- May 14, 2015
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Well, I have been helping my husband take care of his mother for almost a year now. She hovers anywhere between stages five and six of Alzheimer's Disease. I'm finding it all very overwhelming. I'm trying to be a wife and be the "lady of the house", but I find that on bad days she is constantly undermining what I do. The other day she got upset that I washed mine and my husband's laundry. I had set the dryer and I noticed it got very quiet long before the dryer was supposed to be finished. I went in the laundry room and she had pulled everything out of the dryer while it was still damp and had folded it. I told her very kindly that she didn't have to do that, but she got all huffy and said, "well, it's not like I have anything else better to do." I waited until she was in the living room engrossed in the Weather Channel before I put the damp clothes back in the dryer.
She has reached the point where she can't be trusted to do simple household chores. When my husband returned home from visiting his son in Florida last month, I put all of his dirty clothes from the trip in the wash. I didn't start them because we needed laundry soap. I was making dinner and heard the dryer going. She had gone in there and put the dirty clothes in the dryer and was standing right by it. My husband asked her what she had in the dryer and she said, "oh, just some of your clothes". She had taken all of the dirty clothes and put them in the dryer and got very angry when we took them out and put them back in the wash. She insisted that she had washed those clothes that morning (even though he hadn't come home yet). We told her it was alright, that we were going to get some laundry soap. She stormed away and came back with dish soap and started squirting it in the washing machine. My husband told her you can't put dish soap in the washing machine and she yelled, "I do it all the time! You just don't know what you're talking about!"
I also do the dishes because she is bad to take dirty ones out of the sink, dry them off and stick them in the cabinets. I have to be stealthlike though, and wash the dishes as soon as we are finished using them because she hovers in the kitchen waiting. She gets upset when I do the dishes as well and I've found that even when I wash them off and put them away, she drags them right back out of the cabinet and washes them again.
She has thrown away our good bedsheets because she said she "didn't like them". Some of my clothes have gone missing. I am nervous about buying groceries because I have stocked the fridge before and come home from running an errand and she will have thrown everything away. And you hate to be angry, because she can't help it, but it's so hard living this way. I tolerate behaviors from my MIL that I wouldn't even put up with from my own mother. And it's pointless to try and explain to her that I am Jim's wife and that this is our house and we have every right to tend to the home as we see fit, because most days, she doesn't even remember who I am.
And what is the most infuriating is that we have had discussions with my husband's six siblings about how we need a break and how much appreciated it would be if they could help out from time to time and it's like our pleas fell on deaf ears. I feel like we're being taken advantage of. I know I have two younger siblings and if our parents fell ill we would all pitch in to help.
How can I establish a warm, home environment when I'm walking around on eggshells, having our personal belongings snooped through and thrown in the trash or being made to feel bad for tending to the house chores?
She has reached the point where she can't be trusted to do simple household chores. When my husband returned home from visiting his son in Florida last month, I put all of his dirty clothes from the trip in the wash. I didn't start them because we needed laundry soap. I was making dinner and heard the dryer going. She had gone in there and put the dirty clothes in the dryer and was standing right by it. My husband asked her what she had in the dryer and she said, "oh, just some of your clothes". She had taken all of the dirty clothes and put them in the dryer and got very angry when we took them out and put them back in the wash. She insisted that she had washed those clothes that morning (even though he hadn't come home yet). We told her it was alright, that we were going to get some laundry soap. She stormed away and came back with dish soap and started squirting it in the washing machine. My husband told her you can't put dish soap in the washing machine and she yelled, "I do it all the time! You just don't know what you're talking about!"
I also do the dishes because she is bad to take dirty ones out of the sink, dry them off and stick them in the cabinets. I have to be stealthlike though, and wash the dishes as soon as we are finished using them because she hovers in the kitchen waiting. She gets upset when I do the dishes as well and I've found that even when I wash them off and put them away, she drags them right back out of the cabinet and washes them again.
She has thrown away our good bedsheets because she said she "didn't like them". Some of my clothes have gone missing. I am nervous about buying groceries because I have stocked the fridge before and come home from running an errand and she will have thrown everything away. And you hate to be angry, because she can't help it, but it's so hard living this way. I tolerate behaviors from my MIL that I wouldn't even put up with from my own mother. And it's pointless to try and explain to her that I am Jim's wife and that this is our house and we have every right to tend to the home as we see fit, because most days, she doesn't even remember who I am.
And what is the most infuriating is that we have had discussions with my husband's six siblings about how we need a break and how much appreciated it would be if they could help out from time to time and it's like our pleas fell on deaf ears. I feel like we're being taken advantage of. I know I have two younger siblings and if our parents fell ill we would all pitch in to help.
How can I establish a warm, home environment when I'm walking around on eggshells, having our personal belongings snooped through and thrown in the trash or being made to feel bad for tending to the house chores?
