Emotional Support from my Parents

I was at my parents last night. My Mom has too much curiosity about my MIL's house.

Sister in law thankfully inherits the white elephant. Hubbie has been going and helping her clean out when he gets a chance. I am fine with that as long as he doesn't bring anything home with him (which he does, but that's not the issue here). She is recently separated, and is unable to get help from her hubbie or anyone else.

I was telling my parents some of the things that hubbie is doing to help her. My Dad kept saying that SIL inherited everything, she should have to do it, that my hubbie shold not have to. I told him that SIL is not demanding anything out of him, that she needs help and it's perfectly OK with me if he helps her as long as that is what he wants to do.

All those years of my Mom mostly and my Dad to some extent taking up for MIL/hubbie when hubbie was expected to go above and beyond the call. "Well, she's his Mother....." "She has a hard life......"

She had a hard life because she sat on her butt doing nothing.

Now SIL really needs some help. She is in her mid-50s and alone. She has to figure out what to do with all of that big mess that MIL made, and they think he shouldn't help her.

I suppose this post ended up being more about my parents than my MIL. But to me, an ongoing part of the IL problem was that they never were supportive of me being hurt when DH was enabling MIL. That made me feel more alone (until I found all of you). But now when he is helping someone who needs it, they think he shouldn't.

Part of it is that my parents are always obsessing over who gets what and who was treated unfairly when someone dies. They believe that my hubbie was treated badly because SIL inherited. Me, I think that SIL was treated badly by getting stuck with it and hubbie finally got a blessing.

I do think that they are just now starting to realize what I have been through for the last 23 years.

Remodeling

OK, it's not exactly remodeling, or is it? We are getting new windows, doors, and siding on our house. We have needed to do this for years. The new doors are beautiful. Hubbie really likes the picture window in our kitchen. I am looking forward to no longer having bits of siding rotted away and the extra insulation we will have.

If JB had still been living and found out she would have been whining about needing her house redone too. She would have been partly right. Her house does need all of these things. But if you have read the haunted house postings, you know this is just a start for what that house needs. But she never cared enough to try to take care of what she had.

I am feeling an ahhhh moment, knowing that we are only getting this done for one house and not for two. When JB was living, whenever we got something major, she suddenly had the "mee tooo, I neeeeeeeed it worse than you attitude", and DH usually complied by buying for her. Which is why he is now broke.

Ahhhhh. We don't have to worry about the IL repercussions of getting our house redone.

Financial Responsibility - Dodged a bullet

Something was just posted on the bulletin board that shocked me. It turns out that adults can be held legally responsible for taking care of their parents. I thought it was not true, but sure enough, it's in North Carolina Law.

§ 14-326.1. Parents; failure to support.
If any person being of full age, and having sufficient income after reasonably
providing for his or her own immediate family shall, without reasonable cause, neglect to
maintain and support his or her parent or parents, if such parent or parents be sick or not
able to work and have not sufficient means or ability to maintain or support themselves,
such person shall be deemed guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor; upon conviction of a
second or subsequent offense such person shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
If there be more than one person bound under the provisions of the next preceding
paragraph to support the same parent or parents, they shall share equitably in the
discharge of such duty. (1955, c. 1099; 1969, c. 1045, s. 3; 1993, c. 539, s. 227; 1994, Ex.
Sess., c. 24, s. 14(c).)

Here is a link to the page:
http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/pdf/ByArticle/Chapter_14/Article_40.pdf

I am so thankful that JB did not know this. She would have held it over hubbie's head and he would have thrown it in my face and complied.

Whew! Dodged a bullet on that one.
Ahhhh, don't have to worry about that.

I'm Hurting

My neighbor's daughter just came by. She was looking for her father. She wanted to drop off her 4yo son because her hubbie's grandmother was at the hospital dying. She did not make it to the hospital. She got a call that the grandmother had died while at our house. Her hubbie had not made it either.

Hubbie advised neighbor's daughter to go to the hospital anyway. He was talking about when his Mother JB died and wanting people there.

He called me the morning that JB died and told me that they were going to remove life support. But he did not want me there. He called me after she died, but he did not want me to come. He did not want me until the wake/funeral.

I did not care to be around her, but I wish he had wanted me around to support him. I have always been hurt about that. It's another way she drove a wedge between hubbie and me.

As Time Goes By

July 4^th came and went. Then the 5 month anniversary of freedom day came and went, without incident.

I'm taking a beach trip with my she-geek friends next weekend. I think I'll bring a couple bottles of cheap champagne for a belated celebration. A couple swallows for she-Geek K and me. A bottle and a half for the others - she-Geek's L, R, A, & B.