Deciding what is Important

As we all suffer from anxiety I find it difficult to align myself with what is really important in life. With Covid abounding and so many people suffering and dying I am taken aback with the lack of understanding and caring we now experience in the world today.

I now devote much of my time thinking about what I say and do with the time I have left. I have more years behind me than in front of me so I cant afford to waste one minute of my life. I am trying to cultivate more friendships and devote more time for others yet with Covid I cant do the simple things I really would love to do. Just sharing time talking with friends or having lunch with my church group is out of the question now. Too many of the younger people refuse to wear masks and I don't want to expose myself unnecessarily.

I can of course call people on the phone but its different than spending time with people in person. I believe people crave that personal approach and being able to bond with others makes both my life and theirs so much better. I know so many people who are lonely. They want to be with others. They need the human touch.

I have experienced firsthand a situation which has forever changed my life. My father in law always was a hard working no nonsense type of person. He never had time for people and only cared about making money. Then his life fell apart and he lost his son and wife within a few years of each other. This has completely changed who he is as he now complains about being lonely. I feel hurt for all the years I tried to be friendly to him as I married his daughter yet he refused to devote the time and energy to cultivate relationships as his business was the most important thing to him. Now he wants my wife and myself to spent every minute with him as he is now alone. I have a real problem with this as I feel so hurt from the years of him not caring for his own child and by extension myself.

Life throws us all such hard situations and we must adapt our life around them. I am so thankful for my faith and pray I can arise to the needs of others even when they are painful to me.

God bless you all

In fact my father in law lives with us so there is absolutely no separation at all. After my wifes mother died we agreed the thing to do was take care of him. I guess my problem is I am hurt that after thirty years of him blowing us off and not caring at all now he wants to spend every minute with us.

I readily admit I can spend time with everyone on this earth with no problem except him. He causes extreme anxiety for me. We go out to eat, go to movies and such as a family. I might add a family which for thirty years he did not want any part of. This is of course my problem and it throws my anxiety through the roof. My problem I know--yet another thing in my life I need to fix.

This is the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with in my life on a daily basis. The thing that upsets me is he never mentions all the times he would not even bother to spend time with us when we visited my wifes mother. He always had to make money.

Thank you all for listening.

Oh my gosh.....what was I thinking....the past matters not at all...."As you sow, so shall ye reap"

A simple I am sorry goes a long way.

I feel your pain
Having the same privacy issues and frustrations with having my MIL living with us
We had no choice in the matter- last sibling dropped her in our driveway with a suitcase and some boxes.
I felt so bad for. No one sent her mothers day cards and no one has called her in the 3 months she's been here
Now she has said awful things to me, about me and accuses me. I know now why it is as it is.
Went to a lawyer today with her to assign my husband as POA
She said "she'll think about it."
We're trapped.

This is starting to get to me.
Oceanfisher, first he won by treating y’all like dirt for 30 years.

Then he won again when he needed a free house and companionship by conning his way into your house to live for the rest of his life. This guy is one tough hombre. If he offers to sell you a bridge, say no. Or, rather, no thank you.

I thought I was the biggest sucker in the world. My son’s teenage girlfriend worked her way into our house by climbing in the window. The other two members of the family were on her side: Oh, she’s pregnant by our (worthless) son. Oh, she’s in bad with her mother so she had to get pregnant so she had get back into her mother’s house.

We had a room built onto our house so there would be room for her. Mistake number two.

Mistake number three was my deciding that I should take care of the baby while they are still in high school, even though I have sensitive ears to noise. He cried one day and I haven’t kept him or ridden in a car since.

All of these mistakes were because of a negative frame of mind.

Thinking of it all now with a positive frame of mind, here’s the deal.

Instead of letting here stay here, I realize, she’s 16, she has parents who have a house, this is not her house. Tell her to go home. If she doesn’t go home, call the police.

Tell the police, she’s a runaway, take her back to her house.

So, the other two problems don’t exist because of solving the first one.

So it was my negative thinking that got me into trouble, not my (worthless) son.

Here’s a story for you. A man and woman treated their three young children so poorly, the courts took them away, and a nice woman who knew the children agreed to tale all three. Very rare.

A week or two later, the same unlawful parents who treated their children bad, knocked on the woman’s door and asked her if they could take the kids to get ice cream.

In adults, she’s outnumbered 2 to 1, and one of them is a male. She said OK. That’s the last she saw of them, and the younger girl was sexually abused.

So, that’s the, when the enemy appears on the doorstep situation. One might could, see who’s there before they open the door, and then not open the door, or call through the door, “Yes, what do you want?”

Three, if door is open, say, “Yes, let me get this right quick,” then shut the door, lock it and call the police.

I think having a positive frame of mind for this and other problems would help. It would have in my case.

Well, my message was in my last post, this father in law took advantage of you two, and this pregnant girlfriend of my son took advantage of me, in both cases, they got into our houses and we didn't want them there.

If the father in law made so much money, why couldn't he stay in his own house when his wife died, which he owned because he was so rich?

Because, your wife wanted him in the house? Right? Did it ever occur to anyone to say, no, stay in your own house?

Did it every occur to me to say to my son's pregnant girlfriend, "No, you can't stay here, go back to your own house or I'm calling the police"? No, why? Because I was negative when it came to solving problems.

Ocean--I think it's important for you and your wife to set up some boundaries for your father-in-law; otherwise you become a victim of his manipulation. A professional counselor can help with establishing limits.

I am not in a similar situation, but my parents were with my mom's dad, who lived with them. After some missteps, they were able to set some boundaries with him that he would have to follow if he were to stay with them. He didn't follow them, and they moved him to a nursing home.