Hello I am new to here but I hope I can find someone similar.
I hate myself at times as I can not get over the level of resentment I feel. Not always to my loved one but to his family who do nothing to help yet appear to be on pedestals!!! I do everything and often feel this is a thankless task from all concerned.
Sometimes I want to run away. I feel isolated with my fear and feelings so have joined this forum in the hope I am not alone. 
Hi Cheryl,
Welcome to the forum.
You are definitely not alone in your experiences. It is unfortunately not uncommon for families to offer little to no support to the carer in their caring duties. It seems unless someone ha direct experience of caring, they have little understanding of how tough it is. Carees often don’t realise how much their carer does for them.
It must be hurtful that your caree puts his family on a pedestal, meanwhile you are doing all the caring.
Do you get any outside support?
Do you manage to squeeze in any “me time?”
Melly1
Hi Cheryl, welcome,
Its quite normal for you to feel resentful, you have shouldered a burden and its not often that other family members will share that burden, despite what we feel should be happening.
Over the years I have often had those same feelings, and I tend to channel them into fighting the organisations who have a duty to provide help or funding for me or my caree’s.
You are a good and kind person to have taken the role, so don’t hate yourself. Domake sure to focus on what help and support your LA and other organisation may offer you as a carer as well as your caree.
I am certain if you expanded on your story you will find members here will have plenty of advice for extra support.
Keep posting x
I too have wanted to run away, because at times all the pressure to do this, do that, do the other can be truly overwhelming, especially when you are tired.
It is a signal that it’s time for you to get extra help, to get carers in to help you, so you can get some time off the recharge your physical and mental batteries.
In truth I find it difficult to share about myself as i feel like a selfish cow but I really need some friends. I am in my 40s and my partner is seventy. Shortly before his illness we had more or less decided to go out separate ways. However, he found out he was terminal and moved in with me, I could not leave him to face it alone. After all, even though our relationship had come to an end you don’t feel nothing for someone after 20 years of a relationship so there was still love and care there. We had never lived together so that was something’s no else to get used too but he needed me and his kids were let’s say ‘unwilling’.
Now I am doing everything and working full time. He does not want carers and is unwilling to pay anyway.
I am coping but I am so lonely feel unloved and unappreciated.
Sounds like you are in a tough situation and I applaud you for helping a friend out, but it seems to me to have to point out to him that he is indeed just a friend and you need to lay firm boundaries as to what you will and not do for him and that you are here to support him but not care for him, he has to find his own way with that. Think you need to find out where you stand and where he stands with regard to getting help through Social Services.
Cheryl, if its terminal cancer, get Macmillan involved, they can support you and him medically, sometime you have to make the choices as its impacting on your life now.
Also you can have a care assessment from your LA without it impacting on him.
It’s YOUR place, and if he can’t stick with YOUR RULES, then he must leave.
That means residential care. So make it clear, he chooses carers coming in to help, or residential care. You cannot care for him and work, and you need to work and must work.
Unwilling to pay - he’d rather have you as a slave instead?! You get the treatment you are prepared to accept I’m afraid, only you can change this, he won’t, because he has a slave!
Do you know how long he has left?
Hello Cheryl
I joined here ages ago but have not posted in a long time. First of all, I’m sending you a big hug. Resentment is a difficult emotion to deal with and I struggle a lot. Then of course you feel guilty and question yourself.
I would say, just forgive yourself and try to give yourself some praise. A bit about me - I’m a carer for my 84 year old Mum, she had a triple heart bypass last autumn and it was a terrible time, lots of emergencies, pre-grieving and most of all - my very small family members who are left, were less than useless. She has a younger sister who is 80. Sometimes she is nice but sometimes she manages to make everything about her and I had not only no emotional support but was told I was making her ill with stress for keeping her informed.
Also that if I thought in a negative way, my Mum would die (as if I would cause it to happen!). I am fortunate to have two incredible friends who got me through. Anyway, that is enough about me.
It is so hard to feel alone and unsupported and disappointed. So I understand your frustration and you are far from alone. If you have any energy or ability to create some new resources for yourself, try to do that and have a big moment of ‘letting go’ of your family if you can.
I am fully aware that to be told to join things, reach out, make new connections, etc, is not always what a carer wants to hear because all that can feel way too much.
So - I understand your pain and feeling resentful is normal, it’s ok and it’s allowed. Allow yourself to feel it and have a good cry if you can have some private time. Then - give yourself some praise because you a strong person, carrying a big load - and the fact that others are unable to step up or step in, it is a great reflection on their own weaknesses.
You need to know you are valuable and strong, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have moments of despair, I do many times a week, sometimes it’s good for a while but then I go down into what I would describe as the pitt of depression.
I hope my replies have been helpful, sorry if I’ve not come up with any more suggestions but just know you are not alone, you are so not alone in this period of your life. Good luck and sending strength and sympathy to you. xxxx
Thank you, I think it is very brave of you to write about resentment, and it’s helped me to admit and write about it here. It is a very uncomfortable feeling and I don’t like admitting it either, I wish I didn’t resent as much, but I do. I mostly hide it, but after a while it bursts out and makes me snappy anyway! It sounds very tough on you. Your partner may not want other help, but I agree with other carers. The fact is you need him to accept other carers because it is too much for you to manage everything, and if he and you aren’t careful you’ll end up ill yourself and not be able to do any of it. It is a problem that carees often have little idea of the toll on carers, and in our caring way, maybe we sometimes also shield them from the knowledge. What I love about this forum, is that it’s full of people who know exactly what it’s like, so I feel much less isolated. I don’t know how you do what you do. I love my partner and my dad, and I still feel a lot of resentment. I think the only way is to claw back what you can of your own life, in whatever way you can. It is hard to feel you have a choice over what you do for him, and what you don’t, or whether you do anything at all, but there are alternatives, and you do have choices.
Hello Cheryl, I also feel resentment sometimes I would think it’s just normal. Like you I get very little help from my family - I get more help from our friends at church. From Wendy