A Moral Character

My husband has been home this week and thinks he has been really helpful; he has been helpful with the children...he's supposed to help me with his mother. For the first few days, I kept hoping he would be motivated to take her for a drive or to the shops or to get her to do something. He wasn't. His argument is basically if the matriarch wanted to go somewhere, she would tell him. He took her for lunch...to the restaurant and back. I know it's tedious and boring; I hate going out for lunch; but, I wish he would be more empathetic and consider doing something with the matriarch. He could have taken her for a drive after lunch. That is what I find so draining--having to always entertain her. My husband feels no such obligation.

We have gotten into a debate about our roles with the matriarch here; my husband believes she is an adult and can make her own choices. To some degree, he is right; the matriarch chooses to sit up in her room rather than participate in family life. People tell me that is what very old people do. However, every time I ask the matriarch if she wants to go out or to do something, she does. I know it is selfish on her part seeking to always be entertained but, then, what else can an almost 100 year old person do??? She refuses responsibility for anything but her own rooms and she does take meticulous care of them. Mind, it is not like they can get all that untidy. But, I must emphasize she considers them her responsibility; I only vacuum, take out the garbage and do the toilet when my husband takes her for lunch. But I always feel the matriarch is waiting for someone or something to happen. My husband laughs with me and says I take everything way too seriously. But I don't know how else to take it.

The matriarch doesn't phone her in-laws but expects them to call her; I have told her I would dial for her but she would prefer them to call her. That is selfish. And, that is her nature or character; my husband points out after 10 years of being actively involved with her, I am only discovering this now. I am not just discovering it. But I don't understand why, even at 100, the matriarch would choose to be this way. I mean there are ways to make things easier on oneself; I imagine sitting up in her room all the time to be boring; she could, at least, be down here with us and the piano and the guitar and the children reading. I can't imagine what kind of person she must have been, or what kinds of things she must have gone through, to prefer isolation to family life. I hate to think what kind of mother she must have been.