1. Don’t let it happen. Find her an apartment nearby. Hire a caregiver. Visit often and have her over as a guest for Sunday dinner.
2. If you have no choice, as I had no choice, no vote, you must take pre-emptive action. Set up a chart (as you would for your kids) with “chores” or “responsibilities” because the extra dishes, cooking, washing, and so on add up in a hurry. And some MIL’s expect to be treated like a queen because they’ve “earned it.” I believe that 75 is not old, and MIL can lend a hand around here.
3. Make sure your husband remembers you are a couple, not a trio. Insist on at least two date nights (days) when you can have fun and be away from your live-in chaperone.
4. Learn about the the Senior Center in your community and make use of it. There’s company, music, crafts, and interaction. Some even send a bus to make transportation easy.
5. Find and use time for yourself if you are at home (I am retired). We all need privacy and our own space. I continue at the gym, in my writing classes, and walking my dogs on my own. I am redecorating my bathroom and bedroom. Stripping wallpaper is excellent therapy.
6. If you have kids at home too, make sure MIL knows the boundaries for disciplining the kids (or indulging them).
7. Help with what you can. I do a lot of the scheduling (hair appts., doctors, dentist, airline flights (oh yes! Let her take vacations to see OTHER people when they offer to help).
8. Enlist the support of a psychologist as well as your girlfriends. There’s even a web site or two with helpful message boards. You will need to vent, lots of venting.
9. Take your own trips if you can. It’s hard for me to be away from home and husband (and dogs) but harder to be with MIL 24/7.
10. As my psychologist reminded me this week, the husband is also under immense pressure: work, wife, mother. Tone down the complaints, don’t pout, but don’t hide emotions either. (I used to cry in the closet). Air issues with him when neither of you is too tired or too angry to talk it out. Encourage him to visit the psychologist with you—it’s not marriage counseling, it’s life counseling. Many caregivers pre-decease the cared for because of the sheer stress of the challenges. GET HELP.
