He’s Spent Thirty Years Playing Caretaker To His Parents, So He Doesn’t Find It Fair His Dad Asked Him To Care For His Wife
He’s spent most of his life taking care of the people who were supposed to take care of him. First his mother, then his father—and now, facing yet another hospital visit, he’s being asked to do it all over again for someone else.
He said yes in the moment because it felt like the right thing to do. But behind the promise is a quiet truth he’s kept to himself: he’s tired of being the one expected to absorb the fallout every time someone else falls apart.
This man can honestly sit here and say that his mom and dad were incredible. His parents adored him and his siblings, and they could absolutely feel the love that radiated off of them.
Sadly, when he was 14, his mom ended up misdiagnosed. Doctors insisted that she had brain cancer, and so they had to perform surgery.
During an operation that was supposed to be a biopsy, they removed the lesion and very small pieces of her brain, causing memory and motor function loss,” he explained.
“Later, we found out she had MS, not brain cancer. I was a kid and had no decision-making authority at the time, but looking back now at age 43, there was probably a lawsuit that could have been pursued.”
“Anyway, because my dad worked 70-90 hours a week in the oil field, the burden of being caretaker fell to me and my sister, who is 2 years younger. Being a caretaker for my mother never really went away, even after I went to college, where I worked and paid for 100% on my own.”
As for his sister, she gave up the bright future that she had in order to be a caretaker for his mom for the 16 years after she graduated from high school.
Eventually, his mom did pass away due to complications from diabetes and MS. A year later, his sister moved to another state, and his dad suffered a heart attack.
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Once more, he had to step up to be a caretaker. Throughout the last 13 years, his dad has encountered a myriad of issues.
His dad has had several heart attacks, required shock treatments, stents, and open heart surgeries. Seven years ago, his dad got married again, and his wife has a lot of health problems herself.
“He moved her into my childhood home, which was placed in my name after my mom died, and he’s made wishes that she be allowed to live there as long as she’s alive,” he continued.
“I’m actually ok with that. I have my own home, wife, and kids, and have no need to push her out of the home. However, today I’m at the hospital and just prior to my father going into the OR for yet another open heart procedure, he asks me to ‘take care of his wife.'”
“His implication is to financially and physically support her. Essentially, be her caretaker. I live three hours from his house, and she has two children of her own who are completely worthless. For the sake of peace, I nodded my head and said everything would be alright. It’s what he needed to hear.”
However, he’s spent nearly 30 years having to play caretaker to his own parents and ‘babysit’ them, so he finds it unfair of his dad to expect him to want to care for his wife.
He thinks that as soon as his dad passes away, his dad’s wife will be a weight he won’t have to shoulder.
Do you think that’s wrong of him?
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