Dear Annie: My mom has had several strokes and is now living with us. She has problems seeing out of one eye. No one else will step up to take care of her. Our arrangement was that she pays for extra things she wants -- nails, haircuts, new clothes. And, oh, yeah, did I mention she smokes like crazy? Which her doctor has told her repeatedly to stop, as have we. They aren’t allowed in the house, so she sits on our front porch and it smells like a cigarette factory. She refuses to do anything around the house. Her bedroom and bathroom are a mess until I clean them on the weekend.
My husband is mad that we ended up having to pay for everything. He’s also mad at the way she treats me. Like, if she wants something, she insists I should get it for her -- haircuts, shampoo, the cocoa she drinks. All she does is lay the guilt trip on me. We are now trying to make her understand how and why we feel used. I don’t know what I will do. This has been an ongoing thing. I know she is my mother, but I feel taken advantage of. Am I being petty?
-- Freeloading Mom
Dear Freeloading Mom: You need to have a conversation with your mother and set some clear, definitive rules if she is going to live in your house. No “cigarette factory” smoking areas and keeping a clean living area should be the absolute basics. If she does not agree to your house rules, you can help her to find a different living situation with the care she needs.
Dear Annie: I think that “Unhappy Wife, Unhappy Life” buried the lede, so to speak, in her letter about her desire to divorce, once again, the ex-husband whom she’d remarried after a 20-year separation. Only at the very end of her letter did she state that she was hesitant to leave him because he might turn violent,as he had the first time they’d divorced.
Yikes! I felt certain that you’d feature that fear as a primary reason why she should get out of the marriage. Instead, your primary response was that she should try to get her husband into marriage counseling. Only at the end of your response did you advise “Unhappy Wife” to call the National Domestic Violence Hotline if she felt threatened. I think that lede got buried as well.
If she feels he might turn violent, that suggests to me that she probably had at least a strong hint of that possible response, perhaps based on current behavior, as well as a history of violence. My advice would have been to run, don’t walk, out the door.
-- Word of Caution
Dear Word of Caution: Thank you for your response. You are right that while “Unhappy Wife”'s letter focused at first on her husband’s bad attitude and the mediocrity of their marriage, the reference to violence should certainly be treated with great weight. Whether it be for one red flag or another, I hope “Unhappy Wife” is able to safely remove herself from a dynamic that, at its best, no longer serves her, and at its worst, puts her in danger.