I love what Carey said but there are two main problems he failed to consider.

1. Some of your husbands siblings will not want to be bothered and will do all they can to get out of it. They will say things like "You live right next door, why should I have to travel thousands of miles when YOU LIVE RIGHT NEXT DOOR!"

2. The other is that your mother-in-law has no doubt already become quite agoraphobic. She will not want to travel. She will in fact be afraid to travel.

I live 1500 miles from my 78-year-old mother, am my mother's only daughter, and have two brothers, one of whom lives about 100 miles from her, and the other lives about 400 miles from her. Mom doesn't have Alzheimer's but has had several "ministrokes" giving her a slight aphasia---she has trouble finding the right word when she wants it. I go home most frequently (every two or three months) for a week, to see her and am the one who does the most for her. I am the only unmarried sibling and the only one without children, making me (in my brothers' eyes) the one who should travel.

When I go home, I cook, clean, make doctors' appts, take mom to the doctor, take her to the hospital for tests, get her car serviced (she still drives!), make meal size frozen packets for her to warm up for dinner, have a dinner party so she has social interactions (which she does not have on her own); I take care of all grocery shopping, prescriptions, small errands (converting her TVs to digital from antennae, buying small things for the house, etc).

So here's the thing. My options are that she goes to live with one brother (both have kids and she has oddly become insanely attached to her grandkids---she was never this kid-oriented when she was younger) and I never see her again, as my brothers and i cannot toperate one another at all. Or she comes and lives with me, and becomes severely depressed, being separated from her grandchildren. I have offered to have her come live with me, and to take her to her grandchildren as often as she likes, but she just keeps saying she wants to stay as long as possible in her own house.

That generation (depression, WWII era) were very self-sufficient and had their kids in the 60's and 70's and feel that they did so much for their children and that their children should sacrifice for them now. My mother never did that for any of her parents or inlaws. But she thinks NOTHING of requiring all of this from me now.

Carey's right, it's good to plan all of this stuff, but jsut know. Things NEVER go according to these plans.

Look, we have all been in this situation at some point---or at least one like it. When it happened to me, I was totally shell-shocked. Trapped in a horrifically humiliating situation, not even believing he could be so mean and hurtful and apparently clueless about it.

I walked away from it. I was devastated and humiliated and just mortified. He dumped me for someone younger and better looking. I cried and cried and cried. He wrote me an email later and said we were such good friends and come on, don't be like that. He tried to shame ME for standing up for myself.

It took a really really long time, but now, I can look back at that experience and I can feel proud of myself for not letting this guy walk all over me. I am proud of not buying into the idea that being humiliated was something I was not right in resenting. I fairly shouted, with class, that I was not going to play that game.

Cary is kind in saying you are relegating yourself into the not great-looking corner and not giving us a chance to talk you out of that. But I am that way, too. I am not thin and never will be. I have a big nose. My smile is shaped weirdly. I have a saggy neck. Look, we don't all win the genetic lottery and when that's true, you DO accept bad treatment more habitually than other people do. Outrage at the inherent low self-esteem that reveals is not helpful.

So this time, make sure you say "I deserve to be treated better and you callously hurt my feelings and I will not say that was ok." And then walk away. And maybe that's how you get out of that corner.

There is no way this guy gets on the daily show and then gets his OWN show unless he's related to a network executive. He makes me cringe. I am sorry but cringe-inspiring does NOT mean hip.

My dryer broke a year ago and I haven't been able to afford to get it fixed or to buy a new one. So i hang everything to dry in my basement on dsrying racks.

and I have to say, it's not big deal. In fact, it's better for your clothes.

However, your husband is a jerk. You're paying for him to go to graduate school, and he won't let you have hot water? Why are you putting up with that?