To think it's not a normal reaction?

[AsterixGoesCamping]

FIL has been rushed to hospital a couple of days ago. He is terminally ill with cancer and has been getting some chemo to try and contain the pain. He developped a fever an was admitted to hospital due to infection.
MIL rang DH to tell him she had taken FIL to hospital. Not much more information at the time as she couldn't go in with him etc...

That was three days ago. Since then no news. I had to remind DH several times to ring his mum to check how FIL is doing, check how his mum is doing (does she need any help?). And still he didn't do it.

Can someone explain me why? It looks so uncaring to me. :( If it was my parents I would besides myself wondering about low white blood cells, whether he could recover from the infection etc...

Families are complicated. There might be all sorts of complex emotional issues you have no idea about. People who have good, healthy parental relationships often can’t fathom why I have the relationship I do with my terminally ill parent, but they didn’t live my childhood. I am helpful in terms of physically driving said parent around, but I resent it and I am angry that this falls on me to do. I’m certainly not massively sympathetic as they taught me that is how to behave toward sick people.

Anyway, the point is, if you are concerned you speak to her. Leave him do what he wants to do.

Everyone deals with things in different ways, he may be struggling to deal with his emotions and finds it easier to detach.

Sometimes you just have to deal with your emotions in situations like this and step up. My best friend’s husband was like this when she had terminal cancer. I bloody hated him for it. He’s a head in the sand type bloke.

It sounds like he has mentally, put his head in the sand.
I don't have any advice other than to be there for him when his head emerges.

Maybe if he doesn’t call then he doesn’t have to hear bad news? It’s something I’ve been guilty of before. It’s a coping mechanism and entirely avoidant behaviour but it’s done from a place of genuine fear and a touch of skewed logic (ie: if I don’t go and see him in hospital, we can’t say goodbye and he won’t die) for you both at such a difficult time

I agree @Honeyroar. It makes me wonder how he would be if I was the one who was really ill....

You’re right to wonder. My friend’s husband wasn’t very supportive when her dad died of cancer two years previously. One of the last things she said to me when she was in the hospice where she died was that if she wasn’t so weak she’d be getting divorced. She wished she’d acted previously when he’d shown his colours...

That’s very sad
That’s really not the sort of idea you want to have on your death bed :(