Looks like my mother may not live very much longer, or so they tell me.

I haven't had any real contact with her or my dad for quite a while now. It's too much of a threat to my wife, who calls them both "shits" daily, in her ongoing attempt to make sure that I rely on nothing other than her. Luckily it doesn't work. :-)

It has had the effect of cutting off actual contact, however. I look at it as the only way I can shield them from her, as long as I'm still with her. I miss them, for all their imperfections, but I figure that's (part of) the price I pay for staying with her. I guess I never asked them which they preferred, however. Maybe because if they preferred to keep contact, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to handle that situation, so I took that option off the table.

Now I have to figure out if, and how, to go to see her. Obviously, my brother and his wife and my father are all angry at me, and god knows how my own wife would react.

Sounds like a recipe for guilt, whatever I do.