Letters to the Editor
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an addendum for your consideration
Interesting advice! My impulse was to suggest just the opposite. Be caring, but do not re-merge your lives.
One important thing needs to be added here, and that concerns this letter writer's wife. No mention is made of her family, her needs and desires, or the future needs of her family. Are they healthy? Can you dedicate yourself to only one side of the inlaw equation and have a happy, balance marriage? Is it right to just expect her to dedicate herself to her inlaws, without balance her needs and desires against those of her husband and her inlaws? If you ride to the rescue in Denver, when her family is in need, will you move them in too? If you don't, will there be resentment? Pretty darn likely.
As important and laudable as filial piety is, I do not believe it should trump a healthy marriage.
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Will my family drag us down?
Has no one been to Alanon? I am not speaking here of alcoholism, but dependence. Grown people need to be responsible for themselves. Taking care of them does not teach them responsibility, it teaches them dependence. Then their children see no need to be responsible adults, and their children, and their children. We all have shitty things that happen to us. We figure a way out for ourselves. Maybe our lives are not perfect, or wealthy, or always happy, but we function. Functioning is something to be proud of. If his family does not somehow learn to function, they will drag him down, along with his wife and child. Someone needs to break the cycle, and he has begun to do that. Let him continue.
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Done the right thing for who?
LW, you must keep in mind that Cary has the same answer, 100 percent of the time, to people who ask if they should move closer or further away from family. From what I can tell from reading his column, Cary moved away from his family (in Fla., I believe) and, now, that he's older, regrets it - in retrospect. He dispenses advice in this arena, based on his regrets, in each and every letter in this column where the reader inquires about geography vis a vis their family. It is a real blind spot for Cary, and he's not responding to you and your particular problem; he's responding to what he wishes *he* had done in the past. I love Cary's column and love his writing, but he's not listening to you. He actually says to you, about staying in Denver: "But I think you will have few regrets, because you will have done the right thing." My question is: done the right thing for who? If the decision to settle in Denver is "the right thing" for you, LW, you will, of course, have few regrets. If moving to another city is the "right thing" for you, and you stay in Denver, look forward to many years of depression and regret. If that's the right thing in somebody's book, then you will have done the right thing.
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Right, I just hate it when people get addicted to cancer or Alzheimer's, for example
Has no one been to Alanon? I am not speaking here of alcoholism, but dependence. Grown people need to be responsible for themselves. Taking care of them does not teach them responsibility, it teaches them dependence.
Are you seriously arguing that taking care of sick family members is a kind of co-dependent behavior?
Is this REALLY what they teach in recovery programs?
That you should let your sick family members fend for themselves?
??????? !!!!!!!! ???????
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Live your own life
This letter is my situation about 12 years ago, and I chose the path Cary suggests. If I had it to do over again I would choose the opposite. Know that you can never fix the situation. Know that their needs will eventually consume you. Know that your Mom and sister will only grow more dependent, until your Mom at least reaches a stage of such utter helplessness that you cannot in good conscience leave her. And then where are you? Exhausted, burnt out and resentful. I had a girlfriend who always chided me that I would be 50 before I could start living my own life. I am beginning to think that was a conservative estimate.
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What about your wife
Did she sign up for using the best years of your life on taking care of your mom (understandable) and your married sister? (not damn likely).
This advice sounds like a recipe for divorce. Cleave to your wife, care for your child. Or lose them.
Lets see - mom of a small child, and fulltime medical residence - and you want to add the stress of taking care of your mom and sister -- when? What free hour of the day? Her next few years are going to around the clock busy, and she is going to need your time and attention. Because you are going to have so much spare time with a new job? And spending quality time with your son. Where are you going to find time for taking care of someone who is currently living on her own just fine? Yes she may get sick and need to live with you, but don't invite that stain until you have to. (Not to mention you are making an assumption that she would want to - start ignoring mom's guilt trips) The more time you spend on your marriage and child now, the stronger your marriage will be, so that when you do need to move mom in, the strain will do less damage. Now is not the time.
Oh, yeah and two young people with a young child, fresh from college in their first jobs, are going to have the money to buy a house in Denver big enough to have a separate living area for mom. What planet do you live on Cary?? Have you seen house prices in Denver? -- sorry but a new college teacher, a resident, and no job history , fresh from school will be living in an apartment for awhile. A nice apartment, but an apartment , until they can save up a downpayment, pay off school, and the cost of moving to Denver, plus child care -- oh and her medical bills from the pregency, since student insurance is a little unimpressive. Get real.