u/Necessary-Cup9400

So, as I've said here before, my wife (who had issues before) had some strokes and ended up in a nursing home where she had been for six months. Her sister and sister-in-law decided that I was a bad guy, that I was "plotting to divorce" my wife, and that I was at fault for her strokes. So they got wife, who is not all there, to sign over healthcare proxy and power of attorney to them a few months ago.

They promised to keep me in the loop and I was not inclined to fight them in court over this as money is tight and I have two kids to raise. They did not share the papers with me that she had signed. However, after this, the nursing home refused to talk to me about my wife's medical condition saying "someone else has power of attorney so we don't talk to you." Nevermind that power of attorney is over financial issues and healthcare proxy is for healthcare, but supposedly she signed over both.

Fast forward a few months and my wife is doing poorly at the nursing home. My wife's sister and sister-in-law both want to move her to a different nursing home. We waited nearly 6 months, but finally got word that my wife qualified for Medicaid nursing home care so I wouldn't have to pay out of pocket.

Saturday, my wife's sister-in-law (super busybody who loves being in charge) was at the nursing home, decided my wife looked poorly, and called 911, having her taken to the hospital. I don't find out until the next day because my sister-in-law decided not to call me for a while to tell me my wife was hospitalized.

Monday, the doctor from the hospital called me and asked if she could install a feeding tube into my wife, because she failed a swallowing test. I said "yes." No word since then.

Tuesday, I call the hospital and ask to talk to the nurse for an update on my wife's condition. The nurse says "I'm not talking to you because of power of attorney." First of all, this is legally inaccurate because power of attorney controls only my wife's finances. But let's assume she meant "healthcare proxy." I'm locked out now. I don't understand why I'm not entitled to even get an update on how my wife is doing, whether she is having surgery, etc. Meanwhile, this is all billed to my insurance for which I am sent the bills.

As for my wife, she is mostly there. She can't really talk well, but she understands everything that is going on. My sister-in-law has decided to shut me out, won't return phone calls or emails. Last I talked to her she said she's going to move my wife to a new nursing home that's closer to her house and 1.5 hours away from me and the kids.

Should I say something to my wife like "since you and your sister shut me out of medical, I'm not visiting you anymore?" Should I sue someone like my sister-in-law in court?

I talked to an attorney this morning and he said that the first thing I should do is ask my sister-in-law for copies of whatever my wife has signed. She is not responding to me so I can't even see the paperwork which denies my rights and which the hospital is using to deny my rights.

My wife has been in a nursing home for six months. Her sister does not like me and got wife to sign over healthcare proxy to her, putting her in charge of the care. Now, her sister, who lives in the same New York State but in a different county, 1.5 hours away, wants to move wife closer to her.

Wife recently qualified for Medicaid long-term care. Her Medicaid worker and application went through our local county Medicaid office. If my sister-in-law moves her to a nursing home in a different county, will Medicaid still pay for it (provided it's a Medicaid nursing home)?

So my wife fell in February and we had her taken to the hospital where they revealed she had five lesions in her brain consistent with mini strokes she must have had recently. She had also had a stroke back in 2024, but was totally normal after that.

Anyway, wife has been living in a nursing home since February and, while she could not walk or take herself to the bathroom, she was able to talk pretty well, understood her surroundings, and was feeding herself. She was originally on pureed food but they switched her to solids a couple of months ago.

Fast forward to this weekend. First, on Friday, I get a call from the nursing home saying that wife's swallowing has gotten worse and they want her tested. Then, on Saturday, her sister was visiting her at the nursing home, said that she looked poorly and demanded that the nursing home take her to the hospital. At the hospital, wife failed the swallowing test but has no blockages in her throat. She just doesn't swallow properly and aspirates her food. She has aspirational pneumonia now.

The last few weeks, wife's talking and communication has gotten less and less. Since even before her strokes, she was very quiet and not wanting to talk to people and mostly just nodding her head or using gestures. But the last few weeks, she is talking less and less and even sending fewer text messages to people. She just stares at her phone or stares at the TV all day. She knows who people are and can communicate, but chooses to be quiet most of the time.

Today, the hospital doctor called me and said they want to put a feeding tube in wife's stomach and suggested that her swallowing problems were neurological, not physical. But what I don't understand is how, in maybe the last week or two, her swallowing and talking got worse. Did she have more strokes? These were both getting a lot better up until recently.

My wife has been in the nursing home, technically in rehab, for six months after having some strokes. She had plateaued and had lost most of her services (but apparently not speech). So, over the weekend, my wife's sister-in-law (who thinks she knows better than the doctors and the nursing home and me and everyone) was visiting her, thought she looked poorly, and demanded that the nursing home take wife to the emergency room.

Wife is now in the hospital. Unclear what is actually wrong with her or if she actually needs to be in the hospital. She is having trouble swallowing so they put in a feeding tube, but she had some swallowing issues at the nursing home which is why they put her on pureed foods. But otherwise, unclear if she even needs to be in the hospital at this time. However, they are keeping her there for a few days while they do a swallowing study and find out what is wrong with her (besides the things that were already wrong with her from her strokes - not being able to walk, difficulty talking, etc).

Anyway, I'm concerned that the nursing home is going to give away wife's bed while she is in the hospital. Do they normally hold onto it for people who have to be hospitalized for a few days?

UPDATE: I asked the nursing home for their bed-hold policy and they said that they don't hold beds at all. However, they said they probably will have enough vacancy to take my wife back when she gets out of the nursing home.

I'm concerned because my wife's sisters, who got her to sign over healthcare proxy and power of attorney to them, would like nothing more than to dump her back at the house and make me take care of her. They don't like the nursing home and they really have been looking for an excuse to get wife out of there and dump her on my couch where the children and I would have to take care of her 24/7. I think this, likely unnecessary, hospital visit is their way of getting her to lose her bed at the nursing home so they can dump her here.

Wife's condition was not great before the strokes she had in February. For a couple of years, she was living on the couch, not taking her medicines, not bathing, not eating, pooping / peeing on the floor, and leaving garbage all over the place. This was not good for the children but we couldn't do anything about it. Now that she is in nursing home care, the children can have a safe environment. Her sisters would like her to go back to living that way, rather than staying in a nursing home, because they think she belongs at home and they want me to be forced to take care of her.

So, as I said in a prior post, my wife in her early 50s is now in a nursing home after she had some strokes. She's mentally competent, but often acts spaced out and just sits there watching the TV or her phone all day. She can't take herself to the bathroom, bathe, or walk. She had OT and PT for the first few months she was there, but they took those services away after saying she wasn't trying hard enough and that she had "plateaued."

I hate to say this, but I think it's best that she stay in care. Before she had her most recent strokes, she was sleeping 24/7 on our living room couch, pooping and peeing on the floor, not eating, not taking her meds, and generally ignoring the family. She didn't shower for months at a time and the entire first floor of the house smelled of her body odor. Our two young kids were not happy with this nor was I, but there was nothing we could do about it. And this is how she lived for years. So it was somewhat of a respite for us when she had her most recent strokes and went into rehab, where she has now been for 6 months. Wife wants to come home, but the kids and I want her to stay there.

Unfortunately, wife's sister blames me for her condition and accuses me of "plotting to keep her in the home." So she's constantly looking for excuses to check my wife out of the nursing home, drop her on the doorstep, and make me take care of her at home. She got wife to sign over healthcare proxy and power of attorney to her so she's now in charge and the nursing home no longer talks to me about my wife's care. I'm on the outside looking in.

Sister-in-law's latest plan involves getting my wife to have a hysterectomy. About 8 months before she went into the hospital, wife went to see a gynecologist who told her that she had precancerous growths in her uterus and advised her to get a hysterectomy. Unfortunately, she who was massively overweight, had diabetes, high blood pressure, and a heart condition and did not take her meds, could not get medical clearance for the surgery. She went to see an endocrinologist several times and the endocrinologist would not clear her for the surgery.

Then, back in Feb, wife fell at home, we could not get her up, and we called an ambulance. She was found to have had the equivalent of five strokes and sent to rehab at the nursing home, where she remains today.

Today, her sister who is in charge of her care now because the family all hates me now and blames me for wife's condition (that she did to herself by refusing to take meds, eat, shower, etc), starts bugging me for the name of wife's gynecologist (apparently wife can't remember it). She wants to get her the hysterectomy right now!

So, first of all, how would this even be possible if my wife remains a patient in the nursing home? Do nursing home patients go to doctor's appointments or even surgeries offsite? My wife now has Medicaid on top of my regular insurance, but this would, I assume, require them to pay for ambulettes to drive her to all the various pre-surgery appointments she'd need, and back again.

Or is my sister-in-law just looking for an excuse to pull my wife out of the nursing home and return her to my house? She has threatened to do it and said she could take wife out any time she wants and bring her back to the house. And it doesn't look like i could stop her.

So my wife (early 50s) has been in a nursing home since February when she suffered five strokes, fell, and could not get up. She went to a nursing home for rehab, but her situation did not improve enough. After five months there, she could talk (but not well and she usually doesn't want to talk), she couldn't walk, couldn't transfer herself to the wheelchair, couldn't bathe herself, etc.

The nursing home took away her physical therapy and speech therapy, saying that she had plateaued. She wasn't making much progress and she is mentally distracted a lot, staring off into space, staring at her phone, doing anything but paying attention to what's in front of her.

To be fair, this is what wife was like at home for the last year or two of her life. She spent 99% of her time lying on the couch, did not take her meds, did not eat regular meals (but munched junk food), smoked / vaped in secret, and did not shower for months at a time. The entire house smelled of her body odor and her young kids and I were not at all happy with her behavior or what she had done to the house.

Anyway, she is at a plateau at her current nursing home. They no longer give her services and she is basically warehoused there. They feed her, medicate her, bathe her, and toilet her but she doesn't do much with her life, even though she is mentally at least partially competent. It's not a great situation for her, but it is a better situation for the kids than when she was at home.

Now, they visit her a couple of times a week at the nursing home and she all but ignores them. She stares at her phone and the TV while they lie in the bed with her. She hardly interacts.

Her sister, who blames me for wife's condition, wants to move her to a different nursing home, with the idea that another place will try the physical therapy again and, this time, get through to her. I'm concerned that another place would be more eager to release her and she could end up back here on the couch again, perhaps able to take herself to the bathroom but nothing else. Wife qualified for Medicaid so we are allowed to move her to any other Medicaid-taking nursing home, provided they have a bed and are willing to take her.

Should we move her? Would another place get her out sooner? Is that even a good idea? At what point do you tell someone "you belong at the nursing home long term?"

So I finally got in touch with my wife's case worker at Medicaid, who seemed really bored and annoyed to be talking with me. I asked her a few questions and here were her answers:

1. Is my wife supposed to get an ID card or other confirmation in the mail? NO, apparently the notice of intent to establish a liability toward long-term care was it.

2. Can we move my wife to a different nursing home? Yes, but the nursing home will take care of the paperwork.

3. Do we need to inform our primary insurance of Anthem BCBS? She said no. I will inform them anyway.

4. And this is the kicker. Do I have to pay some of my income (NAMI) toward my wife's care? According to the case worker, no I do not. Because I signed the spousal refusal letter, she said that only my wife's income is drained and my wife has no income so no NAMI. This sounds contradictory to what I've read and heard elsewhere. But I guess I can't complain. I was looking at a huge chunk of my monthly income going toward her care perhaps.

Does this all sound correct?

So my wife had several strokes, has been in a nursing home, and we applied for NYS Medicaid long term care for her. Last month, I got a form in the mail saying, I think, that she was accepted. It said "Notice of Intent to establish a liability toward chronic care" and it listed a case number and a CIN number? It also said that after a few weeks I could call a particular Medicaid worker at the county Medicaid office.

What's next? Should my wife be receiving some kind of Medicaid ID card in the mail or was this it? The form didn't say anything about me paying a Medicaid copay, but I know those are common. I'm also starting to receive bills from a contractor that the nursing home uses and they are not billing Medicaid but instead are billing my primary insurance.

What should I be doing next? Is there something I'm still waiting for?

I'm getting concerned that the AI bubble is about to pop and take the stock market with it. I'm still years away from retirement so I can wait it out I guess, but I'm concerned about my mother, who is 84 and has significant assets in her 401K. She doesn't need them to grow at all; she just needs to protect the nest egg. That money is for her long-term care if she needs it and she probably has enough to cover the rest of her life.

Is there a way to transfer all or most of her money into a fund that's not tied to the stock market at all, without withdrawing it from her 401K? If she withdraws, she obviously has to pay taxes and I don't think she should just withdraw all the money and stick it in a savings account (then 40% would be lost to taxes), but is there anything within a 401K that is like a savings account and is guaranteed to protect her balance, even if the market crashes? Would a bond fund do the trick?

So if you've seen my posts here before, you know I am dealing with a lot with my wife who had a series of strokes and has been in a nursing home rehab for the past 6 months or so. Our relationship was strained before she had the strokes, because she lived her whole life on the couch, rarely getting up even to use the bathroom and never to shower or to take her meds.

So six months have gone by, she is in the same nursing home still, and she is mentally aware and able to talk pretty well, though she often chooses to say the bare minimum when I visit her, even if I have the kids. She can't walk or take herself to the bathroom or shower and she spends most of her days in bed or in a wheel chair but not actually wheeling herself around (they put her in the chair and she sits there). She just watches TV and plays with her phone a little bit. She sometimes sends me texts where she uses the wrong words for things.

No surprise: she is not happy there. Her sister and sister-in-law decided that I am at fault for everything that is wrong with my wife and have taken over power of attorney and healthcare proxy for her. They want to get her out as soon as possible and maybe force me to take care of her at home, where I also have to take care of our two young children. I fear she would go right back to living on the couch and not showering and not taking her meds.

However, I talked to her sister (who hates my guts) and even she agrees that my wife cannot come home in the shape she is in today. Unclear to me what would constitute "good enough to come home" in their definition of the term. Would it just be able to walk to the bathroom (a low bar) or would it be able to take care of herself fully?

Anyway, the nursing home recently stopped all physical therapy services for my wife. They said she has "plateaued" because she does not give her full attention during therapy and has not improved enough in the months she has been there. So she is in limbo now. She is in the nursing home rehab wing, but she is not receiving rehab services. It seems like she is frozen in place.

On the bright side, wife has qualified for Medicaid long term care recently. I will still have to pay for some of her care, but most of it will be paid for by Medicaid. That was a worry because no way I could afford to pay the nursing home $20K a month for her care. Her sisters want to move her to another Medicaid-taking nursing home on the thought that the nursing home is at fault for not adequately rehabilitating her and then, they hope, she will be able to get out after a month or two.

Wife clearly wants to get out. But I can't care for her at home and what I worry most about is her getting just a little bit better and coming home to live the same unhealthy lifestyle she had before. She has expressed no regret and taken no responsibility for what has happened to her nor does she take responsibility for running up tens of thousands in secret credit card bills.

So, at what point, can one decide that a person should remain in a nursing home permanently? She's in her early 50s and is mentally mostly there. If she had dementia or was severely mentally impaired, it would be an easy conversation. But she is mentally there, but both unmotivated and unable to take care of herself. And we cannot adequately take care of her at home. Her sisters do not want to take her in either.

Some of you have suggested in the past that I file for divorce and I am trying not to go that route right now. I am trying to maintain a good, working relationship with my wife and her family as we work through these issues. Wife also previously accused me of planning a divorce and threatened to check herself out of the nursing home and take the kids away. I had to calm her down.

We've been waiting four months here in New York State to find out if my wife, who had strokes and had to go into a nursing home, will get Medicaid. With the help of the nursing home, we applied back in March. Every day, I went to the mailbox with great trepidation. At one point, they asked for more documentation and I had to go through a lot to get five years of bank statements from wife's credit union (which does not post all bank statements online for some reason).

Anyway, last week, a form came that said "Notice of Intent to Establish a Liability Toward Chronic Care" at the top. It listed my wife's name, the nursing home name, a case number, a CIN number, and it said she can't have more than $50 a month in income. I am the community spouse and I signed a spousal refusal letter, but I understand that I might have to pay a Medicaid copay. It doesn't list one.

Anyway, at the bottom of the form, someone wrote in handwriting that "After 30 days, you may contact your ongoing worker" and has a name for the person.

Does this mean that my wife was accepted into Medicaid? I think it does. Does she have a Medicaid ID (is that the case number?) that I can give to providers? Is she supposed to be getting a Medicaid card in the mail with a permanent ID on it? Am I not allowed to call and ask for 30 days?

So I'm in a bind. My wife had a stroke (New York State) a few months ago and has ended up in a nursing home where she may be for many more months or even years. I have private insurance through my job with Anthem. Anthem paid for the first few weeks of care, but it has a limit of 100 days of in-patient care. And, even with that, they at first rejected the first two months of claims and only approved after I filed appeals.

The nursing home helped my wife file for Medicaid long term care and, this week, we got a notice that she was approved, going retroactive to February. However, now the nursing home and its subcontractors have continued billing my private insurance, which surprisingly, has been paying most of their claims (despite it being past 100 days), but with thousands of dollars in copays. Now, they are sending my wife bills for the copays for thousands of dollars, even though she is supposed to be covered by Medicaid, which I believe would cover this stuff fully.

UPDATE: The nursing home denies having sent me any bills. Apparently, the bills are all coming from a third party even though they are billing my wife for "subsequent nursing home care." Are third parties invited into the nursing home and allowed to do their own billing for basic nursing home services?

Anyway, all the bills are for copays from my insurance but they are billed to my wife's name. My wife has very few assets in her name, which is why she was able to qualify for Medicaid. All the major stuff - the house deed, my 401K - is in my name only. Am I legally obligated to pay her bills? Can the providers collect from me or just from her? We're not talking about $20 here and there. We're talking about thousands and thousands of dollars in copays that are crippling to my ability to pay our family's regular bills and put food on the table for our kids.

So, we're here in NYS, and my wife had a stroke a few months ago and ended up in a nursing home in rehab. I have private insurance through Anthem and they covered the first few months, but there's no way it's going to cover her ongoing care nor can I afford to pay for her care out of pocket as it's about $20K a month in nursing home fees.

The nursing home suggested we apply for Medicaid and even did the application for us. We waited for months and now, finally, we got a note saying I think we were accepted. It's confusing because the note doesn't say accepted or rejected, it's just a filled out form that says "NOTICE OF INTENT TO ESTABLISH A LIABILITY TOWARD CHRONIC CARE." I shared it with a Medicaid lawyer I know and he said it's an acceptance letter.

Anyway, the nursing home and various contractors it uses have just started (after 4 months) billing my private insurance for services wife received recently. Surprisingly, Anthem is paying most of these claims even though they had only approved her care through April. But the bills have thousands of dollars in copays and wife is now covered by Medicaid. How do we get them to stop billing my insurance? Are they supposed to be billing my insurance for some things and Medicaid for others?

So I'm here in NYS. My wife had a series of strokes and has been in a nursing home since February. The nursing home Medicaid coordinator filed an application for my wife in early March. I signed the spousal refusal letter, because I have some assets (401K + the house) in my name, but wife has almost nothing in her name, a very small bank account and small joint accounts with me and with our son. We cannot afford to spend $20K a month on a nursing home (who can?)

The last week of March, we received a letter in the mail asking for a whole lot of bank statements, a doctor's note, life insurance statement, a lot of things. It took a lot of effort to get wife's bank to give years of statements to me, but they eventually did and the nursing home coordinator transmitted these back to Medicaid at the end of April.

It is now the end of June and, every day I check my mailbox to see if we've gotten something from Medicaid. And every day, no dice.

Yesterday, I reached out to the local county Medicaid office to try to get a status update. They said my wife's application is still in review (that's good, I guess. At least they have it). And they gave the direct name and number of her case worker. Left voicemails for case worker, no calls back. I'm not sure if she has everything she wants, what else we might need to provide, etc.

I could see some problems popping up. First, she asked for five years of statements for one bank account that had only been open for a year so I sent her the one year of statements that exist. Maybe she doesn't realize that it didn't exist before then. In the letter, she asked for receipts for every time wife and I ever spent $2,000 or more in the last five years (something we don't have). Medicaid coordinator at nursing home said "don't send them that. they'll just look through your statements on their own."

Anyway, I'm getting concerned. It has now been four months since we first applied and two months since we sent the follow-up information. We haven't heard back, can't reach the case worker. What happens if they reject wife's application?

We cannot afford the nursing home, not even for a month. My private insurance covered the first three months, but no more. Even if my wife were to check out of the nursing home today, we would owe them at least $60K in bills for months the insurance didn't cover.

And reality is that wife cannot leave the nursing home. She still can't walk, can't take herself to the bathroom, can't dress herself, is in a diaper. She might get better eventually, but right now she spends almost her whole day in bed or sitting (but not moving around) in the wheel chair they put her in. I would be hard pressed to take care of her at home if I had nothing else in the world to do and that's impossible since we have two young kids and I work full-time.

What do I do if I get a rejection letter? What do I do beforehand?

So I've been going though a bit of a family feud with my sister-in-law who disagrees with me over my wife (5 strokes) care in the nursing home. Sister-in-law got my wife to sign over healthcare proxy to her and give her power of attorney, erasing my power of attorney.

Anyway, we are still (after four months) waiting for word from Medicaid about my wife's application [NYS]. If she does not qualify, I will be hit with a $20K a month bill for her care. So I have a big interest in making sure that the application goes through and we file an appeal if we are denied.

Today, I called the nursing home Medicaid coordinator to check on my wife's application and she told me that she's not allowed to talk to me anymore about my wife because someone else has power of attorney now. This is also the head of billing so presumably she's not allowed to talk to me about any bills they might send me. And she's not allowed to talk to me about the Medicaid application, which I provided all the documents for. (What if they need more documents?)

Is this even legal? How can I be on the hook for her bills and not be allowed to discuss her financial arrangements with the nursing home?

So my wife (and her sisters) continue to threaten to send her back from the nursing home ASAP. They want me to have to take care of her at home and they claim that having their mom around is the best thing for the kids. My son, 14, has a different view.

We just had a session with son's therapist and I sat in and therapist asked him how he felt about mom coming home. He said he felt sad seeing her lying around in the couch or lying around in bed all day and it was depressing when she was pooping on the floor, not showering, and making a general mess of the house, which is what she was doing BEFORE she had her five strokes and ended up in the nursing home rehab where she is now. He doesn't want her to come home like this.

Unfortunately, wife's sisters have decided that she has spent enough time in the nursing home and they want her out now. They convinced wife that I am "plotting against her" and have made themselves her healthcare proxies. They are pushing her to come back to the house (her legal right to sign herself out and do so) and take up residence on the first floor in the living room again or right next to the living room in the kids' tiny playroom (effectively in the living room). We don't have a bedroom for her on the first floor.

Wife's sister, without my permission, called my health insurance company and allegedly asked them how many hours a day of nursing care they would provide. She claims they told her 12 hours a day of skilled nursing in perpetuity and that the aides would cook, bathe my wife, and even drive her to doctor's appointments. When I called my health insurance, they just said "we would have to determine with your doctor how many hours per day and for how long?" But wife believes that she will get 12 hours a day of in-home care for free in perpetuity. We are trying to get her onto Medicaid, which I believe, would give her about 3 hours a day.

This situation was bad before she went into the nursing home and it could be as bad or worse if she comes back. My son doesn't want her coming back unless she is better, though he said that if she can sleep upstairs at least he won't have to watch her lie around all day (as he'll be downstairs most of the day). Even now in the nursing home, she mostly lies around all day or just sits there in her wheel chair without rolling anywhere. She just watches the Food Network all day long and does nothing. When she was at home, she had TV on all day long and did nothing, not even rising to bathe herself, take her medicine, or eat meals.

So anyway, to get to the question here. Should my son's feelings be taken into account? In another family, having a disabled family member would be a fact of life and the kids would have to deal with it. I'm not sure if we can take his feelings into account anyway, but I'd like to. My wife, on the other hand, told him that he's saying words I put in his mouth.

I've posted on this and the divorce forum before and folks go and read my post history and say "you've been talking about divorce before. just do it already." I'm sorry to be a pest, but I'm asking for specific advice now.

Things came to a head this week with my wife and she accused me of plotting to divorce her and threatened to make sure I don't get the kids. This is after her family sat her down and told her some things I had said about her and I had posted briefly on Facebook then deleted about the home being in better shape since she left.

I didn't want things to end on a sour note and in a contentious fight and I still feel some love for my wife and a lot of guilt and I asked her if she'd be willing to try couple's therapy again. I also told her that I have been very unhappy for years (she is too) and, if couple's therapy didn't work, that I would file for divorce. She seemed calm about this.

We had couples counseling for literally 12 years of our marriage and the therapist, God bless her, helped us learn how to avoid fighting. But I could never get what I needed from the relationship and neither could she. Finally, we just stopped seeing her after the therapist got old and retired. The problem was the therapist would never help me deal with my wife's bad behavior. She would always say "you just have to accept her for who she is. If you don't like it, what are you going to do about it?"

I don't want to doom the therapy from the outset. Do I look for a regular therapist and give things a time limit in my head or do I look for someone who does discernment therapy? I feel like the latter would be poorly received by my wife.

To take a step back: here's where I stand with my wife. At the moment, but only for a few more weeks most likely, wife is in a nursing home. She had a series of strokes a few months ago and can't take herself to the bathroom or walk. She is of sound mind and can talk though.

Before she went into the nursing home, things were very very bad at home, both for me and for our young kids. For years, she would sleep on the couch 24/7 (for years), not take her meds, not manage her diabetes / HBP / heart condition, not eat regular meals, not shower for months at a time, poop and pee on the floor, and the entire house would stink of her body odor. She also ran up tens of thousands in debt on her secret credit cards. I tried and could not get her to change her ways or to accept help. This situation was devastating for our two kids, 7 and 14. At one point, she ran up $14K in debts playing video games on her phone and then lied and said it must have been our daughter, who was three at the time, who did it. She hasn't worked since we've been married. She still doesn't own up to this.

Now, wife is getting bored of the nursing home. Her sisters are encouraging her to check herself out ASAP (even though she is not in shape) and to come back to the home where I would have to take care of her. She has accused me of "plotting to divorce her" and "colluding with my mom" to keep her in the nursing home. She has threatened to come home ASAP and attempt to take custody of the children from me.

If I file for divorce, she still gets to come home and live in the house with me. Also, we had applied to have her on Medicaid and are still waiting for a decision on that. I've heard Medicaid would find out if I filed and would reject her application, leaving me with a $20K a month nursing home bill. So lawyers advised me to wait for Medicaid if I was going to do it.

So situation is bad. I am considering another therapy process as a last ditch effort to, if nothing else, part on good terms. If we can save the marriage and have actual mutual respect and happiness, that would of course, be preferable.

What kind of therapy do I need?

My wife is in a nursing home right now in rehab after some strokes here in NYS. We applied to get her onto Medicaid back in March and are still waiting to hear back. She has almost no assets in her name and I signed the spousal refusal letter. The nursing home expects her to qualify eventually. We had some back and forth over back statements back in April and are still waiting to see if Medicaid wants more stuff, will approve her, or if we'll have to appeal.

Relationship with wife was not good before she went into the nursing home and it has declined since then. Wife had somewhat caused her own situation, because she was living on the couch for 7 years, not taking any of her meds (for HBP, diabetes, heart disease), not eating regular meals, smoking, becoming extremely obese, and sleeping all the time. She didn't shower, she occasionally would poop and pee on the floor or on her clothes, and the whole house smelled of her body odor. Situation was bad for me and for our two young children.

Once wife went into nursing home, things around the house improved. I considered divorce. Family lawyers I spoke with said to file right away, but Medicaid lawyers I spoke with said that Medicaid would find out if I filed for divorce and would suspend or terminate her application. Is this so? If her application does not go through, I'm personally on the hook for 20K a month in nursing home fees I cannot afford.

My plan was not to even think about divorce until Medicaid came through. But now wife is accusing me of plotting to keep her in the home and is threatening to sign herself out of care, come back to the house, and take the children away. Not clear if and when she could do this, but I wanted to know if what I heard about Medicaid finding out about divorce filings and rejecting an app based on this was true.

So, if you've been following my story, you know why wife is currently in nursing home rehab after some strokes. She is mentally competent but she can't walk herself to the bathroom or take care of herself. The situation when she was living at home was bad for years: she laid on the couch 24/7, didn't shower, didn't take her meds, didn't eat regular mails (but had candy and sodas), crapped on the floor, and didn't regularly attend doctor's appointments. She also ran up tens of thousands in secret credit card bills.

Since she has been in nursing care, the situation with our two kids at home has been better. The house is no longer a smelly mess. They can have friends over. My mom helps with their care. I am in no hurry for wife to come home and divorce is an option on the table. However, the worst thing that could happen is that she comes back to the house (her right to do) and then I have to coordinate her care while going through a contentious divorce.

Wife's sisters have been whispering in her ear that I want her to stay in the nursing home (true) and that I'm against her. This weekend they and one of her friends came to her and convinced her I'm "plotting a divorce" and that she should check herself out of the nursing home ASAP, come home, and take the kids away. She messaged me that I was out to get her and she would get me back by rushing back to the house ASAP and making sure I didn't get custody of the kids.

I was scared. I don't know if I want to continue this relationship but this isn't how I wanted it to end and to have her back at the house, unable to care for herself, me having to care for her, and going through a contentious divorce. And her threatening to fight me for custody of the kids. Also, her Medicaid application is still up in the air and someone here suggested that, if we're going through divorce, Medicaid would find out and reject her application. Then I'd be holding the bag on $20K a month in medical bills.

So I went to the nursing home and tried to talk my wife down. I told her that it's no lie: I am frustrated with her and considered divorce, but I would be willing to try a new round of marriage counseling to see if we could get over this. I also told her that our son, 14, has nightmares about her coming home like this. She later called my son and when he told her this is how he is feeling, she said "you sound like your father talking."

Anyway, was I wrong to try to smooth it over with her? Is there even a chance of couples therapy working? We had couples therapy before for 10 years and all we got out of it was the ability to let anger fester. I used to complain to the therapist about my wife's spending or angry behavior and she'd say "you can't change her so what are you going to do about it?"

In addition to all my other problems with my wife who suffered some strokes, she continues to spend money from her nursing home bed and run up debts. This was much worse when she was in the home and had full access to a computer and her five credit cards. I worry that, if she does come home, she will continue running up secret debts. How do you stop semi-competent people from spending money?

Even before her strokes, my wife had secret spending habits. She never worked but she refused to let me know what credit cards she had or how much spent on them. This came up once in marriage counseling and she said she won't tell me how much she spends or let me see her card statements because "you would be mad." However, whenever I asked her if she was paying her bills in full, she would say "yes." She would also say that each of her cards only had a $500 limit (not true).

A few years ago, wife ran up $14,000 in credit card debt on my personal credit card because it was tied to her Google account and she spent that much on in-game purchases for some phone game. When I discovered the spending, wife claimed it was a surprise to her and said our daughter, who was then 3 years old, must have run up the charges. These were literally hundreds of charges over a period of months (I used to trust wife to pay the credit card bills for me, no longer).

I appealed the charges with my credit card company and told them that these were accidental purchases. But wife was embarrassed and said "these are our responsibility. we should pay them." We lost the appeals and I had to pay. I do not for a second believe that our three year old did this; wife never even let her touch the phone and she doesn't play online games. Plus wife was watching the credit card statements while this happened and didn't catch it (I caught it). Even today, wife maintains that our daughter must have done it. Does not admit to doing this.

Fast forward to this year. Wife is in the nursing home and I start opening her mail. It turns out the one card where she gets paper statements has a $12,000 balance. I get her phone from her and start logging into her other accounts. I discover five credit cards with about $30,000 in debts. Unclear what she bought, but clear that she was either not paying or paying bare minimums every month for years. This is all before her strokes.

Now that she's in the nursing home rehab, I have tried to stop her from spending any more money. I logged into all the accounts where she had subscriptions and cancelled the subscriptions. Though she has been unhelpful elsewhere, my sister-in-law has tried contacting the credit card companies to see if they can suspend the cards. No luck.

Meanwhile, wife is periodically finding ways to spend money from her bed and doing so in ways that show she is not all there (yet she is considered mentally competent). A few weeks ago, she ordered McDonald's delivery but didn't have the presence of mind to change the address so it came to our house instead of the nursing home (where she's not allowed to have it). I called her up and said "don't do that again or I'm taking your phone away." Two hours later, another McDonald's delivery arrives with slightly different food in it, still sent to the house. I call her up and she denies having placed the second order. Only a few weeks later did she admit to having placed the second order and lied about it. She said she kept screwing up the address and having it sent to the house. I could not take away her phone because her sister insisted that it's her "lifeline" and she can't be without it.

Last week, a $240 Instacart order comes to the house unexpectedly. She used to order Instacart when she was in the house, because she was too lazy to go out and shop for groceries (now I go in person or my mom does). I call up wife at nursing home and she denies having placed an order up and down. I call Instacart and the order was placed from my wife's account and it even has food that we might have ordered months ago (it looks like a repeat order of something we ordered before). Wife continues to deny placing the order even now. There's no benefit to her in having placed it (she doesn't get the food), but somehow, either through craziness or random button tapping, she spent $240.

The next day an order of bras comes to the house. Unclear why she would order bras as she doesn't wear one in the nursing home. When confronted, she claims she ordered these bras four months ago and they just arrived now (hard to believe).

These stories don't even include the time when she emptied out our joint bank account from the nursing home bed by, for some reason, paying one of the credit cards she never pays. Fortunately, most of money is now in my private bank account. When confronted about this, she lied and denied she had done it for several weeks then said she must have "hit the wrong button" in the credit card app.

Anyway, her sister and I are trying to keep wife from spending money while she is in the nursing home. But, with her smartphone in hand, she still seems to be able to order things. We try to uninstall apps and remove saved card numbers but it still happens.

Now, I try to imagine what would happen if wife got released from the nursing home, came back to the house where her wallet is with all the cards and she has a laptop she could use too. She spends money and is dishonest about spending it and, quite possibly, is spending in crazy ways and either blatantly lying about it or literally does not know what it is that she is doing.

Is there a way to get a person declared ineligible for credit cards for their own good? It seems like, if she's determined to spend money and run up secret debts, it's nearly impossible to stop her.