My (31F) husband’s (32M) mother (60sF) has Alzheimers. He moved her in with us and is not actively looking for a nursing home. My house is a mess and I am at my wits end.

A 31-year-old woman is at her breaking point with the situation at home. Her husband’s mother, who has Alzheimer’s, has been living with them for a month, but her husband has not yet found a nursing home for her. The woman is overwhelmed by the constant care required for her mother-in-law, from feeding and bathing her to cleaning up after her,

while also trying to work from home. The house is messy, and her relationship with her husband is suffering. She feels like she is living in a prison and resents the situation, but doesn’t know how to approach her husband about her frustrations. She needs advice on how to communicate her feelings in a sensitive yet firm way.

‘ My (31F) husband’s (32M) mother (60sF) has Alzheimers. He moved her in with us and is not actively looking for a nursing home. My house is a mess and I am at my wits end.’

My husband’s mother has alzheimers. It became evident this year that she could no longer manage to live alone without supervision. We live in a 3 bedroom house and so my husband wanted to move her into one of the spare rooms. I agreed to this only as a *temporary* solution until we found a home for her to be moved to.

We had a very long discussion about this and I told him very seriously that neither of us is equipped to be her home nurse. He agreed and promised me it would be a short stay and he would begin to look at homes immediately.. It is now a month later. My husband has not found a home. I don’t even think he’s been looking that hard.

His mother needs to be supervised with EVERYTHING. She can’t even make her own meals. I found a slice of toast in the sink because she had mistook it for a dish and tried to wash it. She almost ate canned catfood thinking it was canned ham. This forces me to prepare her meals for her. I work from home so between 11 am and 4 pm I am doing work on my laptop.

I cannot focus on what I have to do (I translate legal documents) because she wanders into my study and starts talking to me about nothing. She thinks because I am at home and on the computer that I’m not busy. The house is a mess. When it was just my husband and I living here everything stayed clean and tidy. I washed the floors once a week and that was fine.

Now I find myself having to clean almost every day because his mother spills things on the floor and drags in mud from our garden/yard. She is dirty and leaves dishes and cups on top of our kitchen island as if to say “you put these away”. She doesn’t flush the toilet.

She leaves pieces of food out to mold.he smells sour because she forgets to bathe for days on end and I adamantly refuse to take on that task as well. My husband is the one who tells her to go bathe. Our s** life has flatlined. He’s too tired/stressed and I am too annoyed.

There’s always the fear she is going to just barge in too because she doesn’t register anything. I am SICK of this. My house feels like a prison. My husband is useless. All he says is “I haven’t found the right home for mom” or if he sees her being slightly more lucid than the day before he makes excuses that she’s made an improvement.

Oh today she made her own toast and ate it instead of putting it in the sink. Woopee. It is beginning to feel like we will be stuck with her until she dies. This situation is turning me into a bad person. I resent his mother now and I am ashamed to say it but I start hoping she will have an accident that lands her in the hospital so she’s finally out of the house.

I can’t live like this anymore. Yes, I feel bad because its his mom and the only family he has left but this is not the life I signed up for. I need my house back and my peace of mind too. I want the kitchen counter to stay clean for more than a few hours and the floor to sparkle for more than a day.

I want my quiet mornings back to myself. I want to take a bath and not worry how long Im taking because of what she may be doing. How do I approach this with my husband? I am tired of him pussyfooting around and saying “We’ll see how this week goes” and putting it off. I need to talk to him in a way that is both sensitive and firm. Desperate for some advice.

Here’s what the community had to contribute:

AMerrickanGirl −  You could start doing some research on places she could go and present him with the results and a plan. I know it’s not really your responsiblity, but if it gets MIL where she needs to be, then it’s worth the effort.

Throwaway235831 −  I would start out by contacting your local Alzheimer’s Association and Area Agency on Aging, both have vouchers for respite care so in the short term, that could assist with either having help in the home or putting your MIL in adult day care. Also at the AAA, you can ask to speak to Information, Referrals, and Assistance and the Family Caregiver Advocate.

Both should be able to give you ideas of good long term care in your area. It sounds like your husband needs some education about Alzheimer’s. While some dementias can get better (like if they’re from a UTI), Alzheimer’s is degenerative. She might have good days but overall she will go downhill.

Frame the problem not like she’s a nuisance, but like you are not capable/qualified to perform the care she needs. You could also start the process of finding a placement on your own. Your husband may have a negative view of nursing homes, but there are some really nice ones!

He may also be concerned about finances, because if it’s not medically necessary the bills will add up. You can always ask to speak to a staff member at these homes, and have a social worker or head nurse do an assessment to see if your MIL is appropriate.

There are different levels to assisted living, so you definitely want to make sure you’re looking at the right places. Tldr, contact staff/social workers at local Area Agency on Aging, Alzheimer’s Association, and senior centers for help

99celsius −  Tell him you’re falling behind on your work and will be out of the house for office hours, then leave and go to the library. Once he has to supervise her he will start to recognise it is unsafe for his mother to be there. What happens when you’re working and she poisons herself, sets a fire, falls etc? This unfair to you but also her as she’s in an unsafe environment and probably lacks activities

skizlex −  I’m a social worker that focuses on an over 55 population. Unfortunately, your scenario is very common. Becoming a caregiver, even when someone wants to be one, is very challenging and emotionally taxing. This situation is not fair to you, your husband, nor his mother.

I’d recommend having an in depth conversation with your husband about his plans and feelings regarding his mom’s care. Bringing up things like: what is he looking for in a long term care facility? Is he o**rwhelmed with the process of finding a place and needs guidance? Is he feeling any guilt about the prospect of having her move into a care facility?

Does he need support or education around dementia? Whatever is bolstering his resistance to moving his mom to a care facility, I would recommend counseling to address the issues this will bring up in the relationship and to work toward a realistic plan which works for both of you.

After that, I would recommend looking into local Elder Service programs, Home Care programs, PACE programs, and Adult Day Health Centers. These resources will provide services to help to ease some of the stress of having his mom in your home; some can also provide some guidance about long term care placement.

If you’re willing, make some appointments to visit some local facilities and go together for a tour. This will, ideally, join you both with a common purpose and keep the conversation ongoing and transparent.

[Reddit User] −  He has dropped this 100% in your lap. I suggest you tell him that he has one month to have a firm plan in place for when and where she will be moving to, because you will be looking for places to work during the day given that your current work situation has become unworkable.

Look for places you can rent a desk in a shared office or potentially a small office to yourself. She clearly can’t be left on her own, so if he’s unwilling to move her into somewhere that actually meets her needs, he needs to step up and be the caregiver.

budlejari −  As others have said, do your own research for a few days and when you have the information you need, sit down with him and say something like “I love your mother very much and appreciate that you don’t want to just throw her in a home. But it’s been a month, and you haven’t shown me that you’re looking for a home for her. This can’t go on.

I cannot care for her. She needs constant supervision, she’s at risk of infection from not bathing, she’s costing us money in food that she leaves out to rot, and she can’t clean up after herself. I work when I’m at home – she needs full time round the clock care, and we can’t provide that. It’s affecting our relationship, it’s affecting my job,

it’s hurting her because she’s not getting the stimulation and care she deserves. Here are some booklets and some info from (local homes, a charity that deals with dementia, places where she could go). We need to make a decision by (date).” Your husband is living the delusion a lot of people get when a family member develops dementia.

He’s looking at it day by day, with the beautiful view that ‘well, she’s my mother, I promised I’d take care of her in her old age, this is me taking care of her’. There’s always a slight hint of *well, she had one good day, she’ll have another soon enough*. Good days get further apart, not more regular.

You need to have the one to one conversation with him that this isn’t going to change. This isn’t going to get better – she won’t return to normal. He’s not looking at it long term. This isn’t going to go away, this isn’t going to change. The disease is progressive, and life long. It will only get worse because that’s what dementia does.

Sometimes, it’s slow and takes decades, sometimes, it’s much faster but it always does the same thing. It eats the person that you love, all their memories of you and their life, until nothing’s left except a stranger who lives in the distant past because that’s all they have left.

 He needs to accept that reality and maybe he needs professional help. Seeing your mother slip through your fingers is traumatic and makes people try to hold on all the tighter. A cousellor can help with that. He needs to process things so he can move on to let her go.

[Reddit User] −  You already know the answer. You want him to buckle up and stop pussyfooting around. Tell him this and make it stick. Give him a deadline. Starting this Saturday you will be leaving the house at 8Am and coming home at 6PM **every day**. He has until Sat to organised time off work because you won’t be home to act as nurse.

Then tell him if there is no fixed move out date for her a month from now you will be going to a hotel next day. See how he likes paying all the bills himself while he can’t work because he is caring for his mother. If he says she is getting better crush that hope/lie. You don’t get better from Altzhiemers or dementia. If he says you don’t care chew him out.

You have been caring for her all day for three months and will help pay for her medical/care bills but that you won’t continue to live like this. He lied to you and is taking advantage of you. Don’t let this continue and don’t listen to your guilt even. You can’t care for her and you can’t heal her. You have your own life and problems. Three months is logn enough to have done this when one was enough time to organise a home.

maidrey −  You need to have a serious conversation with your husband: “Neither one of us has the medical skills needed to take care of your mother and keeping her here puts all three of our lives at risk. You have one week to find her an appropriate place to live that’s safe.” He’s living in a fantasy right now because he is in denial.

You need to try to get him in front of a counselor for couples or individual therapy. There’s a very complicated process of mourning that occurs when you lose a family member to Alzheimer’s but they’re still walking and waking. You should look for support groups for family members/caretakers of people with Alzheimer’s.

What happens when she leaves the stove on and the house catches on fire because you couldn’t watch her closely enough while working? In most states, you would receive pay for being her caretaker but because he’s pretending to think about looking you’re not getting that pay.

You could also get a home nurse if he was willing to admit what he was doing. But instead he’s burying his head in the sand. Honestly, if he won’t do anything, you need to talk took adult protective service. Your house is not stable nor safe for her.

Reptar1988 −  I work/do AD research. If she is already this impaired, then you, and especially your husband, need to know there is no getting better. I’m guess he feels a lot of guilt about his mother, and wants to take care of her like she raised him. However, this is incredibly dangerous.

Even if you work from home, she can get into something dangerous in the five minutes you take a shower, answer the phone, run an errand. AD people have been known to get in a car and drive to work, despite having been retired and having their licenses taken away. They have a tendency to wander.

If she tried to wash toast, she could very likely injure herself or even burn down your damn house! If he is set on keeping her at home, then she needs 24 hour care. Your house needs to be child-proofed, essentially, with alarms. You might want to get a tracking wristband for her if she wanders, etc. it’s a LOT of work, and will only get worse.

What happens when she needs help in the bathroom? Forgets who you are? Moving her to a nursing home is the best bet, for her. If you want more details, PM me. I can even hook you up with articles and power points to help you convince your husband that it’s extremely dangerous for his mother to live with you, unassisted.