to not want to drive to hospital two hours away and back every weekend

[hell0kitty]

to pick up my husband who has been in hospital since he had a stroke two months ago, and have to arrange for friends to pick up and look after our three children while I do so? I asked a friend who lives near the hospital to drive him to and from the first home visit he was allowed just the other week. The friend stayed over locally and took the children out so we could have some time alone together. But my husband doesn't want to repeat this arrangement, although the friend is willing. He sees the driving as no different from his old rail commute to work, and thinks that if I cared enough I'd do it myself. I feel I have enough on my plate dealing with the children and trying to manage his care long distance, let alone thinking about getting back to any sort of work of my own. AIBU?

In sickness and in health (within 20 miles obv.).

No advice but I feel for you. Your situation is really tricky and you are going through a lot as well as your DH.
Take care of yourself too

thankyou thankyou for all your answers. it seems only people who've been in this position appreciate how full on it all is. Compromise is the way to go. and I am very lucky to have friends who can also see the strains and are offering to help. I think if I set up something where I do one of the 4 hr drives and someone else does the other that would work. of course if this were a terminal illness i would be driving there no question. I think it's that I need to pace myself knowing I'll need to care for him and all the kids long term when he does come home....

My friends daughter has cancer, they do a 4 hour round trip each day to the hospital so she can sleep in her own bed and have afternoons to spend as she pleases and has some semblance of a life outside hospital.

The last few months must have been horrendous for you but it is not permanent and you will find the strength to manage this situation.

Best wishes to you all

Investigate ring and ride and hospital transport. Also contact any local support group / charity, often they have volunteer drivers.

OK you have 3 children, that is a big responsibility without dp acting like a child. Before anyone flames me, I know he is ill, and I know he needs support and I know he is dealing with a lot.

BUT insisting his wife drives when someone else could do it and he is not grateful / has no empathy (even if that is temporary and due to his stroke) is childish.

OP driving him makes no difference to his care and home visits as long as he has a way to get home. Tell him that, Tell him you do not have the energy and it will be better for both of you for him to be driven by anyone who is not you.

Yes it will be hard. Yes he will try emotional blackmail, but the priority should be his health and getting him well, not pandering to requests that cost you a lot (in terms of stress, fatigue etc) and benefit him by nothing.

Wow!!
Am shocked.

It is for 8 weeks out if your life. Your husband will feel vulnerable, damaged and all types of things which mean he probably doesn't want to be trapped in a car with anyone but his nearest and dearest.

I hope to god that my DH knows I can be taken for granted if he ever suffers such an awful debilitating episode such as a stroke.

Sassh a stroke is a brain injury, I very much doubt he is just being a selfish arse for the sake of it.

Is there not a local b&b or similar who will.do.you a cheap rate for the lot for everyweekend so you all go up and stay?

Id move heaven and earth to see my sick DH.

Your DH is behaving atrociously. He should accept your friend's offer of driving with the grace and gratitude it deserves. He is in no position to be fussy about how he gets home.

FFS her husband has had a stroke. His behaviour is going to be all over the place because his brain has suffered a violent assault.

Hell0 Don't let anyone on here make you feel bad about this. Jesus! They've obviously never been there. You do whatever you need to do to keep going. If you get ill the whole set up will fall apart anyway. Look after yourself, and don't take shit from dh - part of his rehabilitation should be learning to empathise with your situation. Well done for surviving so far and take up those offers of help x

I'd like to think that I would do whatever I could to support my DH in that situation, but accept it's hard to imagine until you have to do it

If the trip from hospital to your house is 2 hours, then maybe DH would prefer to spend that 4 hours talking to you rather than your friend. Or could it be a health issue eg he's worried about bladder control and would be mortified if he had an accident in your friend's car?

Accept your friends offer of help and tell your husband that you need the help. He might not understand at the moment, but eventually he will.

Your Dh has had a stroke and therefore a brain injury, he doesn't get to dictate that you do all the driving, he is in no state to be taking control of all this while trying to recover, you too have an illness an need to take care of yourself before neither one of you is fit to care for anyone.
You stand up for yourself and tell him how it will be done, if he wants to come home then he get to ride with the friend who is willing to help, and tell him this is going to be the arrangement till he can take charge of his own transport.
He is asking too much of you and you need to let him know this. If you say nothing he will think that you doing the drive every weekend is just fine.

I know exactly how you feel.

My dad had a stroke 8 weeks ago.

For the first few weeks I was going everyday.

Now I'm back a work going every Saturday.

It's a 4 hour round trip every time.

And I don't have young children.

Now he us home I am also cooking all his meals and taking them down to fill his freezer ( he has a wife but that's a whole other thread)

Let your friend do the driving. Tell DH that it has to be this way. ( yep and he will guilt trip you about it all. But how are you going to look after him when he does get home if you are exhausted)

If someone is willing to help with the long journeys, then take them up on it. You're DH will have to just accept the situation I'm afraid.
He can't dictate who picks him up, when its going to be going on for 8 weeks, every weekend.

I think that YANBU.

Is there nothing that the hospital can do to help?

You are lucky to have someone to help out-and some of us don't drive!

This affects you & the children as well & I think that you are right to take help where you can tbh.

YANBU to not want to. It is one of those situations where everyone has empathy for the ill party but nobody thinks of the enormous strain it puts on the family members trying to pick up and juggle the pieces. Essentially you are being a single mum to 3 school children who are dealing with a difficult emotional situation at the same time as trying to be a full time weekend carer for a husband who appears to be taking you for granted and criticising you for feeling the pressure.

I think you probably don't have a lot of choice, but YANBU for resenting it.

I hope things work out better than you expect once he's out. Have you got a mutual friend who you could brief to come around for a chat and mention "in passing" to him how much you are coping with, just so he can see he isn't the only one this situation is hard for... Sometimes being ill can make people understandably selfish and self involved, but he needs to know that the fact you have suggested other ways to juggle the driving and child care load doesn't reflect on whether you care for your husband, but on the fact you have more than you (or most people) can really cope with alone on your plate atm.

I don't have any suggestions as to whether you're BU or not, but wanted you to know you're not alone. Dp had a stroke 9 months ago. Ds was 5 weeks old. It's a long old slog and he's still not near his previous levels but he's back working full time, cycled successfully for the first time yesterday, and is hoping to get back to his running club soon.

The hardest part has been his depression. He's had his physical abilities stripped away - couldn't do flies on trousers, shave, still struggles with nappy changes when tired - and it has fucked up his image of himself. Depression is a selfish illness (I've had it too, luckily not right now!) so he might not be able to see your point of view unless it's spelled out in words of one syllable shout and cry about how it's not all about him

Dp had his stroke while we were visiting his family for Christmas. Once he was stable, he was discharged to the care of our local hospital as a Virtual In Patient, living at home but with daily OT/Physio/SaLT visits. It's much cheaper for the NHS and was by far the best option for us (he didn't need any physical care, just lots of rest and decent food) so might be worth looking into?

Do you work as well OP? Is this a journey time that your DH did regularly in supporting the family by going to work? Honestly, 2 hours each way is not that long a drive once a week.

I would suspect your DH is worried sick about what has happened to him and wants to surround himself with familiarity if he is stuck in hospital all week. Do you only see him at weekends? Don't you miss him? And I suspect the same stress is affecting you, and much of this isn't about the 2 hour journey at all, but more about the disruption to family life, the fear about whether he will be able to return to work or even relative normal health, and so on.

But theres just some things we have to do at certain times, though they are inconvenient and annoying. You can drive, a 4 hour round trip isn't that hard, you can arrange childcare, its only for a relatively short period of time with an end in sight - I kind of think its your duty as a decent person, not just as a wife.

At the end of the 8 weeks is he going to be home with you caring for him?
That's a different scenario to if at the end of 8 weeks you get a break.
I would try & split it with someone else.

steppemum I think it's the being taken for granted that gets to me, although I realise this can simply be a part of his condition. nothing I do, no effort I make is every good enough at the moment, and he never thanks me for anything I do do for him, or shows awareness of the amount of juggling that goes on

I might be wrong, but I think this is characteristic of a brain injury. He needs time to heal. It does sound very frustrating though. Are there any medical staff that you could talk to who can explain this to you?

Firstly, hugs to you hell0kitty. A stroke in someone so young is terribly hard. I know from personal experience. My stepdad had a stroke at 47 and although him and my mum did not have young kids (they couldn't have kids together and i'm an only child so helped my mum out a lot) he had his stroke in London and we live 30 miles south of London. He was taken to hospital in Twickenham which was a 3 hour round trip from us so my mum was doing that daily and then I would take her up at weekends and someone else would pick her up to give her a break from the driving. He was there for 4 months so I can truly understand why the driving is a big bind for you, especially with children.

To all those who say her DH is behaving atrociously then unfortunately he is not. A stroke is a brain injury and it doesn't just cause physical changes but also personality changes too. And it's incredibly hard for a family, particularly someone as close as a wife, to come to terms with the fact that the person has changed. So where the OP is saying he isn't saying thank you for her helping him out by driving etc sounds like it is related to his stroke to me. My stepdad's personality was changed by his stroke. He can no longer feel empathy towards other people. His thinking process when he wants to do something no longer includes how other people fit into that scenario so he doesn't think about other peoples feelings or what they want to do. He also doesn't think how his actions affect other people, for example his actions with regards to his health. He has a lot of health issues and he is not listening to advice but he's not thinking about how his non-complience affects my mum long term, like if he goes on kidney dialysis. Pre-stroke that would be the first thing on his mind.

I hope that makes sense. Good luck to your husband hun. Just remember he needs to take each day as it comes and it can take a couple of years to gain mobility back in his limbs. I've had a placement on a stroke rehab ward and i'm on an acute stroke ward now (i'm a student nurse). Everyone is different in how they recover from stroke. xx

If you don't feel up to it YABVVU to expect someone else to do it every week and look after your kids as well. That is taking the piss.

I don't think he's taking you for granted- I think he's trying to deal with a huge upheaval and brain injury. I can see how hard it is but I would try really really hard to do it for him [sympathy]