Would you help an in-law who has verbally, mentally, and emotionally abused you for years?

I am going through this now with my mother. She fits the definition of "borderline" to a T. Although when well-balanced, she could be giving and supportive, those times became fewer and fewer over the years. She would have meltdowns with my father that I am almost positive led to his death by heart attack at 48. She drove a wedge between my brother and me. He escaped her grasp over 40 years ago. They now only have a telephone relationship. She has never met his wife or children. I was left at home as I am much younger than my brother. She got her hooks in me and controlled every aspect of my life until I was 45 and realized I had devoted my entire life to her. She threatened to disown me (money is a major source of control for these people). However, freedom was more important, so I left. We didn't speak for about 16 years-- until my brother called to ask that I go to see her because she had a heart attack. (He is evidently too afraid to re-engage with her in person.) I went and was sorry for it. During the 1 year I spent in her presence, I moved her to a new apartment and sold her car (at her request). When her health got worse, I found rehabilitation care for her. Nothing I did pleased her--despite the fact that I had three surgeries in between running to help her out. One surgery was a hysterectomy due to cancer. She gave me about 1 week to recover and then called to yell at me about the (very nice) assisted living facility I moved her to. I went no contact for about 3 years--until I saw her coming out of a store the other day. I thought maybe things had changed since she is in her late 90s now. Surely, I thought, she would have mellowed. No such luck. She NEVER asked how I was doing or expressed any happiness in seeing me. Instead, she went into a diatribe about the assisted living home I had chosen for her. Realizing I am still a punching bag, I walked away. I have since made the decision to help from behind the scenes, but interacting with her is impossible and even dangerous to my well being. I have tried hard enough.

Wow, we must have the same MIL! Back in 2013 we got into an argument, I hung up on her and we haven’t spoken to each other & I was ok with that. She and her mentally challenged son came to live with us in 2019. They uprooted our entire life. She was in the beginning stages of dementia. She had 5 children. I married the oldest, 2nd son is Pete the a$$hole and lives 1200 miles away with heart problems. Barry is the mentally challenged one living with us. Janet (the only girl) passed away in 1990 and the youngest, Jim died in 2020.
MIL is in late stage dementia, had a TIA stroke and has CHF, depends on me for pretty much everything. She doesn’t remember what our relationship was for the past 40 years. I find that it’s so ironic that “I” will be the last one standing making all the decisions about my MIL & BIL life & death. FIL passed in 2008. Doesn’t look like BIL Pete will live pass 2022. My hubby will give me a wide berth once MIL passes. She has pre-filled out a form from the funeral palor on what she wants done for her & her son Barry. Luckily, she hasn’t paid for these services, so it’s basically her last wishes on a checklist…..NOT including the casket, opening the grave and chiseling the death dates…. Came to over $14,000.00. Yeah, no, that ain’t happening. As the family plot is about 1200 miles away, she wants to have her body flown up so she can be buried with her husband, daughter & son. I, of course tell her yes,yes,and yes. Me, the DIL that wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t ‘blood family’ her words ( what does that even MEAN?) is the one who will have her cremated. If, I get up north, I will spread her ashes on the family plot.
Call me cruel, but I spent 3 years of my life taking care of this woman, even in the beginning when she still had lucid moments & was so demanding. I do not feel in the least bit remorseful for how I plan on getting in the last word.

"I have decided to not help, something I always knew in my heart to be true. Guilt led me here. I have also reconsidered stopping what I was doing prior as she continues to berate me and speak ill of me behind my back."

Yay! So you're considering stopping the shopping, cleaning, cooking and laundry?

Please keep us updated -- we're on your side!

Thank you all so much for taking the time to provide your thoughts and laughter. Someone of you really had me cracking me up!

I have decided to not help, something I always knew in my heart to be true. Guilt led me here. I have also reconsidered stopping what I was doing prior as she continues to berate me and speak ill of me behind my back. She also uses me to do things for her to remain a sense of control over me and her son. (It’s just such sick behavior. Narcissists are sick in the head!)

In my heart, I know I am unable to properly care for her in the way she needs due to my incapacity to have compassion for her any longer, in any situation. She deserves more.

In more recent interactions I’ve learned to hang up when she starts getting in a certain mood. If I’m visiting in person, I set a specific time frame of how long I’ll stay. I don’t visit in person to spend time any longer, I’m usually dropping something off or picking something up. That time frame is 15 minutes.

I am very cordial to her when I do have to interact with her. I smile and am very polite. The relationship is completely on my terms. She no longer runs the show!

None of us are completely equipped to say for sure what you should do, but I'm going to tell you my experience so hopefully you can assess your situation more fully. My mom was married 6 times. My dad was her first husband. Her 6th husband was her longest marriage at almost 38 years when he died almost 3 years ago. I was never really very close to any of my step fathers because we lived 1200 miles away, but things took a really bad turn several years ago with my last stepfather. I was blindsided by something he did and we did not speak for several years. I had developed early onset cataracts and was going blind. Mom said she had lots of money and would help me, but at the last minute, he would not let her do it. I had to scramble to find a way to pay for the surgery. Then, several years later, he needed open heart surgery and they both needed help. Two of my sisters each took some time to help, then my older sister called and said it was time for me to come and put in some time. I worried my self almost sick with dread, but went anyway. I was shocked to find what was going on. I did not realize how bad things were and that my mom had dementia. She could promise anything but was incapable of reality. He never told us, and was trying to care for her the best he could.
During all of this, I came to see another side. He and I became so close that I even ended up calling him Dad. My own father had died many years before. We eventually moved them to be close to us, then 3 weeks after they moved here, we found out he had stage 4 liver cancer. I was his only caregiver, and it was a lot of work taking him to so many Dr. appointments, grocery shopping, and so much more. I came to love him as a second father and he was SO grateful for the relationship we grew into. He died 6 months after they moved here. I came to understand that the reason he did not want mom to help me was because he was SO worried about there being enough money for her to be taken care of after he was gone.
Now... for your situation, only you can determine if there is any chance for healing or if she is still just a toxic mess that would suck the life out of you. If you do help more and she does the same thing, like my pastor said, "You are required to forgive, but aren't required to throw yourself in front of a speeding train." There is a difference between forgiving and forgetting.
Good luck, God bless you as you make the decision that is right for you.

As family, I would make sure she is cared for, but it doesn't mean I have to do the hands-on caregiving. Every person has to decide on what the limits of behavior that can be tolerated. Seems your MIL has over-stepped those limits as her usual behavior.

You are entitled to your own life and your own pursuit of happiness. You already do what you can to help her. And what you do is considerable. Does she have the finances to hire aides to help fill in the gaps? You also need to discuss this with your husband. How does he feel about this? Is this something you would do for him (not her)? Would you be willing to oversee her aides, if she gets them? You may want to connect with a local social worker to discuss her options. You may have to talk to the social worker with your husband, if he is her POA. If she is so very sick, she may eligible for hospice. You'd need her doctor to sign off on hospice. Hospice would make additional services, equipment and supplies available to her.

If the situation didn't feel 'good' to me for any reason(s), I would say "NO".
Of course she wants your help.
If you decide to work for / with her in any capacity, be prepared for the same behavior / communication from her that you have experienced in the past.

She will not change.

You will need to decide how you want to be treated / respected and set boundaries if you do not get your needs met.

You need to ask yourself the question you are asking us. Why are you considering working / helping her? Is it guilt, low self-esteem, need the money, if there is any provided, you need to feel you are 'helpful' as this makes you feel good about yourself? You need to do some soul searching and honor your self / your feelings.

There is what goes around comes around and I fully believe in this. But Karma is being used wrong. Karma doesn't happen in this lifetime, it happens in the next. Its part of reincarnation. What you did bad in the previous life will effect how your next life goes. So in this instance MIL has been abusive to DIL, in the next life she may be abused. Its part of a learning process for the soul to perfect itself. My GF believed in all of this when we were young. She believed we lived 12 lives and by the 12th our soul is perfect.

Nope. I would not.

Mainly because nope, I would not. But also partly because vulnerable people (no matter what their past failings) deserve to be cared for by people who don't harbour major negative feelings towards them, and for the particular person I have in mind that wouldn't include me. Never mind how I feel about caring for her, she deserves more than I can offer.

I didn't like my MIL either. Not sure if she told my DH not to marry me. I know she was not happy he married someone with a child and divorced. Not sure what she thought was out there for a 34 yr old man. I doubt a young virgin. I wish I had belonged to this group 40 yrs ago and I would have realized that she had a personality disorder that made me back away because of things she said and did. I could be around her but only with my husband present. A week at a time was enough. She came across as a sweet lady but a former neighbor said she knew she wasn't. I am pretty sure she would not have been easy to care for. When she was sick?, I let her son wait on her. Actually, I thought she was manipulating her sons and was not playing into it. She went so far with the "acting", there was no coming back. She passed at 92 because...she was not going into an AL and leaving her house.

I actually think you do enough for her. For me, toileting was the worst. I prayed everyday to please not have a #2 today. Showering, always afraid she would fall and really didn't like the intimate side. That was my mother. If MIL...I would have had to have a much better relationship with her. If she can afford it, have her hire an aide. So my answer is No, I would not care for someone who was abusive to me for years.

I to can forgive but I never forget.

No, Don’t sacrifice any more of your time for clearly an ungrateful abusive MIL. But I’m the last one to give advice. I’m an idiot who doesn’t have the gumption to put my father into care because my siblings don’t want to lose any inheritance. A problem, I’m sure a lot of caregivers have or are facing.

ClaraKate: "What you CAN do is to arrange her care. You can find and choose an agency to come in and provide whatever care she needs. You can order online and arrange weekly delivery of groceries. You can hire a cleaning lady for her. You can schedule Dr appointments and (depending on her treatment of you) transport her to these appointments and attend them with her."

Why doesn't the H, mil's son, do all of this?

I feel for you. I wouldn't help my MIL. She is like the most toxic, abusive, controlling and irrational person. It felt awful telling her we wouldn't have her live with us (she is constantly on about love, dedication, etc etc- just one never ending guilt trip). It feels all wrong that we can't have her live with us, but we can only manage about an hour or so with her. We can barely help her as she alternates between verbally abusive and emotionally demanding. She needs to be in control of absolutely every little detail of everything and everybody. I think is someone is abusive then just because they are old, they don't get the right to get help from the people they have abused.

It sounds to me from the wording of your question that you have not forgiven her for her past (and maybe present) behavior towards you.

It would be both unwise and unhealthy for both of you to enter into a caregiver relationship with her.

What you CAN do is to arrange her care. You can find and choose an agency to come in and provide whatever care she needs. You can order online and arrange weekly delivery of groceries. You can hire a cleaning lady for her. You can schedule Dr appointments and (depending on her treatment of you) transport her to these appointments and attend them with her.

In this way, you are advocating for her without placing yourself in a role of direct care. A direct care role would only make you more resentful, especially if she continues with her current behavior pattern. Arranging care helps meet her needs while also protecting your boundaries.

Hello, Sunflowergarden: Maybe you should get a notebook and write down your i.d.'s and passwords for the various sites you visit? Just a suggestion, so you can keep posting under the same i.d., and we know you who are! LOL

You've omitted key information, namely, whether MIL has long-term care insurance, or what sort of insurance she has. If she truly is close to the end, does she have coverage for hospice care? If so, you could of course continue to see her daily, but the heavy lifting would be left to the institution. Then you would be responsible for disposing of her assets. Or if she stays at home, does she have the insurance or the savings to hire round-the-clock care, or even two shifts, 7am to 3pm, and 3pm to 11pm? Whether you love or hate her, end-of-life care is more than any one person should handle alone.

Now, I can't tell you what you should do, but I can tell you what I have done, and how I came to that decision.

Both my parents were bananas, and that's a nice way of stating the case. My father was a nasty piece of work, and it took me 20 years of various types of psychotherapies to begin to calm the post-traumatic stress. There was a period of about 5 years where I had no contact with him. But I knew that for my own sense of self-respect and completion in the relationship, I would have to "shake hands with the dragon," in the words of a former therapist.

In the case of my father, my stepmother (another nasty piece of work) was his caretaker (thank god!). The three of us met at least weekly for Sunday brunch. Brunches were generally amicable, but at least once I remember having a flashback afterwards (ironically, we'd had a very pleasant time at a lovely restaurant. Go figure!). Yet, by the time he died, overall I had a different perspective on him, our view of each other was much more eye-to-eye, than daughter to father. I saw him much more as a badly broken human being than a terrifying abuser. And the moment my brother told me over the phone that he had died, I immediately had a sense that I'd done the right thing. Not that we'd succeeded in creating a great relationship, but that it was the effort we made that counted for everything. Call it a sudden spiritual realization, if you will.

Nowadays, I'm caring for my sometimes fun and friendly, sometimes deranged and nasty, 92 year old mother. Sometimes I want to walk away and leave her to her fate. Yesterday, she put two pieces of bread in the broiler (she refuses to use the toaster I bought her), and I smelled something burning from the bedroom. She'd forgotten the broiler was on. She pulled out two completely charred pieces of toast, and the smoke filled the apartment. "What smoke?" she demanded. (Crazy.)

Frankly, I couldn't live with myself if I got news from a stranger that my mother had set the building on fire and burned to death in her apartment.

So here's the question that my decisions to deal with my father and care for my mother revolve around: How will I feel when he or she is gone if I do x, y, or z? How do I WANT to feel? What do I have to DO to achieve that aim? For me, I want to be able to look back and say, "I feel good about the choice I made. It benefitted him/her, it benefitted me. We are both better off for it."

My mother still can be very abusive, and the effect on me can be toxic; but, I have a strong support system of friends. If I were isolated without support, I would have to make other arrangements. And, in fact, I am making arrangements to get incoming daily help and, while this involves some necessary legal wrangling, I know we'll all be saner and happier in the end.

I hope this is useful to you. Best wishes!

Can she hire someone to come in and help her?

Sounds like her cogs have been out of sync a long time. I'm sorry for the abuse you've endured. You're amazing for all you've done and do for her.

For your benefit, get help to help you help her, then back off little by little as you steadily keep palming off more responsibility to aids. Just oversee the help.

It's sad, it's wearing, it's hurtful, and it's not forever. Mean people are awful pitiful creatures. You deserve a medal and an all expense paid trip to Bora, Bora. Tell your husband he needs to send you and that you'll need a masseur and a swimming instructor while your there.

Sunflowergarden: No, do not become her caregiver. Caregiving is hard work and this mean spirited individual has unfortunately 'made her bed.' Don't wear yourself out for someone who wore out their welcome by treating you unacceptably.

I would NOT start caregiving for someone I did not like and had bad history with. No way. It's hard enough when you start in positive territory.

yes i would and had a similar situation and helped til the end 18 months

Do as much as you feel comfortable with so you don't feel bad later, this is a hard situation to be in

It’s not clear what help your MIL is asking for or needs, but I can tell you this: if she is dying and needs 24/7 care, it’s not a job for one person. My MIL came to stay with us when she was released from the hospital and decided to go on hospice (she had cancer). My husband and I took care of her 24/7. I did most of the personal care but he was there helping constantly with everything else. She only lasted three weeks. I could not have done this for any length of time by myself. And I would have resented him for it if he’d asked me to.

You're already doing plenty. Not your job to do more.

Don't do it. You will be so miserable. you already helping. Can she get assistance like a home health aide, get a social worker involve?

There is no need to blame any of the two. If you don't feel comfortable being her caregiver, don't do it. There is no sin in being honest.

A toxic person is poisonous................it is up to you to take the poison or walk away.

I would call Adult Protective Services for placement evaluation and let her go with strangers who have no personal relationship that would be damaged by interacting with her.

This is about you, not her son.

Do what you can and want to do for her. Then help her find help to do the rest. Your husband will know you helped and you'll know you helped. Not every one will serve as a 24/7 caregiver for someone else. Some folks have limits. You know what yours are. Just let go of what happened over the years. No point in you reliving the anger you must feel. Maybe there will be a few good days left with her.

You and I must have the same MIL... my husband is it because his sister finally after years walked away when mother called her screaming I hate you and never want to see you again. My husband is there 6 out of 7 days but she tells everyone who will listen she hasn’t seen her sob for a week...We pay (her money ) a sitter that is there 3 days a week for 4-5 hours. I myself go on occasion with my husband to visit.

No way, no how! You are doing too much as it is. Only a masochist would become a slave to their abuser.