....to not want to buy a memorial ornamental flowerpot for MIL

[weirdcolleagues]

MIL is alive and pretty healthy for a 75 year old and has asked us to buy an ornamental flowerpot for the garden to remember her when she is dead. I would rather choose how I want to remember people and don't want the guilt of something ever happening to Granny's memorial flowerpot. I have told dh I do not want to be involved in this purchase and to choose what he wants and he thinks I am being ungrateful and unreasonable. I would appreciate others' opinions on this......

Even if it has little meaning to you as it will be in your garden don’t you want to be involved in choosing the flower pot?

Or are you going to let him choose something you hate and then start a thread that your oh has placed a hideous plant pot on your patio and would in be unreasonable to knock it over with the lawn mower and break it?

What sort of flowerpot? One like you’d have on a grave? Is she being buried?

I don't see why you wouldn't go along when he's picking it out and agree or disagree on what you both like. It doesn't have to be a big occasion. It doesn't have to be emotional, or not. You are both picking out something to put in your garden that you both like. He will attach meaning to it. You won't. But it seems you are doing your damnedest to make a point about this. And honestly, it's a fairly pointless point.

Is a trip to a garden centre to pick out something for your garden really such a chore?

YANBU to not get involved
YABU to make an issue of it

I know a number of people who have already sorted out their own funerals. Its no big deal, people die and thats it, she'd like to be remembered by a flowerpot, fine. Next generation will probably throw it out as junk, may be appropriate though as if she's cremated then using the ashes in a flowerpot seems a fairly eco friendly thing to do.

I can't believe you didn't jump at the chance to buy it then when your MIL comes to visit, glance from her to the pot and dramatically rush from the room covering your face in a handkerchief. For extra points, drive off until she goes home.

Disclaimer, my MIL was lovely and not bonkers so I would never have had to try my own advice...

I'm in my 60s so nearer the grave than most of you, and think this is weird as fuck. I can't imagine saddling my DC with such a request. It'd be like I was buried in their garden while still alive!

I can't believe you didn't jump at the chance to buy it then when your MIL comes to visit, glance from her to the pot and dramatically rush from the room covering your face in a handkerchief

Well yeah, there's that!

So weird. Just so weird.

Last time my MIL (from hell for valid reasons!) visited, 6 months before she died, she bought a jade plant/money plant. It is a large ugly succulent which just wont die unlike every other plant I've ever owned. On occasion it does go a bit yellow at the bottom as it grows and leaves at the bottom drop off and dh goes weeks fussing over it worried about it dying.

It appears to flourish best on the worktop near the kitchen window, in a small kitchen it just gets in the way, but there is this guilt trip its his dead mums plant. He has spoken recently about repotting it into a bigger pot so it will get even more in the way.

I personally would avoid a plant as an memorial if at all possible.

It’s odd that your DH expects you to be as emotionally invested in this as he might be. Could you suggest a tree or something instead?

I'm having a green burial. There will be wild flowers over me. No need for pots urns or whatever on my grave, let alone at my DC's homes.

Where is the flowerpot going? If she's having it until she dies then get what she wants even if it's odd. If she's expecting you to put it in your garden or store until the time comes then YANBU.

My Mum, 79 but very fit and healthy and always full of beans, also started to try to give us bits of jewellery and talking about what she wanted to do with things...totally out of the blue. She died within a very short period of time. I was a bit dismissive of some of what she said and I really regret that. Just say what a lovely thought it is, help your husband choose something you both like and then forget about it. If it gets broken then you can say that you will get another just like it - or put it in a safe place (back of the shed etc) until she actually does die!

If your DH decides to do it, get him to choose one from here: www.whichfordpottery.com/buy-our-pots/all-pots?page=5 they really are the ultimate in pot plants. I hope MiL can afford it.

Does your DH love your family as much as he does his?

Demand a pot for every single one of your living family members too. Tell him to do your family’s whilst he’s out choosing his mum’s.

I think this idea is all sorts of batshit. Can not fathom how anyone could find you mean or unreasonable. You’ve not said no, you’ve told him he’s fine to be getting on with it.

Does he tend to abdicate all responsibility towards his family to you and expect you to run around doing all the buying of gifts and cards and remembering important dates for his family members?

Why doesn’t she pick it out if it’s so important to her?

Bizarre

I think you have made your dislike for this idea clear, it is obvious from the OP that you hate this and I imagine your body language and face have conveyed this even if you kept your words neutral. In that way it is disrespectful and dismissive.

My DH finds burial and graves (over cremation) an odd choice and I know this from random conversation over the years but he was never anything but supportive with my fathers burial and head stone choice.

I wouldn’t worry too much OP. My mother and sister ignored every single one of my father’s wishes for his death and funeral.

It sums them up really, everything is about them and what they want. I’m finally NC and what a relief it is.

It'd be odd to buy it before she dies. But if that's what he wants I'd go along and like the one he likes. No skin off your nose.

Once you get it you can start asking her if she's ready to make use of it

Is the bit you've missed out the thing about how she wants to be interred within the pot when the time comes, and kept thereafter on the edge of the patio?

It's an odd request but I really don't see the harm myself.

I'm in that age group - I can't imagine anything sillier than asking my adult children to "buy a memorial plant pot to remember me by". They'd fall about laughing and /or start crying because they'd think I'm telling them I'm dying.

But anyway, just buy the damned thing if it makes her happy.

Not your mother. Leave it to her children to wrestle with. Grief for a parent in law is not the same as grief for a parent. If that's what your dh wants to do, that's up to him.

Her wish to have a memorial flowerpot in your garden is a very macabre idea . And I think she is being a bit of a diva to boot .@
I have a sister who is 10 years my junior and ages ago I bought her a reclaimed chimney pot as a garden planter . Each visit it’s oohed and aaahed over as it’s beau planted.
I know she’s anxious about me dying as now our parents are both dead I’m next to pop my clogs in the great scheme of things - I’ve obviously known her all her life and I can fill in blanks about the past- good and bad things . As much as I love her dearly
if I thought that old chimney pot was going to become a sort of shrine I’d take a lump hammer to it .
I’d suggest that you co -operate fully making as little fuss as possible . Then one frosty day dust off your own lump hammer .