Caring for someone you don't like

[Scott2000]

It seems so many people here are coping with caring for someone they love deeply. I've gone through that twice with my partner.

Now I have to care for my dad who I don't love as there's no one else. In my view he emotionally and financially abused my mother. There was never anything physical.

Is it harder caring out of guilt than love. I had always hoped he would die before Mum. I now know the poverty he claimed was rubbish. I have paid his phone bill for 20 years but he has £30k in cash whilst I have struggled with debt & depression.

 

[Jessbow]

Honestly? If he has the finances, arrange carer and take a back seat.

 

[Anna Lee]

I care for a person I don't like, my mother. There's no-one else, so I do it from a sense of duty and, of course, guilt. I don't know what else to do, so I just carry on. I think you are right, it is a lot harder to care for someone you don't love, but I think to give up on them would be so much worse, well it would be for me. It's better for me to carry on and just live it day by day.

 

[AlsoConfused]

How about taking the middle way as much as you can - insisting your Dad get paid care for everything he's likely to fund and then personally chipping in whatever care and overall supervision as is necessary to satisfy your conscience and your Dad's extra needs?

You can tell yourself you owe your Dad nothing and step back entirely - as might be the best thing to do - but perhaps it would be easier to live with yourself in the future if you did a bit more.

 

[Gaellered]

I can sympathise. That is my problem. I keep reading about 'caring for a loved one'. My husband is verbally abusive and threatening. Yet when anyone visits he is the perfect gentleman. I am so fed up with hearing people speak of gentle old people with dementia.
Having dementia does not turn anyone into a saint.

He was difficult to live with when he was OK. Fortunately he had so many outside interests it kept him out of my way a lot and I had work to escape to. Now he is always around; doing bizzare things. The tips on how to cope are well meant. I am holed up with this man who is at best uncommunicative but co-operates in nothing. "Go out for a walk with him" "meet friends". I wonder who else lives in an isolated friendless condition. Everyone has ditched him and before he was in this condition.

We needed to take out equity release to cope financially. He would not sign the agreement. When we are out shopping he buys randomly and I dare not refuse to buy the stuff he wants or there will be a fight in the store.

I have no idea what stage he is at but I am losing my wits as I get no help whatsoever from the doctors who just give him anti-depressants. He won't let me organise his medication and I am finding tablets on the floor of the kitchen and in the living room and I am afraid that one day the cat might play with them and swallow some.

Also does anyone else have this problem. He never stops eating. That led to a fight this evening. After giving him a full plate and a choice of Choclate eclair or home-made blackberry and apple crumble he chose the eclair. Had coffee with a handful of cholate biscuits. half an hour later he was in the kitchen asking why I hadn't given him all the potates and green beans (I cooked extra for Spanish Omelette tomorrow). He ate those, then came in with a bowl of crumble. When I asked why he was eating that as well he went beserk. Why did you leave it out if you didn't want me to eat it. I told him it was still too warm to go in the fridge.

Its all driving me mad. He is physically very fit and not above lashing out but I have no strategy for coping with this and i hate him. Yet I feel so guilty. It is distressing to see a man who was clever and talented in so many ways deteriorate so badly.

 

[Angela T]

Scott2000,

I sympathise too, I don't actually like my mother, and she has been abusive (verbally) to me all my life, she has made everything more difficult for me.

But there is no-one else, my brothers have died, so I am organising her care at home etc... and doing what I can for her, but I keep a step back.

She was very abusive on the phone recently, after I had to remove her car (since she received the letter from the DVLA but refused to stop driving), and I told her I would not listen to that... and put the phone down. And I realised that if my dad had spoken to me like that, it would really have upset me... but coming from my mother, it's nothing new... it's the way she has spoken to me all my life... so that is a kind of protection now, it doesn't really get to me.

Angela

 

[Cloverland]

It seems so many people here are coping with caring for someone they love deeply. I've gone through that twice with my partner.

Now I have to care for my dad who I don't love as there's no one else. In my view he emotionally and financially abused my mother. There was never anything physical.

Is it harder caring out of guilt than love. I had always hoped he would die before Mum. I now know the poverty he claimed was rubbish. I have paid his phone bill for 20 years but he has £30k in cash whilst I have struggled with debt & depression.

Take the phone money back and then arrange care.

 

[jawuk]

Gaillered, your husband may have been clever and talented but it sounds as if he has been socially and emotionally difficult to deal with all the time you've been married, and now he's even worse. If he tries to hit you now then you know it's not going to get any better unless he becomes physically incapable.
You feel that you hate him, which is understandable in the circumstances, but the situation as it is will only harm both of you in the long run, and it sounds as if there could still be a long run ahead for you both.
I think you should consider stepping back, speak to a social worker and tell her how things are and that you don't feel you can cope with the strain of threatened and attempted violence any longer without some real help no matter that your husband will resist.
You need to be able to remove yourself from his presence on a regular basis, and if eventually that means he chooses to spend time alone rather than with a sitter or carer then even that would be better than your being hit and frightened of him all the time.
Should it ever come to your having to leave for both your sakes then sometimes that's the way things have to be, the current situation is damaging and you have a need to survive and live a reasonable life as much as your husband.

I hope I've said nothing which seems uncaring towards your husband, or offends you, I really do feel for your dreadful situation.

Jane

 

[jawuk]

Btw Gaillered I forgot to say. welcome to TP! :O)

 

[1954]

I care for my MIL but I have no feelings for her except I would not want to harm another human being and she is my hubby's mum

There is nobody to do what I am doing so I feel a sense of duty and have the space and means to care for her

She has always hated me and made life hard for hubby and I, but my conscious would not let her go in to a care home yet or leave her to 'rot' in her own property

Sorry if this sounds harsh but I do do the caring and try my best

 

[Quilty]

I think we all should be proud of our selves

I would say well done to everyone here posting. I too am caring for a Mother who has been controlling and abusive my whole life. I feel very little for her other than duty. Caring for someone you don't love is hard but then watching someone you DO love deteriorate in front of your eyes is also heartbreaking.

In the case of dementia there is no good scenario. At least we know from coming here that we are not alone.

When I feel alone I will think of all of you.

 

[Miss Merlot]

I don't like my mother-in-law.

She is (and not because of dementia - always) shallow, superficial, self-absorbed and selfish, and her sense of entitlement takes some beating.

I have stepped back from caring for her after four years, as I just can't deal with being in her presence for anything other than the most pressing of occasions - I actually have a physical as well as emotional reaction to her these days.

I echo the other comments on this thread to take a back seat and limit your involvement to setting up the paid carers to do the main bulk of the work.

 

[Delphie]

One of the reasons for caring (in all the various aspects of it) for my mum is that she was a very good grandmother and my sons love her.

My mum didn't give any care to her own mother (who very much needed help) and I know how that looked through my eyes. I don't want my sons to see me in the same way.

There are other reasons too, but it was a bit of a surprise when I became consciously aware of this one.

 

[Angela T]

One of the reasons for caring (in all the various aspects of it) for my mum is that she was a very good grandmother and my sons love her.

My mum didn't give any care to her own mother (who very much needed help) and I know how that looked through my eyes. I don't want my sons to see me in the same way.

There are other reasons too, but it was a bit of a surprise when I became consciously aware of this one.

Yes, I agree. I have been told by several people that the fact that I am doing "the right thing" by my mother, despite her maltreatment of me, is good for me - it will help pacify my relationship with my mother before she dies, and make it easier for me after her death... And that it is good for my relationship with my daughters, who see me stepping up (when they all know I have very good reasons not to!)

It is hard, whatever the relationship with our mothers, but it is maybe easier for us to stand back from a mother who has been cold and unfeeling towards us. I know I would have found it VERY hard to watch my dear dad deteriorate in the same way.

Angela

 

[marionq]

I can sympathise. That is my problem. I keep reading about 'caring for a loved one'. My husband is verbally abusive and threatening. Yet when anyone visits he is the perfect gentleman. I am so fed up with hearing people speak of gentle old people with dementia.
Having dementia does not turn anyone into a saint.

He was difficult to live with when he was OK. Fortunately he had so many outside interests it kept him out of my way a lot and I had work to escape to. Now he is always around; doing bizzare things. The tips on how to cope are well meant. I am holed up with this man who is at best uncommunicative but co-operates in nothing. "Go out for a walk with him" "meet friends". I wonder who else lives in an isolated friendless condition. Everyone has ditched him and before he was in this condition.

We needed to take out equity release to cope financially. He would not sign the agreement. When we are out shopping he buys randomly and I dare not refuse to buy the stuff he wants or there will be a fight in the store.

I have no idea what stage he is at but I am losing my wits as I get no help whatsoever from the doctors who just give him anti-depressants. He won't let me organise his medication and I am finding tablets on the floor of the kitchen and in the living room and I am afraid that one day the cat might play with them and swallow some.

Also does anyone else have this problem. He never stops eating. That led to a fight this evening. After giving him a full plate and a choice of Choclate eclair or home-made blackberry and apple crumble he chose the eclair. Had coffee with a handful of cholate biscuits. half an hour later he was in the kitchen asking why I hadn't given him all the potates and green beans (I cooked extra for Spanish Omelette tomorrow). He ate those, then came in with a bowl of crumble. When I asked why he was eating that as well he went beserk. Why did you leave it out if you didn't want me to eat it. I told him it was still too warm to go in the fridge.

Its all driving me mad. He is physically very fit and not above lashing out but I have no strategy for coping with this and i hate him. Yet I feel so guilty. It is distressing to see a man who was clever and talented in so many ways deteriorate so badly.

A while ago I was attending an Alz group and a relative of a man with around stage 5 AD spoke to me. She said when his diagnosis was confirmed his wife divorced him and so the relative was trying to help him. My first reaction was shock that the wife could be so heartless. Since then I have read several posts like yours and I have to think again about why a woman would do this:

She never liked him anyway

His prediagnosis behaviour was so bad she went off him

She saw a future caring for someone she didn't like or paying for care and losing all their assets

She saw no life for herself and was still in her fifties

If she divorced before it all went pear shaped she would get half of their joint assets and could start again


I don't of course know what her reasons were but I do know that looking after someone you don't like must be akin to enslavement or mental torture. I am much more inclined now to keep an open mind as a result of reading all the posts on TP.

 

[Corriefan]

I am in a similar situation. I care for my mother but always had a very difficult relationship with her. Basically she was very domineering and abusive to me throughout my childhood and caused me a lot of problems. Even when I moved hundreds of miles away she would still phone up and tell me how I should live my life, and still controlled what I could and couldn't do. Now I am in the position of looking after her. She is still strong minded but now has vascular dementia. I spend most days in a nightmare of clearing up excrement and wee and having verbal abuse hurled at me - all sorts of accusations from starving the dog and claims that she is being beaten up. She is also sweetness and light when other people are around. I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown atm and not sure how much longer I can continue. Scott I know how you feel and wish I had some advice to offer. Just wanted to let you know that you are not alone in these problems.

 

[lushr]

i just discovered my mother emotionally abused me and is the reason i am the way i am. she’s a form of a narcissist... and now shes going to live forever in a nursing home sucking the money out of the bank till there’s nothing left...

i know she didn’t intend to abuse me, but i also know she was incredibly selfish and often cruel. and really messed with my head.

makes me seriously consider emptying her bank accounts and disappearing...

 

[jennifer1967]

i just discovered my mother emotionally abused me and is the reason i am the way i am. she’s a form of a narcissist... and now shes going to live forever in a nursing home sucking the money out of the bank till there’s nothing left...

i know she didn’t intend to abuse me, but i also know she was incredibly selfish and often cruel. and really messed with my head.

makes me seriously consider emptying her bank accounts and disappearing...

believe me that wont help and get you into trouble. its very easy to justify revenge but its not sweeter. i was emotionally, physically and sexually abuse at one point or other most of my life. it would be easy to want to have some pay back but it wouldnt help and make me feel more guilty. my mum said she had no bond with me. at the end of the day, thats her choice and ive learnt to come to terms with it. i did look after my mum for a short period of time before she died. i will never look after my father and its a relief to come to that decision. i lean the other way in that i dont want his money or anything of his. you may need to talk this through with a counsellor. its a lot to come to terms with on your own and may need to learn strategies to help you through it all. its not easy but will be worth it in the end

 

[canary]

@lushr - it must be incredibly frustrating to see all that money disappearing and know that if she didnt have dementia it would come to you when died; and the feeling that you deserve it all to make up for what she put you through is understandable.

But its not your money - it belongs to her all the while she is alive. Please put any thought of an inheritance out of your mind and start a new life without her.

 

[Lucy Young]

I care for a person I don't like, my mother. There's no-one else, so I do it from a sense of duty and, of course, guilt. I don't know what else to do, so I just carry on. I think you are right, it is a lot harder to care for someone you don't love, but I think to give up on them would be so much worse, well it would be for me. It's better for me to carry on and just live it day by day.

I'm in a similar situation with my mum. It's not that I don't like her although she can pretty unlikable a lot of the time! My mum is moving into sheltered accommodation next week (woop woop!) as she's been living with us for the last 8 months. I can't wait to get my life back. I'm also getting more and more frustrated because my brother has never been any support whatsoever and mum constantly moans about him whilst sending him big, fat cheques for Christmas, birthday etc whereas I don't even get a thank you for running myself ragged organising her life. Anyone else find this? Is it part of the illness because I just don't understand!