MIL about to die, dh stayed at work

[Salantanamana]

I don't know why I'm posting, I just want to get thoughts straight I think. DSIL rang this afternoon to say mil had taken a turn for the worse. She has been terminal for a while and sil has been there 24/7 since diagnosis. MIL had taken a turn and was out, still is. I love all my in laws, every one of them. My H did not go straight to the house, he said he'd wait and see. All of the other family came over but he said he was uncomfortable with death and didn't want to see this. He came 6 hours after being called. I am disappointed. I know that every body's ideas of death are different but even if he didn't want to see her body, his mom was still alive and he could just be there for other people or put these feelings aside. I think less of him as a person that his instinct was not to come to him mom on knowing how ill she is but to stay at work. Mine was different and she is not even my mom. It is screaming at me 🚩🚩

It's because of my love for my children that I don't want them sitting round my bed as I die, they would be upset, I don't want that to be the last thing I hear in this life. Maybe I'm being selfish but I think I'm being loving. We all have our own perspective.

When you say she was out do you mean unconscious? If she was and still is unconscious how was she asking for him?

If he won't be there for his mum, it raises the question of whether he would be there for OP.
I personally wouldn't waste my life on someone that didn't know how to be upset & uncomfortable, just as everyone else is who is having to deal with it. He's not different or special, he's upset, just like everyone else. The only difference is he's putting his needs 1st.

There are exceptions - if they weren't close, had a falling out etc. But if there's no reason, his behaviour is shoddy.

That's what you want though and not the situation that's been described. The husband's mum asked for his son several times. She wanted to see him.

You could equally say forcing your son to do something he finds so difficult is cruel.

Genuine question (to everybody): how would you see it if, instead of somebody being expected to die within days/hours, your loved one was diagnosed with a terminal illness or life-shortening condition; or had had a major accident which left them seriously disfigured or otherwise changed but otherwise still very much alive for an expected normal lifespan?

What would be your reaction if somebody said that they wanted to remember them 'as they were' - e.g. aesthetically 'normal'-looking, with a full head of hair, able to walk, with full cognitive ability, with clear speech etc.? Would that be OK for them to break contact and just remember the person in the 'good' times? If not, why? Is it just to do with time and how long you would need to avoid them before they died? Where do you draw the line, if not at the point of death?

I'm so sorry what you're going through but its your husbands choice

Gosh OP hope you don't tell him that.

My Father dropped dead in front of my Mother......she told the neighbours and then went off to the shops.

We never ever judged her for that and she didn't attend his funeral either.
They were together for 50 years and she just couldn't cope with the grief.

No one should ever judge others for how they deal with death.

But many people opt not to be there for the death of their parent. What about all the people who live many miles away or abroad? Surely they don't take weeks off work to be close by just in case? or come home for possible a number of occasions when a parent is very ill but pulls round.

It's well known that people often wait until everyone has left to die so actually many people don't want others to be there.

My father died in a care home. we all said our goodbyes in the week before he passed but we had our own families and jobs to take care of.

Yes she asked 6 times while she was out and remained out. Of course she didn't initially mention that the mother in law was asking for him while she was out, I'm assuming by out she means unconscious as she wasn't out shopping was she.

I've heard about people waiting to die when the family member pops to the loo or to phone others with updates. I've also read it on threads on here many times.

But he was dead. Would she have mentioned it to her neighbours and popped to the shops if he was lying there dying, asking for her?

And when you lose someone and you lose friends because they don't know what to say and feel uncomfortable this is the crux of it. Stop judging people and attributing your thoughts and feelings to them around death and how they deal with it and just be bloody nice and supportive and help them through their pain.

Well said.

It's well known that people often wait until everyone has left to die so actually many people don't want others to be there.

Yes, but presumably, if that had been the case here and the dying lady had any agency in it, she would have waited until her son had seen her first - as she asked for 6 times - and then 'given up'.

There's a big difference between saying your last Goodbyes and then deliberately slipping away when they've left the room briefly; as opposed to them not bothering to turn up in the first place for those last Goodbyes and a last kiss and hand-hold.

I still don't see how people happily blur the distinction between 'dealing with death' and 'showing compassion for a dying loved-one'. A dyING person means a living person - you're choosing to ignore a living person who has loved you for many years when they may need you the most.

@catandcoffee I wouldn't blame your mother from walking away, she's just witnessed her husband unexpectedly die in front of her. Your dad was dead, there is nothing else your mother could do for him. Funerals are for the living rather than the dead so not going to his funeral is ok too.

@helpfulperson yes a lot of people do wait.

However this isn't in OPs case as the mother was alive and asking for her son.

You can't treat dying people as though they are dead!

When someone loses a parent or sibling or spouse they can grieve or not grieve in whatever manner comes naturally to them. It is not up to anybody else to police them. It is strange to think less of someone because they don't perform in the way you would like them to when they lose a loved one.

Nobody’s done that. Or at least I’m not. I’m judging someone who won’t visit his dying mum despite her repeatedly asking for him. You have to be a special kind of callous for that.

This is what I can’t fathom out. The OP said that MIL took a turn for the worse, was out, and was still out at the time of posting. She never mentioned MIL calling for him at all until a poster asked the question, and then said she had called for him ‘6 times today’. How ?

My dh did this with his dad who died in similar circumstances to your MIL and with my MIL calling me every 5 minutes asking wtf he was.
He just couldn't face the thought of him actually dying. He was totally burying his head in the sand. No red flags here. He went back to work after two days. People deal with things differently. My dh dad was his idol as well.

When someone loses a parent or sibling or spouse they can grieve or not grieve in whatever manner comes naturally to them. It is not up to anybody else to police them. It is strange to think less of someone because they don't perform in the way you would like them to when they lose a loved one.

But the whole point of what we're talking about is about when somebody hasn't (yet) lost a loved one.

The time for grief - and whatever your own preferred way of dealing with it is - is once the person has died.

If you treat it as though a living person has already died, you haven't just decided prematurely that you've already lost them, but you've also caused your dying loved one to have lost their loved one(s).

I disagree, I think it's a personal choice whether to be present when someone dies, we are all different and deal with things differently. As long as the person has medical professionals caring for them, family members should be allowed to choose whether they are present at the very end

This is what I can’t fathom out. The OP said that MIL took a turn for the worse, was out, and was still out at the time of posting. She never mentioned MIL calling for him at all until a poster asked the question, and then said she had called for him ‘6 times today’. How ?

'Out' doesn't necessarily mean completely and permanently unconscious. Obviously not the scenario here at all, but people who get very drunk will describe themselves as 'out of it', but it doesn't mean they're comatose.

She didn't necessarily lucidly say "Do you know, I should rather like it if my dear son Trevor could do me the honour of coming over and visit me"; she might have just softly murmured his name and tried aimlessly looking for him at moments when she had a little strength.

Wow. At least you were there and hopefully it made a difference for them both.

She said she was out and still out, nothing about in and out, or mostly out. She was out and still out. Funny how things develop.

@gogohmm most people who die at home only have nurses and carers popping in. Nurses normally need to be called if the patient develops symptoms that require medication. This is normally down to relatives or close friends.
That means people would die alone if that was the case and symptoms would be missed and they could suffer more.
There are hardly any hospice beds available a lot of poorly people are in their own homes and not in hospital. Some people are too poorly to be transferred to hospital or hospice (they would probably die in transit or in A&E).
Yes people have the choice, but people also need compassion for people that are at the end of life.