DIL is really miserable

[UppityDIL]

DIL has a few mental health issues and takes numerous medication. She sometimes appears very quiet and vacant, I understand this is probably the side effects of her medication.

DH and I are always friendly and ask her if she’s ok, try and make polite conversation etc. Last week they visited and she was particularly ‘off’. I asked if she was ok and she just glanced and muttered something then looked away. She spent the rest of the visit silent.

On the phone later I said to my son, if she doesn’t feel like she wants to engage in conversation that’s fine, but it makes me uncomfortable that she just sits there silently. Maybe she shouldn’t visit if she doesn’t want to engage in conversation and hopefully we can see her when she’s feeling a bit better.

We have tried to support her but she won’t discuss anything with us, which of course is her choice, but makes it harder for us to understand and support her.

Today we were at a family function and she blanked both DH and I. We tried to make conversation and she just looked at us like something she’d trodden in and ignored us.

DH said to DS why is she so rude to us? And he said because she felt we should apologise for suggesting she shouldn’t visit if she’s going to sit there in silence.

im not sure who is being unreasonable?

She seemed absolutely fine earlier, chatting to plenty of others at the function. We tried to make conversation and were blanked.

Disingenuous conflation. This is no longer about the way she was while in your house last week. You're suggesting that she's using her mental health issue to pretend that blanking you at this event is normal. Guess what, she has a mental illness and quite separately to that, she considers the relationship over because you have said she's unwelcome in your home. Now she's not just sick, she's pissed off and quite rightly. You've let off a nuclear grenade in the relationship. In her shoes, I'm not sure I'd even know we were supposed to play happy families in public. It's like you think she's a human Pick n Mix. Rule of thumb - tell your Dil she's unwelcome in your home and she may blank you when she next sees you. To assume this is evidence that she's malingering about the mh issue is bafflingly illogical. She just doesn't like you now.

To treat the mother of your future grandchildren like this is relational suicide. You're setting yourself up for heartbreak because she's not going to send her kids off to see someone who thinks she's uppity, criticises her to her husband and won't let her over the threshold.

Just because you are in this position doesn’t mean other people are.

We also don’t know the girl in question - she probably does know how to act in social situations but doesn’t want to socialise with someone who she knows doesn’t understand her illness.

Try and have some sympathy for others

Just because you are in this position doesn’t mean other people are.

We also don’t know the girl in question - she probably does know how to act in social situations but doesn’t want to socialise with someone who she knows doesn’t understand her illness.

Try and have some sympathy for others

Sympathy or not most people are socially trained to a six weeks till heeled medical model. It’s really hard to fully take in that MH issues don’t follow this pattern.

Well aren't you the lucky one!

I can't believe what you said about the daughter in law. There is a man I speak to regularly at the bus stop. He as a mental health problems. He explained sometimes he is not up for speaking. So I said thats fine. If you want to speak we will have a chat. If not we will just nod hello and we can just enjoy listening to the birds together instead. He is happy with that and does not worry now if he's upset me by giving me the silent treatment. If he wants to chat he is very educated and engaging. I would never tell family not to visit. The suitable response would be to say of she is always welcome. If she is not up to chatting it does not matter. You still enjoy seeing her and are happy she still makes the effort to visit.

I believe this is often the case, yes. With depression comes tunnel vision and self obsession. It's so hard to live with and I think OP has put her son in a difficult position but I don't blame her for not having all the resources herself to cope with a silent/withdrawn presence in her house.

There are many threads on here by women with husbands with depression and mental illness and the responses are quite different. None of them are that if soneone has a mental illness, that illness can present in any way and impact everyone around them in any way and everyone must simply 100% accept that and support it.

I have worked in the mental health field and have a sibling with significant mental illness and I disagree that OP's only role is to support and open her home and accept whatever actions and behaviours the DIL presents regardless of the impact on anyone because MENTAL ILLNESS. That actually isn't how we respond to physical illness. If someone is contagious, we can expect them to stay home and not impact us. If you are bleeding, we don't just accept ruined carpets because the impact of the issue is irrelevant. We don't just say anything is fine and they can act as they wish regardless of the impact on others because PHYSICAL ILLNESS.

Mental illness is not a catch all excuse and people with mental illness do not live in a world free of personal accountability. You can support people with mental illness without all these ridiculous attcks on OP that the only way to support is to let DIL do and act however she wants at all times and to be rude and disrepectful regardless of the impact because MENTAL ILLNESS.

Mental illness is not one monolith and what people on here think is awarenss and stigma reduction is actually far from it. Thinking anyone with mental illness can do and say and act however and support means taking that regardless of the impact on others is actually not healthy or supportive.

Yanby... I am biased because my brothers ex girlfriend was like this with a plethora of mh issues he would put it down to. Turned out she was having an affair and would switch whenever it suited her to not come to family events & nobody felt they could say anything because of said mh issues as a reason for the sulking and silence. Ironically he was the one that ended up with mh issues after this treatment went on for a really long time. Its exhausting and easy for people to say you should accommodate it but there's such a bigger picture. It makes family life really confusing and you're on egg shells constantly. Yes, people who are ill can and do obviously find it hard to socialise as easily as we all do but lots of people have mh issues, I've suffered tremendously in the past and never forget my manners. You're allowed to talk to your own son OP, please don't start falling victim to being told you've offended this person, offended that person etc.

She sounds hard work, I would feel exhausted by someone who behaved like a stroppy teenager when visiting = it does sound like she doesn’t like you, but maybe it’s for the best the line has been drawn on this relationship. To be honest I wouldn’t want someone in my life that didn’t respect me enough to be polite to me in my own home.

A stroppy teenager picks fights, throws around insults, hogs resources and has outbursts. None of which the woman in question has done. She has been unable to play ball in a conversation (something the op has deliberately put her on the spot to do) but she has not gone on the offensive in a brattish way or we can be sure that the he op would have complained about it loud and long. Her misdemeanors are very scant in proportion to the scale of the response. She is basically failing utterly at tinkling along over afternoon tea and the op finds this the crime of the century.

If I were your son, I would be explaining to you very firmly that my first loyalties are to my wife and I will hear no more criticism of her at this time. I would then explain that you can't make one of us unwelcome without making both unwelcome. It is clearly time for you all to see each other less as nothing good is coming of it. I would suggest the four of us met at a neutral venue once a month and we'd take stock of how that was going in six months to a year.

I would then ignore you and focus on making the most of free time with my wife as no doubt you wish to express at length how terribly surprised, hurt and bewildered you were that it had all come to this. As if your actions could not possibly have been hurtful, surprising and bewildering to your DIL, who is for some reason supposed to have an emotional skin of Teflon.

If you're not careful you will end up on gransnet saying a mountain has been made out of a molehill and in real difficulty about continuing access to your son and future children.

Good god, she's ill. She needs support and love, not "your mental illness is making us uncomfortable, you're not welcome in our house anymore."

That might not be exactly what you said, but that's what she'll have heard.

I think everyone should read @Midlifemusings post instead of immediately attacking the OP.

I have noticed that all the posters who have shown some understanding towards the OP have either lived with or worked with people with MH problems, which illustrates just how difficult it is for all concerned.

I also think the son could have helped by asking his mum to stop asking her DIL if she is OK all the time. IMO he hasn't done much to help his wife so far.

If it is clear that the OP is floundering with how to support her DIL why hadn't the son tactfully asked her to leave her to her own thoughts?

You sound quite defensive and judgmental, you have snippets of information and are filling in the bland yourself with what you assume to be the case.

for all you know she may have an unfortunate personality regardless of MH problems.

ignoring people at a family function whilst interacting with others is childish and quite frankly pathetic

*Blanks not bland

They've said they don't want to see her in their home duck. How's she supposed to know that she's meant to act as if this never happened and why should she? Why did the op even want to speak to her at this function if she dislikes her enough to bar her from the home? Would you make polite conversation with someone who had told your partner to leave you at home when they visited? Why should she do that in the face of the op's rudeness?

And isn't it rather childish to pretend that you can bar your son's wife from coming around without knowing it's extremely rude and will have relational consequences? Surely no one is this disingenuous and cloth eared.

Fantastic response, I completely agree.

AliceAbsolom

when I posted earlier that having MH issues and being an arse was not mutually exclusive as I know from experience of a 27 year marriage to a man with BPD .. some stupid idiot asked why I was married to him as I 'obviously hate him so much' ..

So THANK YOU .. for putting it far more eloquently than I ever could. You are absolutely right. The blanket policy of all people with MH have no a accountability, have no need to try and fit in with societal norms and can never be expected to put others needs before themselves does nothing to help the MH sufferer. Not is it supportive.

Perhaps those who regard people with a mental illness as having the right to behave with impunity without regard to others - should perhaps try living with such a person before talking.

I’ve just read back a few pages and seen that the DIL is rude to some of her DH’s friends. It sounds as if she’s picking and choosing whom to engage with -which she’s got a perfect right to, of course, but it must be upsetting for her DH if she’s unpleasant to some of his friends, as well as his parents.

So it might be her personality, rather than her illness if she’s choosing like that. Tbh, it could also be a red flag that she’s trying to isolate her DH from his family and friends?

It’s difficult to know, but regardless of how the OP has expressed herself, I can see why she’s worried about her son.

Brilliant post, particularly the final sentence.

You need to grow up OP it's not about you. She's having mental health difficulties her first thoughts probably aren't pleasing you and maintaining civil niceties. Stop inviting her she's obviously struggling..

Perhaps those who regard people with a mental illness as having the right to behave with impunity without regard to others - should perhaps try living with such a person before talking.

Well said @eighteenmonthstogo

All those liking the moral impunity comment... I'm a bit baffled. There's quite a spectrum between behaving with moral impunity and the behaviour that led to the op banning her daughter in law from her home.

What exactly was she doing?

Being vacant. Not finishing sentences. Not holding eye contact. Was she actively rude? No. Not in the sense that she was flashing anyone or behaving remotely aggressively. Whoever posted the moral impunity comment is clearly imaging a different scenario and sticking it here because they have their own experiences to process.

Last and crucially: is the op someone who has even tried to 'live with' her Dil? Actually, no. She doesn't like having her in for a cup of tea.

So a good comment for entirely the wrong thread. It just doesn't apply here and I don't see the basis for it. Posters thinking the op should show more empathy were not encouraging her to put up with 'out there: behaviour. How the op responded to being disunited from the op's home is a bit of a red herring. I think most of us would blank someone who was so appallingly rude to a sick relative, or at the very least have no idea that we were expected to behave as if it hadn't happened.

As someone who has had MH issues in the past, I can say from personal experience that you are definitely digging a hole for yourself OP. Just stop! Stop judging her, stop judging your son for being with her, stop drawing attention to her difficulties, and stop making her issues all about you. What she most likely needs is kindness, patience, compassion and acceptance. And time to recover from whatever she is going through - if she’s on medication the goal of that is to make her better, not worse. It just sometimes takes time to find the right medication to really help. If your son loves her then you should be accepting her too, warts and all, not labelling her as ‘uppity’