Family 'ignoring' children after MIL died

[HeyNowDontDreamItsOver]

Not a mil bashing thread
I adored my mother in law, she was truly an incredible person. She was eager to become a grandparent, and I have two children, one of whom was born during the uncertain times of COVID. Because of social distancing, she couldn’t be as involved as she wanted.

During that year, she was diagnosed with cancer. Towards the end, as she faced her final days, she remained incredibly brave. She passed away last year, and her only fear was that her grandchildren might forget her.

Her passing affected everyone deeply. I’ve made sure to keep her memory alive for the kids, talking about her almost every day. My sister in law, who cannot have children not by choice, has come to terms with this reality, while my father-in-law is still grieving deeply.
The absence of my mother-in-law and the regret that she couldn’t be with the kids has led them to make little effort to spend time with them. I often have to arrange visits, which sometimes get cancelled or met with a lack of enthusiasm.

My children are too young to fully grasp what’s happening, but they, too, are feeling the loss and are moving forward. I am deeply hurt and saddened, missing my mother-in-law and all the things she would have done with the kids. It seems like my in-laws don’t share the same commitment to spending time with them.

I apologise if I sound blunt, but I am at a breaking point after they cancelled yet another visit with the kides saying they want to “sleep in" on Saturday instead, this coming from my fil who is retired and can sleep in all week while the kids are at school, i would think he would want to reserve his time on the weekends with the kids.
I’m seeking advice on how to move forward without exploding in frustration and potentially saying something I might regret. We are all still grieving, but I thought they would want to be present for the kids' sake.

Thank you very much.

Wow! Different time zones!
Those saying I'm cold hearted is far from the truth but no one knows me this is just the internet and I expected people to cruel, I know no one would be this cold to someone in real life!

I have been in this family for 15 years and have been through it all to looking after mil and taking her to hospital appointments, living with and looking after fil for 2 months while recovering from surgery and as well as driving him to visit his parents so he could still have his weekly catch ups and arranging her funeral because it was too tough for everyone else and making sure everyone was fed all during this time. But I love my fil and I do it because I wanted to not that there was something in it for me.

And of course I know they are my kids and no one is entitled to spend time with them it's confusing when you visit or they visit you, they stay for hours and hours willingly and take the dogs to the park by themselves or go on walks to the park so it's not that they don't have a great time with the kids its just getting to that point that's frustrating. No where did I say I was cutting them off, that was my husbands view, he's also grieving and said that in frustration, I could never cut my fil off he is so important to me.
Thats the internet for you though!
Kia Kaha, Haere rā everyone!

They are probably still grieving and adjusting to life without what sounds like a wonderful woman. Their whole life has changed, every moment of their day, especially FIL. He may be depressed? You cant hold them to a standard that she set.

Do you like them as people? Do you know what they like doing? Do you understand that they have lives and priorities that are different from your MIL and may not be as centred around your kids?

Maybe try working out what they need right now and their new reality and adjust to that? good luck, I know it's hard to adjust to new realities as families without central people. Maybe they just need time and a little TLC - or time alone...

Good grief! But your husband still has his life partner i.e you, still has his child around him, your FIL lost his life partner of probably countless years, no wonder he is depressed. You don't get to say how depressed people deal with their grief, your FIL is obviously dealing with it in a different way to your husband and to be honest you sound quite heartless towards how your FIL is dealing with his loss.

Have you and your husband tried visiting without the children?
Maybe your FIL wants to have time to grieve and talk about how he's feeling, you really can't do that with small excited children around. My Grandma loves all her great-grandchildren but when my Grandad died she asked if we'd mind not bringing them around for a while as she didn't want them seeing her upset and also wanted a bit of just adult company for a while, so we could talk. We respected her wishes and it was only a week or so before she was missing them and wanted them back. But that allowed her to grieve her way.

Why are you forcing it? You are doing this to your kids no one else is

I feel for you, for the loss of your MIL, for the absence of your family and for the sadness you are experiencing.
You cannot expect family who are grieving (your sil may also be grieving the loss of fertility) to be who you want them to be. They should not be expected to fill in for your absent family, that is not their responsibility. It is sad that they cannot or do not have the same need for connection with your children as you would like. They may change in time or maybe not. I worry you are risking pushing them further away and that this may impact on your relationship with your husband.
You are grieving too, would counselling be an option for you? Much love

Have a look at Ring Theory in relation to grief @HeyNowDontDreamItsOver . I think your expectations of FIL and SIL are too high.

You should not be looking for support from them as they are closer to the event of your MIL's death. You should seek support with it for yourself from someone more distant fom the grief than you are.

I think FIL and SIL are probably at the exhaustion stage of grief. Small children however much you love them are hard work. I think they probably don't have the bandwidth for much interaction with them at the moment. Leave space for FIL and SIL to build closer relationships with your DC as they get older and become more their own people. You may also find they instigate things more, once they have come through the grief a bit.

I don’t think anyone has been cruel, I think from the replies I’ve read people are giving an honest answer to a question using the facts available which have been given by you!! Just because people haven’t responded in the way you like that does not make them cruel. A number of people having taken the time to share some pretty honest and quite frankly heartbreaking experiences in order to help you. Maybe you should thank them for that instead of again making it all about you.

Your poor father in law. Try to just for one second put yourself in his shoes. Do you not think that every single time he sees his grandchildren he thinks about his wife. Everytime they do something cute he wishes she were there to see it. When they say something funny he turns to her to laugh and she isn’t there. All that normality and fun with the kids is exactly when he is going to be at his most lonely as she should be there. Then alongside that is the feeling he doesn’t want to burden his family with his pain and to keep smiling so he doesn’t upset the children. God that alone must be exhausting but then for YOU to make him feel guilty about it and your husband wanting to cut him OFF!!! I don’t think I’ve ever read anything so sad and selfish.

Please try and see if from his point of view. You should be supporting him not the other way round. You have your husband and kids to wrap your arms around when you get home. He has no one. Whatever he needs to get through the day should be enough, cut him some slack

The idea of grieving over fertility struck a chord with me.

When each of my parents died, on top of everything else I felt tremendous guilt over not giving them grandchildren.