To resent my stepfather for his illness?

[Larkdedah]

My stepfather has chronic pulmonary obstructive disorder (CPOD) caused by years and years of chain smoking roll ups.

He moved in with my mother and me when I was 13, married my mother when I was 15. I never liked him right from the start, everybody told me I just resented him for his intrusion into our lives, which was probably some of the truth, but it was also because he's a passive aggressive patronising lazy sexist man-child. Over the years most people have come to realise how awful he is, my late grandmother, who liked everyone, came to hate him for the way he treated my mother.

He's now ill enough that my mother has effectively become his carer. She's 60, just retired, fit and healthy and young in outlook, and she's saddled with a selfish ill man who can hardly let her out of his sight. My DM has had a really shitty few years, my grandparents have both now died but in a past few years she's had to deal with her father deteriorating due to dementia and being a live out carer to her almost blind mother and him. She should now be able to relax, travel and enjoy life, but she can't.

His illness is also coming between my DD and my mum. They adore each other, and have the most lovely relationship. DD's other grandparents live abroad and my dad lives a couple of hours away, she hasn't really got the opportunity to build a close relationship with them so as far as grandparents go my mum is it. It used to be that my mum picked DD up from school one evening a week and they did an activity together, but that's more or less stopped now because my mum can't leave her husband for any length of time in case he has a choking fit. Even if DD goes to my mum's house it's still all about him and his constant coughing fits.

I'm so fucking angry with him for ruining our family like this. He knew smoking endless roll ups was bad for his health, not to mention everyone else's as he did it in the house, now not only is he paying the price but the rest of us are too.

[Valentine2]

And to everyone around here who is having a go at OP for being resentful about someone having an "illness": it's an illness he chose as part of the deal. Did he not know smoking leads to this eventually if not cancer?
It's not like any other disease or condition you get diagnosed with suddenly and need your partner's support from there on. It's a condition that develops over time and lots of the time the smoker is aware of loosing the strength of his lungs too. People die all over the world due to passive smoking ffs. The health campaigns explaining the hazard are numerous.
He knew he has a life time servant , did nt he?

[EssentialHummus]

No one choses to die a horrid painful death which COPD is.

They sort of do, you know, if they are warned that they will get COPD or similar if they carry on smoking, and they carry on.

Exactly. YANBU, OP. I can imagine you need somewhere to vent.

[ClarenceTheLion]

I can appreciate that you'd be angry about this. Just because someone's dying, it doesn't mean they assume saint-like status. A scumbag is still a scumbag. All you can do is support your DM as best you can, and keep your fingers crossed that he dies relatively quickly.

[Polgara25]

He does not get to decide if your DM gets respite.

It's not up to him. It's not about him.

I'm angry at him on your behalf for the 'old man' comment.

[WanderingNotLost]

I should add, I volunteer in a children's hospital, and any sympathy I might have felt for smokers who make themselves ill has been rapidly erased when week after week I meet children with the most awful respiratory and pulmonary diseases, and it turns out their parents smoke around them, or their mothers smoked whilst pregnant. You see the parents smoking just a few feet from the hospital entrance (ignoring the many signs requesting that they not smoke in the vicinity of the building) forcing everyone who is going into the hospital to walk through their clouds of smoke, and then they go back up to the wards with that hideous stink around them that nobody can get away from. Now I have no sympathy for smokers any more.

[Larkdedah]

He might accept me sitting with him, he won't accept an outside carer. We used to use them for my grandparents when neither of us were avalible so we know some really nice ones, but he won't have it.

Whoever said he knew he had a servant for life has it spot on, that's excatly it.

[ToastDemon]

OP YANBU. Your feelings are your feelings. It's understandable you'd feel this way if he was horrible to you and gives your mum a hard time.
You're not "vile" or any of the other shitty things you've been called.

[Valentine2]

Wandringnotlost, EXACTLY!!!
I once saw a very young man walking toward the a&e leaving a trail of blood in his wake. He had mouth cancer. Don't know if he was smoker or not. Still gives me nightmares. But if smoking can lead to all this, I am better off without a partner who is playing dice with his health everyday because he can count on me to act nurse when he looses the fucking game.
Needless to say, DH is clean for many years now.

[Sometimesithinkimbonkers]

Do you know what .... My mum died from lung cancer .... She gave up smoking 25 years ago. She was 68!

My dad has COPD .... We didn't think we'd lose mum before dad... Ever!

I'm watch COPD steal my dads life !!! Yes his smoked but he also worked as a French polisher so was exposed to fumes... Which caused the most damage!

You mum could have left this man a long time ago.... She didn't !!!!

In sickness and in health was one of the vows she took!

I can honestly say that this is one of the most vile posts I have ever read on mumsnet... You lack of empathy worries me!
Your daughter will be fine.... Some children. Maybe support your mother more and offer her some respite and she can spend time with your daughter that way!
Please give your head a little wobble OP! for your mum!!!

[Bubblesinthesummer]

I really hope some on this thread that say he 'chose' the illness, don't drink, aren't over or underweight exercise regularly, eat completely healthy diets, don't eat sugar etc etc.

If not by their own measures they make a 'choice' to get the diseases associated with them.

If only life was that simple.

[Alisvolatpropiis]

Interesting how there is endless sympathy for alcoholism and drug addiction, it's an illness, but smokers can fuck off and die they brought it on themselves. Even though they too are addicted to a drug.

[Trojanhorsebox]

I think some people are being a bit harsh on the OP - she is being honest about some difficult feelings, which are actually much more common in caregivers and families than many of you would think.

Any of us working in health care see caregiver burn out and it is difficult to intervene - yes, OP's mum could step back, insist on her husband having respite services etc, but the dynamic of their relationship is that she probably won't as it will seem more trouble than it's worth, so she'll carry on burning out and the OP can only watch it happen. That's frustrating and difficult for everyone.

If she's venting on here but not berating her mother and stepfather in real life, I'm not sure calling her vile and ugly is appropriate.

[chanelfreak]

OP, YANBU. No matter what anyone says to the contrary, he knew that there was a very good chance he would get sick if he spent his life smoking and now your poor DM is stuck being carer to a selfish so-and-so.
YANBU for feeling angry on your DM's behalf, I would be absolutely raging if I was in your situation

[ToastDemon]

It's ironic that it's the very people calling the OP "vile" that come across to me as lacking empathy - and imagination. Just because someone's beloved dad had COPD does not make the OPs stepfather beloved to her. She'd be hypocritical to pretend otherwise.

[Nottodaythankyouorever]

I once saw a very young man walking toward the a&e leaving a trail of blood in his wake. He had mouth cancer. Don't know if he was smoker or not.

He may very not have been. Don't assume just because they are cancers that maybe associated with cancer you have to smoke/be around smoke to get them it isn't that cut and dried.

[Polgara25]

Sometimesithinkimbonkers

You chose your name well.

[jonquil1]

Me, I'd press for the tough love option, your mum and stepdad are here long-haul. The way to make this work is for him to go, voluntary or kicking and screaming, into respite care on a regular basis, for your mum to get a break and for this to work if he's so dependent..

So, sell this to your mum, get her to see the sense in it, if she does, and stand firm.

Ps does he have all the copd support he can get? Has he been offered sessions at a cessation clinic? Does he have the lightweight canister he can carry around with him? Is he getting the allowances he may be entitled to for extra care? I'd hope that, as a family, they'd be assigned a social worker to facilitate everything there is on offer,

[Larkdedah]

I have empathy for him being ill, as in the symptoms, but he was told this would happen, and it did.

My mother and grandfather used to both be smokers, my grandfather very heavy, they both managed to give up before their health was wrecked. He carried on, and now he's ill and my mum has no life left. She'll be a widow in a few years, and I hate that. She's stayed with him because she didn't want to be alone, even though he's treated more as a housekeeper than wife, but she's going to end up alone anyway.

[naturalbornflames]

YABU. Let's hope you never get a long term illness....

[jonquil1]

Reading back to what was posted while I wrote mine, above, it seems to me important that your mum has to realise that only she is the link to him living more or less independently, or not. Therefore it's of paramount importance that she looks after herself first so that she can, in turn, look after him.

And that, to me, seems to mean that she has breaks,

[Lweji]

Actually, and maybe going against the grain a bit here, I'd let my mum know that I thought she should stand up to him and insist on respite care and on being respected as a carer.
She could leave him. She doesn't have to stay out of duty even if he doesn't treat her well enough.
Of course we should give some leeway, but there are limits to what carers can put up with, particularly when doing it full time as your mother is.
So, in short, I'd make sure she knew nobody would blame her for either leaving him or not pandering to his whims at her expense.

[Larkdedah]

He has as far as know all the help medically speaking he could possibly get. In her working life my mum dealt with things like making sure people got the help they were entitled to, so she's pretty canny that way. Fortunately because of the money my mum has inherited form her parents they're comfortably off. My dad and his wife are in a similar position money wise, but they spend their money travelling and enjoying life. I don't tell my mum all the places my dada goes and the experiences he's had, they're things she'd love, like whale watching or seeing the northern lights.

[Dollymixtureyumyum]

Please ignore the posters calling you selfish OP. He sounds like a complete selfish man. The fact he is not allowing respite for your mum proves that.
Of course he did not choose to have the illness but he did not do anything to help
himself when he was told to stop. In life you make choices and he made the choice to put himself more at risk.
You are seeing your mum dragged more and more down and it's getting to you. You can't help how you feel about this man which sounds completely justified
Maybe some posters on could control their feelings when seeing a parent dragged down like and well done to them .
I am guessing if he had been a lovely stepdad and better husband you would not be feeling like this OP

[MitzyLeFrouf]

YANBU

I'd be unhappy if my mother ended up as nurse to a man who hadn't earned her kindness.

And she deserves respite whether he likes the idea or not.