A bit long....sorry
Dh is one of six. We live outside his home country. His df died a long time ago and his dm lives alone. She's not in great health: diabetes and some other chronic conditions, one of which causes fatigue. His brothers and sister, while still in the country, all work and have busy lives so she's alone a lot and quite lonely., watches tv all day and hardly moves from the sofa.
She's also a hoarder and together with the fatigue and depression, her apartment is a tip. The other thing is that she gives away most of her pension to support some of my bils. She leaves herself the minimum to live on, eats bread and cheese and oatmeal and doesn't heat her flat. Her clothes are all from the 80s, she spends nothing on herself!
That's the background
So she comes to visit us, originally to stay for 6 weeks. We love showing her a good time, take her to museums, shows, concerts which she loves. During the day, our toddler is home with a nanny so she plays with her (but can rest when tired), she loves to potter around tidying etc and some tv and reading. Our house is warm and there's plenty of healthy food. We also have 2 school aged kids who are home by 3 and who adore her. So she's very happy here. She extended her stay once and now wants to extend again so she'd have stayed 4.5 months altogether.
So that's when it all kicked off with dh's family. His nephew went on about how it's not fair and he misses his grandma ()despite seeing her maybe twice in the last year). one bil went off on a tangent about how unfair it is to his ds (14) who is going through a crisis and what an awful uncaring grandmother she is (it is very sad because his wife died 7 years ago but mil can't be a 2nd mother at her age and in her state of health). And another bil who has 2 small children said we're selfish and just thinking of our family and that they need her too. When dh pointed out that it's mil's decision to stay, he accused us of putting undue pressure on her and effectively making the decision for her (not true beyond telling her she's welcome to stay and that we'd be delighted if she did). He's 36 and tells us that he wants his mother! I found it a bit pathetic. And no one seemed bothered about mil's happiness, just what she can do for them
Is it u for mil to put herself first and stay? Surely at 72 she's earned the right to? Or should we encourage her to go home back to the lonely apartment and depression because dh's grown brothers can't cope without her? She will go if we encourage her to. The whole thing has made me so down, we really had the best of intentions and it's caused a huge family fight.
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AIBU?
to think grown men should cope without their mum for a few months...
25 replies
oohjustgrowupalready · 17/03/2016 00:33
OP posts:
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