MIL on holiday with us at the moment but all she has done is mope

Giief effects everyone different and sometimes takes a long time to come to terms with it if you ever do. Maybe she thought she would be ok change screeny etc but struggling with memories or having a good time feeling gurity even. To me holidays are fkr everyone to do what they want. Maybe she wants to relax and remember him.

Talk to her see if anything wrong

Yes, terribly unfeeling, unsympathetic & uncompassionate through & through 🙏

Yes Completely Concur With You Sincere Soul
Showing compassion means & requires feeling others pain & to suffer with someone 💚🌼💚

Wise, wonderful words of compassionate empathy
💚🌼💚

Yes & obviously she didn't intend to spoil it for anyone
Grief is such a strange thing, which oftentimes comes in waves
Being's it's most likely to be her 1st hol without her darling husband, she's understandably most likely feeling a whole range of emotions, of which she was probably, previously unaware of
Though of course it's not her fault, guilt oftentimes creeps in when someone we love's passed away & she'll most likely be feeling awfully guilty for enjoying herself
Let time take time
This is what's required with grieving, & definitely compassionate understanding 💚🌼💚

I feel this, I lost my dad 3 years ago now, she totally withdrew into herself and it so hard. She doesn't want to talk, do anything speak to anyone. Sadly not a lot you can do but try to make the best of it. She is suffering and it's going to take her a long time to get over it if she ever does xx

One day when your parent, husband or god forbid child dies you will regret this utterly ridiculous selfish post.

I don’t think people intend to bring others down and some people are more resilient

Everyone finds their own way, but the end if last year is very recent.

But grief is all consuming. ‘Bringing others down’ is part of it. But the ‘others’ should be able to accept this.

When you are grieving you just don’t know how you will be. She may have been looking forward to the holiday and then just felt the sadness of the loss wash over her and maybe it’s feeling too much. You can want to spend time with loved ones but it can also remind you of your loss and make you sad too. This can be hard to handle. Ignore the behaviour and not the person. Let her lead how she wants to be involved and just get on with enjoying your holiday yourself. It’s lovely you have included her and she will appreciate it. I wouldn’t write her off for future holidays.

So eloquently put. I’m 19 years in after being ‘widowed’ (he was my fiance so had to tick the ‘single’ choice on forms as soon as he died) I was 27, it was sudden and horrendous and not a day goes by where my breath is taken away by the shock I felt after he died, and then 3 years ago the sudden loss of my brother. I’ve had some very ‘impatient’ people around me. I’ve distanced myself from them and weirdly I never feel so bad when I’m around people who accept that I might occasionally feel sad, although I can control it now. With me it’s now ‘still waters run deep’. It’s usually saved for when I’m driving or in the shower. I’ve now accepted that this is me and ptsd after all the counselling I’ve had it still hits me suddenly. They were such great men, why wouldn’t I feel a gaping hole?

So if you died, would you want those grieving for you to be miserable evermore, and spread the misery around? Grief is personal and everyone grieves differently, but it serves no purpose to bring everyone else down with you. You need to find ways of living your life

But she’s not intentionally spoiling her family’s holiday. Grief isn’t something you can just put away, and often being away from everything that’s familiar to you can just make things worse. At nine months into the grieving process there should be absolutely no pressure on her to put anyone else first - expressed grief is normal, whereas internalised grief can do psychological damage and the selfish thing here is to suggest that MiL internalise her own still raw feelings for the benefit of everyone else.

What a terrible unfeeling comment.

’Grief is no excuse……’

l despair of the emotional intelligence of some people.

Grief is not an ‘excuse’ for anything. Grief is grief. And nine months into the grieving process is the blink of an eye when we’re talking about losing a life partner - someone MiL may have been with for most of her adult life. And there are no details about the circumstances of his death, which can feed into the grieving process, often adding trauma and feelings of guilt. There is no time limit on grief, it takes as long as it takes and you can’t just shake it off to fit in with other people’s needs. If OP wasn’t prepared for MiL to bring her grief on holiday it would have been kinder not to invite her.

This. I’m at eight years and have been in another relationship for some time. But every year the dates of significant events which led up to my DH’s death - all taking place over a couple of weeks, prior to which we had no knowledge that anything was wrong - come rolling round and it inevitably brings back the sadness of what happened. It was spring, and even now the sight of a cherry tree in full bloom takes me right back to standing in our living room staring at our tree in full sunshine and glorious bloom, trying to process the fact that l had just watched the love of my life die. My now husband knows me well, and when l go quiet at these times, he understands and gives me space to deal with it.

To be able to move forward in life, you have to go through the grieving process. There are no short cuts, it takes as long as it takes, and you can’t get away from your feelings. It makes me smile when people talk about ‘getting over it’ because you never do. You may pack way the grief but it has a profound effect on how you view the rest of your life and it’s never far from the surface, and triggered by the most unexpected things.

Judging by some of the comments on this thread it appears to be true that if you haven’t experienced it for yourself, you can’t possibly know how it feels. But common sense should inform that it takes a lot longer than nine months to properly come to terms with losing someone you’ve spent most of your adult life with. There’s no experience needed. Just love, kindness and patience.

I always read threads like this as I'm still working on being the perfect widow and it will be 4 years in January.

It does seem that the widow pass expires at around the 6 month mark. And that one's actual loss is secondary to other people's expectations.

The expectation that you must remember you are not the only one grieving The expectation that you must be accommodating to everyone else's grief - if people want to talk about it, cry, or impose themselves on you, you suck it up because it's not all about you. If people want to pretend it hasn't happened and tell you to "dial it down" as one former friend did when I mentioned it was the first anniversary of my DPs collapse that lead to his death three weeks later, one must comply.

People just don't know what to do with you. They think they should do "something" and they make kind offers and include you, which you feel obliged to accept because you "know" life goes on, and even though it's like being outside a window in the cold watching a big happy party, Dickensian style, you try to join in. Then when you're nursing your drink in the corner because awkward conversations have happened, because you've been introduced to a new person, and can't really talk about much other than your current circumstances because that's how you get to know people, and they've awkwardly backed away for less intense interactions, even if you've tried dark and stoic humour, you notice a huddle of worried friends figuring out the next move. If you're on your thirsty or fourth drink, and perhaps a bit visibly wobbly, there's usually the offer of a lift home as someone's happens to be leaving and miraculously going your way. Or a taxi will be generously ordered.

So you tick "Merry Widow" off the list as not a good fit. Miss Haversham is a better look for a while, but this tends to prompt "intervention".

On the practical side, some people will help, say with moving house, or losing your business, and a sub section of those will never let you forget their willing sacrifices.

Occasionally you wonder if it would have been easier and preferable for all concerned if you'd just hopped into the grave at the funeral and had done with it.

It's also a bit like being pregnant. Everyone has an opinion, a story, advice, and gets weirdly invested if you try to just do your own thing, because they think that you've completely lost all shred of your own ability to make decisions, have your own opinions etc. Yes, grief impacts those things, but it's part of the processing and figuring out this unwanted new life that you're supposed to joyously embrace despite the fact that your heart is broken.

And so if anyone reads this far - some will get it, and know what I'm trying to convey. Some will eye roll (I predict a "melodrama", a "hyperbole" and several versions of self-centred) and suggest counselling (since I've lost my Dad, my MIL and an Uncle since April, don't worry I'm on it).

But for the OP - give MIL a break. How you handle this now will inform how your relationship with her, and family dynamics will evolve. Perhaps she is aware of your egg shell feelings. Do you know how stressful it is when people tip toe around as if you're an unexploded bomb? It's incredibly painful when grieving to realise you're a "problem" to people you love, because of something you can do very little about.

She may mask, she may go through the motions, she may project her sadness or grief onto you. And she may, like many widows find herself largely alone, hypervigilant about offending people, or thinking "fuck it".

If you want a good relationship with her moving forward tread carefully, and bear in mind this affects your DH too.

That’s true @echt

Oh, and no-one makes you feel anything. You choose how you react.

She could well have accepted the OP's very kind offer and then been overwhelmed when she got there.

I'm widowed and nine years later, it creeps up on you.

‘Give her head a wobble’ I had to put my phone away at that point. How utterly awful

Grief is not an excuse to make people around you miserable she didn’t have to go on holiday with them

Being around positivity does make you feel brighter though. That's not saying she isn't internalising grief bit she also is on holiday with her family and she will be aware that others are there for a good time. It's a selfish response to spoil her families holiday , they fully understand she's grieving. They are too and this is a well earned holiday. It's time to put others needs to the for. Maybe she's overwhelmed and needs a little time alone to process ?

Say "we fancy going to xxx today, want to come? No pressure if you would rather sit and read your book (or whatever she wants to do and has been doing so far )

Sorry but from personal experience l’d say that grief takes away your ability to see the joy in things, if only temporarily. It’s utterly patronising to behave like this towards someone in the relatively early stages of the grieving process, and only serves to demonstrate that you don’t understand it. It’s also exhausting for both parties.

The same thought crossed my mind. And ‘give your head a wobble’ !! Such empathy !!

What ? You thought MiL could just pack away her grief for the duration of the holiday ? There’s no way MiL could anticipate how she would feel once there, and OP should have realised that inviting her was inviting the grief too. The way to deal with it is to get on with the holiday and do everything they planned and recognise that MiL won’t want to join in all the time. She’ll want time on her own with her thoughts. In these circumstances sometimes a holiday can have the opposite effect from that intended. Because sometimes you’re at your loneliest when you’re surrounded by other people.