I cared for my father for 4 years in my home until his death 2 months ago. he had suffered 3 strokes and had parkinson's but died from Liver cancer. (He was in and out of nursing homes but he lived with us the majority of the time.) My boyfriend of 7 years helped very little. He like dad but caretaking is not something he does well. During these 4 yrs our relationship got to be very strained due to the stress of caring for dad and we also had financial problems due to me not working outside the home. Dad did pay some but during his short stays at nursing homes I could not find a job and we had to struggle financially. My boyfriend is the type that when a bill comes in you pay it NOW.. Sometimes this was not an option because of my unemployment issues. He is also of the mindset that anybody can find a job in a day or so if they really try. he is a mechanic and has never had any trouble getting a job.. Anyway, he moved out last July and told me he wasn't in love with me anymore but he did still love me. We did maintain contact but had a misunderstanding and we no longer speak. I just wanted to know if the men in families where the wife (girlfriend) is the caretaker feel unloved, unimportant , things like that. I feel like that was a problem with us. Did anyone else's relationship fall apart because of the stress of caregiving?
Marijuana reduces frontal lobe function - which means lower initiative, lower judgement, lower empathy. If he has addled his brains enough with it, he will sit there and think that you "said it was OK to sell the wedding ring!" BUT - it could also become a wake up call for you two to get into counseling. I think there is a high chance it would succeed because it sounds like you both value your relationship. (I mean marital counseling, but who knows, maybe budget/credit counseling too. None of the nice things you own could be nicer than the gift of financial security but that will take some buy-in to agree to live within your means and stop sniping about it.) In any event, having a third party present the more adult perspective could take the wind out of the sails of him making you bad guy for not gratifying his every want! He does not have to "admit" to anything, he just has to change his ways and look at things in terms of mutual goals and shared responsibility. You might actually seek out a male counselor who could tell him man to man that he needs to man up here.
Who would want to spend their last years with someone who is angry at you because you are ill, and/or is too busy with a hobby [like watching sports to the extreme] to help you around the house, etc.
My hub is my best friend and I cherish what we have and don't want to lose it. My parents tell me can't you spend the night sometimes, the answer is always no unless it's emergency. When dad was in hospital I did stay with my mom but that was it. Don't get me wrong love our parents and we do everything we can, but I know my parents will not really care that much if our marriage was broken if they thought it mean more time with them caring for their needs.
I've read enough tragic and sad posts on this forum that serves as constant reminder to me at times when I may be weakening for whatever reason. My brother's girlfriend told me, well he's so busy he just can't do it. I said well, we work everyday just like he does and have other obligations as well. I told her you better hope you never get sick or need help because you can see just how much help you will get. And don't think for a minute somehow magically he will step up. I said think about it before you decide to marry him someday.
People who need to buy things in order to feel happy, satisfied, worthwhile? I think therapy is in order to find out why they feel empty.
The statement in your post that " my parents will not really care that much if our marriage was broken if they thought it mean more time with them caring for their needs." sounds like my MIL's outlook on both my marriage and on my SIL's marriage. She only misses her husband because he is not here to do something for him.
Such an outlook on life and the lives of others is pathetic and reflects someone who has grown old but has not grown up. People like that have never had healthy boundaries in their life and don't want anyone else to have them either.
Other than treating them as a fellow human being I really have a hard time respecting them because they are wise elderly people. I love being around wise elderly people, but not old kids who selfishly use people in their elderly years like they have their entire life.
Amen! Although people joke about it, "retail therapy" is not funny when the credit card comes due or the money is almost all spent and you can't pay your monthly bills. Also, people with bipolar disorder are not the only people who do this. They do it often when manic. Others do it when they are depressed. Real therapy cost less than what most people spend on retail therapy.
I had to get a hotel room a couple nights and inform my family I would be there until they cleaned up some mold (I'm allergic) and the source of it (their MESS, that I had cleaned umpteen times and had pile back up again instantly, then just got too busy at work to put in four hours a day picking up after people, even people I loved and a home I cared about...) It was not as drastic as abandoning the whole situation which is what I FELT like doing, because I'd been through so many promises to change that lasted maybe a week tops, if that. And thank God, it did work out. I had a more serious situation quite a few years back that took more serious intervention and help from our pastor to get my husband into counseling.
My wife's parents told her that they wanted her to stay home and look after them. Her mother told her to her face to not marry for she and her dad would meet all her needs! Really?
Don't feel bad about fighting boundary issues at 51 for my wife was about that age when she finally came to terms with things and decided to have her own boundaries with her mother. I had started a few years earlier with setting some boundaries about her mother, our house, our vacation, the boys, etc. all of which my wife agreed with before a social worker, but broke the one about our house and in response my therapist said the concrete consequence should be me calmly leaving with the boys for several days and nights which we did. We had to deal with this same thing one more time and that time my MIL said she's never set foot in our house again. I almost said thank God and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
I don't know why some therapist continue to do the outdated and shown to be useless psychoanalysis where you work like Freud mainly did to help people get insights. Often the insights come when we change our behavior.
Some therapists are wimps with their own codependent issues.
For me, a person trained in cognitive behavioral therapy is going to challenge both your thinking and your behavior.
I dare say that some parents have such terrible boundary issues that emotionally we must be seen as an extra spouse to substitute whenever needed. I know that I was and so was my wife, both by our moms. Not all moms are made of sugar and spice and everything nice!
Or maybe they just see us as an extension of themselves. That's often the case but that can be combined with other emotional issues as well.
One thing for sure, no one's spouse wants their spouse's inlaw to be an exendtion of their spouse for that would feel like your married to more than one person. Which it does by the way.
I just don't want my mom to think that this has anything to do with her being here.
So I snapped! I said, if I can get you $150 cash, will you just go away. He said and stay away? I didn't respond. So then he throws a hissy fit and starts packing his stuff in his car. All the while blaming me because I am ready to throw away 17 years. I said that I have been begging him for years to go to counseling and he just says, it will get better. Nothing ever got better. His son went to prison for 3 years got out, went back to his Mom's got his girlfriend pregnant, one stressor after another. I do love him and believe the pot is his self medicating substance, but it is way out of control and costs way too much when we are on a tight budget. There is part of me that wanted to just let him leave, but life isn't as easy as that. He stayed, went to bed, just woke up half asleep to use the bathroom and said he loved me and I said I loved him too.
Well, if he want go for counseling. Go yourself and go for yourself. You need a therapist who is going to do more than just sit there and listen, but someone who will give you some things to think about in a new light and some new behaviors to try.
Frankly, he's walking all over you. You get mad. He feels sorry. Then each of you say I love you but the pain remains on the back burner until the next bit of gas is thrown in and he evidently never changes.
Please call in the morning to find yourself a therapist.
Cmagnum, it's funny, I old my mom one time we're not married, you have a spouse (my dad who is okay most times but can be a jerk too) and I have a spouse. I told her my vows are to him and the Lord, not them and you too. At the time she had that nervous laugh as I think it really hit home, but still didn't change anything for her.
Your wedding day should be one of the best days of a person's life, right? Wrong! My mom cried like a baby that day 19 years ago and said she wasn't coming. So I had to get it together fast and told my brother he may have to walk me down the aisle. Not exactly great. My dad stepped in and said I'll walk you even if she doesn't come, but she did and it was fine. I know she treats me as her emotional spouse/companion and I chip away at it, not expecting her to do anything, but I'm making the changes necessary for my own individual and marital health.
I can trust him. All of this said, I made vows and I mean them. Just pray for me. Thanks.
I'm glad to hear that and try not to intellectualize the process. Take care and do something nice for you today.
That is funny. I"m glad that you said that and it possibly hit home. Parents like that usually don't change. So, it is up to us to seek not to dance the emotional dance with them.
In my experience with my mom, I was not as diplomatic, but nothing changed until I could get out of the house on my own and yet she still tried to hang on to me. My mother took off with me away from my dad when I was very young. She was extremely attached to me as her only child, controlling and very intrusive as well.
She got married and we moved to another town when I entered the 6th grade. I later came to see in therapy that she married my step-dad mainly just to get out of that town we were in. Mom kept doing as she always had done in her random visits into my room without knocking on my door. I got a copy of the Bill of Rights and wrote in article 11. "I have the right for anyone coming to my room to knock first before entering." Mom thought that was funny and pointed it out to her friends when they came over to play cards and drink. One day, I just blew up at her, yelling, "look you are married now, please let me go!!!!!!!" That statement and yelling it did not do one damn bit of good. She was still trying to hold on to me after I got married at age 31. I always thought it was strange that when I left home after high school that she left my step-dad to live at the beach in that house and basically only came home if I was visiting. To me, that looked like she had divorced him. My step-dad turned out to be an alcoholic which my mom soon became. Yet according to my dad, she had said often that she would not touch the stuff after she saw what it did to her dad. Husband #2 was ironically more like her dad and her becoming an alcoholic sure made things worse in a lot of ways.
My wife's mom had made her an emotional substitute in place of her husband and told he things that no parent should ever say to their child. Her mom did not want her getting married and she was older than I was when we got married, plus her mother told her to go to hell right before the wedding itself. BTW, MIL has never liked me at all for she can only related to feminized men like her dominated husband or to men who are gay. She only views people in terms of how useful they are to her. My SIL remains basically "emotionally married" to her mom and that has hurt her married greatly. She's been in therapy, did not follow the good advice given and stopped therapy because she said it cost too much! Bull, she has two insurance policies.
Well, enough about me and my wife's battles with moms who tried to make us substitutes.in their needy lives.
Take care and do something nice for you today. Like the song says, Love the one your with and I would add, get an emotional divorce from mom. When we both worked through getting an emotional divorce from out moms life was better and our marriage was better!
Hubby has agreed to go back to church with me. We used to go together every Sunday and Wednesday. We sang in the choir together and were involved in serving the Lord together, then he just stopped going. And Vstefans, all things are possible through Christ who gives me strength.
She is a child of God, and under His protection.
I am going to say this for me as much as for you: Never give the little tyrants money, pay your car payment with any money you can get. Throwing money at it makes it worse, not better. Vent away, I can so understand your frustration!
Our budget just gets tighter with more demands. But, he gets a regular allowance, I learned to do that, even though so much money was going his way. Wish I didn't have to be in charge of the money.