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Helpasistaout, it sounds like your fiance has made his choice and like it is time for you to cut your loses and move on.
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I used to be close to my mother but being in the role of caregiver has completely ruined whatever closeness we had.
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This is an interesting topic I have a similar situation. My father was diagnosed with cancer five years ago and just passed two weeks ago and my relationship has been strained because I had to move back when he was diagnosed to help my mom out financially if needed during that time I kept a LDR with a man who is now my fiancé and his father has become ill as well. I am bending over backwards to ensure our bills are paid in both states while he fights with whether or not he needs to work for himself or hold down a job while his father goes in and out the hospital and is a caregiver to him as well. The problem is my finances aunt is in the hospital as well in icu and needs his help as well.
Long story short due to my fiancé father being in and out the hospital and needing around the clock care as he doesn't want hospice assisting my fiancé has again quit another job, not been available during this emotional time for me at all and all we have done is argue as I have needs and I have severely been put on the back burner. Can anyone give some sound advice as we have been together a long time and I love my fiancé however his family has taken a severe toll on this relationship and I am tired of it. Not being selfish I just feel that I've been put on the back burner long enough and something needs to give.
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Yup. And it's hard to start/develop a relationship when you're a caregiver.
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Yes.
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Well today was a big day. Mom and I got up early and made it out of the house by 8:30 to go to the funeral. We took a nap when we came home and then met some friends for dinner and then we all went to Saturday night's service at church. I could not believe that topic of the message as we pulled into the parking lot... How to be a Godly husband! I couldn't have special ordered it better! We all had an awesome time. Mom enjoyed the service even though it is a contemporary evangelical service unlike her structured Lutheran service, but I have told her that I will drop her off at a Lutheran service, but I just can't deal with the repetitive nature of the liturgical service at Lutheran churches. Hubby was very happy that Mom was so energetic and was really demonstrating his love and care since our talk. Thank you Jesus for answered prayers!
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Send me help, I hear you in a big way! I hate being the banker! It is like being his mother! I absolutely hate it. I have begged him to take it over, but again avoidance. One year I took all the bills and split them equally based on our income. He asked me for as many bills that could be paid online, so I even gave him that. I gave him a spreadsheet with amounts and due dates to make it really easy. After several months he begged me to take it back and said he "got it". It may be time to revisit that against.
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I am so glad there are really good people on here advising and praying for times such as these!
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Detach with love. Don't let anyone walk all over our Sharadale!
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.
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Possible for me, yes. Possible for someone else? That depends on a lot of variables that I have no control over. Thus in their case, to me, it would be either a high or low probability. It would only become their possibility if they took a hold of the situation, got help, became focused and moved forward. We just can't live someone else's life for them. That's all my philosophizing for one night and maybe the whole month?
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Well I had some fun today. I had some time with my granddaughter. She always brings joy to my heart.
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.
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Sharadale, he may never be able to live up to the expectation of being a biblical leader of your household. He is who he is and he is just struggling to even go through every day life, and has picked a bad way to try to do that (pot). Being mad at him for not being the strong, guiding spouse in your marriage is going to leave you mad for a very long time. But hey, honestly, that was a decently strong first indication from you that you are not passively accepting all his behavior. He knows at some level you are sick of it and piling more broken promises on top of the mess he has made of your relationship is not going to fix it....and it needs fixing.
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JB0928,

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!
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Sharadale,

I'm glad to hear that and try not to intellectualize the process. Take care and do something nice for you today.
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Aw Sharadale, praying for you lady! You can do it, you can, one little step and victory at a time. I can appreciate you wanting a biblical leader and I know first hand how great it is to have a strong but supportive and loving spiritual leader in the home. Big hugs and try to have a good day!
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I will try another therapist. Cmagnum, everything you said is correct. I am a strong woman a good woman, but what I want is a biblical leader of my home. I want someone that I can respect and I am losing my respect for him. That really damages a marriage. I want someone to take some control of himself so
I can trust him. All of this said, I made vows and I mean them. Just pray for me. Thanks.
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Sharadale, my goodness, prayers and hugs. It's posts like these that make me feel like my problems are very little and minor. Keeps things in perspective. You've gotten great feedback from folks so I hope you can press forward and make those changes within yourself regardless of him and your mom. If not the merry go wheel will just keep going round n' round, which you know I'm sure.

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.
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Yes, he needs to grow up emotionally for he's a spoiled momma's boy who looks to you to be more of a mom figure than an adult wife.

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.
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Things blew up today. He was super stressed because he had no pot and he tried to fix the lawnmower. He couldn't do it which stressed him out more. He came back to the house and went straight to the bedroom and started throwing things around looking for something, slamming doors, acting the fool.this is his normal operating procedure. I get so sick of this and feel like he needs to grow the f up!
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.
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JB0928,

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.
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vstefans,

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.
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JB0928,

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.
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So true. Insight does not help unless you have the wherewithal to act on it. And counselors just hate to "tell you what to do" even when that is exactly what you think you want and need from them most. At best when you tell THEM what you think you need to do, they should ask - "what stops you?" and run with whatever the answer is, whether it indicates you need another solution, or some belief you hold that is not true (or not QUITE right) is what is holding you back.

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.
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Cmagnum, yes you are exactly right in what you said. Even as I was typing that I got that sinking feeling in my stomach, but it's just the truth. Boundaries? What boundaries? They just think we own you even though I'm 51 and married, so what? You're here for our purposes. They like him very much, but the truth is if we were apart through divorce or death, I can guarantee you they would be hounding me day in and day out to either come back to their house or let them come live with me. Even more precise in what you said was about growing old doesn't mean you're grown up....boy am I living that now with them and my older brother!
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Sharadale I will quote to you from the psychiatrist who changed my way of looking at things "Mrs. S., insight is a highly over-rated commodity". In real therapy, insight into the situation is not what you seek. It's the ability, the support, the gravitas to CHANG ONE S OWN BEHAVIOR that is key. Rather than nag when he lights up, to leave the house, to put on loud music, to ignore it. To do what you haven't done before. The only thing YOU can change is YOU
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I have asked for therapy and I am in therapy myself. I was a counselor prior to my career as teacher to children with disabilities. My issue with my therapy is that I cannot find anyone who can tell me something that I don't already know. I know that I am an enabler and his behavior is that of a typical addict who isn't getting his way. I just can't stand that my Mom has to live in a house with the kind of stress he exudes out of his pores. He uses this behavior to manipulate me into doing what he wants. I am trying to stay strong but he is getting on my last nerve.
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Babalou,

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.
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JB0928,

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.
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If one is caregiving an elderly parent in one's home, elder should be paying room, board and caregiving expenses. This should be set up through a caregiving contract, legally binding and notarized . It makes good sensr, so that the elder's funds are being used for their care and not seeming to be "gifted", which is what it looks like if mom is paying for the addition to the house.

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.
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I try to let my hub know everyday how appreciative I am of his support and he does a lot of the heavy lifting I wish my brother would do but won't. It can be hard and before my parents got sick we told them and MIL that our relationship comes first...always. It's certainly been tested in the last few years, but I think we've stuck to it pretty well.

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.
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