiting lists, so plan now.

OMG. You do NOT pay a high schooler $10/hr to check in on a medically fragile elderly person!

DCUM...where a nanny must have a PHD and be fluent in 5 languages to watch your sleeping child while you and your spouse go on a dinner date---but let any random 16 year old provide medical care for the elderly.

I feel the same about the suggestions to get a neighbor to fill in. I don't know a single person who would agree to this even if paid.

An older person who is alone in there house for 4 hour stretches is not medically fragile. DH can't afford the agency who runs a minimum of 4 hours per visit. Yes a neighbor could stop by briefly and be paid to heat up a meal in the microwave or pull a sandwich out of the frig. A high schooler, certainly a family member is competant of doing this. Early on in alzheimers it is almost like doing a welfare check. Mom is late stage alzheimers and I still would not call her medically fragile.
We've had to use the neighbors at times and we've had to use a college student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Paying $40/day and traveling so much just to check on your mother for a few minutes is stupid.

If I were your wife, I would put my foot down too even if you didn’t have siblings to help.

1. Tweak med schedule so your mother can stay until your father comes home. Magnesium supplements are a good idea.

2. Hire a neighbor (retiree, high schooler, college student) to check on your mother. $10/hr.

3. Work on getting your mother in a nursing home. There are waiting lists, so plan now.

OMG. You do NOT pay a high schooler $10/hr to check in on a medically fragile elderly person!

DCUM...where a nanny must have a PHD and be fluent in 5 languages to watch your sleeping child while you and your spouse go on a dinner date---but let any random 16 year old provide medical care for the elderly.

I feel the same about the suggestions to get a neighbor to fill in. I don't know a single person who would agree to this even if paid.

An older person who is alone in there house for 4 hour stretches is not medically fragile. DH can't afford the agency who runs a minimum of 4 hours per visit. Yes a neighbor could stop by briefly and be paid to heat up a meal in the microwave or pull a sandwich out of the frig. A high schooler, certainly a family member is competant of doing this. Early on in alzheimers it is almost like doing a welfare check. Mom is late stage alzheimers and I still would not call her medically fragile.
We've had to use the neighbors at times and we've had to use a college student.

The OP states in his first post that the mom has "multiple chronic illnesses" and is already starting to sundown at 4--which is the time you'd be sending this hypothetical high school student in to "check" on her.
I'm a parent of high schoolers and there is no way I'd let them take on a job like that for liability reasons! Not to mention $10 compensation is not enough to tie down a high schooler to 4 pm every day--during "normal" (non Covid) times, most high school students are at sports practice or other EC activities.