Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Original poster

Tight mil

165 replies

CookieDoughKid · 04/01/2019 21:23

Right. I am prepared to be flamed so please do. As I've yet to any feel remorse. I like to think I'm a good person and want to do the right thing. I've yet to feel the right thing at all.

Mil's husband is dying of brain cancer. We moved recently which now means a minimum 5 hour return trip to see them. They've announced they wish to visit us this Sunday and they are driving up which has taken us by surprise. In the last 4 years in my previous house, they visited just twice ...once to nosy at our house, and the other when i hosted dh''s 40th birthday. we lived less than 15mins drive and they never offered to visit otherwise. They saw our kids twice a year when we went over. Each visit was utterly excruciating and fil is quite frankly a nasty man and where each visit I could have punched him. I'm a well adjusted 5ft working breadwinner mum who takes a lot on my own shoulders and never asks for anything and I don't easily rise to bait but he deliberately tries to put us down and I won't take his shit unlike the rest of the enablers. Nor does my husband who is even more likely to deck him one . It was only last 6 months fil diagnosed with brain cancer. He's just finished his last ever chemo treatment.

Fil is a nasty, self centred, speaks before he thinks, and is critical of everything. Opinionated without wanting to hear another's kind of man. Mil is a doormat. They are both wealthy (retired in their 50s, multiple buy to lets, golden pensions etc) for which on the record I honestly don't give a shit about. I make my own money. This year as every year, my 2 Primary school kids got £5 EACH for their birthday and £10 each for Christmas. I think they are so tight it's unbelievable. My parents who on the other hand would post boxes of clothing, hand lump sum money (at least £20) to my kids a few times a year and I always leave with food, cake. When patents take me us for dinner we have to fight to pay the bill. My parents are elderly but I feel they really care and show it. And my parents live in council flat, much poorer as well having done labour jobs their whole life when they arrived as refugees. The difference in how each parents treat their grandchildren is stark.

If I was to write to say what I REALLY think about these in laws, it would come across truly cold and unspeakable.

This Sunday I have legitimate excuses to not sticking around. I am not changing my plans and I don't feel guilty. I am a great actress and when they come through the front door, they will be welcomed with such welcome. But I refuse to serve them lunch whereas that would be my most natural instinct for family and friends and I am leaving early for my own personal satisfaction.

May be the last time I see him alive. And so what?

OP posts:

Butchyrestingface · 04/01/2019 22:40

You may be 5ft, and a working mum but one thing you most definitely are not is 'well adjusted'. You come over as a complete narcissist in your posts.

I picked up on that fascinating point about height as well.

It's always the little ones, as they say...*

(*item: I am 5ft2).

FascinatingCarrot · 04/01/2019 22:41

He's dying. Christ almighty

Original poster

CookieDoughKid · 04/01/2019 22:41

palaver Thank you for your response (and everyone else's too). Like I said I will take them onboard.

OP posts:

Bluntness100 · 04/01/2019 22:41

The whole five foot thing is odd as fuck, but let's be honest, it's still one of the least odd things about this.

Original poster

CookieDoughKid · 04/01/2019 22:42

blunt totally agree.

OP posts:

Grannyannex · 04/01/2019 22:43

For you’re own peace of mind be the bigger person and be kind.

Butchyrestingface · 04/01/2019 22:43

The whole five foot thing is odd as fuck, but let's be honest, it's still one of the least odd things about this.

I think it's actually a typo - she meant ft as in "full time" and the number "5" somehow slipped in at the most incongruous moment.

Bluntness100 · 04/01/2019 22:44

Ok, so it's made up? You're making up crap about a dying man?

MidniteScribbler · 04/01/2019 22:45

Unpleasant personality traits can show themselves in the years prior to a brain tumour diagnosis.

The OP better get herself off for a scan then.

goose1964 · 04/01/2019 22:47

My guess they're coming so he could say goodbye. Brain cancers can grow very quickly, my mum was due to start chemo on the Monday but she was too ill by then and died on the Friday..

WhenISnappedAndFarted · 04/01/2019 22:49

Regarding the money - this happened to me growing up. One set of grandparents are millionaires and we received a chocolate bar each, the other side were poor and we'd get £20 each.

I loved them both exactly the same and when my rich grandparents passed away, unbeknown to me, they had changed their wills and left all their grandchildren the money and the house which has meant that we've all been able to buy a house each.

Just because they aren't spoiling them now, doesn't mean that they won't later and it doesn't bloody matter anyway.

Lalliella · 04/01/2019 22:49

I think you should think about MIL in all this. From what I can gather, all she’s done wrong is be a doormat and not give the DGCs much money, which might be down to FIL anyway. Presumably she’s driving him to yours, a round trip of 5 hours, and is faced with the prospect of losing her DH. I think that the least you can do in such circumstances is to offer them lunch and spend the day with them, for MIL’s sake. Try and have a bit of empathy OP.

yolofish · 04/01/2019 22:51

OP I think you are getting an unnecesarily hard time actually.

regardless of whether you like the man or not, dying from a brain tumour can take a long time and be relatively easy (or it it can be quick and absolutely brutal).

so it sounds as if they have chosen a particular day on which you are exptected to drop everything for a reason you dont yet know about... it's good to be kind and nice, but even cancer doesnt mean you have to rearrange your life for people who have not previously mattered.

Palaver1 · 04/01/2019 22:51

Jayfee
Yes very very and if all goes well soon to be ex .The damage that woman caused.
Even if this threads a made up one I’m still glee that I have put this in writing.
If you havent lived it ,you won’t understand it.

Namechangeforthiscancershit · 04/01/2019 22:51

Is that a typo for "full-time" or did you genuinely think your height was relevant to the point?

So glad that someone asked this as it was bugging me like mad.

So he doesn’t say thank you, only gives your DC £10, has an opinion on his GC’s schools, not sure what heinous crimes I’m missing here.

Your whole post seems to be about money. Different families do things differently. Money is not a reason to be so cruel about someone who has months to live and his soon to be bereaved wife. It’s all so staggeringly self obsessed. And for the love of god please drop the authentic thing.

derxa · 04/01/2019 22:51

Fucking hell!!!

howhowhow · 04/01/2019 22:52

Is there more to this story op. Did he treat your dh badly.

Original poster

CookieDoughKid · 04/01/2019 22:53

Lalleila Thank you. From mil perspective, you are right. It's the least I can do I think...especially in view of the fact we will hardly see her anyway due to distance. I don't harbour ill feelings towards her like I do with fil and I accept I've been harsh and mentioning the birthday and Christmad gift money. Which is why I value mumsnet's input as they really provide an outsiders view when one has been living like I do all these years.

OP posts:

PurpleWithRed · 04/01/2019 22:54

Cookie, You have my sympathy. My Xfil was a selfish miseryguts and I spent most of my time wanting to slap him and feeling like a hypocrite for being nice and doing the visits. If I’d known he’d been dying I would have been torn between true natural feeling of massive relief vs having to be even more forgiving because he was dying. I really really resented having to be nice to him just because he was my fil, and even more so as XDH avoided him and left all the heavy lifting to me. His sudden death was a massive relief, I’m afraid.

So from me.

AppleScoop · 04/01/2019 22:55

I get it OP. It's hard to reconcile the negative experiences you've had with FIL in the past with this (most probably) final visit. I have real issues with my DB and SIL but plaster on a smile and fake my happiness at seeing them every time I have to interact with them. It makes me feel incredibly fake and inauthentic but I do it for the greater good of the family. That has meaning for me. I think you should have an honest conversation with your DH to see what's important to/has meaning for him and respond accordingly. He's your family.

I think your tone of voice is putting off many posters as you're being very frank and direct. It's not socially acceptable to say/write many of the things you have but I appreciate your honesty.

WizardOfToss · 04/01/2019 22:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

CookieDoughKid · 04/01/2019 23:00

Thank you tone and purple. My tone is very direct and harsh and I acknowledge that. I would rather say everythinh here as it's a 'safe' space to write down honest thoughts and feelings. In real life I would like to come across much kinder in tone and with dh, we haven't really talked about what the right thing is to do because a major part is that no one wants to talk about the process of dying and what happens after. My children don't yet know which I disagree with it but dh doesn't want them exposed yet as fil looks well enough (except a huge hole in the head bandaged up).

OP posts:

yolofish · 04/01/2019 23:02

forgive me OP if I'm wrong, but I think you are either writing with extreme emotion or English is not your native language. I do think you are getting a very hard time here and that you will, of course, do your best for your DH and the extended family.

Frank and direct is not bad or wrong, its OK to not like someone in the family you married into!! People who say 'but he's a dying man' well he could be in the very short term, or he could go on being what sounds like not a very nice man for 1, 2, 5, 10 years. Being terminally ill is not a get out of jail free card (as anyone else dealing with terminal illness will know).

Original poster

CookieDoughKid · 04/01/2019 23:05

I will definitely be working on being sensitive to others. Better not say anything about how one feels in times of grief. It's not about me at all. And it is sad times I know that. Yet it is really hard to reconcile it internally, and I feel minimal empathy to my inlaws. I cry at slightest sad film of documentary, it's not that I don't have feelings. It's not black and white. After fil is gone, perhaps a new period of rapport can be established with mil. I hadn't thought of that.

OP posts:

Original poster

CookieDoughKid · 04/01/2019 23:07

Yolo English is not my first language. Should I be more eloquent? How to? I can learn!

OP posts:

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Swipe left for the next trending thread