I do not exactly know what I am expecting posting this question but how the hell do you manage caregiving and marriage?
My husband and I have been caring for his mother with dementia for 10 years. He will be 36 next year and I will be 35 next year. I hate what our lives have become. I have grown to resent my friends and family for having lives while I feel stuck. To go on a simple week long vacation we have pay around 4k because the only place that will take her for respite care is a high end luxury facility in New York.
We have tried marriage counseling but that is short lived because everyone wants to frame me like I am some monster because I hate his MIL for what her and this disease has done to our lives. I get my husband is trying to do the right thing cause yes his mother would not last a year in a basic facility she is far too high maintenance. She behaves like she thinks she is royalty. Everything has to be done a certain way or she baby rages.
My husband does his fair share but it sucks watching him try because his mother treats him poorly because in her head her son and I are out living our best lives. So he views him as just some stranger that her son is paying for to take care of her.
After 10 years I am at a breaking point. I love my husband and do not want to leave him. He is also right if he just did what is most convenient instead of what was generally the best he would not be the person I loved. His mother is doing well and very healthy outside of her dementia. She still has friends and gets plenty of engagement with her community and social interactions thanks to the efforts of my husband.
Things have gotten worse because I refuse to pretend everything is okay. I tell her every day I hate her. My husband gets annoyed because it does make things awkward because all she wants is to be around me, and she largely ignores him. I wish I could give him whatever she sees in me to him because he wants that relationship with his mother. He still tries to find ways to get his mother back and here is am wishing for her to die because she has made the last 10 years a living hell. I feel caregiving has killed a part of my very soul. I do not even recognize myself in the mirror I feel so hateful and bitter.
My husband is a fair and great man but I hate that he loves his mother so much. I know if he had the money he would place her in the place we put her for respite in a heartbeat we just cannot afford it room and board start at 14k that is not counting care.
My husband refuses to place her in a place he would not feel comfortable living in himself which I get. I did not sign up for this but I figured I could do it, and I did do it. Maybe it is just hormones or what talking because I saw my life vastly different from what it is now. Figured we would have two kids and a house. My husband gave up his dream job to for a job he hates because it pays more.
Sorry for the rant I just hate what it has done to my life and swear if the system cannot provide better for those that did not prepare as a means to punish them for not. That is messed up because it also impacts those that get stuck with the illusion of choice between caring for a parent and watching them suffer. I get it he made his choice but it is not much of a choice.
My oh my. What I get the most in reading that is sadness that YOU have been lost in all of these opinions.
The fact of the matter for your mother is that many times, no one wants to put an elder in a home, but when it becomes unsafe physically or mentally for the patient OR the caregiver, decisions have to be made.
It does come across as misogyny that your family talks about how your husband is a “great man” while ignoring what you are going through. How your family and your husband expect you to live on crumbs. They. Are. Wrong.
YOU ARE A PERSON DESERVING OF LOVE and it’s OK for you to have needs that you want fulfilled. As a wife. As a woman. As a person.
You matter and you are getting lost in all of this.
I support you in whatever you want to do.