Mother in law

[acciodoglover]

I'm shocked by my mother in law's behaviour. I recently lost my father and so DD stepped up and offered to do Xmas at her (newly moved into) house an MIL was invited with various family members. I had been really ill and was not sure if I would be able to go but I improved enough to attend. MIL has a history of really bad chests in the winter and when she arrived at our home it was apparent she had one of her chests. She had not told anyone leading up to the day that she was ill let alone so unwell. She arrived exceptionally early (3/4 hour) but I made light of it and said I was glad she had come early.

I asked her not to come too close as I had been so unwell and was trying to be considerate and she said that she'd been really ill. I said okay well let's not hug or give each other a kiss as neither of us needed any further complications.

To cut a long story short we all sat and chatted at my daughter's together, I checked that she was feeling okay, if she needed pills or water as it was clear she was deteriorating and her chest was wheezing. She will never admit she is ill and constantly states quite emphatically that she is fine when she's not. She also will not seek medical help.

We went home and I checked and gave her pain killers to help ease how she felt. The next day DP went to check and she was apoplectic, furious and had an huge temper outburst and accused my daughter and I of ignoring her, making her feel like a leper and being really unkind. She was fuming! My DP was shocked as he felt this didn't happen and rang to ask me to speak to her on the phone.

She refused and sobbed in the background saying no don't make me! I rang SIL and asked her if she could help and she told the same story.

I'm at a loss as to what to do. She's never been an easy women and to be honest left her children when they were young. DP and I have never judged and always made her a welcome part of our family. However this is worrying because I'm being criticised for something I simply haven't done and I'm not prepared to accept that. Any advice would be welcome and thanks in advance

just call her up and tell her " look typhoid Mary i told you when you arrived that i too have been ill and i didn't want you to catch anything off me that might make your illness worse or catch your chest that might make my own illness worse, I WAS BEING CONSIDERATE to you not ignoring you"

SiL also thought you ignored MiL?

Thank you shakingmyhead1 that is why I was being careful - I would never ignore her.

Mxyzptlk - Hi there, no my SIL was so shocked at her reaction she said that we would never treat her that way and we wouldn't either. I'm genuinely puzzled (and tbh bereaved too.)

She’s obviously more ill than you thought, she sound delirious.

She's finally been persuaded to see the GP which difficult but she is convinced I've 'disrespected her'. I've been off work since my lovely father died... it was his birthday Friday and I was so ill too. She has rung once since September to see how I am. And that's fine but don't say I'm disrespectful because I'm not. I haven't burdened anyone with my grief and what I'm going through. My Dad was very challenging and that's ok because I loved him and did it willingly. I've been a carer for 20 years but don't start the minute I'm released from his care!

To say I devastated is an understatement x

Update - she has since apologised by letter which she delivered herself with flowers to my partner's place of work. I felt that she wanted the opportunity for others to see and also hear what she had to say. I wrote and posted a thank you card

acciodoglover, thank you for the update; it was an unexpected outcome that's nice to see.--I'm sorry for your loss and hope that you don't have to deal with more nonsense like this when you're still feeling awful. Take care.

I'm sorry for your loss, that is.