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[quote=Anonymous]I agree that your husband, not you, needs to deal with this. His parent, his to handle.

But you and he might be missing the larger issue here.

You mention that her health is declining and that she is anxious. Is she getting any help for those issues? If not, your husband and you might need to start working on that with and for her. If she's just muddling along and has no one, wherever she lives, to monitor her health, get her possible mental health intervention for her anxiety (which might improve if her health improves or at least if it can be managed better, if it won't improve)--then she's going to find[i] something [/i]to be anxious about when she's with you. It happens to be the help but if it weren't it might well be something else.

Maybe your husband is already working to help his mom with health and anxiety issues, if so, great. If not, that's the real root of this from how you describe it, and needs attention.

Meanwhile, can you arrange for the household help to come at times when you or your husband are out of the house with MIL? Take her for a half-day outing while the help cleans or whatever? That simply removes her from the source of what's stressing her and, in turn, stressing you.

Or is it possible to make do with less or no outside help during her visits?

I'd do these things just to distance her from what seems to be a trigger for her anxiety. It's not for weeks on end, right?

A hotel sounds like a good idea but consider carefully whether that will make things better or worse. If she is truly anxious she will find things at the hotel to stress over. But if she would do better with a neutral environment like a hotel, your husband should try it.  (My mom didn't have the issues your MIL does, but she did prefer to stay in a hotel when visiting--she just did, she slept better there, and could have some down time away from us.) I would take care that she doesn't feel the hotel idea is her being pushed aside -- try to present it to her as "This is a special treat for you--time for yourself, and we're here to chauffeur you to our place!"[/quote]

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