My husband and I have been married 33 years. I just turned 60 years old and have been very ill for the last three years. I finally found a doctor who we feel can help me, but probably have two to three years before I'm able to get back to a somewhat normal. My husband owns his own roofing company which has been successful but demands a lot of his time. Because of my illness, many of the household duties have fallen to him plus the extra responsibilities in taking care of me. My MIL lives independently about 2 miles away from us and has for the last 18 years. During the last several years, she has lost most of her friends due to illness or they have passed. So she now has little to do socially and she is very lonely. She loves being social and I think she would be very happy in an independent care facility, she would be able to get to her hair, doctor, eye appointments and would have something to do every day. She could still drive if she felt like she wanted to. I think it would greatly reduce the amount of time my husband has to spend with her. She is a difficult woman and demands much from my husband even though she has money to pay for people to help her out. My husband has a brother and sister who lived on opposites coasts. They visit once or two a year but aren't involved in her care at all. My husband refuses to talk to them about it. He spends about 2 to 3 hours a week in face to face time, 2 hours a week with her on the phone and probably an hour or more running errands for her. Plus we have her over for dinner 3 to 4 times a month. Sometimes more, sometimes less. She refuses to even look at independent care facilities and my husband finally admitted to me that he feels it would be even more work for him if she did move into one because he would have to be running to see her all the time at the facility which is about 30 to 45 minutes away. He won't set boundaries with her or tell her no. He said last night that it was difficult for him to balance the stress of taking care of me and her. I told him I thought I should have top priority and would like to have more of his time for our relationship. Right now he is spinning plates and is very stressed out. Our relationship is suffering because of it and the things that I tried to improve it have failed. I'm resentful that he has to spend so much time taking care of his mother which leaves me alone most of the time. What are reasonable expectations? I told him I was afraid our marriage wouldn't make it through the next two or three years if things didn't change. We've tried counseling and it worked for awhile but then things just go back to the way they were. Now I'm too sick to travel every week to see a counselor. I told my husband that I thought he needed to see a therapist to help him with setting boundaries but I don't think he will. I admit I don't care for my MIL, there have been many times throughout the years that she has not been nice to me and my husband refused to do anything about it. I want my relationship back with my husband. I guess these are my questions: Am I'm being unreasonable with wanting more time from my husband, especially since I am very ill, am I wrong to be resentful of the time he has to spend with her because she is difficult, am I wrong that my BIL and SIL don't have to share any of the burdens of dealing with her? I realize that unless he decides to make changes nothing will change. I guess I just need to know if I'm being unreasonable. If I am then I will stop pushing this and just try to figure out how to make it though on my own, I guess I don' have any other choice. Thanks for any thoughts.
I have made my own life. I’ve found things I really like to do. I have a little knitting loom I love and a few years ago I made two dozen hats for the needy. Go off on your own. Get some home care for yourself and let them take over what your husband is doing for you. Complaining that he loves mom more than you obviously isn’t working. It sure didn’t for me. We don’t have a Hallmark Channel marriage, but who does?