How Can I Help My Husband Talk About His Parents That Will Probably Soon Die?

I wouldn't push him. I'm a talker but I don't always have the right words to say so being a talker isn't better. Just let him know you are there if he wants to talk then pass him the salt.

My Dad died last Dec 2nd, I knew he wouldn't live through the end of Dec but my Mom and siblings thought he would make it 6 months as the doctors told him he had that long. I spent 3 months trying to gently prepare them starting last September but when my Dad died 2 weeks after the doctors told him he had 6 months my family was in shock. I knew it was bad, long story. He had colon cancer.

I am doing good but I think knowing it was coming helped me a lot. Talking doesn't make you feel better if you don't need to talk.

Men have a hard time sharing their emotions - don't expect him to cry unless her WANTS to cry in front of you. Men tend to grieve alone in private. The reality of his parents passing is hard - I would slowly, in a place where he has no salt to distract him, start talking about it. If he clams up, then leave it alone. When the time comes, he will deal with it in his own way - be there with support, love, hugs and understanding. Pushing the issue will make him more distant.

If your husband is not much of talker, this is not the time to expect him to change. Each time he does bring it up listen first, then ask if he wants to talk more about it.. Ask him questions that are not going to get just yes or no answers..

For instance, ask him "When do you want to visit your parents again?" "What type of preparation for Winter does your dad normally do to get the house ready?"
" What type of help can we provide?"

Make suggestions. "I am thinking about making some casseroles that your parents can heat up." I thought I would go and make sure your mom has her winter clothes prepped to wear."

Then you can get down to the nitty gritty. "What do you think about getting their Doctors names and numbers in case we need to help them deal with appointments?"

'What have you and your sister discussed about your parents as they need more assistance?" "Should we talk about the different ways we can offer our help to your parents?"

This way you are guiding. It let him know you are willing to help and where you stand on helping them.

The more organized you all are, the easier it will be when things begin to happen. What if one ends up in the hospital? Will the other parent need someone to stay with them. If FIL becomes incapacitated, can MIL get around? Can they drive? Cook? Clean?

Do you all know anything about their wishes concerning a DNR?

Take it slowly with your husband.. If you 2 cannot have a conversation with the kids around, plan on having someone watch them so the 2 of you can speak undisturbed.

I know you want him to deal with this, but he will not change over night. Just let him know what you are thinking about.
I am sending you strength and peace.

actually he his dealing with it. He is identifying & acknowledging what is to come. Please be thankful that he is hitting this head-on.

I find your attitude a little distressing. (Said with a smile.) Please accept your husband as he is.....your job is to be there for him. I would encourage him to spend as much time as possible with them. & I would not put any demands on him.

There is no way to prepare for a loss such as this...whether you are watching the diminishing of a loved one ...or are hit with an unexpected death. Each of us grieves in different ways. Your husband may not be a crier nor a communicator when it comes to death. Don't force the issue. If his bluntness disturbs you, then share that thought with him. & I hope to goodness his words are not being said in front of children! If that's the case, then it's time for a family conference to fully-explain the situation & what to expect. Peace!

I can relate. My MIL is in a home for alzheimer's patients. She got the disease at age 50. The doctors said she had 8 years to live. Well, that was 8 years ago now. She is a total and complete vegetable. She can't talk or walk. She has no idea we are in the same room as her. I can't imagine she has much time left. My husband doesn't like to talk about it either. I have tried to get him to open up about her possibly dying soon, and he just doesn't want to talk about it. I can't make him open up, so I just let it go. I will be there for him when he does decide to talk, so I have to back off and let him deal with it his way. I lost both my parent's at a young age. So I know that everyone deals with grief in their own way.

You have to remind yourself that these are HIS parents. Maybe it's too painful for him to talk about it now. Some people can't open up about it until after it has happened. They are still here and still alive, so maybe he can't bear to talk about them dying until after they are actually gone. Just let him be for now. Once they are gone, see how he is dealing with it. If he seems to be struggling, suggest he see someone about grief counseling. But in the meantime just spend as much time with them as possible. Enjoy them while they are still here. Good luck to you and your family.

Hi,

I am so sorry to hear this~ It sounds like your hubby is starting to process the fact that they will be passing soon. His way of dealing with it is to say a statement and then just move on to something else. I would let your hubby know that you are there for him to support him and if he would like to talk, you will listen. You can't make him talk about it. He will if he wants to and if he is ready. He may not be ready. Give him time and patience and just be there for him. He will reach out when he needs you. Until then, go and visit as often as you can and for however long is comfortable for your inlaws.

Take care,

Molly

If your husband is like my father, he internalizes his emotions and may not need to talk about it.

My father was definitely a Momma's Boy, and she passed away from a brief battle with pancreatic cancer 13 years ago. I never saw my father shed a tear despite her easily being the most important person in his life.

As a cancer survivor, myself, I can tell you that how you react to information like this is very instinctive and very difficult to predict. I would have thought I'd be an emotional mess. My diagnosis was 1 week after returning to a stressful job from Maternity Leave, 1 day before my son's second birthday, and 2 days before my own birthday. I only cried a handful of times never had the meltdown I expected.

Your husband may not need to release the emotions like you would if you were in the situation. The only advice I can offer you is to be there when he does need you, encourage him to share, but don't press him to until he's ready.

Sorry you're having to deal with this kind of family loss and pain.

Laurie's suggestions are right on the money. There is something that seems to happen with lots of men when their parents get near the end of life. Some men completely shut down their emotional side, because they are really afraid of losing their parents or seeing them in pain.

My grandparents had 8 children, 3 sons & 5 daughters. Most of the sons rarely came to visit once my grandparents became very sick. They'd offer financial support, but couldn't seem to bring themselves to get too close to the situation. What seemed to help them to get past their discomfort was to be able to talk about planning. It forced them to envision the world without their parents, but didn't force them to get right up in the thick in the emotions. The sisters started holding family meetings (not at the nursing home) in order to discuss the issues of the estate (my grandparents never made a will and wanted their kids to sort such issues out on their own), funeral and burial plans, etc. At first the brothers didn't come, but eventually they all came. They did these meetings without the kids being around. It was a fantastic time for them to come together as siblings and lean on eachother for support. They reminisced about great times with their parents, and eventually, everyone was in tears thinking about losing their parents. When my grandparents did die, the brothers were all there, and at the wakes and funerals they spared no tears.

Don't force your husband to vocalize his emotions. He probably has tons going thru his mind right now, but our men are not like us in the need to talk about every feeling that enters our hearts. Just continue to be a supportive wife. Be extra kind to him, try not to nag about other issues, and just let him know that you love his parents too and are willing to do anything you can to help them have an easier time in their waning days.

i am sorry for your family having to deal with this at this time. honestly, i would leave your husband alone for the time being. he is starting to come to grips with the reality of his folks' mortality, and that's fine. why does he have to talk about it. it is a natural part of life and he knew this would happen eventually. now if you start to see it disrupting his life, changing him in negative ways, impacting the family, then yes, i would say at that point he would need to talk to someone, to get it out. but at this point, just let him be. if your husband is not much of a talker this is unlikely to be the subject he'd suddenly want to talk about. just be there for him. support him. but don't push him about it. just my two cents.

honestly most men are different about emotions then women. Women tend to TALK TALK TALK and cry. Men...welll they say what's on their mind and then change the subject. Losing your parents is a horrible thing to go through. Nothing you can say or do will ever prepare him for it...even if it's expected.

If I were you---I'd just simply tell him you're here for him and you love him and you're sorry. Don't try to force him to talk about it. Maybe tell him to spend more time with them----send him on his own on the weekends to visit if it's too much for them to have all the kids. When my Dad got cancer I went and spent a week with him (without my husband and daughter---but they live 8hrs away). But I cherish that time I was able to spend with him. It was hard to see him so frail and sick....but it was wonderful to have that time. I would highly suggest he take the time to spend with them. I was pregnant with my second daughter when my mom got diagnosed with cancer...but we used Skype to chat and we laughed, cried, and prepared for her passing as best as we could.

I will say it's good that he knows they may not make it. It was horrible when my Dad passed because we were all convinced he would pull through (not knowing how advanced the cancer was). With my mom....we were more prepared and even though it was still traumatic...it was easier since we knew.
Good luck and I'm so sorry.

You might suggest he see a grief counselor/support group at some point. Everyone has to grieve in their own way. His style might be very different from yours. With the expectation they may not have long to live, is there a hospice that can help them be comfortable in their own home till the end? Have they prepared their funeral plans, have a will in place, have a designated executor of the will? A lot of times, a person will deal with the practical / have-to-get-through-it stuff and sort of delay dealing with their grief. With a disease like cancer, sometimes family members do a lot of grieving before the actual death(s) take place. Let him take this at his own pace and in his own way. Have you thought about how you will feel through all this? You are going to react to this as well. A grief counselor/support group might not be a bad idea for you either. Perhaps you can make a photo album with photos of your in laws through out their lives. It will be a wonderful remembrance , and it will be wonderful to show to the kids over the years, too.

It's hard enough when one parent is dying. When both of them are, it can be overwhelming. If you husband isn't much of a talker, he's not likely to get talkative over this. But the feelings are there. He's expressing his feelings, even if he's expressing them in an astoundingly businesslike way.

Your approach could be - equally businesslike (at least, it may seem so for you!) - "What can we do for them?" This is a way of telling him, "I care about your parents and I care about you."

Sometimes you might try asking him, again in a businesslike way, "How do you think your parents feel about (you fill in the blank)?" This could be less threatening to him; you're not requiring him to get all emotional but to talk instead about his parents' emotions. He may answer or he may not. But the fact that you asked will be significant, because you can be sure he'll think about your question!

Do what *you* can to let your ILs know you love them, even though your style is different from your husband's. You might have your children write little notes or draw pictures for their grandparents and put them in the mail. Let him know when this happens, when you go to visit them, or when you've just returned. Don't make a big deal of it; just be informative. This is probably the way he can handle things right now.

My father-in-law's health started deteriorating last winter. We live far away, so my husband had to make a couple of extra trips across country and I held down the fort at home (if he had asked me to go with him, I would have). He also had to take over a lot of the legal and business matters that come with illness and dying. So there have been time and travel costs, and his family is in the dysfunctional category so there are, um, those challenges as well. But doing this work was his his way of saying, "I care about my parents."

When his father died two months ago, my husband coped by wanting to be in charge of every bit of the planning for getting back there. The way I helped him was to let him do it and be available to do anything he needed. I felt a little as if I were being shunted aside, but it wasn't really so; he's not a person who can work too well with others as partners, and it was better for him to be in charge than not take action at all. And it worked out fine. It was just the ol' being-businesslike thing again.

At the moment he has some "stock answers" for anyone who asks about his dad or his family. It will be some time before he will be able really to talk about the whole thing, if at all. However, I can read many of his feelings without his having to converse about them, and I'm sure you can do the same with your husband. (In fact, to me they sound as if they might be related.)

He is probably just rationalizing with himself at this point, trying to prepare himself for their deaths.
I have been in long term care for 15 years, and see alot of families go through this. They make comments about how long they will live, thinking that if they train their brains to know it is coming it will not hurt as much.
Sometimes it does help with the pain especially if the patient is suffering. It certainly doesn't take any of the heartache out of the situation, but it does help them to move through the greiving process a little quicker.
Have you talked to him and his parents about their last wishes? Maybe if your husband sits with them and talks with them about what type of heroic measures they would like, and what type of memorial services they want, it would help them all to prepare for it together. They should have a living will, that way once they are past the point of making their own decisions, the living will can tell the doctors what they would have wanted legally, and the pain of making the decisions is not placed in one of the childrens hands, who are more apt to try and keep their parents alive no matter what the cost. Everyone thinks they will be okay with the passing of a parent once they are sick, but I have seen on several occasions where family members decide at the last minute they aren't ready to lose them, and the patient lays in torture with tube feeds and breathing machines.
Sorry if this is lengthy, but I really do see alot of people die horribly, knowing that before they got sick they had said many times how they would just want to die and not suffer. It breaks my heart... I really wish you luck with this, and hope you can just know that he may seem cold and unemotional about it right now, but the "preparation" he is making is not going to help much when they actually pass. Just being there for him and helping however you can is all you can do.

Men tend to be "fixers" and "solvers", not "feelers." Don't interpret his matter of fact attitude as a lack of love. He's wrapping his mond around the fact that his parents are a finite commodity and they will not be there forever.
I would offer things like "What do you think about going over to your parents and getting their yard ready for the winter?" Or "do you think your parents could use some help with their cleaning/laundry/doctors appointments?" Or "Don't you think your parents could use a cel phone for when they're in the car in case something happens?" That kind of thing. Perhaps focus on their lives and what you all can do to make it easier for them?

C. you are a wonderful wife and a beautiful (yet somehow pragmatic) woman. Your husband is very fortunate to have you. Thing is, that alone just may be enough to get him through it. Not all of us need to 'talk it out', especially our guys. I wouldn't push too much. I hope YOU can talk about it with someone close, it's clear you need to, your post is just oozing empathy. Boys sometimes relate physical attention with love and support, if you're there for him that way, that might be all he needs. I'm sorry about your in-laws. I'm in a similar situation with my guys very beloved parents. And it occurs to me that he and his siblings need to squabble more about who's right and who's doing more for/about them than to address the fact that soon they will all be parentless. Good Luck, thinking about your family!

I suggest that you or your husband get in contact with your in-laws primary care provider. Express the concerns and ask about what needs to be done/planned for. For example, they should have their end-of-life wishes be documented; they should have a will or at least a power of attorney. Give him something concrete to work on and focus on.... Contact hospice--they can offer a lot of help and support for both your and family and your in-laws.

Perhaps your husband would do better talking about this with one of his siblings or a close aunt, uncle or cousin? Sometimes, it's easier to talk to family about it?

He probably is just stating the facts. Like "the car needs gas". He probably doesn't think there is really anything to "talk" about. Hopefully his parents have their affairs in order and either he or his brother know where all their important papers are and who the executor, etc is. It may be something as simple as stating that to you so YOU are ready for it or so YOU can prepare the kids for it. Men are funny when it comes to things like that. I think when elderly are sick, you see it coming as opposed to a sudden death. I think it's his way of sort of preparing you and the kids. If he says it again, just say, "what do you think about that" or "how do you feel about that" and see what he says. Good luck.

you just have to let him tell you what he wants and when. My husband doesnt really like to talk about his dad dying, (he died when our little girl was about 6 months old) but once in a while he does. I just try not to force it.