Reply to DIL choosing not to get involved in MIL's care

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Your DH needs to talk to his siblings to see if they feel they have taken on a larger share. Each sibling needs to contribute fairly via themselves or their spouse in their stead. [/quote]

Actually, no. That might be true in your family but it's not true in every family and there are reasons why one sibling might take on a larger share.

Also, one problem with this approach is that if siblings disagree about the total amount of work needed, the person who wants the most work to be done will always be able to accuse others of not doing their "fair share". For instance, this situation, most of the actual care is being provided by paid employees (the physical care and all the house maintenance). What the siblings are doing is the companionship, to make sure the MIL is not alone all the time. For companionship, some siblings will feel that having family spending time with her twice a week is plenty. Others will feel that anything sort of daily is not enough. How do you reconcile that? The differing opinions will be based on personalities, their individual relationship with the MIL, and their own preferences. No one is "right", no one is "wrong". But it's not fair for the person who has decided that MIL must be visited for at least two hours, seven days a week, to then say "Ok, my SIL must take one of those shifts because otherwise it's not feasible."

If SIL thinks her mom needs to be visited daily, and the other siblings disagree, then it is up to the SIL to shoulder the burden of her much higher standard of what adequate care is. She can't force her siblings to feel differently, and she's not automatically correct about her demands just because it's more than what others feel is enough.[/quote]

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