smuggy95 Posted October 18, 2020 Share Posted October 18, 2020 Hi It's me again (see the family forum). My mom and I have a history of emotional co-dependency. But I got away from it, got married, had a kid. My dad died recently. She's been grieving, and yes, alone at the age of 70 yrs. It is scary. She's been asking my sister and I to stay over with her, because she can't be alone. Covid pandemic makes it hard for other people to visit her, but even then she says she 'doesn't want to feel joy anymore'. I've been sleeping over her house maybe 1-2 nights a week for the past month and half, same bed. My sister stays the rest of the nights. But it's starting to take its toll. I have an infant, only 4 months old when this started. My wife is at home alone taking care of him. My sister has her own life to get back to, a boyfriend she hasn't seen much of etc. I don't know how else to support my mom. I don't want to sleep over there anymore- is that horrible? I miss more time with my wife and child- I work and go to school (for my MBA) and there's plenty of things we need to fix/clean around the house. But I think grief lasts usually months, and my mom is especially emotional, so this need can easily extend past a year. My mom needs someone to sleep in the bed with her, on my dad's side, and I initially really didn't want to because boundaries I worked hard to put up (once she made me send a girlfriend home from my own apartment because SHE didn't like the girl and didn't want her in MY apartment (the gf was coming because she needed support over an issue); after I explained to the poor girl the conflict, my mom kissed me on the lips and said no one was taking her child away from her). So far, it's not as bad as I thought it would be, but I feel like there's two of me- one is her child, and the other, a spouse and parent. But I can never be both at the same time. And I miss seeing more of my wife and kid. They spent the night once with me, but we slept on the floor because there's no bed for us. And it defeats the purpose when my mom needs someone in the bed with her. Mom refuses to stay over at my house. She says she has too much to do and take care of. She says she won't be comfortable. Btw- I'm grieving my dad too, but she doesn't believe it. I come from a culture with lots of guilt over caring for parents, so I'm having a hard time. What to do? Link to post Share on other sites
Wiseman2 Posted October 18, 2020 Share Posted October 18, 2020 Don't sleep with your mother. Get the appropriate medical and mental health care for her. Get appropriate home care and grief counselling. Hire some people to visit. Make sure her bizarre requests are not signs of dementia. Get her to her doctor. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
d0nnivain Posted October 18, 2020 Share Posted October 18, 2020 Sleeping in the same bed as your mom under circumstances of anything but the most dire emergency -- you just survived a hurricane & are waiting for rescue -- is just gross & wrong. Buy mom a full body pillow, Offer to get her a dog. Sign her up for a grief support group. She's not the first spouse to have difficulties after the death of a partner. I think my father cried himself to sleep every night for the 19 months between my mom's death & his but I never climbed into bed with him. Big standing hugs was as far as was appropriate. But get OUT OF HER BED!!!!!!!!! Yuck. As your wife if I found out you did this I'd be on my way to a divorce seeking sole custody & making damn sure you never had unsupervised visits with our child & that the child was also never alone with grandma. 3 Link to post Share on other sites
LivingWaterPlease Posted October 18, 2020 Share Posted October 18, 2020 Your wife has been amazingly patient to allow you to sleep with your mother. I agree with d0nnivain''s post. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Acacia98 Posted October 18, 2020 Share Posted October 18, 2020 13 hours ago, Wiseman2 said: Don't sleep with your mother. Get the appropriate medical and mental health care for her. Get appropriate home care and grief counselling. Hire some people to visit. Make sure her bizarre requests are not signs of dementia. Get her to her doctor. I agree with this comment. @smuggy4, your situation is too much for a person to have to handle on his own. You need to get help: professional help. From your previous posts, I got the impression your mum was somewhere on the personality disorder spectrum. And now that has been complicated by grief. Please don't try to deal with this on your own. You will end up sacrificing yourself. You already are sacrificing yourself, giving in to an emotionally incestuous relationship. Get help for your mum. And for yourself too. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Author smuggy95 Posted October 18, 2020 Author Share Posted October 18, 2020 Thank you guys! I agree it feels yuck, and I'm done. Will go on with professional help from here on out!!! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
basil67 Posted October 18, 2020 Share Posted October 18, 2020 Glad to hear you're going with professional help. Tell me, how's your wife coping with the issues coming from your family? Is she OK? Link to post Share on other sites
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