I (F, 60s) am married to husband (M, 70s), who has been diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s. While he’s not as sharp as he used to be, husband still has mostly good days and is very capable of handling his daily tasks like driving, all home maintenance and on and on.
Husband’s daughter is very (too) involved in his care and recently she’s insisted that we install a tracking device on husband’s phone. She says it’s for safety in case husband gets lost or confused. However, I feel like this is crossing a line. My husband is still capable of making his own decisions, and I believe this type of surveillance isn’t necessary. **Remember, I am tracking him already. **
Also, as an aside, stepdaughter lives several hours away from us. So she would never be available in the case of an emergency.
My husband says he okayed this with his daughter, but I’m really, really struggling with how it’s okay from his perspective when it affects me so as well. I’m fully capable myself, with no cognitive issues, and I manage our daily life just fine. It feels like stepdaughter’s request is very intrusive. When she tracks her Dad she is also tracking me, which feels like an invasion of privacy.
It’s also important to note that my husband and I haven’t even been married for 10 years yet. I feel like we are still early in our relationship, and we’re in many ways still in the honeymoon phase. I feel like this request is undermining both my autonomy and my husband’s. I’ve expressed my strong feelings to husband’s daughter about this, so now there’s a lot of tension. She insists it’s just for her Dad’s safety, but I feel like this level of control isn’t healthy and is creating much more stress than it’s solving. I’m losing my husband slowly..its heartbreaking to me. Adding this..husband daughter wanting to track us/ME..is taking our autonomy away. (I know..I already said that.)
Lately, I’ve been turning location sharing on and off on husband’s phone, just trying to balance things. We have a trip coming up soon, and stepdaughter will be there. I know it will likely come up again, especially when I turn the location sharing off during the trip, which is causing me even more stress.
Am I being unreasonable for not wanting to go along with this, or is it fair for me to try to set this boundary?
People, please tell me if I’m right or wrong – I need to hear it. This situation has been stressing me out too much. Perhaps someone can provide me insight on why I should allow this without me continuing to fight it.
TIA
