MIL and her priorities!

Your dh is old fashioned when it suits. He's remarried and had children with multiple partners himself.

If you knew about the dementia for 18 months then it's pretty certain she had been living with it for at least as long again so she has had years of loneliness that you never saw. I can't begin to describe how very unpleasant that is. To see your life partner slowly disappear and have no one to talk to because it's just tiny things, nothing to speak of really, dismissed by family as mum having a moan. Of course he's a bit forgetful, he's a big age, just take no notice. The big sighs if you try to talk about it, the embarrassment of being thought a moaner. She's probably been lonely for a very, very long time. Be glad for her that it's over now and that she has a companion who makes her happy. I promise you that she's earned it

Personally I think it is rather lovely that 2 middle aged people who have gone through a really tough time with both their partners having dementia have found support and comfort in each other. She is only 60. It's no age at all. How lovely they will be able to rely on each other after having such a rough time.

Your DH may be lovely and may be hurt/angry/distressed that his mother has seemingly moved on quickly but I suspect she has felt lonely for a good while and his dad had not been the man she had fallen in love with for a while. To your DH, it seems she moved on quickly but in reality she lost him ages back.

If your DH persists with his stance he may well lose his mum as well as his dad. You even say the dad was older than the mum so they may have been in a companion type relationship for longer than your DH realises.

The baby thing - I think this may be your own projection that you perceive she isn't treating your baby the same way she did your step kids/DH's older kids. A 6 week old baby won't even know she visits from one moment to the next. I think you need to park this as an issue.

Being around babies and toddlers is hard work. You have to put a lot of effort in. MIL is older than she was with the other GC, has spent months nursing FIL, and is grieving. Maybe she just doesn't have the energy to cope.
You could try suggesting very short interactions where it's clear she won't ibe expected to have a lot of involvement. Maybe a walk whilst DD naps in the pram?
Or maybe being around family is just too painful because that's her old life, which has gone and she's escaping into another world with her BF.
It's probably a combination of all the things on this thread.

I think this is how DH needs to approach it.

OP, my DF was seeing my now DSM probably around a year after DM died. It might have been earlier, but it certainly wasn’t when DM was in the final stages of life. I would have found that very hard.

Your DH needs, however, to recognise that his DM has had a very tough time, and he needs to not focus on her behaviour. It hasn’t been great, admittedly, because it was adulterous, let’s be clear about that. And it might well have been/be very ill-advised if these blokes are not pleasant and not well intentioned either.

DH needs to try to open up communication with DM as advised above - nice and easy, nothing about being granny, but focused on how she’s doing and how much he loves her.

Cut the woman some slack- you have no idea what her relationship with FIL was like and the toll his illness took on her. Let her live her life as she wants. And, she's already done the 'gran' thing with the older two, she clearly wants some time just to be her. Back off. (I am not MIL btw).

OP, you might also reflect on the way many posters are responding to you as telling you something about the way you are expressing yourself. Sometimes, when we ask for advice, we hear things we don't want to hear, or we hear things we resent or which irritate or anger us. I have found that, difficult as this is, reflecting on my responses to advice that I don't like, or which makes me feel uncomfortable, or which feels unjust, is more useful than hearing the advice I want to hear.

What is it about PPs responses on this thread that keeps winding you up? Why does it feels as though many of us have got the wrong end of the stick?

It might be useful to reflect on this.

I worked in a hospice. Romances which started in our café were not unusual. Spouses clinging together in grief to start with.

The person they loved is long gone in spirit just the body clinging on.

We could only provide respite until the end otherwise the partner had to adjust at home alone much of the time which is hard.

We provided counselling, but there's only so much anyone outside this grieving for someone not departed can do.

Your MIL will seem a little selfish just now. Encourage your partner to cut her some slack. Counselling for him isn't a bad idea.

I'm sure there are books on this, have a look on Amazon.

*entirely different situation, his was a loveless, manipulative and abusive relationship that he was encouraged to endure for the sake of his children. But that’s a different story altogether so you shouldn’t compare.
Supposedly? She said it 🤦🏻‍♀️
*
How do you know if MILs life was anything different?

Possibly she doesn’t feel like she has a lot of time left in her to let it pass by? A loved one with dementia is such a difficult experience, in many ways you’ve mourned for them and said goodbye many times as all the things that made them who they are slip away. I know you’re DH is finding it hard but perhaps if he considered that for his Mum the man she loved and married had slipped away from her long before his actual death.

She then starts seeing someone else, DH hits the roof. MIL ‘puts family first’

Your DH is completely unreasonable. His mother doesn’t need to out her life on hold because he decides to have a baby. What on earth!

Poor woman

But it's not entirely different. Your DH at one point loved another woman enough to have multiple children with her. You have no actual idea what was going on in your MIL marriage only what she chose to present to you. If you genuinely believe she should be held to the statement that she made that your FIL was the only person she would ever have a relationship with then you've made your choice - cut her out of your lives and move on. What do you actually want her to do?

I think we all think we would know how we would react in any given situation but the fact is we have literally no idea.

I am sure your FIL was and is still the love of her life. We only have a limited time
on earth and quite frankly I admire that she is grasping her future with 2 hands and going for it. Some people take years to move on, some people weeks (having done the grieving before their partner died). I absolutely don’t judge anyone for how they react in this particular circumstance. It is an emotional rollercoaster and your MIL is doing the best she can. Honestly I know of circumstances where when the partner died the parent became like an another child to her children. Consider yourselves lucky your MIL is independent and you don’t have to worry about them. Things will eventually settle down and I am sure she will be a round more.

There is a double standard at play here. Your DH has children from a previous marriage but has been allowed to move on from that and has embarked on a new loving and supportive relationship with you. His mum, OTOH, despite losing her husband first to the living death that is dementia and then to end of life is expected to stay in her lane, stay single and devote herself to her family.

You explained her first relationship as a 'breakdown'. That's patronising, perhaps it wasn't a breakdown at all. Perhaps it was an entirely rational attempt to find love, support and an exclusive emotional connection at a very difficult and lonely time in her life.

So he is in effect being abusive and manipulative himself now by shutting his mother out.

Again you're judging her for that. I didn't pick up the ashes of my much-loved aunt for 18 months as I couldn't bear the thought of it - either because I didn't want to face the idea of her being really gone or because I couldn't get my head around organising the scattering of them. I was just too sad.

But I might have said I hadn't bothered to pick them up because I wouldn't want to explain all that to someone else.

At 60 she might have thought she may never meet anyone else and she took someone who came along. It's hard to think you'll be on your own for the rest of your life, especially after just going through the ordeal of caring for someone and then losing them. It's incredibly hard. And your DH is rejecting her as well if he's going round hitting the roof.

Parents at some point in their lives have to put themselves first. Your DH is incredibly lucky to be able to wait until he is the age he is for his mum to put her feelings above his.

I can understand the behaviour of both your mother-in-law and your husband. When you really unpick people’s behaviours, they do make sense at some level. They are both worthy of sympathy.

I would not make any hasty judgements or try to make big changes now. Could you/dh send regular photos and updates of your baby to your mother-in-law? So you are still connected even though you aren’t meeting up? And things may develop organically.

Nobody should cut anybody off at this difficult time.

Everyone is grieving.

Dementia sufferers are often violent and abusive to their partners or carers. Many are in residential care homes for that reason as they can't safely be cared for in their own home anymore. Even if you didn't see it, doesn't mean your FIL didn't have his episodes too.

It has nothing to do with you!!!

She doesn’t have to justify her actions. You don’t need to find her reasons good enough.

Your husband is insanely controlling not to mention a total hypocrite now he’s on his second baby mama but his own mother isn’t allowed to date now her marriage is basically non existent.

This - you neglected to mention until the end her affair partner’s wife was also in the care home. Of course far from ideal but his mother would have started grieving for his dad a long time ago.