Let the games begin!

[Leonor]

Hello dear fellow OoFers,

FIL is covert npd/hypochondriac in final stages of CHF.

In this culture, adult children care for their elderly parents in their own home. This is also a long-lived society, so the adult children are often in their late-sixties through seventies themselves. There is no hospice or palliative care. There are nursing homes that are basically wards, and there are hospitals, but family members are expected to do a lot of the care usually performed by nurse's aids in my country, like walking/bathroom/meal assistance, etc.

This is also a culture that places a very high value on suffering, so the adult children take pride in their 24/7 care of their parents and talk a lot about how poorly their parent is doing and how much work they have to take on. Just yesterday I was walking down the street and overheard "And the grandmother, how is she?" "Oh, she doesn't leave the house anymore, so you can imagine ..." "Oh, what a lot of work..."



According to my point of view, the whole dang country is enmeshed, but I don't mind it, except when one of the ILs is dying. And someone is ALWAYS dying!

Now, I'd chalk it up to culture, but the ILs are so disordered and abusive. They will play up everything from a suspicious mole (cancer) to a sinus polyp (tumor.) They mismanage their meds: grandma spits her heart pills into her napkin, mom and sis share their script for benzies.  I am positive that FIL is playing with his diuretics, because when he starts to retain water people freak out, but when he's in the hospital, he miraculously recovers with nothing more than a catheter!

They are also masters of the divide and conquer among their children: dh is the GC who is parentified and orphaned, while SIL is the SG who is engulfed and kept dependent. They also switch off which parent bonds with which child, and have rewritten their will a gazillion times as way to keep dh entangled: "Oh it's not fair we've given everything to sil, so we've done this or that," which always winds up threatening them with bankruptcy or postmortem lawsuits.



So here we are again (or still?). Fil is in late stage CHF and medical knowledge would say he has under a year left with us. Me and the kids are NC now, dh visits for a short period each day and it really is pretty ok. It takes a LOT of talking. But he has put in his work. He recognizes their PD, he is on board with NC and is doing well holding to boundaries.

The ILs are who they are, though, and it makes me sad to know that instead of my sons walking their grandma to the market or hanging out with grandpa in the park like all the other kids do, or get ready for holidays with big dinners for the whole family or have a coffee with my sil and gripe about work, that I have to put up big thick stone walls so my children don't get manipulated or dumped on or abused.

But what is making me crazy right now is the ridiculous lack of end-of-life planning. Dh's grandmother passed away several years ago over 100 years old, and it was a disaster. No long-term care, or visiting health aide, or adaptation of her apartment, or will, or anything!! It was years of middle of the night falls, and hallucinations, and random hospitalizations, and arguments, and exhaustion. She eventually died in the hospital after suffering a second-degree burn all along her back when trying to bathe while she was home alone because mil and FIL wanted to have lunch with dh and the kids. And I'm not so sure it was accidental on anyone's part: grandma taking silly risks because she was left alone and angry, and mil letting the cards fall where they may because she was resentful, and FIL going along for the free lunch and ducking any kind of maturity or responsibility.

It was infuriating to me, because all of this very real pain was caused by this stoopid story of how we sacrifice ourselves to ensure our elders can spend their final years in the comfort of their own home.

So now it's happening with FIL. He's fallen twice in three days, and they've called dh to come over and help get him up. The phone rings and it's FIL, oops, sorry, didn't mean to call. Are there plans for in home care? No. For assisted living? No. For a visiting nurse's aid? No. funeral expenses? No. For what mil will do when FIL passes? Again with the no.

Or rather, with a resounding yes! Because the plan is that dh will step in and take care of everything while they putter nonsensically about like flapping chickens and make everything over to sil who will swoop in at the last minute to coo and simp in front of everyone over her daddy and then act like a raging €#@& to all of us.



We have resigned from the Office of Taking Care of It. So there will be no planning unless it comes from them and we will not know anything about it unless it actually happens, as in "dad is going to assisted living this week, would you like his new phone number?" kind of happening.

So dh is, really, doing well in the face of all of this. Of course I wish he were NC, but that's not going to happen. I did the same with my dad and I only know now that they really truly do not change. They're the same as they were all along, there's no epiphany or apology or gratitude or bedside reconciliation.

We've agreed: the next contact is his little visit. The next phone call is ambulance. He's fallen? Ambulance. Feels dizzy? Ambulance. Won't eat dinner? Ambulance. They don't want professional help? Then no help. No nursing home? Then no help. No visiting aide? Then no help.

And because it's no no no no, there is a human being, as big of a narc as he is, who is in physical distress, and they're all playing out this ridiculous via crucis instead of having a nurse stop by and take his BP and tidy him up, and then we could have a little visit, and ensure mil feels comfortable with how she envisions her life afterwards, and create memories for when he's gone.



So wish me luck, OoFers, because we're taking a huge test in Life Boundaries right now!

[SunnyMeadow]

I'm glad you two have resigned from the Office of Taking Care of It. The lack of end-of-life planning is mind boggling. Just leave it up to the children, they'll handle it and who cares how it works into their lives! 

Well, good luck Leonor! This is going to be a heck of a ride until the end.

[Leonor]

Thanks, Sunny, I'm going to need it.

Today dh and I were supposed to have a lunch date. He was two hours late from taking the kids to school so I texted him, hey are you ok?

Oh yeah lots of traffic just stopped by mom and dad's on the way home.

I felt like it was the straw that broke my back. He didn't bother to let me know about the traffic, he didn't give me a heads up to say, hey is it ok if ... Or even Since I'm in the neighborhood ...
He just had to squeeze in one short visit with his parents before spending some time with me and didn't feel like he needed to call.

When he got home it was oh I'm so sorry I didn't realize oh and guess what sil was there and we had a big argument blah blah blah, dad is not doing well, blah blah blah, mom is going to stay in her place when he passes but doesn't want outside help, blah blah blah. Dad fell AGAIN and the phone is beeping all the time.

It's not going to end. It will never end. The emergency will never end, and the FOG will never end, and I will never feel like I'm more important than his parents. I will never feel like our marriage is his primary relationship. Even when his father dies, then it's mom's turn.

I'm so sick of it and I feel so stupid. Every single time I come with open mind and open heart, and bam! There goes the five alarm fire and dh running over to be SuperSon. I try to talk about it: how are we going to organize ourselves in this situation? How are we going to deal with hospitalizations, and elder care, and a place for mom that is not our place? Or, let's talk about our future, how are we going to navigate this move, are we staying or going back, what do we want to do? And the answer is meandering, distant, we can do that later.

Dh is supposed to go back for a few months after his sabbatical ends. I was going to stay with the kids before he could come back permanently, if we wanted to stay. But now he says he might not go back because it will depend on how his father is doing.

And I feel guilty, because he is a good dad and a good dh, and he is trying. He actually times his visits to make sure he doesn't get caught up in the drama. But then they just squeeze in all the drama they can in sixty minutes or less, and ping him the rest of the day.

Also I feel like crap for feeling this way when his dad really might be dying, but I also feel like, if not now, when? When do I give myself permission to come in first place in my own life? AITB, as the kids say?

I have put my foot down before but then lifted my foot off the gas because I had hope. I really don't have hope anymore. Because he did get defensive, it's about me, I have something against him, I don't have to see his family and he's only there for short amounts of time, so what's the problem, on and on.

Now I'm here. If I were in the US I would just find another job and figure out rentals, etc. But my boys are thriving here, and I won't make them go live where they don't want to and I'm not leaving them here while I move back there.

So I'm applying for jobs and thinking about short term rentals. I did go into this eyes wide open. I don't even panic about what to do about dh. I just am nervous about co-parenting in a foreign country when my residency needs a full year to take effect.

[Leonor]

Hello dear OoFers,

Loooong walk w dh.

A wise person said when you don't know what to do, don't do anything.

I'm not doing anything.

Holding my space.

Dropping the rope.

Letting the universe do what it do.

I don't understand this needless ridiculous suffering.

[SunnyMeadow]

Dropping the rope is a good thing. 

[Cat of the Canals]

Dropping the rope when our spouses are still holding on can be soooo hard. Because even if we've stopping playing the game, we're closely connected to someone who is. We feel what they feel, to some degree, and we are also the ones who have to deal with the inevitable fallout and give support, and that can take an emotional toll.

Earlier this year my husband was *this close* to going NC with PDmil... and he just couldn't quite pull the plug. I wish he had but it wasn't my choice to make. He admits himself that she only brings him misery, but here we are.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Leonor, I hear resentment creeping in, but you're trying to fight it. Despite your best efforts, and all that talking, those big stone walls still aren't enough to keep the IL chaos out of your life, because your DH is still going along with things to some degree. At least enough to allow where you and your boys are going to live remain an open question, depending on what happens with FIL.

That's so so hard. And the culture issue makes it even harder to fight this battle, because it makes it seem that what your DH is doing is "normal." I doubt that it's usual for there to be no estate planning, no plan for healthcare. DH knows, and the ILs know he knows, that if he moves out of their country again he'll be leaving them with no "safety net" since your SIL has never been expected to carry that load, if I'm reading things correctly. It suits your ILs fine for the entire burden of their needs to rest on him. And that's despicable FOG at work, not a reflection of filial love.

Your DH asks what's the problem and you must have something against him. I think you said it: You believe your marriage is not and will not be his primary relationship. At least until mom and dad are both gone, and meanwhile the years are wasting. People who do not love you are getting between you. You've been fighting this battle for your FOC for years and yet it's wearing you both down. And I see your anger and bitter disappointment. I'm so sorry. I don't have any advice but I do think you will know what to do.

[Pepin]

Your DH asks what's the problem and you must have something against him. I think you said it: You believe your marriage is not and will not be his primary relationship. At least until mom and dad are both gone, and meanwhile the years are wasting. People who do not love you are getting between you. You've been fighting this battle for your FOC for years and yet it's wearing you both down. And I see your anger and bitter disappointment. I'm so sorry. I don't have any advice but I do think you will know what to do.

This, just this.  You and I continue to be in a similar boat but I live in the US and so does DPDmil.  She is utterly helpless despite having made the decision to leave her home country.  I liken the scenario to:  I just had a baby and now others will care for it, not me - the way DPDmil treats having shown up in the US.  She got herself here but didn't want to do the work of growing up and being an adult that could thrive here.  I could go on and on about this. 

It is such a tough thing.  Really.  Something that I think about A LOT.  I am of one race but mixed cultures.  DH is of one race and one culture, generally speaking.  We both are 2nd generation children of immigrants.  I absolutely cannot relate to the one culture way of operating.  I just cannot.  And DH keeps wanting to hold me down and adhere to what his family thinks and does and I'm like, NO.  I just cannot.  And this is where they play their biggest hand: their culture and all the rules (outdated and irrelevant living in the US/ludicrous, etc.). 

I am literally biting my nails waiting to be free of this older generation that is keeping us down.  I could never do this to my children.  And it is so hard - I can totally hear and feel this in your words.  We are just trapped.  And then who knows what happens after that?  I wish I had words of wisdom to offer...the other day I actually wanted to give up again and just disappear because I feel so devastated and defeated.  I'm sick of living in vigilance and I am sick of swallowing resentment to keep the peace.  The pain in my body reminds me every single day that DPDmil is controlling everyone.  Yet no one says a thing.  She's allowed to do it and gets 100% excused for her behavior. Why can't anyone see who she really is?

[Leonor]

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for your sharing and kindness.

It's so hard for me to write this because I feel ashamed. I feel ashamed that I was dissociative and a mess when I was a kid living in dysfunction, I am ashamed that it took me so long to get out of my FOO's fog, I am ashamed that I attached so hard and fast to dh's family even as I knew they were just as crazy, and I'm ashamed that I kept hoping things will change with them. I'm ashamed that I never left, never stood up for myself, even as I saw that he chose his family over me, ashamed that I was so supportive of that choice, ashamed that I have thrown myself under a bus that I was driving. And I'm ashamed that as this $#@& hurricane comes ashore, I still won't leave.

There are brief clearances from the fog. I said how I felt in our long walk and he was able to hear some of it. He knows his family is abusive and dysfunctional and there is no fixing any of it. He knows the kids and I are NC, period. He knows he cannot do for them what they want him to do. He knows he has assumed that since I'm an adult, and healthy, and proactive, that I don't need him to show me that I am the most important person in his life. He knows he has to start making a real and conscious effort so that I feel it. He knows I do not feel it, and that there is a lot of work to do before I do, and that he is the one to do it.

He also has taken some baby steps. He has decided that he will no longer take people to the doctor and when FIL said he didn't feel well yesterday DH told him to call an ambulance. He has stepped back from decision-making: FIL wants to stay at home, MIL wants to place him in assisted living, SIL wants to take him home with her, and DH said, I'm fine with whatever you all decide. He has decided to go NC with SIL and allow SIL and MIL to make plans for MIL after FIL passes, and he has already legally renounced any inheritance from his parents, so there will be less mess when they do go.

We have committed to going on one walk per day and to not talk about ILs, just to be together. He is an outstanding dad, for real, so I have absolute and total trust in his active involvement in their lives. He makes them a hot breakfast every day, drives them to school, goes to every game and concert, tutors them at school.

He still believes, though, that he can find this balance between a full and loving life with his FOC and some semblance of a relationship with his FOO.

He said, When my dad passes, I'll still want to see my mom from time to time. And I said, why? She abuses you. Why put yourself through that? Why leave yourself vulnerable to rages or silent treatments or chaos? And he said, I don't know. I love her because she's my mom, and I feel bad for her because she's mentally ill.

I get that feeling. I do. It took me decades to get to a place where I could say honestly that I feel bad that my mom is mentally ill, but that I don't love her. To recognize and take in that she does not love me. To give myself permission to not love her. All of which was made so much easier by her discarding me over ten years ago, frankly.

Uuuuggggghhhh.

Listening to lots of Beyonce's Lemonade, Ken Adams and Kris Godinez.

Still not doing a damn thing.

[Seven]

This entire thread is me right now.  Seriously.  I'm in tears. I'm feeling every ONE and every THING.  I have only  felt first in my DH life when he is NC with the ILs.  Now MIL is on her deathbed and he is an only, so parenting his remaining parent comes down to him...and me. DH knows I've dropped the rope with his parents (and my own mother as well)  but I think that he interprets that as me dropping the rope with him too.  I'm doing everything I can to show him I'm going to be there and do what I need to to make sure DH gets through this.

He sees what his parents do to him.  He says all the right feelings, but still wants to deny those feelings. He just can't reconcile everything in his head. So there is still FOG there.

[Leonor]

I'm sorry so many of us "get it" but I am so grateful for your sharing with me.

Sometimes when I'm around them, even just with dh, I'm thinking, am I crazy? This is crazy, right? It's crazy that an 88 yr old in last-stage CHF who no longer leaves the house and has fallen twice in one week can't get in-home assistance because his wife has ocd and won't let anyone in the house because of germs? Or that bpd sil says no to assisted living because "he would be dead by morning" and instead she would prefer that he go live at her place, where there's no water filtration and she hoards (9-10) dogs?  Are these conversations really happening?

Dh's response is, "I go for an hour. I do what I can in one hour. And I come home." And he does.

I just think that growing up as I did, I have this internal seismograph that's set to super-sensitive. I sense the torn loyalty in dh. I sense the games being played by FIL and plans being silently made by mil and the hurricane churning offshore, even though I haven't seen them in years now.

My job in dropping the rope is silencing the seismograph, or ignoring it when I hear the tick-tocking. I figure that as long as dh isn't planning for our future right now, I'm going to stop worrying about it, too.

I'm learning new skills that I love to do. That's where I'm focusing my attention right now.

:-\L

[Pepin]

DH knows I've dropped the rope with his parents (and my own mother as well)  but I think that he interprets that as me dropping the rope with him too.

This is what many of us are grappling with.  If we don't go along with our spouse, they feel abandoned.  But when we go along with our spouse, we feel abandoned.  This is such a fine line to walk until our spouses can actually step outside the fog.  There is only so much we can "realistically" do which really means we will suffer.  We love our spouses so much but at the same time we don't feel a sense of complete safeness.  It is an exhausting and draining journey and many of us aren't sure if there really is a light at the end of the tunnel.  But we know what we had and we hope that we can someday get the back. 

I wish I had other words of wisdom other than to say that I get it.  I won't inflict on my children what was done to me or what DH's parents did and are doing to him.   

[Leonor]

Hi Pepin,

That is exactly what I said to dh yesterday: "I don't feel safe."

It's not in my head, like I'm thinking and coming to a conclusion based on external evidence, as if FIL had a violent temper or mil had a criminal history. And it's not in my heart, as if dh were having an affair or something.

It sits deep in my stomach, and it's hard for me to put into words. So when dh lays out all the boundaries he's put into place and his commitment to us, it's just blah blah blah. Then he says, you want me to not see them anymore, and I said yesterday, "If I felt safe you could move in there and I wouldn't feel upset. But I do feel upset and so I know I'm not safe."

I think that it's the fact that the ILs stability determines our lives. If they're ok (between crises) then we have a somewhat normal life. But if they're not ok, then our life turns upside down. It's like we need their permission to have a life of our own. And the crises are regular occurrences, so we can't have a life of our own.

[1footouttadefog]

I just lost a Dear friend who was a nonagenarian.

He was pretty fit until the last year or so.  His daughter is a nurse and lives next door.  His wife used to run a private elder care.  They remodeled the house to be ready for end of life care at home.  They changed banking and wills and assets and investment accounts in preparation years in advanced.

It was still a huge lot of hard work.  They still need to meet with a lawyer and not all worked quite as smoothly as it could have. 

Just saying for those who do nothing it has to be a potential nightmare.  I am so sorry to read that you have to deal with multiple unprepared end of life family members.  Yikes.

Hang in there and keep applying the tools.  You all are only responsible for so much, the rest is on them.

[Call Me Cordelia]

I think that it's the fact that the ILs stability determines our lives. If they're ok (between crises) then we have a somewhat normal life. But if they're not ok, then our life turns upside down. It's like we need their permission to have a life of our own. And the crises are regular occurrences, so we can't have a life of our own.

It's not okay and not normal that your FOC's stability is so dependent on theirs. The "ok" times are an illusion. It's the cycle of abuse but played out between MIL and FIL on the one side, and you and DH on the other. You are just as tied to them in the ok times as in the crisis times, and your feelings are responding to that. You're aware that you can be and very well may be pulled into crisis mode at any time. Your house is built on thin ice. And that is inherently unsafe, whether the ice cracks today or not.

[daughter]

Do you think DH will at some point feel overwhelmed by consequences of nonsensical "rules" presently imposed by MIL and SIL?  What happens if FIL falls and must be hospitalized due to injuries?  If MIL is no longer able to manage his nights?  Does "disaster" intervene?

I'm NC w/my NPD parents and only sib GC  nsis, partly because I was their intended nurse-maid elder-care plan, "because that's what daughters are for" (oft-stated so-called "plan", along with "they'll need to carry us out feet first before we leave our house").  Fast-forward, I'm NC, my "pampered princess" nsis doesn't "do for" anyone, ever, and my octogenarian NM has mild stroke. After short hospital stay, NF put NM in nursing home quicker than 123, because there was no free help (no SG me anymore) and he wasn't dealing with her at home.

My parents could afford gold-plated 24/7 at-home nursing staff, cook, and bottle-washer, which made NF's quick choice odd, given their past absolutist statements "we're never leaving!!"  That notion that their adult middle-aged+ daughters would serve them failed at 1st major medical crisis to occur, totally against expectation.

I'm 1st generation, with "overbearing parents" cultural background too. I've also watched a lot of Netflix Korean TV dramas that note their own cultural expectations for abject obedience to elders' whims and expectations. But that's not how our modern societies operate anymore, and often these "elder care duties" collapse with realities of acute medical emergencies and unsustainable living conditions. You have my best wishes, and hopes for quick resolution of likely soon unfolding unsustainabilities that empower your DH to exclaim NOPE and to take charge in a manner that appropriately discharges these duties to the professionals better equipped to sustain their lives and stabilize their health problems.  Otherwise, I'm so sorry.

[Hilltop]

I just saw your update about your FIL.  Sorry it seems like a tough spot at the moment.