I have spent every waking minute for the past three years doing everything for my father in law. Cooking. Cleaning. Laundry. Running errands. Paying bills. Doctoring wounds. etc. Now he is telling everyone he sees how much he dislikes me. How do I continue to visit and cope with these feelings. I have never asked for even so much as a thank you - but, this is something I did not expect. Mild dementia and short term memory loss is making me step back and not say anything to him, but, I am feeling so hurt. How do I cope?
Hopefully, once he get's used to the surroundings, he'll come around to appreciating you and all you've done for him once again. If not, you'll have to accept, for your own sanity, that he's only being this way because he's extremely unhappy and has no control over his life anymore. He's got to blame someone, and in this case sounds like he's unjustly blaming you.
Now, I had an advantage because I knew where I stood with such slugs of human waste however, our problem is in reverse. When he is with his friends he would say all the above. When he was being visited by visiting nurses he never uttered a peep to them or any hired help. Same now that he is in a nursing home. Believe me, I have asked. I needed to explain something because they knew our family kept a distance. They said he never says a peep to be rude, etc. Now he calls the nurses every racist and demeaning name in the book so my only conclusiion is he now has them to torture with his tongue,
Our family does the very thing that ww9729 suggested. We keep our distance, husband goes to see him when neccessary and to do a routine wellness check and I call to check on him and give report to hubby.
I have tried over the years to not have his outright hatred of me affect a small relatoinship with his granddaughter. It has been limited because he can turn on you in an instant but I have not kept her from knowing him. She is just 8 and I felt so sorry for her yesterday because she saw a photo of him and her while we were gathering some things from his home. She just started bawling her eyes out. I hugged her and told her that mommy understands and she asked if grandpa would ever get any better and I told her, "no, honey he will not." I just held her for awhile and thought of the irony that I am holding a sobbing 8 year old who is crying over a man who detests her mother. Sigh.