Husband ignored my mom's emergency call for help, has sabotaged every mourning event since she died.

It's long - I'm angry and verbose. TL;DR! Husband has done some egregious things with regard to my mother in the last year which I believe are unforgivable. I think he is unaware of how disgusting his behavior has been. I asked him to go to counseling to talk about things because I don't think I can talk directly to him without screaming at him. We have now moved into initiating a divorce, and he still does not know what he did. I need him to know how awful he was, but have no idea how to approach it, if we are skipping counseling and moving straight to divorce.

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My (42F) mom (73F) passed away two months ago. Last year she decided she could not live alone any more, and was looking into assisted living. She had a long term illness but was not close to death. I expected we would have 5 years at least. My husband (43M married 7 years) and I offered her the lower level of our home so that she could be with her grand kids and near my sister. He told me he never believed she would agree to come to live at our house. She did.

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My mom moves in and things are OK at first. She was mentally all there, but severely limited physically. She spent most of her time in the house and had a to-do list for me every day when I got home from work, even though my husband was home after 2pm. He would not go speak to her at all. The only thing he would do is ask her if she was coming upstairs for dinner. My kids would go down and play with her and she liked that.

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About 4 weeks after she moved in, she got the flu and ended up in the ICU for 10 days. They had us making phone calls at 3AM telling family she was going to die. They told us if she survived, she would have brain damage. I slept at the hospital for 2 days. She survived and was able to come home. She had more needs than before but my husband still would not talk to her. When I asked him to help, he said he was busy with the kids and was tired. Note for the record - I was also tired.

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She lived with us for five more months, hospitalized 4 more times before she passed.

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Here is the event that is sticking with me, and I don't know what to deal with: We had installed emergency buttons in her space in case she needed help right away. It rings a doorbell upstairs. She used one the night she went to the hospital the first time. This happened on a different day. On this occasion it was the middle of the day on the weekend. My husband was taking a nap. I was doing laundry, kids were playing in the living room. My mom was having trouble breathing, needed to go to the hospital, and rang her bell. Our laundry is in the garage, so I did not hear it. My three-year old shouted to me, but I could not hear her, and my kids shout to me a lot, and I told her I would answer her in a few minutes. I was in the garage for another 3-5 minutes when I went inside and asked my daughter what she needed. She said she heard Grandma's bell, and that is when I learned about it. Husband told me later that he heard the bell, but knew I was around, so ignored it, and went back to sleep. I told him I expected him to answer EVERY TIME she rang the bell, and we left it at that. He did not apologize. I couldn't process it at the time because I was caring for my mom, my kids, and still going to work. I've been able to process it and I am so angry at him and he doesn't know why. He doesn't think he did anything wrong. There are more events after this that he doesn't know how awful he was.

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Months later she dies. The night before we took her to the hospital I was reading to my kids for bedtime and I don't bring my phone in with me when I read to them. He was parked in front of his computer. She texted both of us saying she thought she needed to go to the hospital. He told me he did not hear/notice the message. I was in with my kids so didn't see it for another half an hour. I don't know at this point if I believe he did not see it.

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She died in the hospital 3 days after that message. On a Tuesday. We had been scheduled to have our nephew (his brother's son) for the weekend, Easter weekend. It was to give nephew's parents a chance to get ready to move to a new house. He's a great kid and before mom died I had no problem having him for the weekend. His parents have tough schedules and it is actually very hard for them to get a weekend off together.

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So he came Friday night and the overnights were a clusterfuck. My kids had just lost their grandma and my nephew is going nuts with all my kids toys and it is awful. They did not sleep until midnight. On Easter Sunday, my sister and I had decided to do Easter because my mom had made baskets for all the kids and had filled eggs for an egg hunt and was really looking forward to it. So we had my sister's family over and did the egg hunt and the kids loved it, but it was very hard, since we had it in her space. My husband was supposed to take nephew home around noon, but did not. I kept asking him to take him home, but he told me he wanted to give his brother as much time as possible, and did not take him home until after dinner. Every hour was excruciating when I just wanted to cry in private and could not get a moment's peace.

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Later that week, my husband's step-mother asked me why we had had my nephew over when the whole family (3 households) had offered to take him after my mom died. My husband told everyone that no - we said we would take him and so we would take him. He did not even ask me. I told him I was disappointed that his brother was his priority on the week my mother died. He did not respond at the time, but told me later that he was following my lead (AKA - ALL MY FAULT) because we hadn't cancelled Easter. When I pointed out that it was all my mom's plan and my sister and her daughter had just lost their mom/grandma, so we were celebrating my mom - he said he got that now but did not get it then.

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Two weeks later we had my mom's funeral. We had family (4 adults) coming in who would be staying with us in my mom's space. We had drama with another family member who were rude while my mom was sick which didn't affect anything except stress levels. Emotions were high. I had had to meet with the pastor and help plan the service, help notify all the family, and help my kids work through their grief and answer questions about death. Our neighbors down the street were VERY pregnant, with a scheduled induction the day of the funeral. He offered to take their oldest child for a sleepover, even though their parents were in town, and we have a neighborhood full of friendly houses who would take him if they were at the hospital. I asked him directly why he would invite another kid to the house when I had told him specifically how hurtful that was to me before. He said he did not really think they would ask us to take them (so it was an empty offer). He did not apologize to me, he did not offer to make other arrangements. I had to tell him directly that he needed to change it, and that it would not be OK to have another kid there. He did make other arrangements.

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His mom attended the funeral, and had a serious health event during. She ended up spending the night at our very full house. She slept in our bed, I slept in a recliner, and my husband slept on the couch. I had planned to take the next day off work to take care of myself. He asked me to take care of his mom that day, since I would be home, instead of him taking a day off to care for his own mom. I had been on a leave of absence from work, and had taken a great deal of time off to take care of my mom. It infuriates me that he could not take one goddamned day to care for his own mother and to allow me to care for myself. I took care of his mom.

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Mother's day was three weeks after my mom died. It was a hard day for me. I was crying a lot. He planned nothing except to take kids shopping for presents (after he tried to make plans with other kids that day and I reminded him it was mother's day). The kids wanted to make me breakfast in bed which he helped them with. All morning he kept asking me well what do you want to do? What do you want to do? (for mother's day). I was broken down crying and my kids were asking me what was so upsetting and I talked to them about their grandma. I told him (crying) that I was upset that he had not hugged or kissed me at all that day. He didn't answer. I was crying more and said "really? Nothing??" and he patted me on the shoulder. I took the kids out of the house for the rest of the day. Later he apologized but told me I had not been affectionate with him recently (WHILE MY MOM WAS DYING) and so he didn't feel comfortable. (AKA-ALL MY FAULT)

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He has done nothing to help deal with my mom's estate. I am a co-executor and have to deal with financial accounts, but he could make phone calls to cancel credit cards, deal with her health equipment, dispose of her meds - or even just fucking get the mail, which he also does not do. I have told him I am overwhelmed with the work and he offers nothing. I have asked him to do minimal tasks like putting the car tabs on the car, which he could not manage and I had to do.

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A few weeks after she died was her birthday. We had a party for her to celebrate her so that our kids could have something positive about her where none of their grownups are crying. My husband hates my sister and her husband. It was at my house, so I told him he could just be upstairs and not join in. He asked if I would prefer it that way, and I said yes. Note that he has told me directly that he hates them and refuses to go to their home at this point. His reason is stupid, IMO, and it broke my sister when she figured it out. During the party the kids asked if he would play with him and he told them I would be angry with him if he did, so he couldn't play with them. I sent them up with a plate of appetizers, which he rejected. I sent a kid up to ask if he wanted a plate of food for dinner because he had been upstairs all day. He sent me a text telling me not to involve the kids in this - I told him (via text) he was the one who told them I would be angry if he played with them and all I did was offer him food. Anyway lots of texts back and forth and we end up in a screaming match. I had had drinks. I was screaming at him that he hated my mom and wanted her dead and hated my family and was awful. He screamed that he wanted a divorce.

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He emailed later to apologize for ruining the day. I am fucking done with him and told him I would work with a mediator to split assets and make a parenting plan. He told me he would 'let me schedule it' to work with my schedule. So now I'm in charge of the fucking divorce, too. I have an appointment with an attorney in a couple weeks. I'm so fucking angry knowing that I will end up doing 90% of the work to sell/pack our house. If I want out I need to do it, but I'm still dealing with my mom's estate, and STILL GRIEVING. Also way behind at work because I took so much time out. He's a teacher and has only one class all summer. He is staying home with kids. He is so fucking lazy and won't do anything.

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He still brings up what a great thing we did by letting my mom move in. He is really proud of himself. He thinks he is amazing. He doesn't know he did almost fucking nothing. I don't know how to communicate this to him without drunken screaming or a counselor present. I'm not working on the marriage, he is unforgivable, but he needs to know. How do I communicate this while we need to work together to get through the divorce, and need to co-parent for at least 14 more years?

Submitted June 30, 2019 at 01:03AM by orangesoda895 https://ift.tt/2KPqaVY