I am in the process of trying to “be there” for my mother in law. At one point I distanced myself from her because I got tired of the negativity. Every time I talk to her, it’s doom and gloom. I’ll tell her about one of my kids joining a sports team and it’s followed by how I better watch out because <insert unlikely to happen injury here> will happen.
To be fair, she has a lot of bad things happening in her life. She’s elderly and has a bad knee, diabetes, general aches and pains. She is a constant caretaker for my FIL who has dementia. He is also physically failing and falls a lot. She refuses to have him put in a facility or have someone come in and help bathe him, etc. She only has a nurse come by that checks him out everyday. She’s up 3-4 times a night with him. Meanwhile, down the street, my SIL has a special needs son that she drops off with MIL everyday. He is “homeschooled” meaning the county sends a teacher to MIL’s home everyday to work with him on basic things. He’s almost non verbal and very stunted developmentally. He also has drop seizures on occasion. She watches him so my SIL, who is struggling financially along with her husband and 2 older kids, can go to work.
It’s all too much for her.
On top of that, I also get tired of how she begs for my kids to come stay when I know that she cant take care of them properly. My youngest is 4. He’s also a very active kid. He’s used to being outside and playing. She has almost no backyard and doesn’t want to drive him to a park. He sits inside all day on the TV or iPad, while she feeds him junk food (which he is not used to). He then gets all this pent up energy and she’ll say stuff like that he has ADD. This made me mad because it’s just not true. But she had me worried to the point that I went and had him evaluated and asked his preK teacher what she thought...everyone was so confused as to why I’d even bring it up and said he’s fine.
It’s like she gets off on people being sick or having a disease When my oldest was around 5, he had a bad habit of putting his fingers in his mouth. She told me that he had a mineral deficiency. I was like NO, he just has a bad habit. She’ll do the same thing for my niece who wont get up on time: “Oh, she has a sleep disorder”. No, that girl is lazy because if it’s for something that she wants to do, she’s up on time.
. My other kids tell me that she complains about how tired she is when they come visit and how they are tiring her out, though she will never say this to me. They haven’t stayed there in a long time and I change the subject whenever she asks for them because I know wha’ts up.
Anyway, it’s exhausting. And for a few months, I ceased contact with her except when absolutely necessary.Before, I’d tried to send her pictures of the kids, maybe update her on what was going on, but I just stopped. I needed a break. Apparently, she complained to DH and asked if I was mad at her. DH asked me if something that wrong and I told him everything about how I felt about his mama. He said he understood and didn’t pressure me to keep in contact but did say that his mom missed talking to me.
So, after a few more weeks, I started contacting her again. She loves the pictures and I can tell she’s cheered by them, but the negativity is always there. I’m supposed to visit her this weekend because the kids have an event nearby. Pray for me. She asked us to spend the night but I assured her that this would just be a day trip
She has always been kind to me and I know I’d want to someone to be there for me in my old age. But please, Lord, I pray that I am not the huge bundle of negativity that she is in my old age.
send me these long emotional posts about how much I mean to him and that he can't handle me going through this while I'm so far away.....and I'm like, dude, I'm just dehydrated and low on magnesium. And this is exactly what happened when I updated him. But when I REALLY need him, he has a ton of excuses as to why he can't help me. I'd like to be a nice, kind daughter for karma purposes, but I'm so easily annoyed by him.
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