saraha Posted December 7, 2023 Author Share Posted December 7, 2023 In talking to dh about what happened yesterday, I told him about Friend telling SIL in the store that she didn’t think FsSIL was interested in full time. He said that SIL said that but Niece said “Friend doesn’t know what she’s talking about” I thought that was kind of interesting, that for some reason niece would know better. When I picked dh up, he said “we’ll, friend was right. SIL said FsSIL did end up texting back saying she could meet them, but she got a part time job so she only wanted to work part time. SIL said to forget it then.” I did have a little grin to myself that my snotty niece was, in fact, wrong. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted December 8, 2023 Author Share Posted December 8, 2023 (edited) Yesterday, Aide sent a heartfelt text to SIL saying she understands she has missed a lot of work, she wants to keep working for them, could they talk and figure out some kind of arrangement since she only has a couple of people she can leave the twins with etc. SIL shared it with dh and bil. Dh said that’s great! Maybe we can sit down with her and have a meeting outlining job expectations etc. SIL was like nope. I’m over her. In the mean time SIL is doing absolutely nothing to look for someone else. Dh said he thinks she’s waiting for someone to just fall out of the sky. He is so frustrated because he feels like Aide basically opened the door for changes to be made and how she’s willing to try to improve the situation and SIL just won’t have it. He said, well she’s all we’ve got for the foreseeable future unless you want to take on the role. SIL said she can’t, their business needs her right now. So dh said then let’s meet with her and fix what we can now while we wait for someone else to come along. Nope. So SIL will not work with the Aide at all and is not actually doing anything to find another person except praying about it. Dh wants to strangle her. It is so infuriating. ETA: not that praying about it is bad, but if no one outside their church knows they are looking and they are not looking on care.com etc. I don’t see how the right person can get a chance to come along. Edited December 8, 2023 by saraha 1 15 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harriet Vane Posted December 8, 2023 Share Posted December 8, 2023 Cutting off her nose to spite her face… 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted December 8, 2023 Author Share Posted December 8, 2023 Just now, Harriet Vane said: Cutting off her nose to spite her face… Exactly. It’s no wonder she can’t keep any office help, she is terrible at managing people and will not delegate. When she texted dh and bil and asked if someone else would deal with Aide, dh told her I was willing to be the point person with her, she responded I’ll just do it myself. So 🤷🏼♀️ Mil deserves better. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faith-manor Posted December 8, 2023 Share Posted December 8, 2023 Wow! This is lunacy. Wash your hands of it. I think nephew needs to as well. Everyone who "pinch hits" when the aide is not there needs to drop out. Maybe that will force sil and dil to finally concede that she needs a facility/staff. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted December 8, 2023 Share Posted December 8, 2023 This has never been about your MIL getting good care. IMO, it is your SIL trying to demonstrate to the world how difficult it has been to care for your mother. Unreliable workers, unsupportive family who just want to send her away to a home and wont pitch in and do work, etc. all while she is also working her own business, etc. I think this is why things dont change. She’s built up this narrative in her mind she needs to maintain. It’s all about her. 16 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faith-manor Posted December 8, 2023 Share Posted December 8, 2023 49 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said: This has never been about your MIL getting good care. IMO, it is your SIL trying to demonstrate to the world how difficult it has been to care for your mother. Unreliable workers, unsupportive family who just want to send her away to a home and wont pitch in and do work, etc. all while she is also working her own business, etc. I think this is why things dont change. She’s built up this narrative in her mind she needs to maintain. It’s all about her. I too agree. She has martyrdom syndrome. Fil just goes along with it. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted December 8, 2023 Author Share Posted December 8, 2023 54 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said: This has never been about your MIL getting good care. IMO, it is your SIL trying to demonstrate to the world how difficult it has been to care for your mother. Unreliable workers, unsupportive family who just want to send her away to a home and wont pitch in and do work, etc. all while she is also working her own business, etc. I think this is why things dont change. She’s built up this narrative in her mind she needs to maintain. It’s all about her. I never thought about it like that before Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grace Hopper Posted December 8, 2023 Share Posted December 8, 2023 7 minutes ago, Faith-manor said: I too agree. She has martyrdom syndrome. Fil just goes along with it. Speaking of your FIL, how’s he doing? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuPanda Posted December 8, 2023 Share Posted December 8, 2023 Wait, so she's going to let her mother go without a care plan at all to spite this employee because her life interfered with her job? I think it's time for an intervention. The whole family needs to tell her that she cannot fire this person unless she has a replacement lined up, is willing to do it herself, or is ready to put her into a care facility. Pride and spite is not reason to create a bigger hole in this care net. 10 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lecka Posted December 8, 2023 Share Posted December 8, 2023 This is hard to explain, but to some extent my sisters and I have got “roles” and I am not sure my mom is interested in changing (or challenging) the roles. My older sisters must be more qualified and capable than I am, to be helpful to her, even though the one who is local works full-time and is incredibly busy during tax season. The other lives half-way across the country. For me I can change my role by just taking independent action where I can and ignoring it if someone thinks I didn’t have “permission” or something. But it’s limited in when that would be a good idea. I just think — the SIL has probably been this way a long time, and nobody may be interested in changing the family dynamics. As far as the martyr thing, sometimes people will even let/make things be bad so that people will understand what a martyr they are. It’s too bad when it can appear to go this far, and it’s all something where the benefit of the doubt is what I would try to practice. Plus she may not even want to have that role, yet it’s the role she has, and it would seem impossible to change. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted December 8, 2023 Author Share Posted December 8, 2023 1 hour ago, Grace Hopper said: Speaking of your FIL, how’s he doing? He has started to struggle with mental capacity. He makes crazy, dangerous decisions to the point that neither of his boys or son in law will go along with his crazy schemes, so he ropes in his older brother who lives two farms down the road. His latest endeavor was he decided he didn’t have enough money in the bank so he and his brother started logging in the creek bottom. Two men, one 80 the other 82, were cutting down trees and maneuvering them with a bobcat! The neighbors were so concerned they set aside a 20 year grudge to reach out to bil and tell him what they were doing. This went on for three weeks til the market fell out for walnut 🤦♀️. SIL’s oldest son is clearing land to build a house a little ways down the road and uses fil’s equipment. He spends a lot of time getting g fil to “help” him and keep him from coming up with crazy things to do. He is also the family mechanic and has disabled several tractors so they only run when he wants them too. Fil hasn’t caught on to that yet. He is getting forgetful, which makes him mad, but most of the time he’s pretty easy going, unless you start telling him what to/not to do about something. He has gotten into the habit of calling SIL for every little thing, which has got to be slowly driving her crazy. Which makes the idea that she is not looking harder for someone to be there full time seem so strange. Right now he’s hobbling around because we sold some cows, and my two grown nephews went over to load them up, but he decided the bull he wanted to sell was too dangerous and wouldn’t let the boys help him load it up. Nephew said he had his phone out ready to call 911 when the bull got him down but the boys where able to get the bull to go back out into the field by opening the gate. He wouldn’t go to the hospital to get checked out. The worst part about that is my bil built him a top of the line cattle handling/loading system about 7 years ago, but he wouldn’t use it and let the cows just knock it around and it now needs repaired. Just dumb stuff. 2 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knitgrl Posted December 8, 2023 Share Posted December 8, 2023 I'm glad to hear SIL's son is doing what he can to alleviate things. So funny the tractors only work for him. 😆 8 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fairfarmhand Posted December 8, 2023 Share Posted December 8, 2023 1 hour ago, knitgrl said: I'm glad to hear SIL's son is doing what he can to alleviate things. So funny the tractors only work for him. 😆 I live in a farming community too and this is remarkably common as these old farmers age. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grace Hopper Posted December 8, 2023 Share Posted December 8, 2023 3 hours ago, KungFuPanda said: Wait, so she's going to let her mother go without a care plan at all to spite this employee because her life interfered with her job? I think it's time for an intervention. The whole family needs to tell her that she cannot fire this person unless she has a replacement lined up, is willing to do it herself, or is ready to put her into a care facility. Pride and spite is not reason to create a bigger hole in this care net. I understand the family dynamic is not to anger SIL, but this behavior of SIL is negligent. Especially given FIL’s deterioration. I do understand not wanting to displace either or the elders from their home, or separate them from one another. But the option to just let things go is not a rational one. That poor aide had to eat some crow to make that call; it’s sad SIL wouldn’t at least give her another chance, even just something part time while she looks for an additional aide (which imo is best) or replacement. I wish no further stress on your dh, but SIL being left in charge to make irresponsible choices is the cost of not handling difficult conversations at the onset of all this. Sorry it’s such a mess. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted December 8, 2023 Author Share Posted December 8, 2023 Yeah, so she’s not going to fire Aide now, since FsSIL fell through. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuPanda Posted December 8, 2023 Share Posted December 8, 2023 8 minutes ago, saraha said: Yeah, so she’s not going to fire Aide now, since FsSIL fell through. Ohhh, I thought she was digging in ever AFTER FsSIL fell through and that made no sense at all. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted December 8, 2023 Author Share Posted December 8, 2023 Yeah, she’s not going to fire her yet, but also won’t meet with her either 🙄 I’m relieved that Aide wants to work it out instead of just getting mad and quitting. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faith-manor Posted December 9, 2023 Share Posted December 9, 2023 20 hours ago, Grace Hopper said: Speaking of your FIL, how’s he doing? I don't have a father in law. He died in 2003. You must be confusing me with someone else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted December 9, 2023 Author Share Posted December 9, 2023 26 minutes ago, Faith-manor said: I don't have a father in law. He died in 2003. You must be confusing me with someone else. Oh gosh, I thought she was talking to me for some reason. 🤦♀️ Sorry! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grace Hopper Posted December 9, 2023 Share Posted December 9, 2023 1 hour ago, Faith-manor said: I don't have a father in law. He died in 2003. You must be confusing me with someone else. 37 minutes ago, saraha said: Oh gosh, I thought she was talking to me for some reason. 🤦♀️ Sorry! I was talking about saraha’s FIL. I think I quoted Faith because she mentioned the fil? Sorry it wasn’t clear. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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