Dear Bel,
I’m writing from the US but my problem is universal. I’m 30 and have two children, four and nine. At the age of 18 I met and moved in with their Pa. He was 20, had a good job and I thought we were in love. At 20 I gave birth to our son – over the moon to have a family of my own.
As the years went by everything was fine. We were a nice little family, struggling but coming through everything thrown at us.
At 26 I gave birth to our daughter. Then I had postpartum depression and, four years later, don’t feel completely over it. But still we held tight and made it through. I hadn’t worked since before my son was born.
At 28 I started working again, but the two jobs made me tired. My partner didn’t think I was putting in enough at home – and the truth is, I probably wasn’t. But I had found myself again in work, or so I thought. Still, I quit both of my jobs to be the mother and housewife I had been before.
At 30 I found out my partner had cheated with our neighbour, then, soon after, with my best friend of 16 years. I was a wreck but stayed because I didn’t know what else to do. I was miserable. Then I met another man who became a true friend – somebody who cared.
He never tried it on sexually, but changed my life, by assuring me I deserved better. So I left my partner and took the kids to my mother.
One night, this man kissed me. I saw fireworks like never before! But that was it – just a kiss. I didn’t need any more. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship with a one-night stand. We didn’t kiss again for weeks but talked every day. Then I was head over heels in love.
Every morning he tells me I’m beautiful and he loves me. He’s so caring and unselfish. Recently divorced and a single father, he’s moved into my mother’s house until we can get on our feet. My problem is – my children’s father wants his family so desperately he’ll do anything for us go back to him.
I will always have love for him, though I’m not in love with him. But he’s become a lot more stable and my children love their father and want to go home. They really like the new man, too.
I am so conflicted on what is more important – my happiness or the happiness of the family I created.
Ginny
To stay – or go? As you say, this is a dilemma which transcends national boundaries – although it’s only relevant in societies where women have freedom of choice.
The trouble with that freedom is that sometimes it leads to the wrong decision, as I heard the other day when a woman in her mid-40s told me just how much she regretted leaving the father of her only child. She’d met someone else who seemed like a better bet – only he wasn’t. And now there’s no going back. Nobody happy.
The shock of discovering your partner’s two infidelities must have seemed to negate all those years of shared struggle. You make it clear that you were happy, but it sounds as if your post-natal depression changed you in more ways then perhaps you understand, even now.
You felt as if you wanted there to be more to your life than being at home raising children and so you got two jobs. Your partner didn’t like it, you were tired and so you stopped work.
I’m setting all this out so painstakingly because it seems to me like a perfect storm of hormonal in-balance, emotional confusion, frustration and tiredness – all leading to meeting somebody who seemed to offer a way out.
I totally believe you when you convey your wonder at being loved by a man unlike anybody you’ve met before. The trouble is – you needed a new man to tell
you that you ‘deserve better’, when it would have been better for you to reach that conclusion by yourself. He almost told you to leave the father of your children, and so you did.
Hasn’t it all been rather speedy? This is what bothers me about relationships today. People move in together when they don’t know much about each other and it sounds like that’s what’s happened here.
Your man is only recently divorced yet he moved into your mother’s house with you – and never mind how much it did or didn’t confuse his own children as well as yours. You’re not sure whether you’ve got over your post-natal depression – and the father of your children wants the family back.
I don’t think he has forfeited the right to that wish. But I do think that, given the timescale and your stated confusion, your new boyfriend should move out of your mother’s house and give you time to breathe and think. Your children’s happiness and your own both matter. It doesn’t sound to me as if you are currently in any position to weigh conflicting duties and choose.
Your partner needs full access and should have it. If your boyfriend really loves you he will wait. You have a lot of thinking and growing to do.
My mother-in-law is struggling to cope
Dear Bel,
I regularly visit my mother-in-law, 92, who lives about an hour away. Widowed five years ago, she lives alone. My husband, who died in 2017, was her younger son.
Her other son lives about two hours away and visits every six weeks. He phones her every day and arranges her shopping deliveries.
She has macular degeneration and can no longer see the dials on the cooker or read her medication packets. I have noticed a deterioration in her health since late last year.
I used to take her out to lunch but she became confused and was waiting all day for me to arrive. When I went the next day as arranged, she was upset she’d got the day wrong.
She is becoming increasingly frail, is very down, has lost weight and is now using a walking rollator (her late husband’s) around the house. She can’t be bothered to cook just for one person. She can’t do the housework and looks unkempt, wearing dirty clothes and not washing.
I’ve suggested she might want someone to come and help her inside (she has a gardener) which she agrees to when I’m there.
However, when I speak to my brother-in-law regarding my concerns, he dismisses me saying she’s happy muddling along in her house. When I visited last week her carbon monoxide monitor was bleeping. The batteries had corroded. When I told her son she needed a new one, he said to throw it in the bin.
I don’t like to see her struggling but don’t know who to contact. Would social services help? I don’t want to fall out with her son, or be accused of interfering but she’s not going to get any better.
Susan
This is a sad yet common story. The most important thing is this: you are the daughter-in-law and your late husband, I have no doubt, would wish you to take responsibility for his mother.
That is, of course, what you are doing – but your closing sentence implies a belief that you have no ‘right’ to express opinions if your brother-in-law says so. This is not the case.
You are absolutely entitled to express the same concerns as a daughter would. So please stop considering your brother-in-law’s views are paramount here. They are not.
I’m sure he thinks he is doing his filial duty by telephoning and organising the food. Those two things are important, but equally vital is the kind of care which sees a carbon monoxide monitor as essential.
It’s as if that son thinks ‘job done’ when he picks up the phone. And I suspect he is in denial about her increasing frailty, because he doesn’t want more demands made on him.
This doesn’t make him a bad person; it just reveals an ordinary human carelessness which must be challenged.
Your mother-in-law needs proper care. Since she can’t see properly she is in danger of falling and her vagueness (which sounds like the onset of vascular dementia) could lead to accidentally doubling her medication, causing a fire, or worse. All this is quite obvious to you, of course, but how can you make it so to her son?
First, I think you need to study the Age Concern website for suggestions – ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/worried-about-someone/. Note the advice line. Then you need to call your brother-in-law and suggest you meet to discuss a way forward.
On the telephone he can brush you off. In person you can give chapter and verse of your concerns.
It sounds to me as if the time for your mother to live in a residential home might be approaching, and her house could be sold to pay for this. But of course, I hate to say it, her son might not like that for financial reasons. The conversation needs to be had.
The other alternative would be a carer arriving each morning to help your mother-in-law wash and dress, and in the late afternoon to give her supper. Whatever you decide, she cannot be left to struggle on alone.
Please recognise that you have just as much right as your brother-in-law to take care of this vulnerable old lady, and make sure he listens to you. Soon.
