To think this is an awful way to treat your recently widowed mother

[user1485342611]

My friend's father died a couple of months ago and her mother is understandably heartbroken. They had been married for over fifty years.

My friend lives a two hour journey from her mum and works full time but travels down as much as she can. She lives in a one room flat and has had her mum up to stay a couple of times but it's not ideal. She went to stay with her mum for a week in May and plans to do the same in Sept when she's due more holidays.

Her brother lives closer and is married with 3 kids. He and his wife are teachers and will be finishing work for the Summer in a couple of weeks. Their plan is to spend their entire holiday in a holiday house in Cornwall that they inherited cum bought out another relative's share a few years ago. My friend asked him if they would have their mother along for at least a couple of weeks of the holiday as it will get very lonely for her on her own, and my friend will only be able to get down at weekends. Her brother has said no, he and his wife are knackered after a school year and he's also had to cope with losing his dad so they really need these few weeks away 'as a family'.

My friend is really upset and I think her brother is being horrible.

AIBU.

I have changed a few details to ensure no one is outed, but this is the general gist of what is happening.

She is doing at least as much as her brother

So then why judge him? I'm assuming your friend doesn't have dc, as this hasn't been mentioned.

Having 3 children to support and care for through this time, school work, hobbies, parties and all the extra work that comes with dc... Whilst doing as much as your friend for his Mum must be a huge strain on him.

It's ok for him to just want a break with his wife after a shitty time.

WowLookAtYou

More likely he does the donkey work 10 days out of every 12.

DuchyDuke - Unfortunately a lot of men are like this. When their wives’ parents need help they will be all over the situation. But most don’t give a shit about their own if there’s someone else to do the job.

This is interesting. And a can of worms!

In response to an earlier poster, i think only one poster has said about needing to 'learn to cope alone'. Quite near the beginning of the thread.

Your friend sounds a bit martyrish tbh. I don't think the DB is being unreasonable. As others have said, he most likely does 1001 things his DS doesn't even know about. He has an extremely high stress job and needs time away with his DW and DC. I would find going on holiday with my MIL he'll and would refuse to go for a week, never mind 2 weeks. Recently widowed or not. It's important to look after your own mental health too. It doesn't sound like your friend is doing that but then she can't be angry that the DB isn't martyring himself too. The friend could visit DM once a month, Skype in between and if she so wishes go on holiday once with DM. That way she is still looking after DM without neglecting her own mental health.

It's more than interesting. Sadly in a lot of cases it's true.

Members of my family and friends have passed. I have found that it is not compulsory to offer care at any level. I have offered care and compassion at varying levels to different people. It also depends how far people live away. I agree that the brother could have offered the holiday home for a week or for the Mum to stay close by, however if she is recently widowed she may not feel like going on holiday. Perhaps the brother can keep in touch on phone, skype, email. Your friend may feel that she is taking up more of the emotional and practical care. You do need to preserve yourself, to be able to help others. You can only offer the best help that you think that you can offer at that particular time.

No ones asking him to spend his entire holiday with DM, but a weeks hardly unreasonable given this is the woman who raised him!

For all those people that say that some comments ar cold:

I cared for my mother when she was ill and died to relieve my dad. I then went to my dad often. When my dad got a new girlfriend he had no time for me and left me alone on christmas after a nasty divorce. My FIL died and we took my MIL on a two week holiday. She has never been alone and literally spent two weeks by my side, she really never left me, it was like caring for a little child. She even slept with the door open to hear us and not feel alone. I spent my whole vacation with her and didn't even get a half hour alone with my husband for a coffee. We also couldn't whisper or cuddle because she would hear. I understood because it's all so recent so I didn't say anything about it but did miss my husband a little. We tried to make it nice and took her to the zoo, beaches, beautiful walks, lunches and dinners. We paid most of it. When she came home she cried to family members that she felt so alone on holiday and doesn't want to go with a couple anymore because it's too hard.

In my experience you never do enough when someone is grieving but you do get complaints afterwards. People need to learn to be alone anyway, you might as well put as much effort in what fits in your life, not theirs

I visited a relative every weekend for a few months, 300 mile trip. Their situation improved and I reduced to visit once a month with phone calls on top. I've done similar to provide help when someone had been ill. It is difficult when you don't live close and that person decides that they don't want to stay at your home. I am sure that not everyone would offer this sort of support. You also have to preserve your own life !

I wonder whether the brother just doesn't want to do two round trips to pick up and then return his Mum home?

I honestly can't think of any other good reason for being such a heartless bastard.

As teachers they're lucky to have six weeks at their holiday home, yet they can't accommodate a recently bereaved parent for one week of it?

Fuck me I hope my sons don't turn out like him.

One of the worst things about bereavement is suddenly feeling unwanted and useless, like nobody would care if you disappeared, just generally wondering what the hell you're going to do with the rest of your life or whether you'll ever be brave enough to eat out or holiday alone. In the first year you need your family to prop you up until you feel human again.

Seriously, how do some of you think you'd feel if your dh dropped dead tomorrow, if your kids were grown up and didn't need you. Think you'd be standing on your own two feet within months? Just because someone's elderly, or because the death was expected, it doesn't make it any easier to bear. People just pretend because other people imply they should be getting over it.

Unless this woman is a heartless abusive bitch, they can stand her for a bloody week, yes they can.

Six weeks is a long time not to see your very recently bereaved parent. Unless there is a back story, yes it is selfish.

My dad died a few weeks ago after 55 years of marriage. My mum is heartbroken, bereft. My sister is doing the lion's share of caring for my mum now BUT what outsiders don't know is that my mum was abusive to my brother and I while my sister escaped, she was and still is, the golden child. Her version of our childhood aligns to my mum's, it was a good childhood full of 'special moments, but my brother and I have very different memories, we were terrified of her, were hit and locked into various cupboards over the years, our self confidence was destroyed by her emotional abuse. Yes. I am sad that my dad has died and that my mum is struggling but I cannot have her here with me.

No-one knows the full story behind someone else's actions, maybe your friend is wonderful and her brother is a neglectful sod but maybe there are other reasons, who knows.

RainySeptember

But who is looking after the woman for the 12 days that the OP's friend isn't there?

We don't know how much the brother has been doing, either practically or emotionally. For all we know he's been ringing her every day or going round regularly in the evenings. We also don't know if he's offered to do lots and his DM has said no thanks. And yet again we don't know if DM would actually want to go away. So many unknowns that it would be wrong to jump to conclusions.
Yes it would be lovely for her to go away with them. But he's not obliged to do so, he is entitled to put himself & his wife and kids first, and he may feel that he'll be putting her needs first when they're back again.
OP would be better off encouraging her friend to focus on looking after herself and on what she can do for her DM IF her DM wants it. Encouraging negativity towards DB is pointless and won't help anyone.

Does the widowed Mother want to go?

Ultimately all discussion aside even you OP don't know the full story

And we certainly don't

I guarantee you when my Dsis and I are in this situation I completely know what version my Dsis would give to everyone else (and as I am going NC with her bar things that actually affect my parents she will be able to) my Dsis thrives off martyrdom and drama...i could be down every day or every week for years doing everything I physically could and she would still absolutely present it in a different light.

That may not be the case with your friend...maybe the brother is being a selfish arse...point is you don't know the dynamics or the full story

Stay out of it....you don't get to judge unless you are in that situation , you only have one side of the story

I don't know which way to run first on this thread. So many issues!

gotto you struck a cord with me there. I'm an only child. I've never been particularly close to my mother. But I came to sleep over with her for a couple of nights when my father died. (i only lived 2 doors down at the time so a couple of nights sleeping over then daily visits to her house from then on). Three young kids to look after at home and a nasty divorce in progress as well as coping with my dad's death.

It wasn't good enough. Some time later she let me know that. She told me my efforts in those first days were pointless. She said she heard me on the phone to my DP. Talking quietly and sometimes actually laughing. Said this in a disgusted voice.

It made me hate her a little bit. I was going through hell at the time too, and my DP (now DH) was the only person who kept me sane for months.

These times can be very damaging for all OP. Don't encourage your friend to fall out with her brother over it.

Best to keep out of it. Your friend should do as much as she wants and can for her mum and her brother should do the same. You cant make people visit their parents as often as you would like but more often than they want to.

If her mum needs more support or company than her children can offer she needs to not rely entirely on them and get in touch with her own friends, extended family (if she has any). Has you tried to see if there are any clubs in the area her mum can try out?

I say this as someone who visits her widowed elderly housebound mum at least twice a week to sort out food shopping, take her out etc, while my 3 siblings make it over once or twice a month for a quick 1-2 hr chat at most.

Having 3 children to support and care for through this time, school work, hobbies, parties and all the extra work that comes with dc... Whilst doing as much as your friend for his Mum must be a huge strain on him.

And there's another assumption right there. We have no information as to how "hands on" a dad he is. We also don't know how much he does for his mum on a normal basis in term time. He lives "closer" than the OP's friend, but we don't know what that means exactly, or what he actually does.

It's ok for him to just want a break with his wife after a shitty time.
Yes, and he's getting one. 6 weeks. Is it really too much to ask for him to help his mother (and sister) out for a small portion of that?

Boney, I don't know or care. He can still manage one week out of six, having a lovely uninterrupted five weeks with his family. To think that, at one time, his parents worked and saved hard to take him on holiday as a child, and now his mum is a burden.

And to those trying to pretzel themselves over some secret special circumstances that might make it ok : he didn't say 'I've seen Mum every single day and I know it's selfish but I need a proper break' or anything else even remotely understandable. He's said he needs family time with his wife and kids. Taking it on face value, as we tend to do on AIBU, he's a selfish prick.

He's selfish. As for "he's also had to cope with losing his dad" does he think his grief is worse than his mother's? (He may, I had a friend who thought her father's death was worse for her than for her mother - they'd been married 60 years I think!) My friend was well known for her selfishness though, which is why our friendship eventually ended.

It's often the case that one child ends up having to do more due to the selfishness of their siblings. And I'm not projecting based on my experience, but I think a lot of people here are because they've had shitty relationships with their own DM, or MIL (of maybe they just lack compassion)

WowLookAtYou

The point is that we don't know.

We have an abridged version of events from the OP who has been given a one sided version of events from her friends.

Yet posters are falling over themselves to call him alsorts of names on next to no information.

''Is it really too much to ask ...''

It might be, yes.

You just can't deciding what's reasonable for other people to do without being in their shoes at the time. And in the time beforehand.

RainySeptember

You "don't know or care" but care enough to paint him in a bad light with very little information.

Why does the mother need looking after?
A two hour journey is not that much though.