My husband was very supportive of our moving to a new state, changing our jobs and living arrangements and having Mom move in with us. For about 15 months, I worked at home and had more free time. Now I have a real job outside the home and less free time. My husband is upset and says I'm not talking to him. We are all at home in the evenings when I am cooking for Mom and myself and he doesn't join us. If I ask him to go somewhere out of the house with me, he won't. Says he is too tired, which he probably is, since his job is so stressful.
I'm not sure what to do. I'm having trouble meeting everyone's social, physical, and emotional needs, as well as my own. My husband is so grumpy I don't want to be around him. And when his job takes him away from me, I don't complain. But it seems when my responsibilities take me away from him, he is unhappy.
I don't really have anyone here who can take Mom out at night. All family live about 2 hours away. We are able to go away and leave Mom alone for hours at a time, but he doesn't want to do that. Help!
Check with a Tax Adviser for the exact rules.
General rules are: you can claim your elder as a deduction if: they live with you for 6 months or longer of the year filed for, as long as you provide half or more of their support during that time.
Just avoid pulling the fast one my brother did: He started filing papers as if Mom lived under his roof instead of ours, by using one of her former married names. When I asked Mom about it, she just laughed maniacally, as if it was hilarious....she clearly knew of it.
I only discovered it while looking for something else for her online.
Goodness only knows how long they'd been pulling that off---not even we were qualified to claim her as a dependent--even though she lived under our roof for 6 years! While she lived with us the qualified time, she supplied her own support, so we didn't qualify.
My brother, OTH, supplied NO housing, NO financial and NO medical for her--he barely ever even gave her a ride anywhere. If he'd been caught at it [& the time limit has yet to run out on IRS coming after him], he'd be in real deep kimchee!
There are various rules for when adults Caretake for children, adult children with special needs, or elders, that could allow them to be claimed as dependents for tax purposes.
States that have income tax, may also allow some variations on same idea.
Does that make me a bad person?
to be away even if only for a few hours each day to get a well needed break and come back to the caregiving with a new perspective.
Again you are not a bad person don't be hard on yourself. Do the best you can with what you have. Get some home health aides in for regular visits, you will
feel much better.
We have discussed it and she seems to be fine with it right now so we will see what happens.
On one hand, he's convinced that we've done the right thing. On the other hand, it's hard that we have had to make so many changes to our lives. It's sometimes hard having her around, all the time. He probably feels the stress of her illness even more than I do, as he sometimes feels a bit of an outsider in his own house.
Sometimes, I will ask him if he feels left-out. I ask him if he regrets our choice. He basically just grumps back. However, I think I see that it makes a difference that I ask. Meanwhile, he does sometimes admit that he feels like an outsider in his own house and isn't sure what to do about it.
Sometimes, I will tell him I feel stuck in the middle - that I want to make sure that all three of us can live a decent life in this one house and not always sure how to go about it.
Things are better. We grump and grouse, but I think the fact that we do sometimes spill our guts or sometimes just ask if the other one is having a hard time, while it doesn't solve it all, just helps the other one know that we haven't forgotten about them.
The other night, we had concert tickets. Unfortunately, Mom had just been admitted to the hospital and he and I agreed that, while she was probably fine, that I should be at the hospital to talk to the doctors and get her settled. Instead of having dinner and a show, together, I couldn't go. I told him that I felt bad - that I know part of the fun is to go, together. I begged him to go and enjoy it for both of us and not to feel bad for me that I'd missed it. He couldn't find a friend to go (it was the very last minute) but he did go and gave the extra ticket to a stranger waiting in the ticket line. He did enjoy it. He hates doing things, alone, but he went and it seemed to be good for him to get out of the house. I told him it would be better than his plan of sitting at home and worrying about how Mom was doing, which wasn't going to help either of them.
But it's hard. It doesn't always work out that well here, either, so I know some of what you're going through.