When Caregiving Costs More Than You Realized
Diana sat across from me, weary and honest: “I put everything on hold to care for my mom, but in the process, I left my own kids by the roadside.”
Have you ever felt that same ache? You pour yourself out for your parent, spouse, or loved one, only to notice your marriage feels distant, your kids are pulling away, or friendships have quietly faded.
This is the hidden cost of caregiving. Without stewardship, something precious slips through your fingers — often the very people you never intended to neglect.
So what do you do when caregiving has stretched your heart so thin that other relationships begin to fray?
The Hidden Costs of Caregiving
Diana’s story is one many caregivers know well:
- She poured herself into helping her mom after her stepfather’s death.
- Her adult children felt left behind.
- Her mom, now in an independent living facility with dementia, still leaned heavily on her for emotional support.
Diana found herself torn: caring for her mom while grieving the distance from her kids.
Maybe you’ve felt this same tension — the quiet guilt that you’re failing someone, no matter how much you give.
1. Recognize the Season You Are In
Caregiving is not a sprint. It is, as I often remind caregivers, a marathon. Your loved one’s dementia will continue to progress, and the demands will shift over time.
Ask yourself:
- Is my loved one still safe in their current living situation?
- Do I need to explore assisted living or additional supervision?
- Am I clear on what role is mine to carry right now?
This is where the DigniCare Decision Tool™ helps. It grounds you in one truth: “God is not a God of confusion” (1 Corinthians 14:33). If everything feels like chaos, pause and clarify — what is truly mine to steward, and what needs to be delegated?
2. Begin with the End in Mind
In the DigniCare Method™, the Clarify Phase asks you to picture the future.
Imagine it’s six months from today. What would peace look like in your caregiving journey?
- Would your children feel seen and reconnected with you?
- Would your marriage feel less like survival and more like partnership?
- Would you have boundaries in place with your loved one?
Write down the vision. Then take one small, faithful step toward it this week.
3. Rebuild Bridges with Truth and Grace
Diana’s next step was simple but profound: she needed to talk with her adult children. Not with excuses, but with honesty.
If you’ve unintentionally left your spouse or children feeling abandoned, start here:
- Acknowledge the gap. “I realize I pulled away these past months.”
- Ask for forgiveness. “It wasn’t intentional, but I see how it hurt you.”
- Recommit. “I want to rebuild and be more present going forward.”
This is what I call Therapeutic Truth-Telling™ — speaking truth with compassion, never hiding behind lies or avoidance.
4. Set Boundaries Without Guilt
Healthy boundaries aren’t selfish. They are stewardship.
Jesus Himself stepped away from the crowds to pray and rest (Mark 1:35). You cannot keep pouring out if you never refill.
- Decide what you can reasonably do each week for your loved one.
- Communicate that clearly and kindly.
- Involve siblings, facility staff, or church members in the care plan.
Boundaries protect both your loved one’s dignity and your family’s well-being.
5. Anchor Your Care in God’s Order
The world tells you caregiving has to be chaos. Scripture tells a different story: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).
Caregiving, like the rest of life, can be walked with order, dignity, and truth when you allow God’s Word to shape your decisions.
A Gentle Challenge for You
If you’ve noticed caregiving is costing more than you intended, don’t stay stuck in guilt. Stewardship means acting today.
- Clarify what season you are in.
- Envision the peace you want six months from now.
- Take one step this week to rebuild a neglected relationship.
These aren’t abstract ideas — they’re doable shifts that restore order where chaos has crept in.
Take the Next Step
Friend, you don’t have to carry this alone. The caregivers who thrive are the ones who seek support before they hit the breaking point.
That’s why I invite you to join our monthly free workshop: How To Immediately Reduce Dementia Caregiver Overwhelm and Stress In 3 Easy Steps.
Come, learn practical tools, ask your questions, and take the next faithful step toward clarity and peace in your caregiving journey.
Because dementia caregiving is not the end of your story. With dignity, truth, and God’s order, you can walk this season well.
Transcript
Caregiving Costs and Hidden Tensions
but in the process, I left my own kids by the roadside. Maybe you have felt that tension. You pour everything into your loved one’s care, only to realize your own marriage, your own children, or even your friendships have quietly suffered. Without stewardship, caregiving costs something. And too often, it’s the people we never intended to neglect. So how do you recognize the cost of waiting and start stewarding what matters most? Hey, Christian Care Companion, welcome to Dementia Caregiver’s Support for Christians, the podcast where I help Bible-believing Christians navigate dementia caregiving with clarity.
Wisdom, and faith that keeps all of life in view, particularly eternity. If you are a caregiver who feels torn between your parent and your children, or you’ve noticed distance creeping into your marriage or your friendships, this episode is for you because today we’re going to talk about the hidden costs of caregiving and how to address them with both truth and grace. But before we begin, I want to invite you into our new Christian caregiver community. For less than a one-time $100 investment, you get lifetime access. That includes a monthly Ask Me Anything call, a regular monthly prayer meeting where we carry one another’s burdens before the Lord, a curated content library where you can find exactly what you need, and the chance to ask me questions in between.
So you are never left guessing. This is stewardship in action. It is a practical faith-based support community, a community of Christians looking for steady encouragement for the season that you are in. And here’s the thing. I’m looking for 100 Christian caregivers to join before the end of the year. If you are among the first 100, you will receive as a bonus a personal 15-minute welcome walkthrough with me. After that, the doors will be open, but the walkthrough bonus will close. The link is in the show notes below. And if you’re not quite ready for that, you can still join our free monthly workshop on Saturday, September the 6th at noon. This is a live workshop where I teach, answer your questions, and help you take the next faithful step in your caregiving journey. You can sign up at thinkdifferentdementia.com forward slash WSL.
Building a Supportive Community
Either way, don’t continue to carry this on your own. So now let’s hop into episode 282, which is a dementia caregiver support in action episode with Diana.
Where we are going to discuss how caregiving impacts your other relationships and what you can do if you have noticed this is where you are. So let’s hop into today’s episode. Diana, let’s say it’s six months from today and things are easier in your caregiving journey. What would that look like for you? I would say that I’m learning to navigate the emotional ups and downs of working with someone who happens to be my mom. That emotional ups and downs from like, she’ll get angry at me for things and I don’t see them coming and I’m not always sure how to process it. Okay. All righty. And so I’ve been doing that for a year and a half, put everything on hold, dealing with all that. And now that my stepdad passed, I need to start setting up some realistic boundaries.
I don’t know, her expectations for myself and in her care and that role. Okay, that is wonderful insight. And what would you say is getting in your way of achieving that? I would say just knowing where to start. Okay. When you say knowing where to start, is that knowing where to start setting the boundaries? Is that knowing where to start about learning how to navigate the emotions, learning how to communicate better with your mom? Which do you think? I think there’s, well, the communication’s big with my mom and then I have three children, adult children. And so I’ve really kind of left them, feels like at the roadside.
And kind of like what you were talking to the gentleman about, like you don’t want to find yourself in that place. And I just realized that that’s what I did for the last year and a half. So communication with my kids to say, I never said, I’m stepping out from my role as mom to take care of my mom. And I think I left them kind of bewildered of what happened in those relationships. But now that I’m stepping back, I think my mom’s feeling bewildered that I’m not as involved as I was. So I hope I answered your question. Yes, you did. Very, very much. I’m going to ask just a few clarification questions. Your mom lives with you or on her own still? She’s in an independent living facility. Okay, how old is your mom? She’s 82.
Now, the independent living facility, does that have an assisted living and is it a continuing care retirement community or is it just a CCRC? Does your mom have the assets to provide the continuing care should she require it? Yes. Okay, good. And it sounds like your father, your stepfather recently passed away and you kind of are stepping back. The stepping back part is that because she just, just after he passed away, went into the independent living or the stepping back is because of other reasons? Because he was ill and then in a nursing home, I would take to go see him. And so I was one of the people that helped maintain their connection. But now that he’s passed and then, so we, there was a month, I think, when he was sick and then through the funeral and then after that, we were continually with my mom. I understand. And then she got overwhelmed, I think, with so many people in her life that she asked me to step back. Okay. Do you have siblings? I have one sibling, yes. Okay. And last question, how long since your stepfather passed? It’ll be two months, the 1st of July. I’m very sorry for your loss. I know that’s very, very recent still.
Before your stepdad passed away and before all this last little sprint, how involved were you with your mom, first of all? And second of all, does she have a diagnosis of dementia? Mm-hmm. So for the last year and a half, I would come every, tried to come every other week because I noticed them struggling, but wasn’t sure what was happening. And that’s when we started to go to doctor’s appointments. She got a, I think it was dementia started out as kind of a mild when they first started to talk about it, I think they call it. Maybe moderate now. Okay. All righty. But she is in a place where she can have care. She, the goal is to make sure she was safe. Well, she is safe. And she is safe. Right. But the emotional part is where I was noticing the gaps. Okay. Are you talking about your emotions or her emotions? I get emotional when I would realize that she wasn’t able to be as independent is. Okay. Or she’d struggle with little things like the TV or her CPAP or, you know, everyday things. So what I hear you saying in essence is you’re struggling with the changes that you’re seeing in your mom.
Navigating Relationships and Boundaries
Okay. All right. So might I make a couple of suggestions for you, Diana? Sure. Okay. I think that healthy boundaries is a good thing related to your mom.
And I also recognize that if she does have a diagnosis of dementia, that she is going to continue to need more and more assistance over time. So the question right now today in front of you is, based on where she is, and this is a rhetorical question, is she still appropriate without your stepfather’s daily sort of guidance? Because he likely was her thinking. Is your mom still appropriate for independent living or is your mom now more appropriate for assisted living level of care? A down and dirty way to know whether or not somebody is still suitable for an assisted living level of care is whether or not they can scan their environment if something is in a drawer and they cannot see it to find for themselves. For example, if I know my cell phone is in the drawer, will I open the drawer to look for my cell phone and take it out? If your mom is not able to scan her environment and locate things that are out of sight, she needs a lot closer supervision, right? So your mom may be borderline not suitable for independent living and may need closer supervision.
How do you determine it? You need to consider sitting down with the CCRC, talking to them there, really digging into whether or not she is still safe in an independent living situation.
And if she is, start to monitor that and conversations with them about what are the criteria of when she might need to move to the next level of care.
Rebuilding Connections with Loved Ones
Then the second piece of homework is rebuilding and reestablishing some bridges with your kids. And, you know, just asking for forgiveness if they’re believers and you’re a believer saying it was not intended, but you didn’t recognize at the time it was happening that these changes were starting to happen and that you want to be a part of their life. And that caregiving as the adult daughter is a lot of responsibility, but that’s not to say that you don’t want to put structure in place to reestablish those connections. Okay? And then just, you know, ask them for forgiveness and slowly, you know, start to reestablish those connections. Anticipate it’s going to take some time. And then we can continue to work through some of the other stuff with your mom. Okay? Okay. What’s one thing that you can take from our conversation today that you can take action on next week? I can work on it. I guess, really think about and ask the Lord, what do those conversations sound like? Okay.
You know, give me the right words. Absolutely. You know, I pray every—it’s somewhere, and I’m tired, so my brain is not working as well, but let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer, right? And if your kids are believers, just tell them, you know, it was not intentional, but it was just you were not aware how much it had taken from you. And because of that, you weren’t necessarily putting structures in place to ensure that those other relationships did not fall by the wayside. Okay. These are things that we can fix. Okay. All right. I really appreciate you coming. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you.
Joining the Caregiver Community
People who are really benefiting from the community are the people who joined earlier on, before they need it, and that have been active and are participating in the community because then they already know what questions to ask and they have a place to come and they’re not constantly wondering, what do I need to do? How do I need to do it? So people listening are interested in tapping into or learning about the community. I’d invite you to just go to the website, thinkdifferentdementia.com. There’s a link for you to schedule a 20-minute call. There’s no pressure. I’ll serve you regardless of whether you join the community or not. But it is a way for you to take this relationship a little deeper, a little bit more hands-on support because really the research also shows its longitudinal support over time. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. I would highly recommend Lizette She’s awesome I appreciate that endorsement.
