Mil claiming to be a orphan at 54.

[Thedarksideofthemoon30]

Sorry, I’m really annoyed and upset.

I’m 30 and my mum died when I was 19. My dad had a life changing stroke when I was 16, which caused him to lose his voice, leg, arm and gave him slight brain damage. He lives in assisted living now.

My husbands grandad died before Xmas, I completely understand it’s her dad and she would be devastated but she’s been wishing him dead for years.

Aibu to think that 1, you are lucky to have many years with your parents and 2, you aren’t a fucking orphan.

Argh.

The OED defies an orphan as "A person, especially a child, both of whose parents are dead (or, rarely, one of whose parents has died). In extended use: an abandoned or neglected child."

@TheGlassBlowersDaughter

Maybe you'd benefit from counselling to process your loss and deal with your DF's condition because none of this is about your MIL. It's all about you and your unresolved grief.

Does grief ever get resolved?

It's black humour OP

@RoyalCorgi

I'm completely with the OP on this one. It is worse to lose your parents when you're young, of course it bloody is.

Since nobody has experienced both we’ll never know.

There’s a backstory isn’t it. Do you feel she is doing this to minimise your past? Does she have form ? Has she been dismissive of your background when you told her and now she wants the limelight?

Unless she has done the above then you are being unreasonable let her grieve

Thanks Pacific x

Justcallmebebes I’m so sorry for your loss

I’m with you OP, lost my mum when I was 8 and my dad when I turned 20- she’s not a fucking orphan! I was livid when my aunt told me she lost her mum too young, she was in her 60s and her mother in her 80s ffs

I lost my husband before my parents. My grandparents died in my teens. I was 46 when both my parents died. I have since lost my older brother. I felt total shock to find myself without any of people with whom I could discuss anything and whose opinons I sought out when I had to find answers. I may not have been technically an orphan being mid 40s but I certainly felt like one. I had no-one I could rely on anymore.
I do have grown children but I would not be able to rely on them. They were not supportive really. The only person I have supporting me is the son of my godfather. Both godparents died around the time of my parents.
I really did and still do feel alone.

And I will be even less affected when my dad dies because he's had a good 80 years on the planet and I really don't see the point falling apart over something inevitable happening fairly deep into old age

I don't think you can possibly know how you will feel.

My Dad died a month ago at 87. He had been in failing health for some time. Of course I know it was inevitable and I knew it was coming too. I'd still give my right arm to have just five more minutes with him, or one last conversation.

I find the realisation that I will never see him again, never hear his voice again and never ever have another hug or kiss from him extremely upsetting.

It has hit me much, much harder than I ever expected. It hits me again each time I drive over to visit my mother, who still lives in the house they shared for over 50 years. Just knowing that he will never again be there with his delighted and enthusiastic greetings, in the house which he loved so much.

Fucking bereavement top trumps. A new low

It’s a fairly well known thing to say. Making light of the fact that the two people that loved you best ( not in every case obviously) have both died.

I’m surprised at the number of posters minimizing the difference between losing parents as a child and losing them when one is into late middle age🙄

My dad died when I was a child, my mum died when I was 28. My dd has two friends, brother and sister, who were orphaned in their teens.

Saying you've become an orphan aged 54 is slightly attention-seeking and taking the piss a bit IMO.

Do you honestly think that once you get over a certain age the death of a parent doesn't affect you ? I think you are i for a shock one day. And yes, she is now an orphan.

I actually think YANBU, my mum said this when her mother died (age 83)and it annoyed me. She too had wished her mother dead for a while. It felt like a really childish thing to say and unfair to actual orphans who are minors when their parents die.

However I didn't point that out as she was grieving to be fair and losing your final parent must be a real blow whatever your age.

I remember years ago walking into a room where a lady was sobbing. She was mid fifties.
I asked her if she was ok and she replied that her mum had just died. Her dad had died a few years previously.
She declared that she was now an orphan and she felt that she was so alone in the world and felt utterly lost.

Losing both your parents, at any age, is so very, very sad.

@canary1

I’m surprised at the number of posters minimizing the difference between losing parents as a child and losing them when one is into late middle age🙄

This 1000% - it’s not comparable. Common sense tells you losing them as a child is a million times harder, practically and emotionally. Just like common sense tells you the worse loss in the world is a child.

I haven't read the whole thread.
I am 54, with both parents. I dread when they go as will be a huge loss. Not having them to talk to, to think must check this with Dad, etc.
Oh, Mum or Dad will love this, etc.
I can't ever see me using that expression, but to me orphaned means loss, and that is what MIL maybe feeling, even if not close to her parents.

OP, I get where you’re coming from and YANBU.
My parents both died when I was very young and I have lived independently since I was 16.

I used to feel so pissed off when I was younger when a so called friend said something pretty insensitive when one of their grandparents died (having both of their parents very much alive and supportive), as if it was remotely the same thing as losing both your parents at a young age.

Some people say daft and insensitive things for attention and I don’t think it’s worth letting yourself get upset over it.

Your MIL wants her feelings to be validated and you can choose your response.

I probably said similar when my Dad died, jokingly - I was early 50's

• but I'd have been very careful not to have made any reference to it around anyone that I knew had lost their parents at a young age.

It isn’t a competition in grief and bereavement affects people regardless of the age of the one who has passed but I do find people referring to themselves as orphans once they’re adults, very weird.

A colleague recently lost her mother (father already passed) and she kept referring to herself as an orphan. I felt quite uncomfortable about it but not sure why!

I can't believe how many on here think they can judge how others are allowed to grieve and what language they're allowed to use

I wasn't aware there were rules or that grief is a competition

You are always a child to your parents - and when you lose them you lose your last link to childhood. So it is not unreasonable to think of yourself as an orphan. All the comparisons on here are really mean spirited - you could easily say that losing parents later in life is more difficult because you have a more evolved and complex relationship with them. Comparisons of levels of difficulty and grieving are just really unhelpful.

There are people with no parents, aunts, uncles or cousins. It's not a competition as to who has or had the most or least relatives.