I'm tired of cooking/preparing 3 meals a day. It's just the two of us but boy oh boy can that woman eat!! She stays slimish, I get fattish. It's bad enough I do everything here much less start making her one thing and me the other. At times I feel guilty when I buy her fast food cuz of the nutritional value....not to mention I eat it too.
As way says - if you haven't been there you really have no idea what people who are living it are facing.
It explains all the people with guilt here.
Guilt trips obviously were a common way of parenting back then .
Then when a parent needs you they rely back on their parenting ways .
geaton, EMDR does work to reduce trauma around specific memories according to what I have read and first hand experience of a therapist. I wouldn't know where to start with the traumatic memories. There are too many. But over time and with counselling they do not carry the same weight in my emotional life. And there is more to recovery than dealing with trauma. It's also a matter or relearning how to deal with your emotions, how to deal with people, communication skills , repairing self esteem and more. However, it can be done. People are resilient.
way - I'm not so sure it is a generational thing. I have known delightful people from my mother's generation. My grandmothers and grandfather were good sane people, All of my aunts and uncles were lovely caring people. My friend's mothers were kind and caring and normal. However, these days therapy is more openly accepted which it wasn't in those days. My dd asked me once why didn't our family go for counselling. I said there wasn't any. Even if there had been mother would not have gone. In her mind she was OK, it was everyone else who was the problem.
Apparently this is not gooo]d for you or for her. She needs to become far more independent and she won't do that as long as you are catering to her.
What do you do?
1) You don't nag her. She knows by now what isn't good for her and what she needs to do to help herself. You nagging her is not helping you or her.
2) you stop doing those thing that are enabling her so if she wants food or anything else she can get up and get it herself,
3) when she expresses unhappiness about these change, walk away, Don't engage in any conversation and don't listen to her complaints (abuse?)
4) You don't have to explain or justify yourself. You can make a statement that you will not be doing x,y z anymore and then let it be.
You are the one who has to change to make this tolerable for you. At some point you may want to look into assisted living arrangements for your mother. Her health will not get better. With an older husband you need to be enjoying your time together now.
All the best going forward i a healthier direction!
I was woken up by Amazon delivery at 5:09 am this morning.
Yesterday was a busy day with R tackling all sorts of accident-related paper work. Forms, forms and more forms - police, insurance. medical...The printer was going like crazy and was misbehaving, which is not unusual, It's an old one. And I am the one do the printing and to resuscitate it, which sometimes takes a bit of work. After clearing the print queue many times, rebooting the computer and the printer, clearing the paper path, and finally finding that the connecting USB cable was failing and the ink was low, I ordered both from Amazon.
In the rush I neglected to tick the right box.
So I was woken up from a dead sleep at crazy o'clock in the morning by a call to buzz in the person delivering the ink. Aaaargh!!!
Thankfully, I went back to sleep.💤💤💤
We are experiencing same here, then ran out of paper.
But I have my flyer printed up early.
I usually console myself with the phrase:
"What can be done with paperwork can be undone by more paperwork."
The printer was given to us instead of throwing it away. My dH is in charge of keeping it running.
I like your phrase. lol.
I advertised on a Ft Mc site free furniture which includes a real leather chair and love seat in very good condition. Just pick it up at the arranged time.
Well long story short it didn't work out a couple of times with one person. I got the excuses, the health history, the child problems and so on, but no arrangement to pick up until I said too late. Then seemingly they found someone in 5 minutes.
So I got a long fb message explaining yada, yada yada. I sent one back saying it wasn't all about her. I had things to arrange to and if she couldn't follow up at the times she said, I couldn't deal with her.
I really wonder what this was really about.
On to the next person who wants it and hope I can get it done. I am relying on the good nature of the lady who has been cleaning and keeping an eye out on the place for me to be there to let people in to take the furniture and I can't waste her time and good will.
IMO R is not really ready to drive up even if I did some of the driving or we could do it. If we can move most of the stuff, before coming up, say next month when he is stronger, the rest will be one trip to the dump which I have a good company for and one trip to the Thrift shop, then bring a few things here. Sounds simple doesn't it, but when dealing with people it often isn't!
It seems to me it's a victim's "poor me" game.
Today DH found out through the grapevine why he hasn’t heard from her .
It seems ( according to MIL) she got sideswiped while driving . At least that is what she told her other son . I’ll take that description with a grain of salt considering MIL’s lifelong distorted accounts of happenings where , She’s always innocent . 🙄🙄🙄
DH called his mother today to see if she would mention it to him and she didn’t . She still thinks DH doesn’t know .
It will be interesting to see if DH asks her about it when we visit her in two weeks . Hmmm 🤔🤨🧐
Frustrating!!!
No response from DMV is frustrating too.
Doesn't seem like there is much you can do. Maybe another call to DMV?
Must be awful waiting for a crisis to happen. ((((hugs))))
I know you both know it, but this is one of the most common things out there. Here in SF a woman hit the gas instead of break and plowed into an entire group of people waiting for a MUNI bus. 3 are dead including a child, and a baby remaining hospitalized.
My mother hit the gas and plowed through an entire plant nursery taking out a bunch of young trees rather than young kids.
My brother drove his pickup back and forth, back and forth between a truck-size dumpster and a palm tree until his head was smashed up front, back and side, then was lying in the arms of his neighbor saying "I knew something was wrong; I knew something was wrong".
This happened so often in my own family that I gave up my license in my early 70s, knowing I drove to infrequently to be a good driver with an impaired left eye.
I read a common remark in her case, plus Peter Nygard’s and more, involving criminal trials of old people, that galls me. The defence not wanting jail time due to their risk of dying in jail. I think some arrogant, irresponsible people need prison time to reflect upon their actions. Or their behaviours continue because there is no lifestyle altering consequence. I am having difficulty feeling sorry for them.
imagine she even did it on purpose. would she, or anyone, really admit to a judge, “i pressed that gas pedal on purpose. i was having fun speeding.”…?
of course not. people lie in front of judges all the time.