Please stop using the term "loved one". I have done much of my caregiving for family members who have been rude, angry and cruel for years. I have done this out of obligation.
I have been handed a club sandwich - 3 generations to care for, so there's been a revolving door of people to take care of and people with problems. After our daughter died, my wife, now ex-wife, abandoned me with our surviving kids. Before that, my brother went to prison 12,000 miles away, and I supported him as best I could, which included working with the US Embassy to get him out of a cell with 6 members of that country's organized crime syndicate.
My youngest sister became psychotic when she went off her medicine, and stopped working for 3 months to take care of her, and spent significant time thereafter when I finally was able to get her into treatment.
My brother rewarded me with an explosion as soon as I saw him when he returned to the USA, and he has been rude and angry (and unemployed) in the 10 years since.
My sister was furious throughout her treatment, and is still rude and entitled (she also has borderline personality or narcissistic personality disorder, depending on the diagnosis).
My father developed cancer while she was psychotic and my mother had developed Alzheimers, and I've had to manage my father's healthcare (he died, leaving records that took me almost 2 years to sort through), and my mother throughout this period. I have one sane sister, and she is also overwhelmed.
I really wish my brother and youngest sister didn't exist.
So please, in the future, be wary of plastering this page with the term "loved ones". Many people are caregiving out of obligation, are feeling punished, and seeing "loved ones" everywhere makes us feel worse.
I am afraid I am missing the gene for "obligation". I have always fully recognized my limitations, and I stay within them. I will never get any nominations for Sainthood; no one will ever pray to me as a fallen Martyr.
It is my one life. I do what I can for people I consider "loved ones" (funny as that phrase is to me since the book and the movie). The doing of what little I am capable of doing has filled my heart.
I might wish I were a better person. I might, but in fact I usually don't.
Most of my advice on this forum has been along the lines of recognizing our own humanity, our own flaws, and most of all our own limitations: cautions not to take on more than can be accomplished and still allow ourselves a good life.
Sorry that it is so tough for you, and for your sister as well.
Your life sounds like an example of why I don’t like the phrase “ what goes around, comes around.” Sounds like you have done all the right things, even when dealing with your own personal tragedies, the loss of a child and desertion of a spouse. Your brother and sister have their own issues and you tried to help and support them to only get kicked in the teeth.
I hope it helps to know others recognize your pain and hope better days are ahead for you.
You have far more to deal with than many people, and I hope you can find peace in the middle of this storm you didn't create.
I would try to let the little frustrations, like the use of LO, flow right over you so that don't add stress to your life over one of those many things that you can not control.
Please take care of yourself, somehow. You need a break. You don't need to care about the crappy people in your life. Don't let them hurt you anymore.
I know, I know - easier said than done. But it's something to work towards!
People make a lot of assumptions about caregiving, and about family relations in general. Assigning responsibility for care to family members is justified because you love them and you want to do it. And it you don't love them or don't want to do it, then there's something wrong with you since you should love them and want to do it.
It bites. No doubt about it.