How to manage disagreements about major life changes?

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WP folks,I need advice and support,hopefully positive and constructive.

My wife is a somewhat "low functioning" person,as am I,though neither of us have been clinically diagnosed.I've been in therapy,and she is completely opposed to it.Basically lots of bumps in life and general floundering for both of us.But we do have happiness and plenty of things we care about and are interested in.We have maintained a quiet,simple,managable lifestyle for many years.We're not at all "rat race" material.

Now she is in a sudden panic about her aging parents and our futures as adult "slackers".So she has decided we need an immediate and total overhaul of our quiet,managable lifestyle,an overhaul that completely disregards all accomodations I've made for my Aspie-ish needs/strengths/shortcomings.

I am to immediately alter my career mentality towards a path of her choosing(very extroverted,aggressive careers),we are to start a pleasant part-time business for herself and friends,we are to buy a duplex to cohabitate with and care for her parents ourselves,as well as renovate the house ourselves for eventual profit.None of these things are remotely realistic for who either of us truly is,nor are they remotely realistic to our resources of time/energy/money.She is not wishing at all,she is on me to change NOW.

She does not fight fair,prefering loud circuitous emotional venting that I can't keep up with,and after trying to negotiate and reason I have introverted meltdowns.It's just totally overwhelming to me,the idea of completely abandoning my "safe" home for complicated social obligations and dependants.But she doesn't care.She has conveniently adopted the "mean mommy" attitude that men just need a kick in the pants to grow up and become normal,despite her familiarity with my lifelong challenges.I've always had income,paid the bills on time,had a bit of savings and retirement,kept the car running,our home safe and sound.I think "what more is reasonable to expect from me?".I may grow and thrive,I may do more in life,but this kind of sudden pressure is ludicrous.

All of my family live very far away,and I don't have any reliable friendships nearby,not to mention most of them don't really understand us enough to help me make sense of this.I imagine if anyone has experience with these things,it'd you.

So,I ask:has anyone had success with communicating these particularly AS challenges to unreceptive or unresponsive partners?How to "get through" their resistance in times of stress?How about managing AS stresses during major life changes?Any ideas or similar experience?

I hope this isn't too dramatically "NT".Thanks for listening.

Sounds like a "mid-life crisis" kind of thing. All the things we'd been putting off or haven't thought much about can feel like they are dumped on us all at once. That feeling of "I have to get going in life" makes some people run out and by a sports car. Or go on a vacation. Or make some plans for the future.

There's nothing wrong with making plans and having ideas and considering the aging process. It does become a problem when your spouse suddenly comes at you armed with a cattle prod telling YOU that YOU need to do something about whatever it is they've just had a revelation about.

Caring for parents is overwhelming. My mum recently died. It was just her, and my brother was there full time. But one person alone cannot take care of an individual who needs full time care. Mum was at the point of being more like an infant, so that she had to be checked on. Fed. Diapered. Later she got a catheter. Cleaned. Hair brushed. Etc.

I will guarantee that you and your wife will not be able to take care of completely dependent parents on your own. As that will be both of your full time jobs. You will have to work in shifts. You will NOT be able to do anything together outside the home. Someone will always have to be with those parents.

You will need hospital beds perhaps. Medical personnel. You will be in charge of shuttling them to and from doctor's appointments. Picking up meds. Equipping the home with all the aids for mobility and bathing and toileting.

I was hired as a "babysitter" several times through an agency for a couple that had their mother living with them. She was in a hospital bed, needed help getting to and from the toilet, etc. They were HOME, the couple, they just NEEDED to do other things, like things for their yard. One went to the grocery store. They needed a break.

I'm not sure how you folks will be able to care for parents if one is working full time and the other part time in their own business. You won't be able to do that. Unless you or the parents are well-to-do financially.

I have no idea where you'd find the time to renovate a home in there too. Maybe you folks have those neat 40 hour days, LOL, so that you have more time than mere human beings. You cannot do it all. It is not possible.

Your wife is in panic mode, and feels she HAS to do it all. Where she got that, I don't know. It could have been things in her mind for a long time that she never voiced. Wanting to have a business. Wanting to have more money to put away for the future.

Something probably triggered it. A friends experience. Something she read.

You can be somewhat blunt if you want, by stating that marriage is a partnership. It is two people making a life for themselves. Working towards their own future. Our parents had a choice in bringing us into the world, but we don't have a choice in being brought into the world.

It is a parent's responsibility to take care of their children. It is not necessarily the child's responsibility to take care of the parent. That is harsh. I know. We are supposed to be making our own lives and tending for our own needs. And that includes aging and dying.

We're supposed to plan where we will retire. Think about what our health needs will be. It might be different for some of us, in that we need extra help. I do.

Now, if it's going to tear up the relationship, you yourself have some thinking to do. You already know that this is not possible, all these things that your wife has dumped in your lap.

Dump it back in her lap. How much business training does she have? Is she familiar with quarterly tax statements, for instance? Bookkeeping requirements? Employment laws for your area, who has to be paid what, what has to be withheld? If not, she needs to start on classes.

What about home care? How much medical training does she have? Has she ever worked with the elderly? Does she know how to give a sponge bath? Wash hair in bed? Take care of bodily functions? If not, she needs to start on classes.

Home renovation? Is she aware of various Universal Access plans? Width of doorways? Access to showers and bathing? Kinds of handrails? What about wiring and plumbing? How about roofing and flooring? How about asbestos or black mold or dry rot or termites? If not, she needs to start on classes.

If she is unable to manage a class on basic accounting, or can take a job at a small business where she runs the show, she can't do her own. Ditto for the home health care. Ditto for the home improvements.

The good thing about Aspie life, is that when I ran a small business for someone else, and it was small, I had a system, it worked, and because it worked so well, it always looked like I was loafing. But the work was done. The owner would show me a new task, like the quarterly tax returns, I'd catch on, and then correct the one he already did, because it was wrong.

Many classes are available at community college for a reasonable price. In addition, there are weekend workshops that are usually free at some of the home improvement stores. Like on tiling or wallpapering. If she is serious, she needs to start on that. Someone will still have to work and bring in an income while she attends school. And that's what you have been doing. So that's fine.

Knowledge just doesn't fall into your brain. I felt like an incompetent fool when my mum was dying, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what she needed. I didn't know what to feed her. I didn't know ANYTHING. Eventually, after throwing a fit, we got hospice people to come in daily to help with those things that we didn't know about. They brought handy information packets on how to do certain things and what to look for. Just that bunch of info alone was a blessing.

If she's serious about all this, she'll be buried in books and building bookshelves. She'll take classes and volunteer and have a job and all sorts of stuff. And rather than telling her that she's being impossible, you can provide a couple things for her. Order the booklet of classes for the local community college, or find the site online. Print out the schedule of free weekend workshops at the Home Improvement stores. Get a list of CPR courses and Basic First Aid that might be given through Adult Ed, Police, Fire, whatever.

Those are all starting places to realize a dream. And maybe ONE of those things on her list would be possible, like maybe the business, her own, or working for another. Or helping out caring for the parents while they are NOT living with you folks.

How's that sound? Good? Bad? Somewhat reasonable?

It seems important to focus on the source of the problem, which is your wife's panic about her parents possibly no longer being able to take care of themselves within a couple of years. Because she's stressed out, she's not approaching the situation intelligently, and making rash plans, in disregard of what both of you can and can't do in the near future as well as of your Aspie inability to handle more than one issue at the same time. So you feel bombarded, but at this time your wife's mental state is such that she will not understand any explanations from you about this, or anything else that does not directly relate to her panic. The thing for you to do, then, is to talk with her about her panic, and think about what you realistically could do for her parents if they would indeed become in need of help.
With regard to the pressure you feel, focus on the fact that you know your wife's ideas don't work and were irrationally conceived. There is no need to feel pressure from things that are not going to happen, and there is no point in arguing at a time when sound judgment is absent in one of the parties.

I think yours are very smart,lucid perspectives,and they really help right now.Thank you,lots.

I agree,this is probably a situation of mid-life panic and "grasping at straws",to preserve and fix what her parents had not prepared for(no plans,no money,few assets),maybe even personal regrets.The whole proposed reality would be mighty challenging for anyone qualified,let alone us.

Actually,she has been working part-time with the elderly for a few months but she refuses to take classes for anything.Neither of us has business or home renovation experience(not sure about aptitude).Money is very limited for all involved.I think any single facet could be approachable on it's own,possibly,but not as a sudden mountain of panic like this.

I need to be try to as patient as possible in this time of her worry,short of actually complying with anything desperate or foolish.

Thanks again.And sorry about your mum,TRUE.

MeThinks, you are ahead of the game then, really, if your wife is already familiar with caring for the elderly. That makes a HUGE difference. At least it would have for my own mum.

That might also be where your wife suddenly came to the realization of the caring for parents, etc. Through work. She probably also KNOWS inside that it's not all possible, but it will take her some time to reach that conclusion on her own.

It took my brother and myself awhile too. We felt like we HAD to do it all. He was trying to do it all on his own. Neither he nor mum mentioned that she was bed-ridden. Nobody told me. I knew she was short of breath, but thought she'd been out puttering in the yard, not dying.

My brother was reluctant to have me come over at first and then pretty much demanded. Like I'd suddenly know what to do. I didn't know. There were a few things I could do that he wouldn't or didn't know how to do. But we really needed the hospice people.

There are some things you can do now to help get things in order. All that paperwork, and there IS a lot of paperwork. My mum had cancer, so she KNEW she was going to die, and she was 81. But she never got around to the will or what to do with the stuff in the house or what she wanted when she could no longer do things for herself.

Did she want to be in hospital? Care home? What kind of insurance did she have? What would it cover? Where were all her financial papers? What kinds of things would we need to sell the house or sell her car?

My brother was named Trustee, and all of that got dumped on him, as my mum didn't get around to it. He had an idea of where to look for papers. At least he had that much. But what about paying bills when she can't hold a pen to write checks and he doesn't have access to money in her account?

Had to have a notary come out to the house. Had to have the attorney make house calls. Had to go to an accountant. All of this he had to do, in addition to taking care of her.

She had put away some money up in Canada, we are in the U.S. She didn't find out what it was going to require to have that money passed on to us. I guess she assumed, like most of us would, that we send a certificate of death, and the check is written up there and sent to us. Nope.

They have different laws. So another attorney had to be put on retainer in Canada. All done by phone and mail. And that attorney is working on the money in the bank up there. The bank wants the money to go through probate. Which apparently would cost about $10,000. Yes, there is more than that up there, and something would be better than nothing, but that whole amount could have been saved if the money had been transferred prior to death.

This is a lot to think about. If there was ONE THING your wife could do to make a huge difference in her parents lives and in your own lives, it would be to organize their finances and paperwork.

If there is a sudden change in health, you both know exactly what they want done, and what is required. If they needed to go in a hospital and who covers it and all that stuff.

Lists of friends they want notified. My brother and I didn't have that either.

Worst of all, there was a poem my mum often recited. I never wrote it down. I have been unable to find the exact variation that she would recite. I would like to have read that again. Better still, I would like to have had it on tape, or on a CD, where I could see my mum again. See her talking or laughing. Or giving me advice. That would have been nice. And you have the chance to do that with your own families. And each other. Because life does not come with any guarantees.

hi,TRUE

Yes,you're right.After working with the elderly in a low-income retirement-home,she refuses to allow her parents to live in a county home.They themselves made no plans for their later years(currently in their mid 70s).

There's just no money for a care facility,short of selling their house.And my wife doesn't want the value of their house to be lost to a care facility.So she's trying to save both her parents and the value of their house.

Her father is stubborn and refuses to leave their home(despite declining health),her mother is completely dependant(though no physical health issues),her half-siblings have homes and resources but don't want to be involved.We rent an apartment.I understand her anxiety.

But she too is stubborn and not realistic about time/energy/money.She intends to become power-of-attorney for them but she mis-balances our own checkbook,can't remember which utility is which,regularly mistakes 10s for 100s,can't remember how to set her alarm clock,nervous about driving.She has just enough energy for a part-time job,has her own meltdowns,medicated but not diagnosed,neglects her own health,tends towards OCD and controlling thought.So she's trying to transform me into the one who will manage this,making me a surrogate for her.

I'm not opposed to finding realistic solutions or helping her get through this.There are currently too many "but"s in this plan for my confidence,and I doubt it can be "damage controlled" how she wants it to be in this imminent time-frame.

Hopefully we can let this cool down and see what we can realistically work with.And hopefully everyone involved can find acceptance.It'd be a shame to squander remaining time on needless drama.

Your ideas here do make some solutions seem possible.Getting affairs in order especially.Thank you for your help.