Disabled husband, 3 kids

[LdnRed99]

Disabled husband and 3 kids...

My husband was born with a condition which is degenerative and recently he has started using a wheelchair. He is looking to buy a new one that can be folded down to take about with us. Whilst we are the getting a hoist for our car there may be times we don't have a hoist available and he is expecting me on those occasions to lift the chair in and out of the car. I already have shoulder problems from lifting our double pram in and out of our boot (we have a 5 year old girl and identical twin boys at 10 months).

Am I being unfair telling him I won't be doing that ever and he can use an adapted taxi instead should that situation arise?

Please vote and comment...I'd love to know why you answered the way you did

If your shoulder is bad enough to justify to yourself not lifting a lightweight chair VERY rarely then you need to get some physio booked.

Haven’t read the whole thread, but has anyone suggested changing your car for a WAV? (Wheelchair accessible vehicle).

I haven't, I asked when it last actually happened. OP is also working as well as being responsible for pre-school/school age children and the running of home and family with the DH unable to provide much help.

I haven't seen where she said she works. I only saw that the DH works part-time. Although he is unable to provide much practical help if her mother lives there during the week to help her with childcare she isn't having to do everything by herself and presumably not unable to rest..

Nor has the OP said that she expresses her frustration to him directly. Presumably she can't even think the thoughts?

She isn't keeping it all to herself! Read the thread stop

Its not helping her DH if her physical and mental health fails and its the DH pushing her to manage more physically than she can at the moment.

Most posters including me have agreed that he should use taxis if she is physically unable to lift the chair in an out of the car.

Most of us would be on our knees with twins or three small children or being a carer.

The OP is doing all of that.
Bit of compassion wouldn't go amiss

Bit of compassion wouldn't go amiss

I disagree. Being under pressure can never be an excuse to abuse people more vulnerable than yourself, particularly those who can't easily escape.

Would it be ok for a husband to be doing this to his wife if he were under extreme pressure? Or a parent to a child if they're under pressure? Would it be ok eg for op to threaten her 5 year old with going into care if he doesn't behave because she's under pressure?

If she can't cope then she needs to reach out for help. Not take it out on people who are more vulnerable.

Most of us would be on our knees with twins or three small children or being a carer.

I wouldn't have been if my mother was living with me and helping as in OP's. I'm not saying it's not hard work but "on her knees" is a bit excessive considering she gets help.

Bit of compassion wouldn't go amiss

A bit of compassion towards her DH who not only has to deal with becoming progressively more disabled but also with some nasty comments from OP wouldn't go amiss either.

I'm really struggling with this one.

I was a child carer and cared for my DM well into my mid 20's so I do have sympathy for you. It is really hard.

It does sound like lifting his wheelchair wouldn't be that often at all so it's not like it's every day. I think seeing someone about your shoulder is a great idea.

However, talking about how slow he walks, about how he huffs and he puffs, how he can't have his parents over to help him and that maybe he should go into a care home did really concern me and make me angry.

My Mum is in constant pain when walking, it's so slow and it does hurt her when he gets out of her wheelchair and she also huffs and puffs because it hurts so much. I'd never get angry over that and I'm really struggling to understand how someone can.

Is there really no possible way his parents can come and help out over the weekend? Even if it's just the occasional one.

@thelongdarkteatimeofthesoul - and with a 70-80% chance of survival and improved health, I think it in this context OP could be putting pressure on her DH not to have the operation because of the negative spin of the 20-30%. It sounds like there are few positive influences in either of their lives as both have issues with each others parents and sometimes seeing thing from a more positive viewpoint would help.

For example, I don't think OP is U to ask her husband to get a taxi on the rare occasion it would appear she is not driving them somewhere. She would be unreasonable to expect her DH to get a taxi if it's just to put another passenger or luggage in the car. If it is a mobility vehicle it would have been received in order to make DH's life, as the disabled person, easier. Pushing him out for a passenger or luggage is not making his life easier - I've found in the past it is cheaper to courier our luggage to our holiday destination and back rather than take 2 cars. It's something to consider @LdnRed99 for UK based holidays.

I'm not without sympathy for OP as I have seen first hand how utterly soul destroying it can be caring for someone with a degenerative disease, who cannot help as much as either person would like, who are becoming increasingly reliant on the help of others to get things done. Who can't even feed themselves! OP is probably getting worried about the future before fixing what's going on right now.

I haven't read the whole thread, but have read OP, first and last pages, and am really surprised by the amount of harsh comments the OP is getting!

Regardless of how disabled her husband is, if she is unable to lift the wheelchair due to a shoulder injury, then she can't! If she were to try and injure herself further, then she wouldn't be able to care for any of them, disabled husband and twins included.

OP you are definitely not being unreasonable to give your health priority.

OP does say in her 09.13 post that they both work.

I think an operation with a 20 - 30% chance of death would make anyone apprehensive about wanting it to go ahead to be honest. She doesn't want him to go ahead with it for that reason. I don't see her saying that she is stopping him though, and she can't. The choice is his in the end although they do need to discuss it as a couple and both be aware of the risks versus the benefits.

I agree that she seems to have y very direct way of speaking which doesn't come across well. She needs to be careful that she isn't speaking like this to her husband. If she is or has done so then it needs to stop.

She hasn't elaborated on what problems she has had in her dealings with her DH's parents so we can't judge there.

I think maybe they both need counselling and support from outside.

I haven't read the whole thread, but have read OP, first and last pages, and am really surprised by the amount of harsh comments the OP is getting!

If you're really surprised at the comments perhaps you should read the whole thread apart from just the OP.

I have read the whole thread. I still see OP as someone approaching the end of her tether. She needs to watch her way of speaking, obviously. However, her frustrations are understandable and natural.

Various members of our family were cast into the roles of caring for my PIL during their final years of terminal illness during which they both became progressively more disabled. Yes frustration and tension did build. We had to be careful how and where we expressed it, but it was always there in the background. It is both understandable and unavoidable.

None of us are saints though. Arguments can brew and boil over in the heat of the moment. Not ideal of course, but it happens. I remember once when my MIL had decided to sleep on the floor (reasons known only to herself) before her illness really showed. She then couldn't get up, but totally refused to let paramedics who arrived help her, resulting in my DH having to make an almost 2 hour drive at 2am. Yes, we did say something. Not nastily, but she already realised that the whole situation was becoming untenable anyway.

OP has reservations about her DH going ahead with his operation because of the relatively high failure/death rate from it. I would probably have similar reservations, though would not stand in the way. It is a valid point of view still.

I can't believe the amount of nasty people on this thread.

How many times do we see posts from women with one or 2 children moaning how hard their life is as their husband works long hours bla bla bla. They always get sympathy. But because a carer is posting there's a race to see who can kick OP hardest when she's already down.

It's all well and good saying "oh I'd help anyone I'm a saint" when you have no idea of the day to day of full time caring. And I bet none of the nasty posters would be queuing up to swap lives.

How many times do we see posts from women with one or 2 children moaning how hard their life is as their husband works long hours bla bla bla. They always get sympathy.

They wouldn't get sympathy if they took their frustrations out on their children though would they? Would you be so empathic to a mother who told their child they would go into care or she would leave them if they continue to make mistakes?

And I bet you would think it quite nasty if the mother was irritated by their child huffing and puffing because they were in pain.

If you can't physically manage to lift the chair then yanbu.
However...... you sound resentful towards your dh and like his disability is an inconvenience. Is there something else going on? I get that its difficult for you as well but he is your husband and deserves your love/support/ compassion. At the end of the day people have absolutely no idea what it's like living with a degenerative neurological condition. I'd be heartbroken if my dh came on mumsnet sounding like op.

To be annoyed by someone in pain, to be irritated by someone walking slowly, to threaten them with a care home. There are no words really.

Sounds like the OP's husband has a condition very similar to mine. Thank God my DH is a decent man.

Ît sounds like before they married, the OP and her OH had under-estimated what his care would involve over the years
and the grinding exhaustion of doing it 24/7 while working pt and with 3 DC

Not surprising, as many posters here obviously underestimate too

People are blaming the OP for her choices, when they could well be mutual decisions, however unwise in hindsight

Didn't her OH realise how his condition would develop, or is the blame all on the OP for not realising ?

Did the OP choose to have 3 kids against his wishes, or did they both want the kids ?

Has she threatened him with a care home? That's not what she wrote. She wrote that she's told him that if he wants care home style care that's what he can do, because she's at her limit. The same way people say to their "if you want to be waited on you can go and live with your mum/ in a hotel" when a partner is asking for something they consider unreasonable in the way of being catered to. That isn't the way you'd speak as a good professional carer but it also isn't a threat and the OP is not a professional carer, she's her husband's wife and working mother of his 3 small children.

Has she threatened him with a care home? That's not what she wrote. She wrote that she's told him that if he wants care home style care that's what he can do, because she's at her limit.

She said they would all leave him if he didn't stop making mistakes.

woodchuck99 that line is weird I agree.

I think a lot of people are making a helpless, passive victim out of an adult who as far as we know is fully mentally competent and working in an unsupported setting whilst suffering from a physical degenerative disease.

There are two adults and three small children in the scenario, and the adults are both imperfect because we all are. Being disabled doesn't mean that her husband is an incompetent victim and it doesn't help anyone to refer to him, as someone up thread did, as "the disabled (no noun)" and assume he's a victim.

The whole family is struggling, but some people want to paint a good versus evil picture and vilify the carer for not being utterly selfless.

it gets so.bad at home sometimes I tell him he will lose us all if he doesn't change his attitude and stop making stupid mistakes. I do say to him at times maybe he should go and live in a care home where he can get the care he supposedly wants.

This sounds very much like a threat to me. I wonder what the stupid mistakes are too?

thelongdarkteatimeofthesoul

For me he is a victim in as much that he is dependent on the op and that his options for leaving are virtually nil. To say that he is on an equal footing as the op is disingenuous. It's like saying a SAHM is quite capable of leaving her abusive husband, that she is not a victim.

I think a lot of people are making a helpless, passive victim out of an adult who as far as we know is fully mentally competent and working in an unsupported setting whilst suffering from a physical degenerative disease.

I'm actually seeing it from the point of view of a fully competent and working adult who is suffering from a physical degenerative disease and is in pain which is bad enough but on top of that they are having to put up with a partner who is being quite abusive. I appreciate that life is quite hard for OP at the moment but it sounds as if this is more due to the fact that she has baby twins and he isn't able to help much with that rather than she is looking after him.