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My husband takes care of his 88 year old mother 3 days a week, while our youngest son and his brother and a neighbor help the rest of the time. His mother has always been abusive, in all ways, claiming ignorance, that she was just raised that way, but even after finding out her behaviors were considered abusive, continues to do them. My husband promised his dying father that he would take care of his mother. Now, he feels like he has to. He does everything for her, she has always been the laziest person I have ever known. Yet, she complains about how he doesn't do enough, and what he does do, isn't good enough. She does not complain about the other caregivers. I am with him on some of these visits, so I know that he does his best for her. Yet, she constantly criticizes him, and everything he does, she screams at him, cusses at him, hits him occasionally and has recently told him she feels "neglected" by him, that maybe she needs to call someone about that. I got the threat right away, and suggested to her that if her living situation was just that intolerable, that she feel free to move into assisted living. She did a complete turnabout and said to me that she knows he's doing his best. He spends the nights there when he is taking care of her, and last night she got him up out of bed to run the dishwasher! She walked all of the way downstairs to his bedroom in the basement to wake him up and tell him this, when all she had to do was put a pod in, and push a button. Then he said she proceeded to scream at him that he was so useless. He has started setting boundaries with her, that when she starts cussing him out and screaming at him, he will walk out on her. She is making his life hell, and his brother, who is supposedly her executor and makes decisions for her, will do nothing now. Her own sister wants as little to do with her as possible. She is so mean, and selfish and is ruining over lives, causing constant stress for my family. My husband says that he must keep his promise to his dying father, but I feel like it's at the expense of himself, and our family. He already has an impingement on his spinal canal, yet she keeps asking him to do things that she knows will hurt his back. I feel like she is a black widow, she ran her husband into the ground with her laziness, asking him to do everything for her, now she's heading mine that way, and has already started on my youngest son! I am just at my wits end with this woman! Has anyone else ever had to deal with someone so mean who abuses everyone around her and feels entitled to have her family take care of her when she could afford other help or to go into assisted living? Any suggestions on how to get my husband to think of himself first? He's said what he wants doesn't matter, because that's what she tells him! She is a monster in law!

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There are many different ways to keep a promise to care for a loved one. In this case, Assisted Living is everyone's best best. Let the old bag pay others to put up with her. Assisted Living is actually a wonderful setup, my parents had a blast living in theirs! Go tour a few and bring back the brochures to your hubby. He'll be honoring his promise to look after mom, as her care advocate, without doing any hands on caregiving or taking that level of abuse anymore. Enough is enough. Your DH could wind up dying before his mother otherwise if he's not careful. #Truth.

Good luck to you both.
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So why did H be the one to promise Daddy to take care of Mommy when decisionmaking was given to his brother?

Your H isn't going to change his mind until he injures himself and can't help his mother. Was he always Mommy's whipping-boy?

Can you at least get your son to remove himself from the situation?
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SnoopyLove Aug 2022
Yes, why is the OP’s son so involved with this unpleasant woman? She apparently isn’t nasty to him (the grandson) personally but doesn’t her behavior to his dad bother him at all? Seems he bears some responsibility for helping to prop up a dysfunctional situation.
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It is so very sad how many people that post on here feel that's it's ok to be abused by someone especially their own parent. No where is it written that a parent has any right to abuse a child no matter what age. And the fact that your husband continues to take the abuse from his own mother is concerning to say the least.
And the fact that your husband "promised" his father that he would take care of his mother doesn't mean that he has to physically be the one to do the care. Care can look like overseeing a home health agency or overseeing her care in an assisted living facility. And your son certainly doesn't need to be involved in this nonsense either, so at least put a stop to that until your husband comes to his senses.
You say that your husbands brother is moms executor and makes all her decisions. An executors power only comes into play when someone dies and they are responsible for the will of the deceased and all that that entails, not anything else.
Are any family members POA's for your MIL? If not, no one really can make any decisions for her, and she can do what she wants. That doesn't mean though that anyone should continue to take her abuse.
As long as your husband and son continue to be at her beck and call, she will NEVER come to the realization that she needs more help. So tell hubby and son to step away and let the chips fall where they may.
And in the meantime you and your husband can have some Assisted Living facilities in mind for her or home care agencies when she comes to her senses.

And it may not hurt for you to let your husband read the responses from your post as I believe it may be VERY eye opening for him.
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There are many ways to care for elders. One way is to arrange for their care by others, using their resources and funds.

My MIL made the mistake of telling my husband she was going to report him for abuse. He took her ket off his ring, handed it to her said, "Have a nice life, Ma." And walked out
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LoopyLoo Aug 2022
I salute your husband!
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Never live a ruined life because of promises erroneously made to a dying parent.

If promises are made to a dying parent, make it your PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY to break them in order to clean your personal slate and re-start from a basis of reality.

Keeping a wrongly made promise when at risk of damage to yourself is unfair, unreasonable, and unwholesome.

Good care can be administered by paid caregivers as well as (or sometimes BETTER THAN) family members. “Taking care” can mean MANY THINGS that DO NOT require sacrificing one’s own life.

What we want and need is as important to us as food, shelter, rest and loving kindness. If someone attempts to steal what is personally our right, the thief and input from her or him, should and MUST be disregarded.

Angelia7, I think your husband deserves ALL of your sympathy, kindness, and energy. He and your son deserve their freedom, and you deserve your husband’s companionship AND DAILY PRESENCE.

Explain to him how much you love him, sorely miss him, and want him to be relaxed and happy. Together, visit some pleasant local Assisted Living residences so that he can see how peasant life is there.

GOOD LUCK.
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Posts like this always make me sad and mad.

Your husband is still being abused by his mother as an adult. What a tragedy that he refuses to just stop being her slave and whipping post and place her in a nursing home or other facility.

Personally i think this deranged old witch deserves to be in a mental institution but any place where she is away from your husband will have to do.

She is killing your husband. Breaking his spirit and destroying his very soul. Death by one thousand cuts. He is a prisoner and unable to free himself. You may have to do it for him.

Shame on his father for subjecting his son to further abuse by a malevolent creature that deserves the firey pits of hell.

The only solution is to wash his hands of her and free himself and his son from the grips of this devil incarnate. The stress he is under from this abuse wilk destroy his health and his life.
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lealonnie1 Aug 2022
The 'funny' thing is when these husbands ask their children to 'care for' their mean-as-snakes wives for LIFE, knowing darn well how difficult they are! They chose to marry these women & stay with them, knowing how dreadful they are, then turn around and ask US to take care of them for LIFE, while on their deathbeds!!! Unreal, when you stop to think about it. They leave us with that final request which haunts us for decades sometimes.
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Angelia7, as for Dad's dying wish, even if your husband placed his Mom in Assisted Living, he is doing what is BEST for his mother. There comes a time when it takes a village to help out, and your hubby's village isn't large enough.

Tell your hubby that up to 40% of caregivers who are taking care of a love one, especially an elder, die leaving their love ones behind. They die from the stress and being totally burnt out. Then what? You still would have your mother-in-law but your hubby would be gone. That alone should help your husband decide.
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All good posts. Good that Husband has started putting up boundries. I would wonder though, why you are subjecting your son to this abuse. He really owes this woman nothing. If your husbands brother is backing off then maybe everyone should. Flat out tell her u all have had enough. If she can afford it let her pay for her care at home or in an AL.

There is a book Boundries by Townsend and Cloud written with Christains in mind. Daughter says its good. There is also the Grey Rock Method he may want to try.

The one thing you need to remember at 88 she needs your husband more than he needs her. She needs to realize just because she is elderly does not give her the right to be abusive. As said, placing her in a nice AL is making sure she is being cared for.
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Finding his mother a more suitable living arrangement in which she’ll receive the assistance she needs is, indeed, ‘taking care of his mother’.

I ‘take care’ of my children and pets but I know when it’s time to take them to the doctor, dentist or veterinarian.
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