My mother’s not coping
EVER since my mother separated from my father 18 months ago, she’s gone to pieces.
She calls me several times each day and expects me to drop whatever I am doing to help her, or provide a shoulder to cry on.
She’s not sleeping well but won’t take the tablets the doctor gave her, and she cancelled her visits to the counsellor he suggested after just one session.
I love her and I want to help, but I’m beginning to resent this constant demand for attention and the strain it’s putting on my own marriage.
This has to stop, but how do I get her to realise this?
W. R. NO matter how much two people love one another, it’s always healthy to form friendships and connections outside the relationship.
That’s because if and when bereavement or separation strikes, they have other interests and other people to fall back on.
It sounds as if, sadly, your mother is one of those who has focused her life on her husband and family, and now has nowhere else to turn.
You’ve been very patient, but perhaps the time has come to be firmer with your mother.
Choose your moment and explain that helping her is affecting your own marriage and that you cannot just drop everything for her.
I suggest you agree on a daily call at a fixed time, and a weekly visit, but encourage her to see that she’ll never regain her independence if she continues to depend so heavily on you.
Encourage her to see that if she helped herself more - by seeing the counsellor and taking her prescribed medication - she will get through this faster than by trying to manage without. MY husband has always been quick to blame someone else whenever things went wrong - even when everyone knows he was at fault.
He’s always been like this, but over the past few years, his childishness seems to have got worse.
He left the oven on last week and when I gently brought it up, he swore blind he hadn’t done it. When I pointed out that I hadn’t been into the kitchen until that moment, he flew off the handle and stomped out of the house for three hours.
I am finding this sort of childish behaviour really tiresome and it’s getting me down. Why are we drifting apart over this?
G. M. YOU don’t tell me a lot about yourselves, but I wonder if you’re an older couple.
It may be that he’s become more difficult as he’s got older - a lot of us do - but it’s also possible that you’ve become a little less tolerant.
If he’s always been this way and you’ve managed to put up with it, then couldn’t you both be honest with one another and talk it through?
With a little tolerance, understanding and humour from you both, I’d like to think you can work through this. Instead of both getting angry about things, try laughing at each other’s little quirks, and I’m sure things will improve.