I am married but have no support system. Any advice?

I started thinking, perhaps your wife has developed depression. Do you see any signs?

Regarding Elfgarden's reply, please remember that the wife BEFORE the grandmother moved in, only took care of herself. She didn't work with her significant other, as a married person should. The woman isn't crying for help. She is only taking care of herself, and having worked in the psychology field for over twenty years, I can honestly say that she probably won't change. If she didn't care to help her partner, then I doubt seriously that she would help anyone but herself, ever.

Personally I think your wife's behaviour is a cry for help. Sounds like she reluctantly agreed but didn't know what she was getting into. Obviously it would be best if she was able to have a rational discussion instead of the passive aggressive behaviour but everyone handles frustration differently. Being a caregiver 24/7 is exhausting and she probably had no idea what it entailed. My suggestion is that if you have vacation due from work, take a wekk or so and then give your wife a break and you look after grandma for the entire week. Once you have walked in your wife's shoes, then you may have some empathy for her and realise how difficult it is caring for an elderly person especially one with dementia. Maybe after the week is up, you will know one way or another if this is going to work. Maybe its time for grandma to live in assisted living or a nursing home and you try to save your marriage.

Since it has only been a month, you are still in the transition phase of adding another person to your home and of course there is going to be some discord. I would keep grandma because you made that decision based on your heart and your values. In addition, your wife did agree. I think she needs to get some education about how to handle difficult situations, how to better understand dementia/Alzheimer's. I would explain to your wife that naturally life, for the time being when you are thankful to have your grandma with you, is going to certainly be different. Then I would adjust your behavior to show appreciation for your wife and all she does. When you do your laundry and dishes, go ahead and do hers ignoring the fact that she is not reciprocating. The key is love. Continue to love our loud. And, be sure to appreciate your wife daily because chances are, your grandma as nice as she is may not be doing any appreciating. I know my mother has never once appreciated all we are doing for her and she has been living with us for five year. Your wife may change over time after YOU change first. So remember, the key is appreciate, love, and relax. Plan a night once a month at least when you take your wife out for a date and make arrangement for grandma to have a caregiver step in.

@ debralee,
we should never do anything we dont want to do, elders are free to decay so long as its out of your sight, and animals are what really matter in life. newsflash !! put in a desperate enough situation that dog will eat you.
he has a brain the size of a tangerine at best.

Marriage is a partnership. If what you say is true, that your wife will only take care of her things, then she is not in a partnership. Your relationship with her has nothing to do with your grandmother, or anyone else. If you truly want to stay with this person, you need marriage counseling, ASAP, especially if such a selfish person is supposed to care for another, i.e., your grandmother. I, personally, wouldn't trust such a person as your wife to care for anyone, if she is truly as selfish as you have depicted. Seek the counseling, because it will help you, too. I've read and heard, so many times, that when there is a bad relationship, even if the other person doesn't go to the counselor, it will still help the one who does. However, if there is no light at the end of that tunnel, turn around. There is always at least one other tunnel, and you may have to choose that. If you can afford to have someone come in and help your wife help your grandmother, can you afford to live with your grandmother alone and have outside help come in for your grandmother? I know what it is like to have a loved one who needs help and to also have a person who should be a loved one and should be helping be, instead, a roadblock, to pretty much everything. Also, I was just on the Seattle City site and found that they offer different kinds of assistance that I didn't know about. Whatever city you live in, perhaps, they have a referral system that you can use. Write a general letter and, religious or not, check with churches and synagogues, also senior centers and services, the Salvation Army, etc. Look in the phone book (yes, they still have phone books) under senior or caregiver, too. Trust me, I know, having to live with such negativity (I've had two people to live with at once like this) is so incredibly hard. I wish you so much luck, and I wish that I could help more.

As a wife who agreed to take in my husband's father and regretted it shortly after ..... I knew I couldent do it 24/7 for long ...even if my husband was caring for him whille he was home just having him there was mentally taxing ...where my frustration really began to explode is when I felt.trapped in the situation ! Like my life was completely changed ... It made me crazy ...people do crazy things when they feel trapped ! ...your marriage comes first ..you can't force her to care for anyone ...I finally got my husband to listen! Listen if she dosent want to care for her she shouldent be forced to "keep her word "

goddessrp, if your wife is behaving this way with you, it makes me wonder how she is behaving with your grandmother, when you're not there. What kind of care is grandma getting? Is it the type of care you would want for her?

Putting grandmother in a facility is not abandoning her or choosing your wife over her. It would be getting grandmother the care she needs and deserves, AND giving your wife the opportunity to get a job she wants. In a facility, you would still be involved with grandmother's care, AND work on your relationship with your wife.

goddess, does your SO ever offer solutions? I know she yells and she's passive-aggressive about washing dishes and doing laundry. All I hear you saying is about every solution you have offered is not what she wants. Does she ever offer any of her own? She doesn't want more time away, she doesn't want Gma to leave, she doesn't want more help with Gma, she doesn't want to work outside the home, she does't want ....., she doesn't want..... It's time for her to offer a solution. Give her time to think about it. Give her a deadline. Then tell her you are done being "whipping boy" (figure of speech ;-). Can she write things out easier than talking? Catering to her has not worked, maybe some tough love would? Suggest she get those big girl panties?

a bit of advice...please try to find someone the two of you can talk to. If your marriage is going to survive trying times like this, it is important to bring in a professional to talk to. Perhaps your wife would deal better with a mediator(therapist) or a minister. Her behavior is bordering on childish...I don't understand how she can only wash her dishes or sheets. I am so sorry you are going through this. It sounds like you are trying to be a good person and take grandma into your home. Best of luck to you.

Again i just want to thank everyone. I will concider everything everyone said and i know we will be ok. It just feels good to speak candidly sometimes...its my idea of screaming....lol. thanks everyone!!

Counceling is definatly going to have to happen. Because there are some issues that she is upset about that she will not talk to me about. I ask her what she needs and i do my best to help her...i can help her if she doesnt tell me everything she needs. I just want to talk. If we talk we can get thru this. But she doesnt talk she yells. There is no communication that way. I love my wife with all of my heart but i cant help her if she doesnt tell me whats the true problem. Everything she has come to me with i have made an extreme effort to accomodate because i know what she has given up to do this. Like i said i never just lock the down and tell her to scrub my kitchen and dinner better be done. Im not that type of woman. I just want a partner. If she feels there is something she needs...sit and talk to me....if u cant handle it today...tell me ill make a call...if u cant handle it anymore period tell me....i will make arrangements. I have told her all these things and things are fine for a few days until something goes wrong and everything falls back to this.....i just dont know

I am so sorry that you have this stressful situation to cope with. Has anyone thought how badly "Grandma" must feel, she is surely aware of the caregiver's resentment, and the arguments......... I come from a country where I grew up 65-70 years ago there were no "nursing-homes" . It was understood from when we were little on ... that "family" takes in and takes care of the elderly till death !! There was help via the catholic sisters and other nurse's aides paid by Insurance, the Doc came to the house to check health-status.. and this care status was emotionally supported and understood by neighbors, and friends, and family... because the caregiver status was engrained to happen to everyone if you lived to old age....
What does your wife think is going to happen to her in her old age? Why does no one in this country teach children the "path of life" ? I had to stop working to care for my very ill parents to their death. Widowed at the time it was no problem... family takes care of family... and I had the pleasure to bring my parents to the town where my daughter lives and my parents had the pleasure to enjoy seeing and experiencing their 2 great-grand children with many visits. What's more it was important to us to have my grandchildren experience them! Children develop emotional contact necessary for them to feel connected to the very aged in the family and experience the care their parents and grandparents give and get. I do not see much of that interaction and care-factor in this society, generally excused by the fact that "Mom" has a job and can't stay home to care for an aged parent ... so off the elderly go into a Nursing-home... with occasional visits only by the young generation of that family... What does that teach them...? It teaches them separation of family, they even understand that's what will happen to "me" one of these days, and "my" parents ... Sad, is it not.....!!!! Surely in some instances it has to happen due to the health problem of the Aged... but it should not be the NORM. .......... In your case I would say that your wife has not been taught, and is unwilling to learn how to care for a family member due to the fact that she seems to be a narcissistic personality, which brings out passive and active aggressive behavior - which she may unleash towards the "Grandma" when you are not around to see....... In my County there is an agency that sends Aides/Help , charged on a scale according to Income. Have you looked at Elderly Services... Have you looked at being visited and assessed by such an agency, who will most likely pick up on the "phony" responses your wife might express to their questions.,... and the interview, they will conduct with "Grandma"..??? If you can get Aides to help with her care, that would or could ease her resentment to being so "Tied" down, it would give her the chance to go shopping while Aides are there. Such trips away are often enough to break up the day enough to ease the feeling of endless hours of being stuck in a job she does not like, and apparently did not understand when your deal was made to begin with....
The one suggestion I do have though... having worked as an Aide, is the caution to lock up all valuables, prior to Aide visits... not just so they won't be stolen... but to make the aide feel that she will not be falsely accused if something is just lost rather than stolen......... That goes for let's say : Hummel-figurines to Cash to Jewelry... it is not fair to the Aide to be responsible for the care of your valuables as well as for the patient.... !!! I also feel that judging by the desperation you feel, that some change has to happen very soon, to keep the an accident from happening that may lead to worse consequences..... Please get help from any Social Services available in your area.. starting with a search in your computer... There is often more available than you so far know about... Good Luck !!!

Godessrp, what it boils down to is your significant other/partner/wife no longer wants the responsibility of caring your grandmother. What other issues you may have with her is making it worse with the care of your grandmother. It is up to you to decide what is best for you and your grandmother's care without expecting your partner to be invovled, she doesn't want to anymore.

Wow...
Thank is incredible. You definitely have stepped into some brown stuff here. I'm sorry that you are having to deal with this. You sound like you care for your sig other a lot. However, if there is anything I have learned in life is to put a loving couple in a stressful situation and watch what happens.

It's only been a month or so? What are y'all gonna do when the going really gets tough? This is only one aspect of the whole caregiving role. There is insurance, assets, banking, trust, declining health, and so on. I feel for ya for sure. If I was in your position I would back off. It appears that you are creating a monster by giving and giving to your sig other.

I guess what I am saying is that since the "lets sit down and talk about this" isn't working, and she is complaining all the time about this and that, give her some space. More than she may want. It's kinda like a reset. If she wants to clean only her things then I guess she better learn how to levitate or needs to clean the floor too. Use the bathroom? Get the soft scrub out. Eat dinner? Hope you aren't allergic to dish soap. Sure hope you know how to cook also, cause I'm cooking for me and whom ever else "I" choose to cook for.

Now, I'm not saying be a jerk about it. However, do it with a feel of natural consequences. It's a technique we used in behavior re-modification. One of many, and it sounds like your wife needs a healthy dose of it. Every action has a reaction, and positive action has positive consequences, negative, negative. It is imperative that it is done without one bit of anger or feeling of retribution. You will have to be prepared for threats and ultimatums. Natural reaction for not accepting responsibility for anything that one agrees to, and doesn't like the outcome of that decision. She may even challenge you to an extent that separates y'all more and more. (At this point you might wanna consider the consequences of what I am providing as an option)

As long as she has the ability to act and say whatever, and whenever without consequence this will not get any better. .. A couple of books (if you have the time)
Reality Therapy, and the 36 hour day. I wish you luck! It really sounds like you have your hands full with that situation. I doubt this will happen but ask your wife about seeing a counselor, use them like an arbitrator of sorts.

Sometimes it's easier to get out what the problem is with a stranger, because somewhere in the grey matter we feel like we aren't being confrontational when explaining to a stranger what the problem is.... All the WHILE the sig other is sitting right there. It's like... "You couldn't say this to me at home?"
Again, good luck!

I have given her every choice. Throw in the towel and go back to wht it was...no. give her a few days off a week and she can go out and do what she needs...no. it took me awhile to get people to come in for our date nights so we will see how long she is happy with that. When she comes with an issue i give multiple solutions....never just one. I really am trying here

I agree with you, "freecreator". Perhaps the poster has always been the one saying yes to family members, etc. over the years. Unfortunately, he may now be targeting the wrong person to say No to. It's like the "over-functioners" you mentioned, when they do get that they have been addicting to helping, they might use their new knowledge = power on the wrong person in their life. Unfortunate.

Taking care of an elder can be the hardest job in the world, even under the best of circumstances, and I think it is rare that any of us know this going into it.
This being said, I "hear" an even greater concern here: Will your significant other be there for YOU, if YOU become sick or disabled? From your comments, that answer seems obvious.
Definitely seek out some counseling, if your SI will go. Best of luck to you - you will need all the strength you can muster to get through this, but you will be a better and stronger person for it.

Some questions: Have YOU cared for grandma daily for a week, so you have a good idea of exactly how hard it is for your wife? Do you have control of grandma's finances and have you applied for Medicaid or other assistance for her to help pay for care in the home? Is there a financial way you get more help in the home to care for grandma, so that at least half the time your wife just has to be 'the supervisor'? If there is, can you sit down with her and renegotiate the terms and offer her more time for herself? You say that total watching is not necessary for g-ma, but if your wife is a caregiver, she may see the responsibility differently and she may be dealing with more than you understand. However, based on what you say, it also sounds like your wife deals with conflict in a very passive aggressive way, and this is not healthy for any marriage....with or without g-ma or with or without kids down the road. So I agree, that no matter what is decided re: g-ma's care, you two would benefit from counseling, to learn how to deal with conflicts and discussions in a more healthy manner. I speak this from experience as my upbringing caused me to bring some poor skills into marriage and my husband, due to his childhood issues had anger problems too. It was often a disaster until we got some marriage counseling. As an RN, I thought I knew it all and he needed the help, but I learned as much or more than he did in just a few sessions and we now have healthy communications. It is hard to feel that someone agreed to a plan and then decides that the plan won't work, but there is something obviously not being understood here. You say you have gotten help for a few ours a week, so the two of you can go out and be together, but perhaps your wife needs more time, for just her alone, or with her own friends and interests too? Without a healthy way to discuss what is not working and what she really wants and needs, you are just grabbing at straws to try to fix the situation. Some counseling will get you talking to each other so that you CAN understand what her real issues are and SHE can learn how to better communicate her needs and wants. And you are right....without this ability, it will be nearly impossible to add kids to the situation. In marriage, the focus ought to be how to make it work better...not having the notion that either we'll separate or just co-exist in the same house. Personally, I would rather be alone than co-exist....so my goal would be to figure out how to make it work.

Part of her enjoys staying home all day and not going out to work and working from her and then there is the part that wants it to fo away at 5 pm.....the part of her that doesnt understand that this is real life. Then enters me....the person who says lets go ti dinner ...lets steal a few hours alone in the basement....my gma isnt an invalid she can be left alone for a few hours at a time. Enought time for us to decompress and connect as adults and hug and talk and love one another.

I have brought up the option to have her move out and we go back to the way things were....she says no

I see that you posted that you listen and are sensitive to your sig other. What she really might want (because I'm not there to hear her side) is more than nice words. She might not want your grandma to live there with the two of you anymore. If this is the case and she doesn't flat out tell you, it's probably because she knows you're not open to the idea. You need to bring up the option of what has probably been staring you in the face for quite a while now, ever since your sig other has sent up the smoke signals in her behavior towards you. I stress if you want to save your relationship with her, things must fundamentally change = and soon. Sometimes we must make the hard choice and that is life.

Okay, first of all, this is not about "blaming" anyone! Your wife obviously did not understand, nor you, the scope of how draining being a caregiver for a loved one can be. You don't mention what status your grandmother is in, and so I cannot comment on how much she would be able to help. Can you talk with her? My best suggestion is you need couples therapy to talk with an objective therapist, to hear both sides, and then the two of you come to a compromise that you can both live with (which is a problem now). No one makes a decision without having some hiccups along the way, and if you think you are handling EVERYTHING WELL, you are mistaken. Why do you feel you cannot talk and "breakdown" with your wife? Who told you a man was allergic to pain, suffering and the inability to communicate? Men and women do not live in a vacuum. As the song goes, people need other people. Stop playing the "blame" game, and your situation will improve with professional counseling. So says this nurse and therapist.

I have tried literally everything....so i think and iam open for suggestions. I have sat down before gma came and asked her what she wanted and i made it happen. She gets mad i ask her again whats the problem and i make it happen. I know what she goes thru during thw day.....i dont lock her in the house and say now clean woman......i want her to be happy if she telks me sits down and TALKS we can make it happen. We have a huge house we arent falling all over each other...we have trips planned we have relief workers.....whenever she wants out all she has to do is say the word and i make it happen. I cant promise a fairy tale .....noones life is a fairy tale. But damnnit just talk to me like a human and i can try my hardest....i know the sacrifices she is making and i love and appreciate her for them thats y im trying so hard to make things ok

goddessrp, Thank you for the tip. If you need support, we are here for you. I really hope you get care you need. I have a hard time taking care of myself when taking care of others. Hang in there and know you are in my thoughts.

You must get a caretaker or assistant to come into the home (at least part-time) right away dude. Yes, pay the hourly fee. It could save your marriage. Expecting a non-trained person to do this is not reasonable. Your wife has had to change her role into the "caregiver". Doesn't sound happy as is. Change it!

Oh, I see it in your title. Sorry. Most people are not caregivers. Your wife is not. I have no idea why she would wash one pillow case, though. I think she is sending you a message.

Are you 2 married?

@lainy1 i am also a woman so there is no common law anything....we are married some people dont take to kindly to people like me so i used significate other to avoid this conversation

Yet another perspective...could it be a case of immaturity (wife)? It sounds like she wants it all...has it all...and still wants more. If this is the case, its a matter of experiencing some bumps in the road of life. Has she had to experience any bumps and/or is she the high maintenance type that suffers from what I like to call the "Cinderella Syndrome"? The latter...watched too many fairy tales as a child and thinks she deserves nothing less. Some people, especially when self esteem and/or purpose in life is lacking, insist on playing the "blame game" and have incessant "pity parties". My daughter is 30 and still struggling to pull up her "big girl pants". Why? In part because she was an only child and very spoiled. She watched many fairy tales, had a fairy tale childhood and becoming an adult has been a painful process. If any of this is ringing true to you, you are wise to say "no" to having children as it will only exacerbate your issues. She'll be happy short term...and you & the child will suffer in the long term. Maybe ask her if she feels a separation would be helpful? Put the ball in her court. Speak to her using "I" messages, telling her "I really care about you, this relationship and the future. I want you to be happy...and I want to be happy to. I feel I've been doing my best to make the current arrangement work...yet you still seem to be unhappy. That makes me unhappy too. I love my grandmother too, and I wouldn't feel right kicking out as that would devastate her. So...I ask you...what do you think WE can do to make this workable?" If her response is negative..."I don't know what else to do, but I do know we can not go on like this. Do you feel a separation is in order?" See what her reaction is. In addition, you may want to arrange/ask for a meeting (time/day/place) in advance and AGREE to being "good listeners" and to using your "Sunday voices". Best of luck to you.