My sister’s husband has made her ill

Absolutely.

She also works in his business. She will be no doubt codependent on him or completely enmeshed at best.
They have kids, work and live together her world is probably quite small when you think about it.

She has a great family of support but doesn’t have as much of her own life that a job outside of his would have given her. So she has lost not just the relationship, insecurity with work and also what she thought was her best friend and also a second parent to their children. With the grief and unknowing by how he abandoned them all.

She can’t just wash her hair go to work and feel she can get away from it all. The home is a constant reminder and her world will feel like it’s falling down on top of her.

She needs to take small steps and have all the support she can get. Take away the only support she has now and I’d honestly worry for her. With the support the family are providing she has a good chance to move forward but it won’t be in a matter of weeks it will take months and quite frankly years if you listen to people who have been through similar. She has to work through acceptance, grief then rebuild most aspects of her life on top.

It’s easy to judge from the outside.

@Bangwam1
I've not blamed at all, I've said those children need their mum, 6 weeks of lying in bed helps nobody. OP is right in trying to encourage her to do things.

@Rosscameasdoody
Not misogyny, Id say the same if it was a man taking to his bed for 6 weeks crying and absolving himself of being a parent.
She has 3 young children who need a parent, if OP wasn't around what do you think would have happened to the kids by now?

If she didn’t have family she would have done what women like my mother do, got on with it to the detriment of her mental health and the emotional well-being of her children until dis-ease shows up in her body. She would have coped as women do.

Thankfully she does have family.

Your whole post is directed at blaming this on the victim, and it’s 🤮

To the people saying she needs to get herself together, maybe this was the wake up call she needed to break out of illusion. Maybe this is her calling to learn that strength? Maybe she has been codependent

Kicking a woman whilst she’s down is nasty work

It honestly sounds like a breakdown, complete disassociation from what’s happened. To this lady, it is a death of her whole life. Give her a break.

You calm down and try to be nice.

Your posts are incredibly ignorant and embarrassing for 2024.
It is attitudes like yours that extend trauma.
Educate yourself.

What is it that you're missing?

Yes the kids deserve a functioning parent, but it's not about what they 'deserve' in this case, it's about what they have, and they currently have a mother who is severely ill and cannot see to their welfare. That is not her fault. That is their father's fault.

Again besides misogyny this is about the minimising of Mental Health verses physical illness and injury.

So if this mother had a serious illness which required a lengthy hospital stay or just a complete physical inability to do much, you wouldn't be blaming her. And if she had no support in that situation and the children had to temporarily go into care you wouldn't be blaming her for that either. But a mental breakdown or crisis you believe can just be snapped out of.

Also as someone who was a Single Parent at various points in my life, I am sick of hearing about how 'strong' and 'independent' women who are often abandoned, blamed, and left to fend for themselves are. It's 'toxic independence' on the part of society, that's my name for it. It both expects women to be all and everything, to have no personal limitations, then on the other hand blames her when she can't cope with it all.

When I read those grim stories that occasionally appear of some woman (often a single mum) who leaves her kid(s) neglected alone in a flat, while they go partying or go on holiday abroad or something, I always wonder why??? I think part of the reason in some cases is because they were not coping with motherhood, but they were too ashamed to say it, or too proud to admit it because society is so extra judgemental of women who can't manage with their children or who don't want to be the main carer of their children. And so they put on a pretence and an illusion of coping. Society doesn't care however, when it locks those same mothers away who are obviously mentally ill, but castigates them at the same time for revealing when they aren't coping. Even if the father was nowhere to be seen.

It's a cruel misogynistic society. Women always suffer for the actions of men, leaving the men winning ultimately.

kkloo
Calm down. It's people like you that extend trauma, just take a balanced view & try to be nice.

Every time I come on mumsnet I’m reminded of why women are opting out of marriage.

She is in shock right now, it will take a while but she’ll come back. She’ll come back stronger too, because there’s no way a husband who would do this has been a decent person to live with for quite some time.

Your poor Ds. She won't feel like doing anything like cinema...but certainly she is appreciating your love and help and support. Keep on trucking on as much as possible. Only knowing and dealing with the truth can eventually help. It may get worse before it gets better. Stay strong. Get legal advise? Protect the money asap... move it to personal account?

I wonder if CBT might help?

This is awful for her, but I suggest best not to catastrophise

Would be unsettling for children to change school, but school may have bursaries to help until end of term / year

If she has savings, this gives some breathing space. If not, she may qualify for benefits

Lifestyle will change, but she'll be OK in the end

Your sister needs to get a grip and be a mother to her children

This is such a dire situation - and as usual most people are being supportive with solutions to try and help. But a few aren't. Please don't let's start arguing amongst ourselves about this - let's keep the thread positive for the sake of the Opening Poster and her sister.

Thankfully she has a very loving and supportive family around her - it's not the time for 'tough love' and they're all trying to protect her and help her and her children through this hideous trauma.

Said it before and I'll say it again.
People don't take womens mental health seriously at all.
She's clearly having a breakdown and yet people are saying she needs to snap out of it and make her kids dinner.

Unbelievable ignorance and misogyny as people have said before.

If a man had a breakdown of this level then everyone would say it wasn't safe for him to look after the children alone, and mens suicide this, mens suicide that.

So unbelievably ignorant.

Also even though women can go through intense life or death situations to survive with their kids in other parts of the words and cope, once they get free from the life or death situations and seek asylum elsewhere then that's when the trauma can hit them and make it a lot more difficult to cope.

You really don't have a clue at all.

sad to come back to this thread and see more of these cruel responses - disgusting. Shocked that people lack basic empathy.

Exactly, what does mil have to say, she seems a point of contact, does she not say anything regarding her grand children

Well maybe the welfare of the children is more important than whether it’s “misogyny” to consider that their mother needs to start looking after them.

More misogyny. The fact that one of the children is crying for her dad is probably because she misses him and realises something is amiss. But hey, let’s blame mum’s scary behaviour instead.

@Lighttodark
If the sister didn't have family, what would have happened to those 3 children? grieving and lying in bed for 6 wks is not a luxury many can afford. She really needs to get help and start stepping up for her kids and herself.
The fact one child is screaming for her dad is worrying, they must be witnessing a lot of scary behaviour from mum.

I don’t agree that it’s misogyny to expect women to put first the children they chose to have, in this situation.

I think your whole post is misogynistic to be fair. It offers no support to OP and just piles more pressure onto an already fragile woman who is dealing with something akin to bereavement. Maybe some women don’t have the ‘luxury’ of falling apart, but that doesn’t mean it’s right.

That information was disclosed after my comment.

She is utterly broken and needs compassion and support to move forward.
Things you can do to help
Help her make a list of people to contact.
Help her draft emails to start the conversations
If she can currently do one thing a day, how do you help her make the most of that one thing?
What support does she need to manage 2 things twice a week?
Support with showering and getting into clean clothes.
Encourage more time out of bed.
Speak to the Dr again
The only person that can get your sister out of this situation is your sister. She needs to find her fight, her grit and determination. In the meantime absolutely hold her hand, keep things ticking over as best you can do that when she does start to come out of this she doesn't return to a bigger shit show.

In depressive episodes that have rendered me non functioning I have had help from support workers and occupational health. It has all been about finding ways to do more next week than you did this week. Finding the balance so that what you do doesn't put you in bed as a consequence. It's a marathon and it takes time. The priority for me now would be sorting out her finances there's nothing worse for mental health than money worries.

Nope it’s more of a society making excuses for them kind of thing.

They absorb messages like ‘boys will be boys / oh it’s just men you know what they’re like’ etc and see it as a free pass for bad behaviour.

If society put more pressure on men to be responsible partners/fathers then maybe they would feel the same shame that women do at the mere thought of being mum/wife shamed.

Instead society prefers to shame women for every negative thing a man does and that’s patriarchy/misogyny at play. Sadly some women eat a bowl of misogyny for breakfast too, and can’t see they’ve been brainwashed by society/family.

You see it on here all the time from boy mums, trad wives, stoic types that model themselves on the men they grew up with and everything in between, I’d say it doesn’t always end well for those types of women they usually get a rude awakening somewhere down the line.

But yes not so much biological but societal me thinks.

Choochoo21

Why do you keep referring to "the child" when it's three small children?