I have been married almost 3 years. When I met my husband, I knew his father was diabetic but one day, after we were engaged, his father ended up hospitalized for kidney failure. He was on dialysis for a few months and recovered, but we knew one day he would be back at it. Well we got married, and before we got married my husband told me he had a responsibility with his father and I knew I would help care, but he did not tell me he would be LIVING WITH US AND DOING ALL THE CARING. He is also losing his mind a bit, and it has come to the point where I do all the cooking, cleaning for his bedroom and bathroom, and not able to say my thoughts out loud for fear of hurting him. He has other children that decided they were not going to help. They don't live very far. One of them kind of has expressed superficially to help, but complains that he does not want to lose privacy. His other children are single. I am starting to feel resentful towards my husband. He wants kids and I told him having no help with his dad does not make me want to have kids anymore, with the pandemic we can't really go anywhere, he does not think that we want to go to the store alone or get some alone time on our couch. He recently asked my husband to take him earlier to dialysis. He goes around 11am and now wants to go at 6am when my husband comes home from work in the middle of the night and would hardly sleep to go take him and to pick him up. I am a teacher, so I can't help, and I refuse to since no one consulted with me about the change. I feel so overwhelmed, my husband claims I am his life, but I keep thinking how before things shut down again we were supposed to go on a date, and he brought his dad, and I did get mad at him and told him. I married, I did, but I did expect help from his siblings, and not the whole package. I feel depressed and angry, I have closed all social media from my need to get away from the world, I have talked to my husband about how I feel, but I don't feel any better or that anything will change. I wish I could make it change but I don't know how.
You weren't aggressive or mean. You were HONEST and ASSERTIVE in expressing your thoughts about a problem you couldn't live with. Holding back one's thoughts is not good for a marriage, as long as long as you express yourself for the good of the marriage. If not, eventually, it will cause regret. I hope your marriage is all you want it to be.
NWHW wrote a great reply Dec 2020. I hope you can re-read. Shutting down & hiding your resentment from your Husband will be a challenge now. Communicate with him, even if hard.
Use this time while FIL is away to reshape the future plans. If coming back to live with you is not going to work, make plans to change the expectations now.
All the very best.
You married him, not your father in law. He pulled a bait and switch on you.
He must have some good qualities because you married him but it wasn’t very nice of him to trick you by bringing his father on board.
It isn’t healthy to suppress your feelings about how you feel about being your father in law’s caregiver.
One day, there may be a trigger that will cause an explosion and all of your feelings will flow forth like a raging river.
Does your husband know how terribly frustrated you are? Please tell him.
I understand that you don’t want to hurt feelings but your feelings are just as important as theirs.
Don’t ever be afraid of an argument.
Issues can be resolved in an argument.
Arguments aren’t the worst that can happen.
When a person shuts down. That’s the worst that can happen.
You have begun to shut down. Nothing gets resolved if you are closed off from your husband.
I understand how certain situations can complicate our lives and we lose hope.
Usually, this is when we must stand up and be the strongest that we can be.
I can imagine that you are sick and tired of being sick and tired of all of this.
Set a timer, when that time limit is up, (whatever you decide is fair to find other living arrangements for your father in law) then he must go!
If that doesn’t happen, you have the right to say that you said, “I do.” to one man, your husband, three people in a marriage is one too many!
Perhaps you SHOULD make it clear to FIL exactly what you think about all this, and that the advice you are getting here is to quit and run. You want a home of your own, a normal marriage, and children. None them are compatible with a live-in invalid who wants it all his own way, and a husband who doesn’t put you first. The household conversation should flip right now to alternatives to the present situation. That means making it clear that this is NOT what you want to live with, whether it hurts or not.
Taking care of you should be your priority.
This will get much worse.
His father is not your responsibilty. 💙
You, on the other hand, were sold a pig in a poke, the way it seems to me. I'd go rent a beautiful hotel for a while, with your husband's credit card, letting him know on your way out that you did NOT sign up to be a nurse maid for his father and have him along on dates to boot. Three's a crowd, bud.
See how he likes doing everything around the house & for his father while you're relaxing at the hotel. Perhaps he'll learn a thing or two about using the word "No" when it comes to his father, too.
THEN you can sit down and talk about where dad gets to move next, and how the two of you either move on with your marriage or move on without one another.
Best of luck. I'm sorry you were put into such a position to begin with.
Your husband has been taking care of his dad before he got married. If I had to guess, I would say he wanted a bride for him as well as another caretaker for his dad. And he got what he wanted. I don't see why he would want to change. As long as he could keep you pacified, things would go on just the way he liked.
Of the 3 people in this relationship, you're the one that is unhappy. So, you're the one that needs to make changes.
Ask yourself, if you had to do this all over again knowing what you now know, would you do it? Would you get married? Or keep dating? Or look for someone else?
You don't have any children right now. THAT'S GREAT. KEEP IT THAT WAY. It makes thing easier. You can and should undo what you wouldn't have done in the first place. You can walk away, or separate temporarily, or take a break for a week or a month so that you can look at the situation from a distance, and decide what to do next.
I doubt your husband would make any big changes since he would be back to taking care of his dad like he used to before getting married. He managed it before, he probably would manage it again.
Don't waste your life. Good luck to you.
A weekend is a bit of a “honeymoon” phase of caregiving. At least a week away would be more realistic.
Your FIL could live for a long time. Better to get this straightened out now. If you don’t set boundaries now, you are giving permission to be treated this way.
This is a great place to learn. Keep coming back, until you are strong enough to stand up for yourself. And then, some!
Your statement "before we got married my husband told me he had a responsibility with his father and I knew I would help care" leads me to believe he had a scenario planned, but you weren't part of the planning, although you were a major asset in implementation.
The fact that he brought his father along on dates, and had to be told that this wasn't acceptable to you suggests to me that he tends to extend his needs and demands farther than most husbands would, and also that he had private plans before the two of you were married.
You recognize that the situation won't change; the next question is, will you, and how? From what you've seen of the marriage, is it something you want to work out, given what you know now, and not knowing how long FIL will live? Do you strongly want children, but certainly not under these conditions?
If your husband won't consider professional placement, and won't compromise at home, he's essentially creating a situation with an ultimatum. The question is what will you do?
Do you have family or friend with whom you can stay for a few weeks to distance yourself so you can think more freely and clearly? If not, and assuming you're teaching online as so many are these days, can you afford to stay someplace else to get away from your husband and his FIL, again to think over the situation and whether you want to put up with that situation until FIL reaches his end?
And given his diabetes, it may become worse, significantly worse if he's a noncompliant diabetic. What action would you take if FIL needed 24/7 care and your husband expected you to quit your job? That is a possibility, you know.
You do have every right to consider yourself and your goals first in this kind of assessment. And if you do, and find that you want a separation, or more permanent action, that is your right, you're not letting anyone down, but you are protecting yourself and your future.
Talk to your husband about new solutions. Give him a little thinking time - but a time frame - for changes to be made.
If required, take a weekend away to visit friends or family to give him more thinking time + doing time. Sometimes that's all it takes. A weekend of hands-on care himself to 'get it'. He may also then 'get it' that this is & will effect his marriage & future family hopes.
Also, try to get a caregiver for dad.
Dad can go to assisted living, or board and care. Hubby might be reluctant at first, but come around.
Convincing his dad might be harder. But you and hubby keep talking and have a third party help.
You are important. Big hug.
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