Reply to Secretly starting to resent husband and all the care of his elderly mom

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My good friend did what your husband did. It was the final nail in her marriage, it did her in with stress, age gained 40 pounds, her kids are a mess and she and her siblings are at war. Her mom appreciated nothing and complains that she never visits or cares. (Dementia). Now they hire our everything, she is on Ozempic, in individual therapy, getting couple's counseling, the kids are in therapy and she is on all sorts of meds for health issues. I can't imagine this is what decent elderly parents want for their kids and if they do that tell you a lot. You can hire someone to manage their care, visit and facetime in without doing yourself in.

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Yep, that's right. People's marriages break up because spouse is busy dealing with a parent with dementia in their final year or so of life.

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I have been through dementia with 2 parents and an inlaw. It isn't just one year. [/quote]

Wow. What a coincidence. Three out of four parents get dementia. The odds!

Anyone who walks away from a marriage because spouse is dealing with parents with dementia is a selfish cad. It's that plain and simple. There may be other problems and in that case it's really going to be the other problems, not the dementia.

Some of you are advocating people abandon their parents. Why don't we do the reverse? Abandon your babies when their ten months old? Why not?  I am chortling at the image of a certain poster up thread scolding a baby and saying "boundaries are important!"[/quote]

It's about 1/4 people over 80 with dementia, once you are in the 90s approximately 40% of people have it, and those are just the ones with formal diagnosis.

I get the sense the same person keeps posting over and over with extremes. It's not that one spouse leaves for 2 weeks and the other wants a divorce. The sandwich erodes at a marriage when it goes on for many years, there are disagreements between siblings, children you need you at home, etc.

We chose to become parents and I don't know many people who would chose eldercare over caring for a 10 month old baby who can smile and coo and meet new milestones.

There seems to be this very rigid and dramatic style of posting over and over. I have not seen anyone say to "abandon" your elderly parent who is aging. What I am seeing is instead of giving so much in person time to the parent that you are taking away from your own children, hire someone to help manage the parents care and still visit, but give more of yourself to your children you chose to have and your spouse and take care of yourself. It's not either or, but it is about re-calibrating what percentage you give to whom. There is a poster here who keeps insisting you hire out for the kids to be there for the parents and if you do the opposite and hire out for the parents, still visiting, and still being involved you are just terrible. It's very hard to reason with the black and white thinking.

This is why I think it's best for OP and her spouse to work with a professional who understands all the grey areas and all the things pulling at once and who isn't going to guilt trip and manipulate, but simply will help the negotiate, problem solve and  figure out the balance that works for them and make sure they take care of themselves and their marriage.[/quote]

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