When Your Best Efforts Are Blocked

By Gail Sheehy

Mary Knocke's husband had a first family who insisted they knew better how to care for him after his massive stroke, but they lived far away.

Robbed of the love of her life and her identity as a wife, and condemned as an inadequate caregiver, Mary reached a breaking point. "I had done everything I could. It just wasn't working. I got so much static from his family... 'I just can't do it any more.' I have to divorce this family."

It's often the most heroic caregivers who are exploited or overruled and have the hardest time letting themselves admit:  I can't do this anymore.

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