I’m at wits end & tired of fighting with my husband over this. Sorry for the length.

Last year when my MIL was here to visit, it was the longest visit ever, at 3 weeks. The issue was that my MIL apparently wears Depends overnight, but not during the day, when she’s at home with my SIL.

Last time, my husband did not communicate with SIL or vice versa as to what to expect while MIL was here. MIL had at least two episodes of poo leakage onto sofa; the first time I cleaned up and told my husband he needed to address things with her. He didn’t, and it happened again. That time I left it to him to clean up because I was angry.

He took her to get more diapers but never said that he asked her to wear them all the time. She had a third “blowout” while we were out, which finally brought things to a head and he ended up having a heated discussion with her. I said that all of of that could’ve been avoided if the siblings had discussed the issue with her ahead of time.

Husband wants to bring MIL again and I’m telling him that I want clear expectations set out from the beginning. He says he’ll handle it and is mad I don’t believe him.

He’s right that I don’t believe him because he continues to say that she wasn’t needing to wear them at home during the day, and it was just accidents here. I said that when you take people out of their familiar surroundings at times that affects them and I don’t know why it’s such a big deal to say that she must wear Depends all the time while she’s here. He says he doesn’t think he should have to “force” her to wear them.

Also, when she was here last time, she left the wet diapers piling up in the small garbage can in the guest room until there was a horrible urine stench. I told husband it smelled in there and he cleaned the garbage out.

Please understand that MIL is 100 percent capable of carrying a small grocery bag with 1-2 wet diapers to dispose of into the kitchen garbage. I’m not a maid, and frankly if their attitudes about this were better, I likely wouldn’t be resentful about collecting her garbage. After he initially cleaned it, she began doing it (likely because she realized that it was her son and not me, who was cleaning up).

Please don’t think I’m not understanding. I realize that MIL might be more sensitive about this, but this is a normal problem we will all face at some point, and in my opinion it’s nothing to be embarrassed over. But wearing diapers all the time while away would keep the accidents at bay. If it were me, I’d want to keep my relatives from having to clean up messes.

I told DH that I was going to speak to SIL if he didn’t address it. He said go ahead but I said it’s really his place to talk to them, not mine. He says he will address it but keeps saying she doesn’t need to wear them 24/7 at home so why should she have to do that here? You can see who and what is being prioritized here. 🙄

Thanks for any advice.

From Fed up in FL