How to Keep Resentment, Anger at Bay When Caregiving Is Difficult

Handling hard emotions

“The one emotion you really have to fight, tooth and nail, is despair,” Dunn says. “Fear, unhappiness, anger and frustration are all hard to deal with, but they are generally motivating in the end. But despair will sap all your motivation and make everything worse.” 

Dunn recalls one very low day when Minnie was on the edge of a meltdown and she was trying to get her to eat, pick up her prescription and meet her husband’s needs. She suddenly realized it was her 25th wedding anniversary. “All day I kept telling myself that things would be better and we’d find something that worked. There are days I cling to the hope that Minnie will be able to go to college or we could live someplace where they won’t take her health care away,” Dunn says. And on other days, she developed a mantra that was more common sense than aspirational. “I would tell myself that it didn’t matter how bad it gets — I was ‘badder.’  It was less about keeping hope alive; some days were more about telling myself that I could do this job and I didn’t have to like it.”

Caregiving with secrets

Diane Urban, 77, of Long Island, New York, discovered toward the end of her husband’s life that he had been leading a dual existence. After he suffered a stroke at 91, she became his full-time caregiver while nursing the recent knowledge that he’d been unfaithful.

“I got to a point where I didn’t want to care for him anymore,” Urban admits. “I had such conflicting feelings of resentment, and I knew I was taking it out on him. People noticed I was being snotty, and that made me feel worse.” She was angry at her husband for having confessed and also angry at him for the betrayal. At first she decided to keep it a secret, but then she revealed the truth to her daughter. That act of unburdening opened the door for Urban to describe and deal with her feelings in a helpful and cathartic way.

“We’d been married more than 50 years, and I was embarrassed about the whole thing,” Urban relates. “But when I began to be able to talk about my feelings, I also began to understand that this wasn’t my fault. That ability to be honest with friends, and even the social worker, about how I felt made me feel so much lighter.” 

During the end stages of tending to her husband, a friend whose spouse had multiple sclerosis gave Urban a piece of advice that she would frequently call upon: “It’s a matter of attitude,” he said. “You can do this, and it’s not the rest of your life.”

Caregiving through resentment

Sometimes sharing your true feelings can feel like a slap in the face. Rebecca Nellessen, 50, of Algonquin, Illinois, is the full-time caregiver for her partner’s mother, Frances. Nellessen once shared a raw emotion on a private caregiving social media site about her resentment at being woken numerous times a night by the motion alarm in the older woman’s bedroom. Someone then commented that it sounded like elder abuse. 

“Talking about your negative feelings around caregiving or feelings about your loved one at certain times is something that seems to be largely frowned upon,” Nellessen says. “But nothing about caregiving is black-and-white.  It’s all tough, and people need to understand and respect the strains.” 

Frances, 87, is almost completely blind and suffering hallucinations with late-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Nellessen has been her caregiver for nine years, with no vacation and few breaks. She derailed the pursuit of a career after getting a degree in medical billing and coding in order to care for her partner Rich’s mother, who had ceased being able to look after herself after her husband died.

“It was a giant sacrifice to give up my career after I’d just gotten my degree,” Nellessen recalls. “The technology has now changed so much that I’d probably have to go back and take more classes. There are many days, she admits, that she simply doesn’t like Frances, and there are times they don’t speak for a week because something sets them off.  “I’ll think to myself, She is never going to die,” Nellessen says. “There are mornings when I’m entering her room and it’s quiet, I find myself hoping that she has died in her sleep. If someone tells you they’ve never had any of those thoughts, they are lying.” 

There are frequent occasions, too, that Nellessen has felt zero appreciation from extended family members, including Rich. “There are so many days I am simply going through the motions. I have no empathy left, and if anyone came up to me and patted me on the head to say good job, I might punch them.” The mantra she chooses to repeat on the bleakest days (sometimes out loud) is, “I have no expectations, and I cannot fix her.”

Part of what keeps Nellessen sane is visualizing the time after Frances has passed and she is able to go back to work and have time for herself. “Thinking about the future can bring me joy,” she says. After ongoing practice at feeding, changing and providing medication, Nellessen is actually considering becoming a professional caregiver. She understands that the emotional demands will be very different from those of a round-the-clock, unpaid family caregiver.

Lee Woodruff is a caregiver, speaker and author. She and her husband, Bob, cofounded the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which assists injured service members and their families. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.