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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://www.agingcare.com/questions/i-didnt-sign-up-for-this-living-with-mil-and-i-hate-it-i-want-to-run-away-is-that-my-only-option-462326.htm?orderby=recent�
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.
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!
Taking care of you should be your priority.
This will get much worse.
His father is not your responsibilty. 💙
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