My mother in law (MiL) suffered a massive stroke and is paralyzed on the right side and incontinent and can't communicate much. My DH wants to leave his job to move home to be her caregiver either at her house or to visit her daily if she is discharged to a nursing home or assisted living. She used to live by herself. He is adamant of his decision whether I move with him or not. I neither speak the language nor have a job if I move with him. I offered him that we visit his Mom once every 2 weeks as we live in a different country from his Mom (~1.5 hours flight). I am torn and don't know what to do. I don't want to devote my life to care for his Mom and feel rotten for not being able to support my DH with his wish. I will also likely lose my marriage as I don't know how to maintain a long distance one with no end in sight. I moved from the US to Europe to be with him leaving my aging parents in the US. I still live with that guilt as I put my marriage over taking care of my parents. I am still taking care of my parents long distance and flying back and forth the US to see them. Thank you very much in advance for all the advice!
How will you eat? How will you pay bills? Is his mother going to pay him a salary? How will you save for YOUR future needs?
I’m sorry this is happening to you.
(I assume he is an only child). Most likely, he doesn't realize the magnitude of care she will most certainly need. In a very short while, he will learn that he can't possibly take care of her alone, and will most likely put her in a nursing home. With Covid-19 rampant, will he even get to visit her everyday like he thinks he can?
Stay where you are, you have a job and parents of your own that you tend to when you can. If your hubby insists on going, let him work it out on his own. Be supportive on your own terms. This is a situation with an outcome that is impossible to predict right now, but I think will work itself out in time. BTW, last year my ex-MIL had a massive stroke after Covid-19, was paralyzed on one side, couldn't talk, wasn't eating, and was put on hospice. She is now eating, talking, regained partial strength on the damaged side, and is off hospice-she is 95. So you see - you never know!
Have faith and don't listen to the haters, always go with your gut!
Sounds like a passionate immediate knee jerk response on his part. I must help Momma, I must go now! Maybe this is what you love about him, his family values, his sense of duty?
But being Superman flying to rescue his Mother will leave his Lois Lane to fend for herself.
If you love your Superman - set him free. Would it be possible to give him a little time to work out where he will fit in his Mother's health crises?
Could he;
1. Discuss & plan that you will both have the finances to meet your obligations (rent/mortgage, bills, car, insurances, food etc) while you are separated?
2. Put a time limit on his assessing the situation he finds once there with Mother.
3. Put a time limit to decide his plans: to either find a permanent care solution for his Mother (not him) & return to you OR decide he will stay indefinitely & set you free.
It may be that he turns up, is devestated by her loss of health, they cry & grieve together. He tries to do everything, fix everything, then realises he cannot actually fix the stroke. Only time can (IF it can). He may then see it is Mother that needs to change HER life. Needs to move in with local family, or into care. Then he can adjust. 'Trial of Care' it is called.
I believe marriage is not all black or white. You have hit a grey patch. A challenge that hopefully, with continued good communication, you can get through.
by Kenneth M. Adams Ph.D. and Alexander P. Morgan.
He sounds like a son whose mother made him an emotional partner as this book points out, Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners by Kenneth M. Adams PhD
He's been groomed this way and is going to be tough to break. His being adamant about this sounds much like my wife and her mother before she got freedom via therapy and my not putting up with it. I had my own problems with my mother which never got resolved until she began her own decline and the memories came back.
Whether he goes or not, you need the support of a therapist and it would be nice if he'd join you.
I must run to a PT appointment, but I will be back and keep up with you. I will be praying for you. You are not alone. We have had people here who are married to men just like your husband.
I am sorry that you married a man that wants to put his mom before you. It's ok that he wants his mom to get great care, but that can be done by others, and not at the expense of your marriage. Sounds like he's already made his choice when he picked his mom over you, so that in itself should tell you a whole lot. Get yourself a good lawyer. Best wishes.
Why should you feel rotten to ask to be put first? I strongly suggest some therapy.
When we marry, we pledge to put our spouse and our children first in our lives. Not our parents.
I feel you don’t have the same love as your husband had for his
and you feeling are not strong for him
he’s best going without you
unconditional love is what should be; not double standards and cruelty. I hope whatever you decide makes you happy; you deserve that 💖
Some things a marriage cannot recover from.
I can understand your husband's anguish with his mother having had a massive stroke and needing a lot of care. However, I don't believe he understands the amount of care his mom needs 24/7. Every 2 hours, she will need to be turned in her bed, will need to be checked for skin problems, and and need to be cleaned if she voided or had a bowel movement. If she can not swallow, she will need to be fed via a tube with a liquid nutrition. If she is awake and he intends for her to regain abilities, he will need to exercise her limbs several times a time. Of course, she will most likely need to be bathed in her bed, dressed in her bed, and linen changes done in her bed. Getting her into a recliner will require a lot of physical strength since she will most likely not be able to bear her own weight. There are devices to help with these tasks. Depending on finances and resources in country, those devices may be harder to source during a pandemic or not available at all. In short, 1 person will not be able to provide all the care she needs. If there are nursing homes in her country, that would be the best option for now.
As for the visits, he probably wants to be near her since he fears she is closer to death, With COVID, she is at greater risk of not surviving. He would hate to not see her while she is alive. You probably have similar feelings since you travel to see and care for your parents. It might be wiser for him to fly to her for an extended visit - 4-6 weeks - to make sure she is set up with all the care she needs and to "visit." He can also catch up with any family members there and arrange a visiting schedule so mom is seen by family throughout the week. Once that is arranged, he will probably feel more comfortable resuming his work/home life in the U.S.A... and making arrangements for frequent trips to see her.
I feel sorry for all of you but your marriage should come first and sadly your husband isn't doing that.
Usually I would suggest making a list of pros and cons but it sounds like a fairly clear choice.
Why not let him go and see how it works for him. Maybe he will decide it is too much and too hard to be away from you?
Good luck.
When do you (you plural, I mean all involved) need to have a plan in place? - that is, is she expected to be discharged to a rehab or intermediate care centre, straight home, or what, and when?
If the stroke happened within the last week, and your husband is panicking, I suggest you make no decisions of any sort but just make soothing noises along the lines of "let's wait and see." Will his employer not allow him extended compassionate leave? What country are you/is MIL in?
Stay where you are and let your husband do what he needs to do and wait and see.
Have you thought about having her move in with ya'll and having a Caregiver care for her?
Prayers
Giving your husband the benefit of the doubt, he may be over-reacting to the situation for emotional reasons of his own. Give it a few weeks. Support his need to go to his mother for now, but stay where YOU need to be and let him work out his own issues. Right now it seems that his views of his own duties to parents are a far cry from what he expects of you concerning your parents. It seems a bit hypocritical that he has no problem with you caring for your parents long distance but HIS mother needs around-the-clock attention. He could snap back into normal once the shock is over. He may not.
If you cannot remain in your current home on your salary alone, begin looking to downsize, but do not sign anything for a week or two. Your husband may realize that daily care of his mother is not something that he can really do. If he does not come back home within a couple of weeks you may want to think about moving back to the city where your parents live. It seems that your husband is making all the major decisions in your marriage and you only react to them. If his determination is fixed, you would be better to care for yourself first. I cannot imagine that you would find any happiness caring for your mother-in-law in a country where you would be totally isolated.
Although there are times in a marriage when family or work must take a temporary precedence over the marriage, that must always be temporary. If your husband continues to insist that his mother and her needs (or his perception of them) are more important than your marriage, he has told you all you need to know, I think.
You should put him onto this group because he will get a good education on what it's really like. Please show him this post. I'm making this lesson one of his caregiving education having been an in-home elder caregiver as a job for nearly 25 years and am currently one to my elderly mother. This is what he can look forward to.
His mother had a debilitating stroke that left her paralyzed, unable to communicate and incontinent. Almost always a stroke like that for an elderly person also results in dementia. To be honest it is unlikely she will even live for much longer. My elderly father had a stroke leaving him much the same condition as your MIL. Before it happened he was in remarkable health. 90 years old and still living independently, driving, golfing a full course twice a week, and still on his bowling team with guys 20 and 30 years younger who couldn't keep up with him. He had the stroke, went to a nursing home and died a few months later. He survived it, but never recovered to where he wasn't a total invalid. Your husband needs to consider this before leaving his job and uproot not just his life but yours too . Give up his home, his employment, your employment, his friends and social life, and probably his marriage to take care of his mother who will probably pass away from the stroke complications and if she doesn't right away will end up in a nursing home with professional staff, trained in invalid care because the two of you won't be able to provide the 24 hour care she needs.
This is what your husband can look forward to if he moves the two of you into mom's house.
A house that always smells like urine and feces no matter how much you clean. Feeding, bathing, changing diapers, dressing, repositioning, transferring, and more dirty laundry then you've ever seen in your life. Every single day. Seven days a week. Even holidays. Not to mention that unless her home is already handicapped accessible, bringing in contractors to tear the place up to make it so. Otherwise the only people who will be able to physically get her out of the house will be paramedics. What happens if there's an emergency like a fire and you have to get her out?
Sure, you can bring in some aide care and that will help out some, but unless mom or the two of you are rich, the amount of hours a day she will need will be very expensive.
The logical solution for you in my opinion would be to have her discharged to a nursing home /LTC facility that is near enough to you that your husband can get there daily or several times a week.
So wait a sec...she does not even live in your same town? And you're expected to uproot any semblance of your OWN life to become enslaved with caring an incontinent inlaw? Not to even mention the burden on your finances of biweekly flights? Yeah, this is definitely a lose/lose situation, but maybe not...MAYbe mom doesn't even want her son OR you as caregivers?
I'm really sorry for the position you are in...especially with the stress of knowing you are caring for mil whom you don't feel connected to nor want to care for while your own parents may be struggling back in the US.
My recent experience has colored many of my replies here of late...but if we don't take care of ourselves, nobody else is going to! I tried hard to take care of my own elder and frustrating to the nth degree parents, and still am to a reduced extent. But the end of September, healthy me just didn't feel very good out of the blue. I felt weak as well. In the end my life was turned upside down. The rescue squad got me to the hospital which sent me by helicopter to the main campus of the Cleveland Clinic where I only learned recently how I arrived close to death, and had emergency surgery for an aortic dissection. Scary thing that comes on suddenly with no warning but can brew over time with blood pressure being a contributing factor. Don't let that happen to you. I have never been married but can imagine how stressful and upsetting it would be to break apart from someone I loved enough to marry....I think you need to establish some clear boundaries and guidelines for what you can and what you want to do for this MIL, as well as your own parents who deserve equal time in a way. What is your husband willing to do for THEM? Maybe some seeking out a counselor to help mediate through this; so someone is there to advocate for you life and needs as well? Look, your number one goal is to stay alive and take care of YOU. And sometimes we know within ourselves what we need to do. Sending hugs and holding good thoughts...and don't forget this one: You know the airline warning...you put your OWN mask on first should it be needed, before helping others, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to. Wishing you all the best...I would help btw with finding local resources to help them, set up a plan for inhome assistance, hoping there are some...