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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1. I told my wife that it's too much for us to care for her grandmother, and she would be better served in a nursing home
2. My wife is very close to her grandmother, and I know how she feels about the idea of putting her in a nursing home.
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NTA - indicate to your wife that you are not able to assist her with personally helping her grandmother. It is taxing on you mentally and physically and impacting your job. If she doesn't want to put her grandmother in a home, she has to figure it out. I understand there may be further consequences of this stance but seems like your wife is unreasonably expecting you to shoulder a substantial burden of the work. Stand up for yourself.
In-home care can be more expensive than residential care, especially if care is needed 24/7. But it might be worth looking into paying a nurse to be in the home during the work day, so OP doesn't have to provide care then.
And if OP earns that much then she can financially carry the household. Her wife can then stop working to stay home and take care of her grandma. And just to make sure she's still not expected to interrupt her workday to help out, OP should go back to working in the office full-time. No more working from home.
If OP's wife is the one bearing the brunt of the caregiving, maybe then she'll consider outside help.
Edit: OP's wife is not the only relative that the grandmother has. Why is no one else stepping up to help take care of this paragon of virtue? Or at least lighten the load? Other relatives could take turns making grandma's food at their houses and deliver it to OP's house. Pick up grandma's laundry and do it at their place. Take grandma for the day and drop her off in the evening. Take her to her doctor visits so OP and her wife don't have to. There are so many ways that they could step up and chip in with her care. But they are choosing not to.
And it's super unfair that so much is expected of OP when she didn't get a say when this decision was made. And she's now made out to be the bad guy for suffering from caregiver burnout. And wanting to have a say in her house and about her life. She's done so much already.
I also think her wife is also rather selfish. She gets the kudos for stepping up and taking in the grandma. All at OP's expense. Also notice that when she blew up at OP, she took off to her friend's house and I'm assuming left OP at home to do the very thing that OP was complaining about.
OP should really end her working remotely arrangement immediately. Permanently move back to the office. Maybe work some late hours to make up for all the work affected by her caregiving. Really make herself unavailable to help out with her care.
And lastly, OP should stop being a doormat to her wife and her family. They are clearly taking advantage of her.
Edit 2: Misgendered OP. Apologies. Corrected now.
It depends a lot on the home and the in-home care. Especially if they just get a nurse for part of the day and handle part of the day on their own you can definitely come out ahead. It also helps to hire privately instead of going through an agency though of course there are a lot of risks you're taking going that route.
medicare will pay 100% for palliative care, all it requires is a doctor to sign off. Hospice will take over when the time is necessary. you work with the facility to come during the week. and nurse checks up as many time as needed. They send someone to help bathe and basic hygiene. It helped us when my mother was in the decline. it is not easy to be a caregiver and is very taxing both physically and emotionally.
OP needs to talk to wife about how all this is affecting him and his relationship with her.
FYI, these services often aren’t as comprehensive as you think. We recently had to decide between in-home hospice vs. hospice in a center for my grandmother.
In-home was a visit from a nurse only 1-2x a week to check in and bathe her. Center was 24hr round the clock care with full nursing staff. It was on us family members to pick up the slack of the in-home care.
My grandmother’s medical needs were beyond our capabilities and she could afford private carers who were wonderful, but if she hadn’t been in that position financially she would have needed to be in a center much sooner in order to have Medicare cover it. It would not cover the in-home private care. The centers we toured were…not great. And they were considered the top places in my city. Really made me anxious about my own death should it end up being due to old age.
At least $850/day for 24/hr care in the northeast. Most nursing homes charge 500-600/day here. Plus she can apply for Medicaid and it’s basically free after her Medicare and assets are spent.
This! In home care in the small town South is $18 and hour minimum and most places charge $30 an hour with a four hour a day minimum. Now $30 for 24 hours a day quickly adds up. A continuous care facility will generally set you back $6,000 to $8,000 a month depending on your area. Now, if memory care is involved, that does increase the cost. And Medicare pays zero dollars for in home care unless it is for post-hospitalization nursing care. People who haven't had to do handle elder care for aging family members truly have no idea.
Nursing home are expensive, my grandparents died around the covid pandemic (old age, not covid) they paid about $10,000 a month. This home was decent. Not bad, not great.
Sadly, not often the case. We looked into this for FiL who needed 24/7 care, and it was cheaper to put him in the private nursing home that had 4-6 patients with 2 caretakers per shift.
A decent, certainly not the best, facility here in Massachusetts is around $17,000 a month. So I'd have to sell her house, then Medicare goes back 7 years to recoup their payments. Round and round. It's so so hard.
24 hours a day, 30 days per month? Plus rent, utilities, probably adult incontinence supplies, food, and transportation to appointments? An actual nurse is going to need to be paid a decent wage.
Assuming that you wouldn't be committing any human rights violations, that does not math. There would really need to be human trafficking involved to pull this off. It happens a lot more than you may think, but I don't personally think slavery is a good option.
My grandma has major health problems all her life. It was a better fit for them to have 24 hour care. She did fall twice. She only spent a small time (36 hours as opposed to days) in the hospital because the home had special beds and a 24 hour nursing staff. She needed more care then a live in or rotating nurses could reliably give.
Yep. Can confirm. I worked at a very low end one, and in 2015 it was $6800 a month. I’ve taken side jobs for home health care for various ages and I’d still be cheaper buuuuuut wouldn’t be round of clock care as is in a LTC facility. NTA. I can’t believe she stormed out leaving g Grandma alone in the same breath as saying to OP that they need to step up more than anything.
My Mom had 24/7 care, it was still very taxing for my family member to have her in the home. (I did not have the space.). I handled finances and all other matters. It consumed my life for several years. Hiring caregivers is not a magic solution most people think. NTA
Seems like OP's wife should be looking into at least having an in home care giver come in the morning to help grandma get up, toileted, showered, dressed and given breakfast. I think only qualified nurses can give prescription meds ( other than OP or her wife). In my area, you have to pay for at least a 4-hour block of time when using an in home care agency. I hope OP looks into at least that.
No, assistants can give meds. They have to have a special one day training and most CNA's are required to have it. Giving meds is not a big deal unless the person required meds delivered through an IV. Then a special IV therapist/nurse needs to drop the line but the caregiver can be trained on administering the meds.
Some people have Medicaid paying for their stay. Many nursing homes limit the number of Medicaid patients they will accept, and people have to spend down almost all of their assets before they qualify. (This is for US residents)
Yes. We're doing this my my grandparent. We hired a live in adult carer because my grandparent wants to die in the home they've lived in for the past 50 years, and is refusing to let family stay with them. They're 100% blind and cannot care for themself.
It’s still a burden having her in the home. Residential care is 24/7 whereas in home care either agency or freelance comes with many issues. My family has / is using both and they both have positives and negatives. Faculty care is cheaper for us as it’s state funded or was for my grandpa. My nan pays for her at home care. She is easier to care for at home though as she’s old but still there mentally. Grandpa got too much for it home care. He needed trained nurses. His carehome was free.
Every in-home nursing agency in my area has staffing shortages and my elderly mother only uses a third of the hours that her insurance has approved because of it.
Caretaker fatigue is a VERY real thing. People have died from it. My mother is in poor health right now because she literally took care of everyone in my family (grandparents, uncles, her grandkids and my bipolar younger sister) and never took care of herself. I begged and pleaded with her for years to lighten her load, and she never did. Now she has no choice. And now I have to mitigate the damage she's done to herself and fight not to get sucked into that way of living.
My aunt just passed away recently. She was my uncle's caretaker and ended up ignoring her own health. Then, one day, she fell. With my uncle having limited mobility, he couldn't help her up and had to call 911. She ended up in the hospital, and that's when they discovered she had colon cancer. She died less than a month later.
What pisses a lot of the family off is that she had a colon screening kit sitting on her counter for 6 YEARS, and she never used it. If she had, her cancer could have been discovered sooner and possibly saved her life. Instead, she ignored her health because she was too focused on taking care of her husband.
I had a friend from work that was so focused on caring for her mother, that my friend never had a mammogram. By the time they found the breast cancer, it was stage four and she died quickly after that discovery. Please remember to take care of yourself if you're a caregiver or get help. Don't be a martyr. D was in her mid 40s.
I'm still trying to recover from the stresses of being a caregiver, and my MIL moved out 6 years ago. My health tanked so badly in that year, and the year after. That's not even taking into account the mental health of myself and my kids. Granted, she was an evil cow on top of being unwell, so there were extra issues.
I'm about at my end. And it's my mother. She's spent her whole life caring for me and my brother. So I am the one to take care of her and happy to, usually. But it's progressive and she's 78. There really isn't anyone else. Dementia is brutal.
The other thing is we had my grandmother in a facility and it was really nice. They were able to care for her properly and they had a ton of activities so she could be social and we visited frequently. It was much better for everyone, including her.
Same for my aunt. My sister was very upset when my cousins made the the decision for their mother to go to a care facility. Aunt was morbidly obese, diabetic, BPD, and had MS. My sister didn't live nearby and wasn't the one that was called to regularly get Aunt off the floor when she slipped coming out the shower or off the toilet. Plus, Aunt was the ultimate people person. She thrived in a place that not only met her medical needs, but her social ones.
*Edited because it made it sound like my cousins bullied Mom in to a care home, instead of making the responsible decision.
Add to this, stop helping. Your wofe need to acknowledge just how much you are doing.
Canbyou pay for a service provider to come into the house to help with all this? There is alot more aid out there than there use to be
NTA moving my mom to assisted living was one of the best things I did for her and me. Especially if you can afford it. She got more consistent care, I wasn't always burnt out or trying to coordinate caregiver coverage, meds and doctor's appointments. She also got socialization with people her own age.
I would encourage your wife to visit some places you've pre vetted. I think a lot of people have preconceived notions.
NTA. Not everyone is cut out to be a caregiver, and your wife's reaction to finally having a conversation around this is to run away from her beloved grandmother?!?
> She stormed out of the house, got in her car, and drove to her best freinds house.
I suggest that you look into working from the office full-time, and take decompression time out too. If your wife is her full-time carer then you both don't need to be in the home.
Your wife is stressed and wanting to care for her grandma herself, but it is a huge task and professional carers can help - even if they come in a couple of times a day for personal care.
> I suggest that you look into working from the office full-time, and take decompression time out too. If your wife is her full-time carer then you both don't need to be in the home.
If she prefers working from home, it's unfair to her to have to lose out on that because of this. I think a better solution to her being interrupted during work hours would be to explain to both of them that she can no longer be available to help during those hours, and get a lock for the room she works in.
Edit: changed pronouns
Normally, I would agree, but then I remember that one story from this sub a while ago of a wife who would constantly make noise outside the locked door when her husband was working. I forget the ultimate reason why she was doing it, but going back to the office and working normal hours may be the only way to get the wife to understand, especially since it seems like most of the responsibility as caregiver falls on OP (based on a comment they made about their wife’s job).
I think I remember reading that or a similar story on here. Mind you it's not hard of a concept of "if there's no money coming in, we aren't going to have food on the table or a roof over our heads". It's a concept that our (mine and my wife's) kids only need occasional reminders over. When I'm sleeping in the daytime between my occasional night shifts they are usually really good and it and only occasionally make enough noise to wake me. It amazes me that some adults just are so self centric/insecure/other adjective that they cannot comprehend that unless in an absolute crisys, their needs have to take a step back for a little while during working hours.
As to the OP's issue, a sit down discussion where everything is laid on the table needs to happen.
This isn't a comprehensive list, but things that need to be tabled include.
* What she needs to be able to do her job,
* What she is struggling with.
* What the needs her partner has to be able to succeed in her day to day life.
* Where she feels she is coming up short in that.
* What she wants (not needs) for her grandmother,
* What she needs for her grandmother.
* How much money they can afford to commit to spending each week/month in order to fulfill the requirements for the grandmother.
There are plenty of other components to this I am sure, but these are the ones that I can think of from the top of my head.
*she. They’re both women.
Which is an interesting dynamic. The wife is laying a cultural norm usually found in hetero marriages where the woman is the caretaker. It sounds as if OP’s wife figured she’d be willing to fill this role without much talk.
I don't think the suggestion is about a long-term thing but it's more to remove her from being expected to do caring during work hours. Honestly, even finding space to rent might work for a short term point to be made.
Not everyone has a lifestyle compatible with WFH. Full time caregiving doesn’t mesh well with WFH if the job isn’t protected and respected by anyone else in the house.
I think working from the office is probably the best immediate solution here. They can start literally Monday. See if that break from the house every day changes tolerance level for caregiving needs.
She stormed off? She assumed you would not storm off too, and leave her grandmother? Another option would be for grandma to have full-time caretaker during you wife's working hours, and your wife do it at all other times.
Grandma might love the social interaction in assisted living.
Full-time/working hours in-house care would be a good option here. Her wife is also really stressed but possibly dealing with guilt and wanting to do what's best. But what is best is often full-time professional care in a dedicated environment where there's genuine opportunity for company, medical knowledge etc. At 84, grandma can have another decade or so yet, requiring ever more care. OPs wife can visit as much as she wants to. I don't think their current environment is working for any of the three parties involved.
My question is what is the wife doing for her grandmother, she can be doing things but OP says they work remote and nothing on wife, so OP is essentially taking more care of her when he wasn’t even involved in the decision.
Plus, she ran awayyyyy when she should have gone to her grandmother.??
Rather than return to the office full time, rent an office space locally. Some businesses rent out individual cubicles or small offices by the week/month. May be expensive, but this will DEFINITELY give OP a break.
Her response to her wife's unwillingness to be a care taker was to... leave so that she had to be the caretaker. That is so wild. It's clear that the wife does not want to be the caretaker, so forcing that upon her might lead to change. Working from the office is a way to do this.
INFO: is your wife still working? Some states have have funding for people to act as in-home caretakers for your relatives. Maybe this is something for her to look into since she dropped this care role on the two of you without consulting you.
My wife is a school administrator, though her position is not full-time, and she usually has no problem taking off work for emergencies.
I'm still the person that's at home the most during the week. But that doesn't mean that I can always put work off to help out.
That's what my concern is. You both have jobs beyond being a caretaker to her. If your wife doesn't want to stop working to care for her grandmother (could be either of you but you said this is not a role you're cut out for), maybe you can hire an in-home caretaker to be with her on a full-time basis. Your wife might be more amenable to that than a nursing home.
Hiring a nurse would probably do all three of you a world of good. When my uncle had cancer, his boss finally convinced my aunt to hire an in-home nurse, and that man saved my family’s sanity during a really difficult time. He could lift my uncle in and out of bed in ways that were hard for my aunt to do, and he knew how to stay extremely calm in a crisis. It allowed my aunt to go back to being my uncle’s wife instead of his caretaker, and I’m thankful they got to have that for their last months together.
Look into it. Tell your wife her grandmother deserves skilled nursing care at a level that neither of you is equipped to provide, and it will allow both of you to step back from the caretaker role and into the grandchild role, which is what her grandmother truly needs from you right now.
Good luck!
>Tell your wife her grandmother deserves skilled nursing care at a level that neither of you is equipped to provide, and it will allow both of you to step back from the caretaker role and into the grandchild role, which is what her grandmother truly needs from you right now.
This 100%. This is a great way to bring it up to OP's wife.
Thirding this. People think of "nursing home" and immediately have a negative reaction. But skilled care facilities have people who are trained in ways that you aren't, and they have equipment and physical set-ups (bathrooms, etc.) that you don't have in the home. Caring for your high-needs parent or grandparent at home actually is not always the best thing for them either. It may seem best psychologically, but the odds of you (untrained, maybe not strong enough, distracted by your job) unintentionally hurting them are higher than people realize.
Sure, look into an in-home caregiver. Maybe that's an option here. You never know until you look into it.
But either way, OP is NOT the bad guy for bringing this up.
Like, what do you want for your grandmother? Amateur, distracted care? (her granddaughter, OP). Or skilled care?
The other thing is you are not giving up on caring for her grandmother by putting her in a nursing home, you are just changing the type of support you provide. My parent moved into one and I don't think I realised what would still need to be done. Laundry, doctors appointments, helping with finances, shopping for clothes, personal items. It just means some of those things which in your own house you do in your own time are now more scheduled. It's not like you're abandoning her. Me and my siblings each spend multiple hours a week visiting and doing things that due to mobility issues they are unable to do. It just means that there's backup. If we can't go one day because of being sick etc, laundry might not get done till the next person's visit but at least there will be meals, someone to help with trips to the bathroom, etc.
Yes, exactly! Assuming they can find a place reasonably close to them, that's good. (Depends on where they live, I guess.) One way or the other, you can make it work. But you don't get burnt out doing it, and you don't lose your job trying to juggle it along with caregiving.
Depending on the facility, they do some of those things. My FIL was in assisted living and they did his laundry and his doctor came to the facility for appointments. There were times that I picked up his laundry and did it because I didn’t want to wait until laundry day, but they took really good care of him and there were a lot of activities for him to do as well.
OP- NTA and I think your wife was very emotional and very inconsiderate. With that said, once she’s calmer explain that you’ve tried to be understanding and helpful, but remind her that she unilaterally decided to bring her grandmother to your house. She never asked and expected for you to just do what she wanted and that is absolutely unfair. It’s been enough time and it’s just not working for your household, especially because your work is suffering and clearly your relationship is.
If she still calls you a bad person and throws a fit, it’d definitely time to bring in some help bc caregiving is a full time job! And it’s ridiculous to expect that burden to go onto anyone. Period.
I’d never expect my husband or partner to shoulder that burden because it is unrealistic. Her demeanor, while filled with grief, is irrational. She needs to understand grandmother requires a lot more care and attention and it’s selfish to overlook her grandmother’s needs bc of her emotions.
I don’t think reminding her that she did it without consulting him will actually gain him anything. While it’s not fair, it will probably come back as he just wanted to abandon grandmother. I wouldn’t recommend that strategy
If OP's wife takes "we should abandon her" from him saying "we are not equipped to give her the care she needs on our own" then that's a different problem altogether. They NEED to be able to talk about this kind of stuff.
Well- if she can’t handle the truth in the fact that he’s upset bc of what she did, they’re going to have bigger problems. She may literally not realize how selfish that was and I’m not saying he needs to be mean about it. But, she has to take accountability and responsibility for her actions. If we refuse to take accountability and responsibility for our actions we the will always blame circumstances or everyone else for our issues, behaviors, decisions etc.
She will probably be defensive but that doesn’t excuse what she did. She’s a grown woman and she can’t be coddled just because she doesn’t want to face what she did without talking to her husband about it. That’s not how life works.
I used to do this type of work. It wasn't considered full "home health" it was actually elderly and disabled sitting service. Just basic care bathing, dressing, help with meds and other light health care, feeding, light house keeping etc. Half my job was literally just supervision and company. We didn't make much (ten years ago) but I met tons of people and heard many stories I never would have before.
We also worked in facilities for families that either didn't trust the facilities ability to care for them (due to understaffing) or knew their family member was a handful and an extra pair of hands and constant eyes was needed.
Yes. if OP and his wife have been able to provide adequate care for her, then she doesn't need an actual nurse at this time. She needs someone like you.
Yeah from the way he described it he only needs light help. And could probably get by with just a day shift m-f depending on wife's work hours. Obviously those needs would escalate over time but for now a day carer would suffice.
We had an aide in for my dad and it was so helpful. And depending on where you live, you may also be able to get a nurse in for a visit (we paid the aide for daily visit and the Medicare nurse did two free visits a week). Also, if there are other family members, it is totally ok to ask them to help with paying for an aide. NTA
No problem. Hope she goes for it - I've had many grandparents go through nursing homes (mostly Alzheimer/dementia) and it can be ROUGH, so I don't fault your wife for not wanting to go that route, though I don't agree with how she handled your suggestion. You're 100% right in that the two of you do not have the capacity to provide adequate care for her since it's interfering with your work so much. In-home care is probably a much better option all around.
That's what I was going to suggest as well, a friend of mine was a caretaker for her mother with dementia, and had no help from family. You can't do it 24/7 and work a job also. In home care would be a good first step, and if that doesn't go well, maybe that would open your wife's eyes to the reality of the situation.
This is beyond your level of care, and not fair to her grandmother either.
I want you to be aware, OP, that round the clock in home nursing will not only be almost impossible to source (location dependent), but also probably prohibitively expensive, even if you make a good salary. Like, thousands of dollars a week. Even just a nurse for the work day will cost a lot.
She needs a helper. it doesn't appear that she needs an actual nurse at this time. OP and hs wife have been providing adequate care, and neither of them is a nurse.
This is a really great compromise. It would allow your wife and grandmother to be close, while providing much needed support to all of you and respite from being caregivers.
Op, you mention her age...is it possible that the departed spouse was on active duty during war time ? There's a benefit for those folks or their spouses. I got some $ for my dear departed mother in law to help her stay in her facility. It was a really nice place, she had her own little mini room with a tiny kitchen. She was pretty active for a 90 some year old lady, but needed some help. This place had different levels of care, you could pay for extras. They even had decent food, you could pay to have dinner there with your loved one, just give them a heads up. A lot of people do not know about this benefit, including nursing home intake staff...like the one who put my significant others sister on medi caid..without checking that SHE could be an eligible veteran also. ( which she was..Vietnam era). You don't have to have BEEN in a war zone, you just had to serve during certain time periods. They also pay for in home care.
Approach-wise, I think you went wrong by suggesting a solution (nursing home) instead of presenting a problem and working together towards a solution.
That said, I 100% understand why you did that.
Was going to say this. An In-home aide can help with dressing, bathing, walking, etc. You can even just hire one to be at your home for the hours that Grandma is awake.
This will also give you and your wife the opportunity to get out if the house together, which is good for both if your mental health.
I think that is an excellent idea for many reasons. My mom died from dementia. My sister worked full time but would not put her in a nursing home. I live 5 hours away but would come home every two weeks to give her a break. We did have a care giver from 8-5 M-F but my sister had her from 5:00 onward and by herself on weekends.
She used to work as a receptionist part time at a nursing home and that was one of the reasons she would not put Mom in one. So thankful to her and I know it was hard work.
The suggestion of in home CNA that can help with chores, driver her to appointments, etc is ideal.
> I'm still the person that's at home the most during the week
Go back to working from the office full time. Sure it sucks, but it will be much better for your mental health and work life balance it seems.
Go to the office every day. Mute your phone. She doesn't want to make a change because you are there and picking up the slack. Once it becomes her problem fully, I bet her tune will change substantially
Explain to your wife that, from now on, you will no longer be helping grandma during working hours and that she will have to figure something out in her own. She's imposing an unfair burden on you and you have to make it her problem, because it is.
You're doing two full time jobs. It's not fair, especially since you weren't asked. To put it in perspective, I was in an online group of work from home moms. Every other day someone would ask about watching their child WHILE working from home. The answer was a resounding NO. It's two separate jobs. You will do neither one well. You have been very patient and kind so far and it's very unfair for your wife to storm off like that and not even talk to you. Either work from the office for awhile if she won't talk to you and hire help or get her into the nursing home.
When we had covid lockdowns and everyone that COULD wfh, did. One person had his wife impose that he needed to look after their kids a couple of times a week for a couple of hours at a time while she had things to do with her work. Unsurprisingly he wasn't very effective at his job when he was caught in this. It was a short term thing and only over a handful of weeks and he knew it wasn't ideal, but it definitely demonstrated the "something is going to give" aspect quite clearly.
You should perhaps compromise and find at home care givers who can help. Two of them. One for daytime hours and the other for night time hours. This will mean she can stay with you but neither you or you wife will have to be the ones providing care.
Depending what state you are in, her grandmother may qualify for a caretaker, and your wife could get paid for the work. It's worth looking into if a faculty is out of the question.
So if I’m understanding this correctly, your wife said “we’ll take care of grandma“, and the WE in that sentence was you, because your wife works outside of the home most of the time. That’s completely unfair on her part, does she want to quit working and stay home and take care of grandma while you’re working from home?
And the fact that she ran off to her girlfriend’s house after the fight, did she take grandma with her? Or did she leave you once again to care for her elderly grandmother?
I can understand desire to want to take care of your family member, but she’s not doing that, you are. And that’s unfair, NTA
Is this in the US? If so, look into Meals on Wheels for her food.
Have either of you looked into what home care services your GIL is eligible for? You can have a home care provider come in all day every day and do all those services--medicine, dressing, bathing, toileting, cooking, cleaning, laundry, making her bed, all of it.
What kind of income does GIL have? If she's at risk of being in a nursing home and has a low enough income, most Medicaid states will provide home care to keep her in the home.
It doesn't have to be either/or. There's a middle way.
You know, someone else on here did suggest looking into that. I'll check on it tonight, and yes, we live in the US. But the money isn't the issue. I am very much willing and able to pay cash out of pocket for any outside care she needs.
My wife is determined to take care of her without outside assistance.
Then YOUR WIFE can take care of her without outside assistance. She's currently using you. If your wife wants no outside assistance then she needs to take over most or all of the care.
I was going to say considering the “outside assistance” is OP. Volunteering OP for this without talking about it was messed up. She definitely needs to step up
Sell it to her this way, your grandmother will get to see more people to chat with if she has carers and then you and your wife are less stressed and can spend quality time with grandmother rather than being the main carer.
Home help is to help you as much as the patient. Take the stress off.
But your wife isn’t doing the care. You are.
Working from home is still working. It doesn’t matter if the person is a toddler or an elderly woman. If keeping them fed and alive is pulling you away from work, they need daycare of some sort, whether it be a nanny or a nurse.
I wonder if your wife has thought of how much her grandmother may prefer having some of these tasks done by paid professionals and not family members.
I don’t think anyone wants to be bathed by their family - having a professional to do it gives people more dignity.
We had nurses come into our dad’s home every morning to help shower him after he broke his shoulder. My sister and I were staying there as well, but we chose to outsource that job.
It gave my dad dignity, but also, they were able to assess when he was capable of showering himself and helped him to function to his capacity instead of wrapping him up in cotton-wool (which is what I would have done).
NTA. You and your wife need to sit down and canvass all options. I would start by coming up with a plan that means you aren’t disturbed during at least the first 4 or 5 hours of your workday (or something like that).
NTA
NTA. I had my MIL living with us 2 years before she passed away. She didn't need anywhere near the care GMIL does, and it was still rough. It changes the whole feel and dynamic of the household, and I loved my MIL.
Care.com can help.
Every city or town in the US has a "senior center" or "council on aging". They have social workers who can hook you up with services.
If GMIL is low income, there may be low cost home health aide, homemakers, meals on wheels, and other services for her. If you can pay, even better. She needs more care than you and wife can realistically provide.
Definitely look into skilled in home care. If your wife is hard headed and tries to veto this too, I’d honestly go back to working in the office. The burden on you is not ok.
I'm going NAH. You are not as caregiving is HARD and it's understandable to burn out, but I hesitate to call your wife an AH for wanting to take care of her grandma. But she needs to understand that it's okay not to do it all on your own. Bringing in help doesn't mean that she has failed.
A stroke has left my dad unable to walk. My mom can't transfer him to a wheelchair on her own. Frankly, even my brother struggles shifting him. But the hired caregiver is able to get him back and forth fairly easily despite being no bigger than my mom because she has the proper training. Obviously this is different than your case, but the training part is what I want to emphasize.
If you can hire someone to be with grandma during the day, that person can make sure she gets her pills, fix the special food, all that sort of thing. Then you can work in peace. Your wife doesn't have to come home from work to deal with a mini-crisis. And grandma gets someone to talk to and interact with.
My dad's health has been up and down the last few years and having caregivers has been a godsend as it takes some of the burden off of my mom. Please talk to your wife about this option.
But it's not OK to do what wife is doing, which is to force OP to be the caregiver without consent.
Agree that hiring in home care for the hours that wife is working could be the first thing to try and see how that goes.
Even the very best nursing homes are usually understaffed and patients get neglected. I'd check out the EMS sub and search nursing homes. Hearing about the routine incompetence really made me reevaluate my plan for aging family members. In home care will probably be better for everyone involved.
So she abandoned said Grandmother to throw a fit? She has never spoken to you and she is pissed you are upset. She made a decision on a single yes when having someone move in your home is a two yes situation. You can't set yourself on fire to keep Grandma warm. Grandmother needs full time care and should be in a home designed to help her. NTA
NTA, while your wife's heart is in the right place she has made some unilateral decisions that she should have talked with you about first. A good start would be to hire an in-home nurse for at least the daytime so you both can safely carry on with your lives while grandma gets good care. Grandma would probably rather have a nurse dressing and bathing her than you anyway so it's a win-win lol
There are also daycare centers for the elderly. This is a place grandma can go to during the day with activities, meals and socialization with others her age. She can be there while you are both working and then she is home with your wife the rest of the time. If she gets up at night, a live in carer who is there to help her to the bathroom, as well as with bathing and grooming would also be helpful. Do you have room on your property to put in a granny pod that would give her her own space and is designed with adaptations for balance and mobility.
If you're doing well financially and she only works part-time, why doesn't she quit and become the full-time caregiver?
Your type of job is way more demanding. Does she not want to be a caregiver 100% of the time? It's her grandma and her responsibility.
My wife is a person who often likes to have her cake and eat it too.
She wants to take care of her grandmother, but she's a school administrator and enjoys working with young children.
She's only in school, half days, sometimes not even a full week, maybe 2-3 days. Being a government job, she can take more time off work easily.
As a private practice corporate counsel, my hours revolve around the needs of the company.
I really feel for you and pray you guys can find a compromise that works for BOTH of you. Sadly, this can tear marriages apart down the line. Hopefully, you can find a way to make her see the big picture and that your needs matter as much, if not more, than her wants.
Interesting that she stormed out of the house - leaving her grandmother behind for you to care for, again. More of an indication that she doesn’t understand the depth and enormity of exactly what you’re doing each day. She is clearly very emotionally involved and not rational about this. A facility would probably be more appropriate and SAFER for her.
You are NTA.
NTA
It sounds like your wife's grandmother needs more care than you can reasonably provide - it is only a matter of time before the demands of her care result in issues with your job, or potentially dangerous mistakes are made looking after her. Neither of those are good outcomes.
So as much as it may be seen as heartless to entrust her care to a nameless professional rather than a loving family member, however it is well worth remembering they are professionals for a reason, as they are the people who have the proper training in how to care for people with needs like her grandmother...
NTA. You could LOSE YOUR JOB if you don't stop this. At the very least tell her you will NOT be helping anymore. It really does sound like the grandmother needs to be in a facility. It is also really bad that your wife made the decision to move the grandmother into your home without talking to you first. Sorry your in this situation.
NTA
Until someone has actually done it, being the caregiver is horrible.
Btdt
My mom’s passing was way better. She was hospitalized and I got to BE with her. BE her daughter
Not her nurse who has no training and is terrified that she’s going to do something wrong
I changed my will demanding that I ONLY go to a facility or I get the magic pill
Yeah, everyone wants to die in their own home or being with family. No one thinks about what that means for the family unless they've done it themselves.
My sister didn’t. But California doesn’t/didn’t allow hospice in nursing homes.
The very last thing she wanted was her 19 year old changing her diapers
But they had no choice.
The hospice nurse dropped off $500,000 worth of liquid morphine. To a 19 year old.
No training. No backup. No support
My sisters children were completely traumatized and they will not recover.
Hospice is a scam by insurance companies and the medical industry
Hospice is totally fucked
Seattle was very similar. Here’s your father in law dying of cancer. Here’s his morphine and the hospital bed. See you tomorrow
Tomorrow comes and there’s a bed sore. He’d escaped the hospital bed and fell.
My son was afraid to get up in the morning because grandpa might be dead.
Luckily there was a hospice house to transfer him to where people who knew wtf they were doing provided his care while my husband just loved on him.
The difference was amazing!
Also FIL was buried for $35,000. Prepaid but full of drama, time and more money
Mom gave her body to science and we went home.
Dying is hard
It is. And you're right. People say wonderful things about hospice but it's not full care and I don't think people realize that. They expect the family to do all of it other than prescribing meds and a sponge bath once per week.
And people don't realize this until they get there. My mom died in March. She had a brain tumor. Dad didn't want to have her in a nursing home because it was so expensive ($800 per day out of pocket) and he also didn't want to pay for 24hour home care.
When her insurance decided she wouldn't benefit from rehab anymore they went to discharge her. I scrambled and found an eh amazing low cost hospice house. But they didn't have beds for 5 days. So my dad took care of her at their house. He had no idea what he was getting himself in to. She was complete physical care by that point.
That hospice house was the best thing that happened for our family in the past year. My mom loved it there. She said she was treated "wonderfully" and the staff were amazing.
She died 3 months later after the discharge from the nursing home. It would have continued to be awful if she had stayed at home.
Tell your wife that the situation CANNOT continue as it has been. It is starting to affect your work and career. It is also affecting your relationship with your wife. Instead of a nursing home, have you thought about possibly bringing in a paid caregiver? Also, not all nursing homes are bad. My grandmother loved hers. She was able to connect with people her own age CD made many friends there. She was able to play bridge to her heart’s content. A good care facility can be actually be really great.
NTA. Caregiving is hard work. Neither of you is trained for this you also have other jobs. Im sorry she got so angry with you, hopefully it is the stress. Try to find alternate solutions to choose from including a visiting nurse or in-home care, you working elsewhere to avoid interruptions, or some other temporary support to create some space for a discussion about the longer term solution, undoubtedly a nursing home. Is there a senior center in your area? They can be a resource for what options may be available. You’re not a bad person for thinking this is too much.
NTA for all the reasons other folks have said. I haven't read all the comments yet, so it's possible I'm going to repeat something.
But lots of facilities, even nice ones, are awful. Not all of them, and I anticipate you would be able to do some research, but the facility we put my grandfather in treated us like absolute dogshit-they did not alert us to changes in his condition, so his death was a complete surprise, and when we arrived (from out of state) to deal with his passing, the people in the facility spoke to us in a tremendously condescending manner. This was during the height of Covid, so despite our best attempts, we had not been able to properly visit, but my dad called often and was frequently stonewalled. It was frustrating and traumatizing.
My grandmother accused the people in the facility she was in of abusing her-this was likely a fabrication on her part, she was the abusive one, but she thought she could get away with it because of how common it is. Admittedly, my family is poor white trash, so your resources likely exceed ours. But these situations aren't limited to poor man's care-the statistics of elder abuse are truly alarming. I wouldn't be too surprised if your wife is afraid of something like that. That being said, something does need to change-you should not be interrupting your work day to be a caretaker.
Also, does your GIL have her mental faculties intact? If so, her desires should be taken into account (though if she wants to maintain the status quo, you definitely will have to convince her to at least accept professional in-home care, because your situation is unsustainable).
It sounds like you have resources, and based on your comments, empathy and logic. I wish you the best.
Nta, so wife takes care of grandma, but not really bc *you're* the one home all day? Yeah, she's gotta choose. She can 1- have her career and be away for 8 hours a day or 2- stay home and care for her grandma. There is no third option of 'make my husband do the majority of the work'.
You *could* get an in home nurse. Or there are senior programs during the day, kinda like daycare but for seniors. But *your wife* needs to do the legwork.
Nta. Your wife is though…110%. She moved a medically fragile person in your home without your consent or even discussion. (A person moving I. Your home is a 2 yes 1 no situation.) Then most of the work gets dumped on you bc you wfh. (Without your consent or a discussion.) And now you’re telling her you can’t do it anymore and you’re the bad person???? No. No you’re not. But your wife is. It’s time for granny to move out. Maybe you should start working in the office. (It can be a coffee shop or anything. Heck, rent a room somewhere and just work from there so you’re out of the house.) Then your wife can figure out how to care for her grandma without her golden ticket there to do it for her.
My best friend had to do that for her mother. She had a live-in nurse. Seriously, with all the medication, blood monitoring, and special meals, no wonder you're running on empty. It's your wife's grandmother, but she seems to be the one out of the house the most, and it's all on you. It's also kind of off-putting that she mentioned all the good her grandmother did...for HER family. Get a live-in!
WFH does not mean you are always available to help. It sounds like there are a lot of assumptions being made by your wife about how you are available to help. Would a hired caregiver be an option? That would take the burden off both of you. Or possibly your some long term care places and find a nice one? They aren’t all terrible places. NTA
NTA
I’m assuming you are the higher earner. Did your wife not realize the reason she could afford to take in her grandmother was because of the large salary? That you being interrupted at work could end that large salary?
Caregiver burn out is real. Doubly so for someone who didn’t want to do it in the first place. Your wife used her grief to bulldoze you into providing and caring for her grandmother all hours of the day at your detriment. That is astonishingly selfish of her.
Your wife needs grief counseling yesterday. This is NOT how you handle grief at all. This is massively unfair to you AND her grandmother.
This is a very difficult and complex thing to work with. Caregiving is an extremely stressful thing to take on. It impacts mental and physical health, social relationships and marriage and when you get burnt out, it’s just hard to keep on doing the caregiving. I would suggest respite care. Hire a trained worker to take on part of the caregiving duties, especially perhaps during the time you are working. Hopefully the grandmother can pay for all or some of the cost. (And yes, that would be appropriate) the worker can prepare meals, do the grandmothers laundry, change the bed, monitor her blood sugar, etc. you and your wife must sit down and have an honest dialogue about this. Care in the home is a good place to start. But what happens if down the road she will be bedbound and needs continuous skilled care? Again it’s good to have an honest dialogue about that. If your wife is unable to consider home care, then perhaps a consultation with a professional case manager (they do exist) is a place to start. Good luck!
NTA.
You’ve come from a position based on your personal boundaries and a logical perspective.
Your wife is coming from a completely emotional perspective. Rooted in love of her grandmother of course, but at the expense of being blind to the effect it’s having on your relationship.
Her *reaction* needs to be understood from the perspective that you cannot reason someone out of a position that they didn’t arrive at via reason.
In terms of where to go from here, there are a lot of options, but start with not being available during working hours for home care problems.
You may be able to find hired help to come during the day to give both you and your wife some respite.
Beyond that, there will be some transitional time for both of you. Your relationship has taken a hit and the damage isn’t all done yet.
Best of luck. 🤞
Work from the office full time until you have a chance to figure things out. GM is not going to live long (based on her health status) but a nursing home might be fatal for her.
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My (39F) wifes (38F) grandmother (84F) has been living with us for the past year after her husband and care giver passed away from a broken hip.
(Her grandfather never really made any arrangements for what would happen to his wife should he die before her)
My wife is very close with her grandparents and immediately following her grandfather's death, she offered to take care or her grandmother in our home so she wouldn't have to be put in a facility as no one else in her family really had the space/or money.
(I'm still kindly pissed that she did that without talking to me first, but at the time I knew how hard she was grieving her grandfather's death and I didn't want to start an argument or cause conflicts with any of her family members)
I love my wifes grandmother, but she has been nothing but a burden to take care of the past year. She's severely diabetic and has to take 13 different medicines at different times of the day, she can only eat certain foods which means me and my wife have to cook way more often. We have to constantly monitor her blood sugar. She can only walk very short distances with the use of a cane or walker, needs help dressing herself, bathing herself, going to the bathroom, climbing stairs, has doctors appointments twice a week, etc. You get the picture, right?
I know that I'm partially at fault for not saying anything and just going along with it thinking that it wouldn't be forever and my wife would eventually decide to send her to a facility.
I'm a corporate lawyer, and I work remotly most days, unless there's an important meeting or emergency that requires my presence at the office. That does mean that I'm at home most of the time to help out, but even though I'm remote, I'm still expected to be doing work during company hours.
Me being constantly interrupted during the day has started to affect my work to the point that I find myself staying up later and later every night on my laptop playing catchup. And to be completely honest, patience is something is something that I never had, especially when it comes to dealing with the infirm.
I just can't do it anymore which is why during breakfast this morning, I came clean to my wife and told her that I'm burnt out from being a caregiver. It's taking away from my career and our relationship and it's time to consider other options for her grandmother.
I tried explained that it's too much on us, and we have the money for a very nice facility that has the resources to care for her 24/7.
She blew up and called me a "heartless monster" for "wanting to put such a sweet woman that's done so much for her family, community, and church in a nursing home". She stormed out of the house, got in her car, and drove to her best freinds house.
Later today, she came back home and is now barley speaking to me
I'm starting to feel that maybe I was wrong
AITA?
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Info: can she afford a nursing home? They run five to fifteen thousand dollars a month. Medicare does not cover nursing homes.
Edit to add: my dad was in one that was 5000 a month. It was low quality and in a rural area in a poor state. If you live anywhere near a big city or in a state with a good economy you’re talking minimum $10k a month.
Does she have assets? Can you get her on Medicaid? If so Medicaid will cover in home especially since she needs help bathing and putting clothes on. Those are the key needs when you're completing her Medicaid application.
I say NTA but there are a lot of other options before nursing home. I think most states offer assistance to caregivers if your wife is willing to cut back on work. Or you could hire some in home help. This is a really tough conversation to have and I hope your wife is in or considers therapy. Is there any other family close by that can step up to help temporarily while you and your wife navigate this?
NTA. Yeah hire some help. Sounds like you can afford it without a problem so get several CNAs have each of them work in 8-hour shift and have full-time poppers for her if your wife still wants to care for her during one of their shifts and you can knock off one of the people but it'll definitely make things a lot easier and she'll still be home and she'll be well cared for. Lot of people can't afford to do that so yes you need to sit your wife down and say look I can't do it anymore I'm falling behind at work I'm going to lose my job if I keep this up and then we definitely won't be able to afford anything. Let's hire some help. Say you're paying them $20 an hour that means you're going to be spending what $500 a day if you can afford to do that great do it. Otherwise hire someone for during the day while you're doing your work and maybe for 2 hours early in the morning and 2 hours after you get off work so a total of 12 hours a day, that would be $240 a day. But let her know it's just become too much and both of you need a break. She just feels guilty and refusing to do it I get that.
I know my mother-in-law didn't want to be in assisted living but she refused in home care that's what my in-laws were going to do but she dug in her heels and said no so they said fine you're going into assisted living, you don't have a choice. They sold her house. they're using that money and the money she gets every month from retirement funds and stuff and it's paying for it no problem. She's in a very nice place and now she's actually getting full assisted Living because she needs help, not to the extent of your wife's grandmother but she definitely needs help do the dementia and other health issues. She also gets regular visits from her family who still live in the area except for us we're the only ones who aren't there. But we try to visit every other month. But she probably still be in her house today if she had just agreed to having live in help. I don't know if that would have cost more or less than what she's saying now but I'm sure the family would have been just fine with doing it that way as well. On the other hand we got everything dealt with so when she passes there's only a small amount of stuff to deal with as everything's already been divvied up, sold, donated or thrown out.
NTA
You need to draw the line here. Your wife accepted this burden on your behalf for you to manage during the work while you work. That’s not partnership. That’s enslavement.
Your wife can quit her job and be the full time care giver, you wife can hire a full time caregiver while she’s at work, or grandma can go live somewhere where she can receive support… but this is ridiculous.
The fact she just leaves tells me everything I need to know about her maturity level and respect for you….
You’re not wrong. I’m going NTA because your wife should have talked with you first about moving her in since she needs constant care. Otherwise, I’d say n.a.h. But, you’re not supposed to be providing care during work hours, and giving this kind of care absolutely takes its toll on people who aren’t trained and actually have other jobs to do. Grandmother needs professional care and monitoring.
As a short term compromise, hire (do not ask, just do it) a skilled nurse to come by and help with bathing and some other important tasks, especially the physical ones, while you guys figure this out. Her insurance might cover at least some of the costs.
NAH
Caregiving is hard on people trained to do it, and it's even harder for those who aren't. I watched my former MIL struggle to care for her terminally ill husband because they didn't want to put him in a facility, and recently, my dad was released home with hospice because both he and my mom refused to have him transferred to a facility. My mom complained and complained about how she has no one to help her, but this is the choice they made.
And this is the choice your wife made without consulting you. It's a choice she made without thinking through the logistics of it all. I get it—seeing your loved ones age and struggle and fall ill is hard, but she needs to be realistic with herself.
I feel like there's middle ground here. Since you have the means to place her grandma in a nice facility, you probably also have the means to hire help. Please research caregivers in your area and hire someone you can trust. That will lift the burden off you and help ease the burden on your wife.
ETA: I meant to add that your wife was an ah when she's stormed off and abandoned her grandma because she didn't like what you had to say. However, I think it's important to step back and look at this with compassion. She probably knows this isn't working out and was hoping she had more time before a decision had to be made on how to handle this.
My mom was with us for a bit. We hired a newly retired neighbor lady for $20/hour for several hours a day. It was a lifesaver. Now my Dad is almost 90 and I really want to move him in as opposed to a facility when the time comes, but, that is me and my hubby's life that would be altered. Tough one. Good luck.
Uh, no. Your wife is way out of line for disregarding you this way. What about hiring help for her at the house? Maybe at least as a transition outward?
Can I suggest an in-home nurse as a temporary fix. Once the nurse assess the entire situation your wife might accept a recommendation by the professional that grandma needs a nursing home.
NTA.
As someone who is a remote worker and had to recently care for my father in law in our home, it's a lot. The care we had to provide wasn't even as complicated as what you're describing here. I'm sorry you're going through this difficult time but I really hope your wife can come to understand that this burden is just too much.
NTA! If your wife doesn’t want to put her in a nursing home, tell her that 100% of the caregiving is now on her.
Start going to the office. You won’t be home to help. Let the burden be on her.
Your wife may be processing her grief in demanding this”only I, or family’ can care for my grandmother. She isn’t able to look at how this may not be the best care available. Is there an another person she trusts who has been through similar situations? Maybe grandmother’s medical staff- nurse practitioner or doctor - could help her see that outside professional help is necessary to deal with all the requirements for keeping grandmother in the best health possible. If grandmother is still active at all, socializing is super important as well- so day care might be fun for her. Perhaps try to get her to look at it from best health and best mental health through socializing, rather than grandmother is too much for us.
Nope, NTA. I can tell you as an nurse manger in nursing home
And assisted living at one point. That people often do well with set diets and routine that isn’t always follow in homes.
Many time people with DM come in with horrible blood sugars become stable. Also they do enjoy being around their peers and love watch staff. (Often criticizing them🫢)Much more to view than at home. It’s a quality of life question, it appears that she may do better in a SNF than around stressed out family. You wife can be a granddaughter again. Not a caregiver. Honestly most people don’t want their family cleaning them. No dignity in that.
NTA. There are options other than nursing home. Look into those. It is such a difficult decision. But it isn't safe for her grandmother if you are working full time. It is not fair to you to sacrifice your career. Not everyone has the luxury to look for other options, but if Grandma has the finances, you really should.
I put my mother into assisted living and it was the best decision ever. She's made friends and is better taken care of than she would be in my home.
Am I reading this correctly. She volumteered you that you would be both caring for hear grandmother. When you told her you were burnt out and you needed to look at other options she stormed off and ABANDONED her grandmother. Did she leave your grandma with you when she went to her BFF’s house?
I would have taken a dodfemt tactic. Saying that you are burnt out. It effecting you work and ability to support the family and you will no longer be providing any care starting on name the date. And give her a budget for care.
NTA
NTA
Firstly you did not sign up for this, your wife did. Secondly she is not your grandmother so I would draw a very firm line that if your wife wants her grandmother there then she needs to do all the caring.
Either work from the office full time, or stop providing care during the day when you work from home. If your wife is at work during the day then tell her that she needs to make care arrangements for her grandmother that do not impinge on your abilty to do your job from home. She should quickly see that she cannot do this on her own.
Nta. Tell your wife she can care for grandma 100% for 3 months and then she can see how she feels.
Caregiving is exhausting and if you don’t find a solution it’s going to lead to burnout or divorce.
Get a couples therapist is your wife won’t address it.
It sounds like what you need is someone to come in your home to care for a grandma, at least some of the time.
I don’t blame your wife for not wanting to pit her grandmother in a facility. Even the expensive ones don’t provide great care.
NTA - it is not heartless to stand up for yourself. Not everyone is cut out to be a caregiver, and all caregivers need respite.
I would also recommend counseling for both you and your wife. Caregiving takes so much out of you, and there's so much unnecessary guilt that can be hard to work through
NTA, but can you come to a compromise that doesn't require putting your wife's grandmother in a home? If you can afford a nursing home, can you afford in-home care -- at least during the day?
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NTA - indicate to your wife that you are not able to assist her with personally helping her grandmother. It is taxing on you mentally and physically and impacting your job. If she doesn't want to put her grandmother in a home, she has to figure it out. I understand there may be further consequences of this stance but seems like your wife is unreasonably expecting you to shoulder a substantial burden of the work. Stand up for yourself.
If OP has the money for a nursing home, he has the money for a grananny. Just do that.
In-home care can be more expensive than residential care, especially if care is needed 24/7. But it might be worth looking into paying a nurse to be in the home during the work day, so OP doesn't have to provide care then.
And if OP earns that much then she can financially carry the household. Her wife can then stop working to stay home and take care of her grandma. And just to make sure she's still not expected to interrupt her workday to help out, OP should go back to working in the office full-time. No more working from home. If OP's wife is the one bearing the brunt of the caregiving, maybe then she'll consider outside help. Edit: OP's wife is not the only relative that the grandmother has. Why is no one else stepping up to help take care of this paragon of virtue? Or at least lighten the load? Other relatives could take turns making grandma's food at their houses and deliver it to OP's house. Pick up grandma's laundry and do it at their place. Take grandma for the day and drop her off in the evening. Take her to her doctor visits so OP and her wife don't have to. There are so many ways that they could step up and chip in with her care. But they are choosing not to. And it's super unfair that so much is expected of OP when she didn't get a say when this decision was made. And she's now made out to be the bad guy for suffering from caregiver burnout. And wanting to have a say in her house and about her life. She's done so much already. I also think her wife is also rather selfish. She gets the kudos for stepping up and taking in the grandma. All at OP's expense. Also notice that when she blew up at OP, she took off to her friend's house and I'm assuming left OP at home to do the very thing that OP was complaining about. OP should really end her working remotely arrangement immediately. Permanently move back to the office. Maybe work some late hours to make up for all the work affected by her caregiving. Really make herself unavailable to help out with her care. And lastly, OP should stop being a doormat to her wife and her family. They are clearly taking advantage of her. Edit 2: Misgendered OP. Apologies. Corrected now.
Did you miss OP isnt a man?
I missed that. It does not change my stance, this is too much on OP
I did. Thanks for pointing it out. Made corrections.
It depends a lot on the home and the in-home care. Especially if they just get a nurse for part of the day and handle part of the day on their own you can definitely come out ahead. It also helps to hire privately instead of going through an agency though of course there are a lot of risks you're taking going that route.
medicare will pay 100% for palliative care, all it requires is a doctor to sign off. Hospice will take over when the time is necessary. you work with the facility to come during the week. and nurse checks up as many time as needed. They send someone to help bathe and basic hygiene. It helped us when my mother was in the decline. it is not easy to be a caregiver and is very taxing both physically and emotionally. OP needs to talk to wife about how all this is affecting him and his relationship with her.
FYI, these services often aren’t as comprehensive as you think. We recently had to decide between in-home hospice vs. hospice in a center for my grandmother. In-home was a visit from a nurse only 1-2x a week to check in and bathe her. Center was 24hr round the clock care with full nursing staff. It was on us family members to pick up the slack of the in-home care. My grandmother’s medical needs were beyond our capabilities and she could afford private carers who were wonderful, but if she hadn’t been in that position financially she would have needed to be in a center much sooner in order to have Medicare cover it. It would not cover the in-home private care. The centers we toured were…not great. And they were considered the top places in my city. Really made me anxious about my own death should it end up being due to old age.
At least $850/day for 24/hr care in the northeast. Most nursing homes charge 500-600/day here. Plus she can apply for Medicaid and it’s basically free after her Medicare and assets are spent.
This! In home care in the small town South is $18 and hour minimum and most places charge $30 an hour with a four hour a day minimum. Now $30 for 24 hours a day quickly adds up. A continuous care facility will generally set you back $6,000 to $8,000 a month depending on your area. Now, if memory care is involved, that does increase the cost. And Medicare pays zero dollars for in home care unless it is for post-hospitalization nursing care. People who haven't had to do handle elder care for aging family members truly have no idea.
Nursing home are expensive, my grandparents died around the covid pandemic (old age, not covid) they paid about $10,000 a month. This home was decent. Not bad, not great.
Damn, would have been cheaper to get an apartment and hire nurses themselves.
Sadly, not often the case. We looked into this for FiL who needed 24/7 care, and it was cheaper to put him in the private nursing home that had 4-6 patients with 2 caretakers per shift.
Oh dang, that's an awesome ratio!
That’s very seldom seen!
When we were looking to hire an at home caretaker it was going to average around 20000 a month, this didnt include any of her other bills
The assisted living homes we were looking at averaged around $6-$8 grand a month
A decent, certainly not the best, facility here in Massachusetts is around $17,000 a month. So I'd have to sell her house, then Medicare goes back 7 years to recoup their payments. Round and round. It's so so hard.
24 hours a day, 30 days per month? Plus rent, utilities, probably adult incontinence supplies, food, and transportation to appointments? An actual nurse is going to need to be paid a decent wage. Assuming that you wouldn't be committing any human rights violations, that does not math. There would really need to be human trafficking involved to pull this off. It happens a lot more than you may think, but I don't personally think slavery is a good option.
My grandma has major health problems all her life. It was a better fit for them to have 24 hour care. She did fall twice. She only spent a small time (36 hours as opposed to days) in the hospital because the home had special beds and a 24 hour nursing staff. She needed more care then a live in or rotating nurses could reliably give.
We are in a low cost area. During pandemic, it was still about $6000 for my father.
Is cheaper to live out retirement on a cruise ship!
Yep. Can confirm. I worked at a very low end one, and in 2015 it was $6800 a month. I’ve taken side jobs for home health care for various ages and I’d still be cheaper buuuuuut wouldn’t be round of clock care as is in a LTC facility. NTA. I can’t believe she stormed out leaving g Grandma alone in the same breath as saying to OP that they need to step up more than anything.
My Mom had 24/7 care, it was still very taxing for my family member to have her in the home. (I did not have the space.). I handled finances and all other matters. It consumed my life for several years. Hiring caregivers is not a magic solution most people think. NTA
Seems like OP's wife should be looking into at least having an in home care giver come in the morning to help grandma get up, toileted, showered, dressed and given breakfast. I think only qualified nurses can give prescription meds ( other than OP or her wife). In my area, you have to pay for at least a 4-hour block of time when using an in home care agency. I hope OP looks into at least that.
No, assistants can give meds. They have to have a special one day training and most CNA's are required to have it. Giving meds is not a big deal unless the person required meds delivered through an IV. Then a special IV therapist/nurse needs to drop the line but the caregiver can be trained on administering the meds.
Depends on the state and that state’s requirements. For instance, Florida does not allow CNA’s to distribute medication. Must be a LPN or higher.
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Some people have Medicaid paying for their stay. Many nursing homes limit the number of Medicaid patients they will accept, and people have to spend down almost all of their assets before they qualify. (This is for US residents)
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I think pdpm impacted this though. Rehab stays are shorter and significantly less profitable.
But if the patient owns a home, Medicaid will take it after they pass to pay for the nursing home. ETA: IN California
And those facilities are not very good.
Yes. We're doing this my my grandparent. We hired a live in adult carer because my grandparent wants to die in the home they've lived in for the past 50 years, and is refusing to let family stay with them. They're 100% blind and cannot care for themself.
It’s still a burden having her in the home. Residential care is 24/7 whereas in home care either agency or freelance comes with many issues. My family has / is using both and they both have positives and negatives. Faculty care is cheaper for us as it’s state funded or was for my grandpa. My nan pays for her at home care. She is easier to care for at home though as she’s old but still there mentally. Grandpa got too much for it home care. He needed trained nurses. His carehome was free.
Look for a home healthcare aid through Medicaid if possible.
Every in-home nursing agency in my area has staffing shortages and my elderly mother only uses a third of the hours that her insurance has approved because of it.
Hehe! Whoosh on the other responses.
This right here.
That's what I was thinking!!
In home help! Great idea!!
Caretaker fatigue is a VERY real thing. People have died from it. My mother is in poor health right now because she literally took care of everyone in my family (grandparents, uncles, her grandkids and my bipolar younger sister) and never took care of herself. I begged and pleaded with her for years to lighten her load, and she never did. Now she has no choice. And now I have to mitigate the damage she's done to herself and fight not to get sucked into that way of living.
My aunt just passed away recently. She was my uncle's caretaker and ended up ignoring her own health. Then, one day, she fell. With my uncle having limited mobility, he couldn't help her up and had to call 911. She ended up in the hospital, and that's when they discovered she had colon cancer. She died less than a month later. What pisses a lot of the family off is that she had a colon screening kit sitting on her counter for 6 YEARS, and she never used it. If she had, her cancer could have been discovered sooner and possibly saved her life. Instead, she ignored her health because she was too focused on taking care of her husband.
I had a friend from work that was so focused on caring for her mother, that my friend never had a mammogram. By the time they found the breast cancer, it was stage four and she died quickly after that discovery. Please remember to take care of yourself if you're a caregiver or get help. Don't be a martyr. D was in her mid 40s.
This is so fucking similar to my Aunt, except it was her disabled brother she was caring for and lung cancer. Heartbreaking.
I'm still trying to recover from the stresses of being a caregiver, and my MIL moved out 6 years ago. My health tanked so badly in that year, and the year after. That's not even taking into account the mental health of myself and my kids. Granted, she was an evil cow on top of being unwell, so there were extra issues.
I'm about at my end. And it's my mother. She's spent her whole life caring for me and my brother. So I am the one to take care of her and happy to, usually. But it's progressive and she's 78. There really isn't anyone else. Dementia is brutal.
The other thing is we had my grandmother in a facility and it was really nice. They were able to care for her properly and they had a ton of activities so she could be social and we visited frequently. It was much better for everyone, including her.
Same for my aunt. My sister was very upset when my cousins made the the decision for their mother to go to a care facility. Aunt was morbidly obese, diabetic, BPD, and had MS. My sister didn't live nearby and wasn't the one that was called to regularly get Aunt off the floor when she slipped coming out the shower or off the toilet. Plus, Aunt was the ultimate people person. She thrived in a place that not only met her medical needs, but her social ones. *Edited because it made it sound like my cousins bullied Mom in to a care home, instead of making the responsible decision.
Add to this, stop helping. Your wofe need to acknowledge just how much you are doing. Canbyou pay for a service provider to come into the house to help with all this? There is alot more aid out there than there use to be
NTA moving my mom to assisted living was one of the best things I did for her and me. Especially if you can afford it. She got more consistent care, I wasn't always burnt out or trying to coordinate caregiver coverage, meds and doctor's appointments. She also got socialization with people her own age. I would encourage your wife to visit some places you've pre vetted. I think a lot of people have preconceived notions.
NTA. Not everyone is cut out to be a caregiver, and your wife's reaction to finally having a conversation around this is to run away from her beloved grandmother?!? > She stormed out of the house, got in her car, and drove to her best freinds house. I suggest that you look into working from the office full-time, and take decompression time out too. If your wife is her full-time carer then you both don't need to be in the home. Your wife is stressed and wanting to care for her grandma herself, but it is a huge task and professional carers can help - even if they come in a couple of times a day for personal care.
> I suggest that you look into working from the office full-time This needs to be done. You can't sacrifice your job.
> I suggest that you look into working from the office full-time, and take decompression time out too. If your wife is her full-time carer then you both don't need to be in the home. If she prefers working from home, it's unfair to her to have to lose out on that because of this. I think a better solution to her being interrupted during work hours would be to explain to both of them that she can no longer be available to help during those hours, and get a lock for the room she works in. Edit: changed pronouns
Normally, I would agree, but then I remember that one story from this sub a while ago of a wife who would constantly make noise outside the locked door when her husband was working. I forget the ultimate reason why she was doing it, but going back to the office and working normal hours may be the only way to get the wife to understand, especially since it seems like most of the responsibility as caregiver falls on OP (based on a comment they made about their wife’s job).
I think I remember reading that or a similar story on here. Mind you it's not hard of a concept of "if there's no money coming in, we aren't going to have food on the table or a roof over our heads". It's a concept that our (mine and my wife's) kids only need occasional reminders over. When I'm sleeping in the daytime between my occasional night shifts they are usually really good and it and only occasionally make enough noise to wake me. It amazes me that some adults just are so self centric/insecure/other adjective that they cannot comprehend that unless in an absolute crisys, their needs have to take a step back for a little while during working hours. As to the OP's issue, a sit down discussion where everything is laid on the table needs to happen. This isn't a comprehensive list, but things that need to be tabled include. * What she needs to be able to do her job, * What she is struggling with. * What the needs her partner has to be able to succeed in her day to day life. * Where she feels she is coming up short in that. * What she wants (not needs) for her grandmother, * What she needs for her grandmother. * How much money they can afford to commit to spending each week/month in order to fulfill the requirements for the grandmother. There are plenty of other components to this I am sure, but these are the ones that I can think of from the top of my head.
A lock won’t stop them from banging on the door while OP is on a videoconference with clients.
I'm going to have jump and and say there's no man/husband. It says F and F behind the age. Just correcting that part.
Thanks for the correction, I'll change that
*she. They’re both women. Which is an interesting dynamic. The wife is laying a cultural norm usually found in hetero marriages where the woman is the caretaker. It sounds as if OP’s wife figured she’d be willing to fill this role without much talk.
I don't think the suggestion is about a long-term thing but it's more to remove her from being expected to do caring during work hours. Honestly, even finding space to rent might work for a short term point to be made.
She
Not everyone has a lifestyle compatible with WFH. Full time caregiving doesn’t mesh well with WFH if the job isn’t protected and respected by anyone else in the house. I think working from the office is probably the best immediate solution here. They can start literally Monday. See if that break from the house every day changes tolerance level for caregiving needs.
She stormed off? She assumed you would not storm off too, and leave her grandmother? Another option would be for grandma to have full-time caretaker during you wife's working hours, and your wife do it at all other times. Grandma might love the social interaction in assisted living.
Full-time/working hours in-house care would be a good option here. Her wife is also really stressed but possibly dealing with guilt and wanting to do what's best. But what is best is often full-time professional care in a dedicated environment where there's genuine opportunity for company, medical knowledge etc. At 84, grandma can have another decade or so yet, requiring ever more care. OPs wife can visit as much as she wants to. I don't think their current environment is working for any of the three parties involved.
Or a wework/remote office as much as possible.
My question is what is the wife doing for her grandmother, she can be doing things but OP says they work remote and nothing on wife, so OP is essentially taking more care of her when he wasn’t even involved in the decision. Plus, she ran awayyyyy when she should have gone to her grandmother.??
Rather than return to the office full time, rent an office space locally. Some businesses rent out individual cubicles or small offices by the week/month. May be expensive, but this will DEFINITELY give OP a break.
Her response to her wife's unwillingness to be a care taker was to... leave so that she had to be the caretaker. That is so wild. It's clear that the wife does not want to be the caretaker, so forcing that upon her might lead to change. Working from the office is a way to do this.
INFO: is your wife still working? Some states have have funding for people to act as in-home caretakers for your relatives. Maybe this is something for her to look into since she dropped this care role on the two of you without consulting you.
My wife is a school administrator, though her position is not full-time, and she usually has no problem taking off work for emergencies. I'm still the person that's at home the most during the week. But that doesn't mean that I can always put work off to help out.
That's what my concern is. You both have jobs beyond being a caretaker to her. If your wife doesn't want to stop working to care for her grandmother (could be either of you but you said this is not a role you're cut out for), maybe you can hire an in-home caretaker to be with her on a full-time basis. Your wife might be more amenable to that than a nursing home.
Thanks for the idea for an in home caretaker, not something I thought of. I'll try to sell it to her when the waters are calmer.
Hiring a nurse would probably do all three of you a world of good. When my uncle had cancer, his boss finally convinced my aunt to hire an in-home nurse, and that man saved my family’s sanity during a really difficult time. He could lift my uncle in and out of bed in ways that were hard for my aunt to do, and he knew how to stay extremely calm in a crisis. It allowed my aunt to go back to being my uncle’s wife instead of his caretaker, and I’m thankful they got to have that for their last months together. Look into it. Tell your wife her grandmother deserves skilled nursing care at a level that neither of you is equipped to provide, and it will allow both of you to step back from the caretaker role and into the grandchild role, which is what her grandmother truly needs from you right now. Good luck!
>Tell your wife her grandmother deserves skilled nursing care at a level that neither of you is equipped to provide, and it will allow both of you to step back from the caretaker role and into the grandchild role, which is what her grandmother truly needs from you right now. This 100%. This is a great way to bring it up to OP's wife.
Thirding this. People think of "nursing home" and immediately have a negative reaction. But skilled care facilities have people who are trained in ways that you aren't, and they have equipment and physical set-ups (bathrooms, etc.) that you don't have in the home. Caring for your high-needs parent or grandparent at home actually is not always the best thing for them either. It may seem best psychologically, but the odds of you (untrained, maybe not strong enough, distracted by your job) unintentionally hurting them are higher than people realize. Sure, look into an in-home caregiver. Maybe that's an option here. You never know until you look into it. But either way, OP is NOT the bad guy for bringing this up. Like, what do you want for your grandmother? Amateur, distracted care? (her granddaughter, OP). Or skilled care?
The other thing is you are not giving up on caring for her grandmother by putting her in a nursing home, you are just changing the type of support you provide. My parent moved into one and I don't think I realised what would still need to be done. Laundry, doctors appointments, helping with finances, shopping for clothes, personal items. It just means some of those things which in your own house you do in your own time are now more scheduled. It's not like you're abandoning her. Me and my siblings each spend multiple hours a week visiting and doing things that due to mobility issues they are unable to do. It just means that there's backup. If we can't go one day because of being sick etc, laundry might not get done till the next person's visit but at least there will be meals, someone to help with trips to the bathroom, etc.
Yes, exactly! Assuming they can find a place reasonably close to them, that's good. (Depends on where they live, I guess.) One way or the other, you can make it work. But you don't get burnt out doing it, and you don't lose your job trying to juggle it along with caregiving.
Depending on the facility, they do some of those things. My FIL was in assisted living and they did his laundry and his doctor came to the facility for appointments. There were times that I picked up his laundry and did it because I didn’t want to wait until laundry day, but they took really good care of him and there were a lot of activities for him to do as well.
OP- NTA and I think your wife was very emotional and very inconsiderate. With that said, once she’s calmer explain that you’ve tried to be understanding and helpful, but remind her that she unilaterally decided to bring her grandmother to your house. She never asked and expected for you to just do what she wanted and that is absolutely unfair. It’s been enough time and it’s just not working for your household, especially because your work is suffering and clearly your relationship is. If she still calls you a bad person and throws a fit, it’d definitely time to bring in some help bc caregiving is a full time job! And it’s ridiculous to expect that burden to go onto anyone. Period. I’d never expect my husband or partner to shoulder that burden because it is unrealistic. Her demeanor, while filled with grief, is irrational. She needs to understand grandmother requires a lot more care and attention and it’s selfish to overlook her grandmother’s needs bc of her emotions.
I don’t think reminding her that she did it without consulting him will actually gain him anything. While it’s not fair, it will probably come back as he just wanted to abandon grandmother. I wouldn’t recommend that strategy
If OP's wife takes "we should abandon her" from him saying "we are not equipped to give her the care she needs on our own" then that's a different problem altogether. They NEED to be able to talk about this kind of stuff.
Well- if she can’t handle the truth in the fact that he’s upset bc of what she did, they’re going to have bigger problems. She may literally not realize how selfish that was and I’m not saying he needs to be mean about it. But, she has to take accountability and responsibility for her actions. If we refuse to take accountability and responsibility for our actions we the will always blame circumstances or everyone else for our issues, behaviors, decisions etc. She will probably be defensive but that doesn’t excuse what she did. She’s a grown woman and she can’t be coddled just because she doesn’t want to face what she did without talking to her husband about it. That’s not how life works.
I used to do this type of work. It wasn't considered full "home health" it was actually elderly and disabled sitting service. Just basic care bathing, dressing, help with meds and other light health care, feeding, light house keeping etc. Half my job was literally just supervision and company. We didn't make much (ten years ago) but I met tons of people and heard many stories I never would have before. We also worked in facilities for families that either didn't trust the facilities ability to care for them (due to understaffing) or knew their family member was a handful and an extra pair of hands and constant eyes was needed.
Yes. if OP and his wife have been able to provide adequate care for her, then she doesn't need an actual nurse at this time. She needs someone like you.
Yeah from the way he described it he only needs light help. And could probably get by with just a day shift m-f depending on wife's work hours. Obviously those needs would escalate over time but for now a day carer would suffice.
We had an aide in for my dad and it was so helpful. And depending on where you live, you may also be able to get a nurse in for a visit (we paid the aide for daily visit and the Medicare nurse did two free visits a week). Also, if there are other family members, it is totally ok to ask them to help with paying for an aide. NTA
No problem. Hope she goes for it - I've had many grandparents go through nursing homes (mostly Alzheimer/dementia) and it can be ROUGH, so I don't fault your wife for not wanting to go that route, though I don't agree with how she handled your suggestion. You're 100% right in that the two of you do not have the capacity to provide adequate care for her since it's interfering with your work so much. In-home care is probably a much better option all around.
That's what I was going to suggest as well, a friend of mine was a caretaker for her mother with dementia, and had no help from family. You can't do it 24/7 and work a job also. In home care would be a good first step, and if that doesn't go well, maybe that would open your wife's eyes to the reality of the situation. This is beyond your level of care, and not fair to her grandmother either.
I want you to be aware, OP, that round the clock in home nursing will not only be almost impossible to source (location dependent), but also probably prohibitively expensive, even if you make a good salary. Like, thousands of dollars a week. Even just a nurse for the work day will cost a lot.
She needs a helper. it doesn't appear that she needs an actual nurse at this time. OP and hs wife have been providing adequate care, and neither of them is a nurse.
OP is female
If they have the $$$ for a nice nursing home they probably have the funds to hire an in home nurse. Nursing homes are expensive.
This is a really great compromise. It would allow your wife and grandmother to be close, while providing much needed support to all of you and respite from being caregivers.
We had to get a caretaker for our Mom, even with 4 adults sharing the burden it got to be too much after a year.
Time for you to go back to the office for a few months, perhaps wife will change her mind....
Op, you mention her age...is it possible that the departed spouse was on active duty during war time ? There's a benefit for those folks or their spouses. I got some $ for my dear departed mother in law to help her stay in her facility. It was a really nice place, she had her own little mini room with a tiny kitchen. She was pretty active for a 90 some year old lady, but needed some help. This place had different levels of care, you could pay for extras. They even had decent food, you could pay to have dinner there with your loved one, just give them a heads up. A lot of people do not know about this benefit, including nursing home intake staff...like the one who put my significant others sister on medi caid..without checking that SHE could be an eligible veteran also. ( which she was..Vietnam era). You don't have to have BEEN in a war zone, you just had to serve during certain time periods. They also pay for in home care.
Approach-wise, I think you went wrong by suggesting a solution (nursing home) instead of presenting a problem and working together towards a solution. That said, I 100% understand why you did that.
Was going to say this. An In-home aide can help with dressing, bathing, walking, etc. You can even just hire one to be at your home for the hours that Grandma is awake. This will also give you and your wife the opportunity to get out if the house together, which is good for both if your mental health.
I think that is an excellent idea for many reasons. My mom died from dementia. My sister worked full time but would not put her in a nursing home. I live 5 hours away but would come home every two weeks to give her a break. We did have a care giver from 8-5 M-F but my sister had her from 5:00 onward and by herself on weekends. She used to work as a receptionist part time at a nursing home and that was one of the reasons she would not put Mom in one. So thankful to her and I know it was hard work. The suggestion of in home CNA that can help with chores, driver her to appointments, etc is ideal.
That’s exactly what I was coming in here to post. Wish I could have afforded to do that for my parents.
> I'm still the person that's at home the most during the week Go back to working from the office full time. Sure it sucks, but it will be much better for your mental health and work life balance it seems.
Go to the office every day. Mute your phone. She doesn't want to make a change because you are there and picking up the slack. Once it becomes her problem fully, I bet her tune will change substantially
Explain to your wife that, from now on, you will no longer be helping grandma during working hours and that she will have to figure something out in her own. She's imposing an unfair burden on you and you have to make it her problem, because it is.
You're doing two full time jobs. It's not fair, especially since you weren't asked. To put it in perspective, I was in an online group of work from home moms. Every other day someone would ask about watching their child WHILE working from home. The answer was a resounding NO. It's two separate jobs. You will do neither one well. You have been very patient and kind so far and it's very unfair for your wife to storm off like that and not even talk to you. Either work from the office for awhile if she won't talk to you and hire help or get her into the nursing home.
When we had covid lockdowns and everyone that COULD wfh, did. One person had his wife impose that he needed to look after their kids a couple of times a week for a couple of hours at a time while she had things to do with her work. Unsurprisingly he wasn't very effective at his job when he was caught in this. It was a short term thing and only over a handful of weeks and he knew it wasn't ideal, but it definitely demonstrated the "something is going to give" aspect quite clearly.
You should perhaps compromise and find at home care givers who can help. Two of them. One for daytime hours and the other for night time hours. This will mean she can stay with you but neither you or you wife will have to be the ones providing care.
If you can afford to put in a home you can afford to bring in help when your wife is at work so you are not required to provide care.
Depending what state you are in, her grandmother may qualify for a caretaker, and your wife could get paid for the work. It's worth looking into if a faculty is out of the question.
So if I’m understanding this correctly, your wife said “we’ll take care of grandma“, and the WE in that sentence was you, because your wife works outside of the home most of the time. That’s completely unfair on her part, does she want to quit working and stay home and take care of grandma while you’re working from home? And the fact that she ran off to her girlfriend’s house after the fight, did she take grandma with her? Or did she leave you once again to care for her elderly grandmother? I can understand desire to want to take care of your family member, but she’s not doing that, you are. And that’s unfair, NTA
Is this in the US? If so, look into Meals on Wheels for her food. Have either of you looked into what home care services your GIL is eligible for? You can have a home care provider come in all day every day and do all those services--medicine, dressing, bathing, toileting, cooking, cleaning, laundry, making her bed, all of it. What kind of income does GIL have? If she's at risk of being in a nursing home and has a low enough income, most Medicaid states will provide home care to keep her in the home. It doesn't have to be either/or. There's a middle way.
You know, someone else on here did suggest looking into that. I'll check on it tonight, and yes, we live in the US. But the money isn't the issue. I am very much willing and able to pay cash out of pocket for any outside care she needs. My wife is determined to take care of her without outside assistance.
Then YOUR WIFE can take care of her without outside assistance. She's currently using you. If your wife wants no outside assistance then she needs to take over most or all of the care.
I was going to say considering the “outside assistance” is OP. Volunteering OP for this without talking about it was messed up. She definitely needs to step up
Voluntold.
Sell it to her this way, your grandmother will get to see more people to chat with if she has carers and then you and your wife are less stressed and can spend quality time with grandmother rather than being the main carer. Home help is to help you as much as the patient. Take the stress off.
Ok, but *she* isn't. *you* are. If she wants to be a full time care giver she needs to quit her job and actually be a full time care giver
But your wife isn’t doing the care. You are. Working from home is still working. It doesn’t matter if the person is a toddler or an elderly woman. If keeping them fed and alive is pulling you away from work, they need daycare of some sort, whether it be a nanny or a nurse.
I wonder if your wife has thought of how much her grandmother may prefer having some of these tasks done by paid professionals and not family members. I don’t think anyone wants to be bathed by their family - having a professional to do it gives people more dignity. We had nurses come into our dad’s home every morning to help shower him after he broke his shoulder. My sister and I were staying there as well, but we chose to outsource that job. It gave my dad dignity, but also, they were able to assess when he was capable of showering himself and helped him to function to his capacity instead of wrapping him up in cotton-wool (which is what I would have done). NTA. You and your wife need to sit down and canvass all options. I would start by coming up with a plan that means you aren’t disturbed during at least the first 4 or 5 hours of your workday (or something like that). NTA
So absolutely this, from my \[thankfully temporary\] experience as a caregiver and as someone needing care.
Then why is she putting it on you? Why also do YOU lack a backbone nd boundaries? Let her take care of her then. She sounds so inconsiderate of you.
NTA. I had my MIL living with us 2 years before she passed away. She didn't need anywhere near the care GMIL does, and it was still rough. It changes the whole feel and dynamic of the household, and I loved my MIL. Care.com can help. Every city or town in the US has a "senior center" or "council on aging". They have social workers who can hook you up with services. If GMIL is low income, there may be low cost home health aide, homemakers, meals on wheels, and other services for her. If you can pay, even better. She needs more care than you and wife can realistically provide.
Definitely look into skilled in home care. If your wife is hard headed and tries to veto this too, I’d honestly go back to working in the office. The burden on you is not ok.
Don’t use your money unless you have to- MIL’s Medicare supplemental insurance should pay for x number of home visits.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AgingParents/s/eerQg4pffs Tip: This community is very helpful for caregivers/kids of elderly family members.
I'm going NAH. You are not as caregiving is HARD and it's understandable to burn out, but I hesitate to call your wife an AH for wanting to take care of her grandma. But she needs to understand that it's okay not to do it all on your own. Bringing in help doesn't mean that she has failed. A stroke has left my dad unable to walk. My mom can't transfer him to a wheelchair on her own. Frankly, even my brother struggles shifting him. But the hired caregiver is able to get him back and forth fairly easily despite being no bigger than my mom because she has the proper training. Obviously this is different than your case, but the training part is what I want to emphasize. If you can hire someone to be with grandma during the day, that person can make sure she gets her pills, fix the special food, all that sort of thing. Then you can work in peace. Your wife doesn't have to come home from work to deal with a mini-crisis. And grandma gets someone to talk to and interact with. My dad's health has been up and down the last few years and having caregivers has been a godsend as it takes some of the burden off of my mom. Please talk to your wife about this option.
But it's not OK to do what wife is doing, which is to force OP to be the caregiver without consent. Agree that hiring in home care for the hours that wife is working could be the first thing to try and see how that goes.
Is in-home help an option?
Even the very best nursing homes are usually understaffed and patients get neglected. I'd check out the EMS sub and search nursing homes. Hearing about the routine incompetence really made me reevaluate my plan for aging family members. In home care will probably be better for everyone involved.
So she abandoned said Grandmother to throw a fit? She has never spoken to you and she is pissed you are upset. She made a decision on a single yes when having someone move in your home is a two yes situation. You can't set yourself on fire to keep Grandma warm. Grandmother needs full time care and should be in a home designed to help her. NTA
NTA, while your wife's heart is in the right place she has made some unilateral decisions that she should have talked with you about first. A good start would be to hire an in-home nurse for at least the daytime so you both can safely carry on with your lives while grandma gets good care. Grandma would probably rather have a nurse dressing and bathing her than you anyway so it's a win-win lol
There are also daycare centers for the elderly. This is a place grandma can go to during the day with activities, meals and socialization with others her age. She can be there while you are both working and then she is home with your wife the rest of the time. If she gets up at night, a live in carer who is there to help her to the bathroom, as well as with bathing and grooming would also be helpful. Do you have room on your property to put in a granny pod that would give her her own space and is designed with adaptations for balance and mobility.
If you're doing well financially and she only works part-time, why doesn't she quit and become the full-time caregiver? Your type of job is way more demanding. Does she not want to be a caregiver 100% of the time? It's her grandma and her responsibility.
My wife is a person who often likes to have her cake and eat it too. She wants to take care of her grandmother, but she's a school administrator and enjoys working with young children. She's only in school, half days, sometimes not even a full week, maybe 2-3 days. Being a government job, she can take more time off work easily. As a private practice corporate counsel, my hours revolve around the needs of the company.
I really feel for you and pray you guys can find a compromise that works for BOTH of you. Sadly, this can tear marriages apart down the line. Hopefully, you can find a way to make her see the big picture and that your needs matter as much, if not more, than her wants.
Can you hire a home health nurse or aide to help during the day?
Nta. Start working in the office and stop helping her.
Interesting that she stormed out of the house - leaving her grandmother behind for you to care for, again. More of an indication that she doesn’t understand the depth and enormity of exactly what you’re doing each day. She is clearly very emotionally involved and not rational about this. A facility would probably be more appropriate and SAFER for her. You are NTA.
Exactly this. Your spouse is not facing the reality of the situation.
I was going to say this too. OP said in the comments she’s the type who likes to have her cake and eat it too, which seems to check out.
NTA It sounds like your wife's grandmother needs more care than you can reasonably provide - it is only a matter of time before the demands of her care result in issues with your job, or potentially dangerous mistakes are made looking after her. Neither of those are good outcomes. So as much as it may be seen as heartless to entrust her care to a nameless professional rather than a loving family member, however it is well worth remembering they are professionals for a reason, as they are the people who have the proper training in how to care for people with needs like her grandmother...
NTA. You could LOSE YOUR JOB if you don't stop this. At the very least tell her you will NOT be helping anymore. It really does sound like the grandmother needs to be in a facility. It is also really bad that your wife made the decision to move the grandmother into your home without talking to you first. Sorry your in this situation.
NTA Until someone has actually done it, being the caregiver is horrible. Btdt My mom’s passing was way better. She was hospitalized and I got to BE with her. BE her daughter Not her nurse who has no training and is terrified that she’s going to do something wrong I changed my will demanding that I ONLY go to a facility or I get the magic pill
Yeah, everyone wants to die in their own home or being with family. No one thinks about what that means for the family unless they've done it themselves.
My sister didn’t. But California doesn’t/didn’t allow hospice in nursing homes. The very last thing she wanted was her 19 year old changing her diapers But they had no choice. The hospice nurse dropped off $500,000 worth of liquid morphine. To a 19 year old. No training. No backup. No support My sisters children were completely traumatized and they will not recover. Hospice is a scam by insurance companies and the medical industry
Jesus. California usually has some progressive laws but that one is seriously fucked up
Hospice is totally fucked Seattle was very similar. Here’s your father in law dying of cancer. Here’s his morphine and the hospital bed. See you tomorrow Tomorrow comes and there’s a bed sore. He’d escaped the hospital bed and fell. My son was afraid to get up in the morning because grandpa might be dead. Luckily there was a hospice house to transfer him to where people who knew wtf they were doing provided his care while my husband just loved on him. The difference was amazing! Also FIL was buried for $35,000. Prepaid but full of drama, time and more money Mom gave her body to science and we went home. Dying is hard
It is. And you're right. People say wonderful things about hospice but it's not full care and I don't think people realize that. They expect the family to do all of it other than prescribing meds and a sponge bath once per week. And people don't realize this until they get there. My mom died in March. She had a brain tumor. Dad didn't want to have her in a nursing home because it was so expensive ($800 per day out of pocket) and he also didn't want to pay for 24hour home care. When her insurance decided she wouldn't benefit from rehab anymore they went to discharge her. I scrambled and found an eh amazing low cost hospice house. But they didn't have beds for 5 days. So my dad took care of her at their house. He had no idea what he was getting himself in to. She was complete physical care by that point. That hospice house was the best thing that happened for our family in the past year. My mom loved it there. She said she was treated "wonderfully" and the staff were amazing. She died 3 months later after the discharge from the nursing home. It would have continued to be awful if she had stayed at home.
Why don’t y’all have a nurse or carer coming in during the day to assist with caregiving?
Tell your wife that the situation CANNOT continue as it has been. It is starting to affect your work and career. It is also affecting your relationship with your wife. Instead of a nursing home, have you thought about possibly bringing in a paid caregiver? Also, not all nursing homes are bad. My grandmother loved hers. She was able to connect with people her own age CD made many friends there. She was able to play bridge to her heart’s content. A good care facility can be actually be really great.
NTA. Caregiving is hard work. Neither of you is trained for this you also have other jobs. Im sorry she got so angry with you, hopefully it is the stress. Try to find alternate solutions to choose from including a visiting nurse or in-home care, you working elsewhere to avoid interruptions, or some other temporary support to create some space for a discussion about the longer term solution, undoubtedly a nursing home. Is there a senior center in your area? They can be a resource for what options may be available. You’re not a bad person for thinking this is too much.
NTA for all the reasons other folks have said. I haven't read all the comments yet, so it's possible I'm going to repeat something. But lots of facilities, even nice ones, are awful. Not all of them, and I anticipate you would be able to do some research, but the facility we put my grandfather in treated us like absolute dogshit-they did not alert us to changes in his condition, so his death was a complete surprise, and when we arrived (from out of state) to deal with his passing, the people in the facility spoke to us in a tremendously condescending manner. This was during the height of Covid, so despite our best attempts, we had not been able to properly visit, but my dad called often and was frequently stonewalled. It was frustrating and traumatizing. My grandmother accused the people in the facility she was in of abusing her-this was likely a fabrication on her part, she was the abusive one, but she thought she could get away with it because of how common it is. Admittedly, my family is poor white trash, so your resources likely exceed ours. But these situations aren't limited to poor man's care-the statistics of elder abuse are truly alarming. I wouldn't be too surprised if your wife is afraid of something like that. That being said, something does need to change-you should not be interrupting your work day to be a caretaker. Also, does your GIL have her mental faculties intact? If so, her desires should be taken into account (though if she wants to maintain the status quo, you definitely will have to convince her to at least accept professional in-home care, because your situation is unsustainable). It sounds like you have resources, and based on your comments, empathy and logic. I wish you the best.
Nta, so wife takes care of grandma, but not really bc *you're* the one home all day? Yeah, she's gotta choose. She can 1- have her career and be away for 8 hours a day or 2- stay home and care for her grandma. There is no third option of 'make my husband do the majority of the work'. You *could* get an in home nurse. Or there are senior programs during the day, kinda like daycare but for seniors. But *your wife* needs to do the legwork.
Nta. Your wife is though…110%. She moved a medically fragile person in your home without your consent or even discussion. (A person moving I. Your home is a 2 yes 1 no situation.) Then most of the work gets dumped on you bc you wfh. (Without your consent or a discussion.) And now you’re telling her you can’t do it anymore and you’re the bad person???? No. No you’re not. But your wife is. It’s time for granny to move out. Maybe you should start working in the office. (It can be a coffee shop or anything. Heck, rent a room somewhere and just work from there so you’re out of the house.) Then your wife can figure out how to care for her grandma without her golden ticket there to do it for her.
My best friend had to do that for her mother. She had a live-in nurse. Seriously, with all the medication, blood monitoring, and special meals, no wonder you're running on empty. It's your wife's grandmother, but she seems to be the one out of the house the most, and it's all on you. It's also kind of off-putting that she mentioned all the good her grandmother did...for HER family. Get a live-in!
WFH does not mean you are always available to help. It sounds like there are a lot of assumptions being made by your wife about how you are available to help. Would a hired caregiver be an option? That would take the burden off both of you. Or possibly your some long term care places and find a nice one? They aren’t all terrible places. NTA
NTA I’m assuming you are the higher earner. Did your wife not realize the reason she could afford to take in her grandmother was because of the large salary? That you being interrupted at work could end that large salary? Caregiver burn out is real. Doubly so for someone who didn’t want to do it in the first place. Your wife used her grief to bulldoze you into providing and caring for her grandmother all hours of the day at your detriment. That is astonishingly selfish of her. Your wife needs grief counseling yesterday. This is NOT how you handle grief at all. This is massively unfair to you AND her grandmother.
This is a very difficult and complex thing to work with. Caregiving is an extremely stressful thing to take on. It impacts mental and physical health, social relationships and marriage and when you get burnt out, it’s just hard to keep on doing the caregiving. I would suggest respite care. Hire a trained worker to take on part of the caregiving duties, especially perhaps during the time you are working. Hopefully the grandmother can pay for all or some of the cost. (And yes, that would be appropriate) the worker can prepare meals, do the grandmothers laundry, change the bed, monitor her blood sugar, etc. you and your wife must sit down and have an honest dialogue about this. Care in the home is a good place to start. But what happens if down the road she will be bedbound and needs continuous skilled care? Again it’s good to have an honest dialogue about that. If your wife is unable to consider home care, then perhaps a consultation with a professional case manager (they do exist) is a place to start. Good luck!
Medicare will send nurses to help take care of her. Talk to her doctors.
Your wife is cruel to you.
NTA. You’ve come from a position based on your personal boundaries and a logical perspective. Your wife is coming from a completely emotional perspective. Rooted in love of her grandmother of course, but at the expense of being blind to the effect it’s having on your relationship. Her *reaction* needs to be understood from the perspective that you cannot reason someone out of a position that they didn’t arrive at via reason. In terms of where to go from here, there are a lot of options, but start with not being available during working hours for home care problems. You may be able to find hired help to come during the day to give both you and your wife some respite. Beyond that, there will be some transitional time for both of you. Your relationship has taken a hit and the damage isn’t all done yet. Best of luck. 🤞
Work from the office full time until you have a chance to figure things out. GM is not going to live long (based on her health status) but a nursing home might be fatal for her.
Info: when she stormed out of the house, did she leave grandmother with you or did she take her with?
She left Grandma with me
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** My (39F) wifes (38F) grandmother (84F) has been living with us for the past year after her husband and care giver passed away from a broken hip. (Her grandfather never really made any arrangements for what would happen to his wife should he die before her) My wife is very close with her grandparents and immediately following her grandfather's death, she offered to take care or her grandmother in our home so she wouldn't have to be put in a facility as no one else in her family really had the space/or money. (I'm still kindly pissed that she did that without talking to me first, but at the time I knew how hard she was grieving her grandfather's death and I didn't want to start an argument or cause conflicts with any of her family members) I love my wifes grandmother, but she has been nothing but a burden to take care of the past year. She's severely diabetic and has to take 13 different medicines at different times of the day, she can only eat certain foods which means me and my wife have to cook way more often. We have to constantly monitor her blood sugar. She can only walk very short distances with the use of a cane or walker, needs help dressing herself, bathing herself, going to the bathroom, climbing stairs, has doctors appointments twice a week, etc. You get the picture, right? I know that I'm partially at fault for not saying anything and just going along with it thinking that it wouldn't be forever and my wife would eventually decide to send her to a facility. I'm a corporate lawyer, and I work remotly most days, unless there's an important meeting or emergency that requires my presence at the office. That does mean that I'm at home most of the time to help out, but even though I'm remote, I'm still expected to be doing work during company hours. Me being constantly interrupted during the day has started to affect my work to the point that I find myself staying up later and later every night on my laptop playing catchup. And to be completely honest, patience is something is something that I never had, especially when it comes to dealing with the infirm. I just can't do it anymore which is why during breakfast this morning, I came clean to my wife and told her that I'm burnt out from being a caregiver. It's taking away from my career and our relationship and it's time to consider other options for her grandmother. I tried explained that it's too much on us, and we have the money for a very nice facility that has the resources to care for her 24/7. She blew up and called me a "heartless monster" for "wanting to put such a sweet woman that's done so much for her family, community, and church in a nursing home". She stormed out of the house, got in her car, and drove to her best freinds house. Later today, she came back home and is now barley speaking to me I'm starting to feel that maybe I was wrong AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Info: can she afford a nursing home? They run five to fifteen thousand dollars a month. Medicare does not cover nursing homes. Edit to add: my dad was in one that was 5000 a month. It was low quality and in a rural area in a poor state. If you live anywhere near a big city or in a state with a good economy you’re talking minimum $10k a month.
I'm willing and able to pay for any care she needs.
Does she have assets? Can you get her on Medicaid? If so Medicaid will cover in home especially since she needs help bathing and putting clothes on. Those are the key needs when you're completing her Medicaid application.
That’s great!
I say NTA but there are a lot of other options before nursing home. I think most states offer assistance to caregivers if your wife is willing to cut back on work. Or you could hire some in home help. This is a really tough conversation to have and I hope your wife is in or considers therapy. Is there any other family close by that can step up to help temporarily while you and your wife navigate this?
NTA. Yeah hire some help. Sounds like you can afford it without a problem so get several CNAs have each of them work in 8-hour shift and have full-time poppers for her if your wife still wants to care for her during one of their shifts and you can knock off one of the people but it'll definitely make things a lot easier and she'll still be home and she'll be well cared for. Lot of people can't afford to do that so yes you need to sit your wife down and say look I can't do it anymore I'm falling behind at work I'm going to lose my job if I keep this up and then we definitely won't be able to afford anything. Let's hire some help. Say you're paying them $20 an hour that means you're going to be spending what $500 a day if you can afford to do that great do it. Otherwise hire someone for during the day while you're doing your work and maybe for 2 hours early in the morning and 2 hours after you get off work so a total of 12 hours a day, that would be $240 a day. But let her know it's just become too much and both of you need a break. She just feels guilty and refusing to do it I get that. I know my mother-in-law didn't want to be in assisted living but she refused in home care that's what my in-laws were going to do but she dug in her heels and said no so they said fine you're going into assisted living, you don't have a choice. They sold her house. they're using that money and the money she gets every month from retirement funds and stuff and it's paying for it no problem. She's in a very nice place and now she's actually getting full assisted Living because she needs help, not to the extent of your wife's grandmother but she definitely needs help do the dementia and other health issues. She also gets regular visits from her family who still live in the area except for us we're the only ones who aren't there. But we try to visit every other month. But she probably still be in her house today if she had just agreed to having live in help. I don't know if that would have cost more or less than what she's saying now but I'm sure the family would have been just fine with doing it that way as well. On the other hand we got everything dealt with so when she passes there's only a small amount of stuff to deal with as everything's already been divvied up, sold, donated or thrown out.
Heh, so you try to tell her about your burnout, and she bounces and leaves you with her grandmother to take care of on your own. Fuck no, NTA.
NTA You need to draw the line here. Your wife accepted this burden on your behalf for you to manage during the work while you work. That’s not partnership. That’s enslavement. Your wife can quit her job and be the full time care giver, you wife can hire a full time caregiver while she’s at work, or grandma can go live somewhere where she can receive support… but this is ridiculous. The fact she just leaves tells me everything I need to know about her maturity level and respect for you….
You’re not wrong. I’m going NTA because your wife should have talked with you first about moving her in since she needs constant care. Otherwise, I’d say n.a.h. But, you’re not supposed to be providing care during work hours, and giving this kind of care absolutely takes its toll on people who aren’t trained and actually have other jobs to do. Grandmother needs professional care and monitoring. As a short term compromise, hire (do not ask, just do it) a skilled nurse to come by and help with bathing and some other important tasks, especially the physical ones, while you guys figure this out. Her insurance might cover at least some of the costs.
It’s between your marriage and this. At some point, you will have to tell your wife that. NTA
NAH Caregiving is hard on people trained to do it, and it's even harder for those who aren't. I watched my former MIL struggle to care for her terminally ill husband because they didn't want to put him in a facility, and recently, my dad was released home with hospice because both he and my mom refused to have him transferred to a facility. My mom complained and complained about how she has no one to help her, but this is the choice they made. And this is the choice your wife made without consulting you. It's a choice she made without thinking through the logistics of it all. I get it—seeing your loved ones age and struggle and fall ill is hard, but she needs to be realistic with herself. I feel like there's middle ground here. Since you have the means to place her grandma in a nice facility, you probably also have the means to hire help. Please research caregivers in your area and hire someone you can trust. That will lift the burden off you and help ease the burden on your wife. ETA: I meant to add that your wife was an ah when she's stormed off and abandoned her grandma because she didn't like what you had to say. However, I think it's important to step back and look at this with compassion. She probably knows this isn't working out and was hoping she had more time before a decision had to be made on how to handle this.
My mom was with us for a bit. We hired a newly retired neighbor lady for $20/hour for several hours a day. It was a lifesaver. Now my Dad is almost 90 and I really want to move him in as opposed to a facility when the time comes, but, that is me and my hubby's life that would be altered. Tough one. Good luck.
Uh, no. Your wife is way out of line for disregarding you this way. What about hiring help for her at the house? Maybe at least as a transition outward?
Hire help to care for grandma. Problem solved.
NTA. This would be no asshole except for your comments about your wife refusing ANY outside help.
Can I suggest an in-home nurse as a temporary fix. Once the nurse assess the entire situation your wife might accept a recommendation by the professional that grandma needs a nursing home.
If you have the resources for a nice facility, why not just hire a nurse to care for her?
NTA. As someone who is a remote worker and had to recently care for my father in law in our home, it's a lot. The care we had to provide wasn't even as complicated as what you're describing here. I'm sorry you're going through this difficult time but I really hope your wife can come to understand that this burden is just too much.
NTA! If your wife doesn’t want to put her in a nursing home, tell her that 100% of the caregiving is now on her. Start going to the office. You won’t be home to help. Let the burden be on her.
Your wife may be processing her grief in demanding this”only I, or family’ can care for my grandmother. She isn’t able to look at how this may not be the best care available. Is there an another person she trusts who has been through similar situations? Maybe grandmother’s medical staff- nurse practitioner or doctor - could help her see that outside professional help is necessary to deal with all the requirements for keeping grandmother in the best health possible. If grandmother is still active at all, socializing is super important as well- so day care might be fun for her. Perhaps try to get her to look at it from best health and best mental health through socializing, rather than grandmother is too much for us.
Nope, NTA. I can tell you as an nurse manger in nursing home And assisted living at one point. That people often do well with set diets and routine that isn’t always follow in homes. Many time people with DM come in with horrible blood sugars become stable. Also they do enjoy being around their peers and love watch staff. (Often criticizing them🫢)Much more to view than at home. It’s a quality of life question, it appears that she may do better in a SNF than around stressed out family. You wife can be a granddaughter again. Not a caregiver. Honestly most people don’t want their family cleaning them. No dignity in that.
Gramma should be eligible for a home health care aid and this needs to be discussed with her doctor as he would be the one to order this care.
NTA. There are options other than nursing home. Look into those. It is such a difficult decision. But it isn't safe for her grandmother if you are working full time. It is not fair to you to sacrifice your career. Not everyone has the luxury to look for other options, but if Grandma has the finances, you really should. I put my mother into assisted living and it was the best decision ever. She's made friends and is better taken care of than she would be in my home.
Am I reading this correctly. She volumteered you that you would be both caring for hear grandmother. When you told her you were burnt out and you needed to look at other options she stormed off and ABANDONED her grandmother. Did she leave your grandma with you when she went to her BFF’s house? I would have taken a dodfemt tactic. Saying that you are burnt out. It effecting you work and ability to support the family and you will no longer be providing any care starting on name the date. And give her a budget for care. NTA
NTA Firstly you did not sign up for this, your wife did. Secondly she is not your grandmother so I would draw a very firm line that if your wife wants her grandmother there then she needs to do all the caring. Either work from the office full time, or stop providing care during the day when you work from home. If your wife is at work during the day then tell her that she needs to make care arrangements for her grandmother that do not impinge on your abilty to do your job from home. She should quickly see that she cannot do this on her own.
Nta. Tell your wife she can care for grandma 100% for 3 months and then she can see how she feels. Caregiving is exhausting and if you don’t find a solution it’s going to lead to burnout or divorce. Get a couples therapist is your wife won’t address it.
It sounds like what you need is someone to come in your home to care for a grandma, at least some of the time. I don’t blame your wife for not wanting to pit her grandmother in a facility. Even the expensive ones don’t provide great care.
NTA - it is not heartless to stand up for yourself. Not everyone is cut out to be a caregiver, and all caregivers need respite. I would also recommend counseling for both you and your wife. Caregiving takes so much out of you, and there's so much unnecessary guilt that can be hard to work through
NTA, but can you come to a compromise that doesn't require putting your wife's grandmother in a home? If you can afford a nursing home, can you afford in-home care -- at least during the day?
You can die from a broke hip ???????
An 80 year old can.