My husband and I have been married 17 years and we have two kids. Until about 2 years ago we had a good marriage. Most of our friends would have described us as one of the best couples they knew.
My husband is an only child and his parents (and family, his mother is one of 10 that are all very close) and I have never gotten along well. We are nice enough to each other, but they simply don't care for me and do little things like exclude me from conversations, ignore me when I talk, negate everything I say (tell me that what I am saying is not accurate, no matter what I am saying from major news issues to whether or not there is milk in the fridge), point out that I didn't do the laundry or finish the dishes at my own home despite anything else that I have accomplished, and little things like that. I am not the only one in the family they do this to, they tend to treat most of the in-laws that way, husbands or wives and I can't say for certain that they are responsible for a couple of broken marriages, but they have definitely not helped. I mostly ignore it all but it has always bugged me.
Two years ago my husband's parents became ill (his father has been having trouble keeping up with their business and his mother was diagnosed with dementia). So my husband decided to leave his lucrative job to help them with their business and to take it over. We decided together to move them in with us. We bought a new house, gave them the master bedroom so they would be comfortable and took an area upstairs that I thought would give us some separation from them. I knew it would be hard, but I also knew my husband wanted to provide for them so as much as I was worried about it, I agreed to it all out of love for my husband.
The next two years were really difficult. The dementia put her into our affairs 24/7, always asking what we were talking about constantly, defending and fighting for the children when we disciplined them, getting up at night and coming up to our area to turn on all the lights. We had to always keep our eye on her to keep her from injuring herself, we had to stay on her to keep up her diet and so we ate most meals with them, took vacations with them, it seems like we hardly had a moment alone or with just our kids. This year I had had enough and told my husband I wanted a trip without his parents and with just us and the kids. We agreed that we needed this time to get our relationship back on track, so we planned a month long trip this summer. I was going to leave early with the kids (driving one way with a friend and her kids) and he was going to fly to meet us, stay and then we would all fly back together. We arranged everything for his parents to be taken care of, I rented an apt in a big city for us and have been planning for months.
The kids and I were supposed to leave this coming week. 7 days ago, all of a sudden, his mother became ill. We took her to the hospital and it turned out to be encephalitis, a serious brain infection. The diagnosis was not good and the odds of survival for a healthy person are only 30%, let alone an 80+ year old frail woman. Things looked dire. But in the last 7 days she has almost completely recovered to her normal self. She has to stay in the hospital for another 14+ days for IV medication to fully recover, but for the most part she is almost entirely back to her old self and every single day shows more improvement. My husband would be due to fly and meet us about one week after she is done with the medication and then she should either be home or will be in physical therapy (skilled nursing) unit afterwards. Today he tells me that he thinks we should cancel the trip OR I can go ahead and go but he doesn't think he should.
I know that his mother has a serious illness, but all signs point to her getting better! How much more of our lives can we sacrifice for these people? He says we can plan it another time in the future. When? They are 84 years old and not in fantastic health, although for 84 they are pretty-darn-good. What will happen next time to prevent us from going? We will lose over 60% of the money we paid for the apartment, the airfare which is non-refundable, not to mention that I have been planning for months and am beyond excited that we were going to get a break away. I have been waiting for this for two years! I can't see going on the vacation with the kids without him, while he sits here taking care of his parents, but I can't believe he won't leave them for even a couple of weeks or any time at all.
I even came up with a modified version of the trip that would just have him come to meet us for 3 days and then we would all come back together early and still he said he didn't think he could do it. I can't understand this and we can't talk about it because we just fight. I can't imagine how we can get through this without hating each other. Him hating me because I can't understand his devotion to his parents above everything else and me hating him for not caring more about his wife and kids and my own sanity.
Am I being insensitive? Some of my friends say "they won't live forever." But whose to say they won't outlive us?! His grandparents on both sides lived to be 100, no one in my family has lived even close to that. No one knows when their time is and just because they are in their 80's doesn't mean we don't have 15 more years of this, when my husband and I will both be 60. Whose to say we will live to be 60?! Lots of people don't. I don't want to wait until I am 60 to finally take a vacation with my husband after my kids are gone. Am I being insensitive? I don't know how our relationship can survive this.
My husband is an only child and his parents (and family, his mother is one of 10 that are all very close) and I have never gotten along well. We are nice enough to each other, but they simply don't care for me and do little things like exclude me from conversations, ignore me when I talk, negate everything I say (tell me that what I am saying is not accurate, no matter what I am saying from major news issues to whether or not there is milk in the fridge), point out that I didn't do the laundry or finish the dishes at my own home despite anything else that I have accomplished, and little things like that. I am not the only one in the family they do this to, they tend to treat most of the in-laws that way, husbands or wives and I can't say for certain that they are responsible for a couple of broken marriages, but they have definitely not helped. I mostly ignore it all but it has always bugged me.
Two years ago my husband's parents became ill (his father has been having trouble keeping up with their business and his mother was diagnosed with dementia). So my husband decided to leave his lucrative job to help them with their business and to take it over. We decided together to move them in with us. We bought a new house, gave them the master bedroom so they would be comfortable and took an area upstairs that I thought would give us some separation from them. I knew it would be hard, but I also knew my husband wanted to provide for them so as much as I was worried about it, I agreed to it all out of love for my husband.
The next two years were really difficult. The dementia put her into our affairs 24/7, always asking what we were talking about constantly, defending and fighting for the children when we disciplined them, getting up at night and coming up to our area to turn on all the lights. We had to always keep our eye on her to keep her from injuring herself, we had to stay on her to keep up her diet and so we ate most meals with them, took vacations with them, it seems like we hardly had a moment alone or with just our kids. This year I had had enough and told my husband I wanted a trip without his parents and with just us and the kids. We agreed that we needed this time to get our relationship back on track, so we planned a month long trip this summer. I was going to leave early with the kids (driving one way with a friend and her kids) and he was going to fly to meet us, stay and then we would all fly back together. We arranged everything for his parents to be taken care of, I rented an apt in a big city for us and have been planning for months.
The kids and I were supposed to leave this coming week. 7 days ago, all of a sudden, his mother became ill. We took her to the hospital and it turned out to be encephalitis, a serious brain infection. The diagnosis was not good and the odds of survival for a healthy person are only 30%, let alone an 80+ year old frail woman. Things looked dire. But in the last 7 days she has almost completely recovered to her normal self. She has to stay in the hospital for another 14+ days for IV medication to fully recover, but for the most part she is almost entirely back to her old self and every single day shows more improvement. My husband would be due to fly and meet us about one week after she is done with the medication and then she should either be home or will be in physical therapy (skilled nursing) unit afterwards. Today he tells me that he thinks we should cancel the trip OR I can go ahead and go but he doesn't think he should.
I know that his mother has a serious illness, but all signs point to her getting better! How much more of our lives can we sacrifice for these people? He says we can plan it another time in the future. When? They are 84 years old and not in fantastic health, although for 84 they are pretty-darn-good. What will happen next time to prevent us from going? We will lose over 60% of the money we paid for the apartment, the airfare which is non-refundable, not to mention that I have been planning for months and am beyond excited that we were going to get a break away. I have been waiting for this for two years! I can't see going on the vacation with the kids without him, while he sits here taking care of his parents, but I can't believe he won't leave them for even a couple of weeks or any time at all.
I even came up with a modified version of the trip that would just have him come to meet us for 3 days and then we would all come back together early and still he said he didn't think he could do it. I can't understand this and we can't talk about it because we just fight. I can't imagine how we can get through this without hating each other. Him hating me because I can't understand his devotion to his parents above everything else and me hating him for not caring more about his wife and kids and my own sanity.
Am I being insensitive? Some of my friends say "they won't live forever." But whose to say they won't outlive us?! His grandparents on both sides lived to be 100, no one in my family has lived even close to that. No one knows when their time is and just because they are in their 80's doesn't mean we don't have 15 more years of this, when my husband and I will both be 60. Whose to say we will live to be 60?! Lots of people don't. I don't want to wait until I am 60 to finally take a vacation with my husband after my kids are gone. Am I being insensitive? I don't know how our relationship can survive this.
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