Don’t want to be around bereaved MIL anymore

[turquoisepenguin]

This is probably going to make me sound like the worst person in the world but here goes.

FIL died eighteen months ago, it was quite sudden and he was relatively young (65).

MIL is now very depressed. I do feel very sorry for her because FIL was basically her whole world. She doesn’t have any other family, doesn’t have many friends, doesn’t drive, and is retired. She used to spend most of her time with FIL. So it is really sad.

She recently came to stay. This was actually my suggestion as I know she is bored and lonely and I thought it would cheer her up. Unfortunately it was a disaster. She was in a terrible mood with DH because he asked her to get the train (he used to pick her up and drive to ours but it’s a six hour round trip). So she barely spoke to him or me for the first 24 hours. She didn’t want to go out anywhere so she sat and watched daytime TV for six hours (this is not an exaggeration). She cried a lot of the time and turned most conversations round to FIL.

She is clearly depressed but won’t go to the doctor or have counselling. She is in a terrible place but she won’t accept any help and is very rude to DH. She refused to say goodbye to him, again because she was unhappy about having to get the train. At the end we were both completely exhausted and fed up and the kids were a bit confused by the whole thing.

I had suggested to DH that we should invite her to stay again in March but I’ve just said I think we should abandon that idea because I don’t think I can face it again. However, I also feel like a terrible person because she is obviously very sad. I don’t know what the answer is really. But I have my own issues with work, family illness, kids etc and I just don’t think I can face this on top.

And what’s that got to do with grieving ? You can be the most resilient and self starting person in the world and still be floored by the loss of a life partner. Finding the courage to face a world and go about your business in a world that no longer contains the single most important person in your life, is a massive deal. Why are so many people trying to minimise that ?

@RosesAndHellebores Your mother moved into the middle class when training to be a teacher.
But my point was not about travelling or exploring at all, but that you talked about people backpacking around Asia 40 years ago when young as if that was open to everyone. In the early 1980s that was pretty much middle class young people doing that because of the cost. People as they got older may have went further afield and travelled to all kinds of places since.
The Serpent in the mid 1970s has a pretty accurate representation of the kind of young people backpacking around.
I think of a friend who moved to London at 16 alone and got a job as a cleaner because she wanted to be living in London - hitched down and went to big hotels asking for a job. Hugely adventurous and later lived and worked abroad. But the backpacking around Asia when young was simply not open to someone like her.

Gp surgery simply won’t respond to that unless they hear from MIL herself. It’s not a question of reacting more positively to anyone, be it a doctor or a nurse. It’s a question of being ready to engage with counselling in order to gain anything from it. If she’s not ready, no amount of wellness checks are going to change that.

@Lovelysausagedogscrumpy I think a lot of people do not understand this level of bereavement. Their gran has died, or maybe even an elderly parent after a long illness that leads to the feeling of relief that they are no longer suffering. I have found that it is a relatively rare skill to be able to understand someone else's point of view. And losing your life partner fairly young and very suddenly is a huge life change. It is not the type of bereavement where you grieve but return to normal life. You have to make a whole different life and that is very daunting.

So many people here do not even understand perfectly normal grief reactions such as someone going over and over the few days before the person dies. This is normal when someone dies very suddenly. I understand it may be upsetting for others and if someone found it upsetting and asked for tips on how to deal with this that is one thing. But many on here are seeing what is perfectly normal grief reactions as abnormal. It shows how little they know about this type of grief.

@Lovelysausagedogscrumpy - both my mother and a close friend (who is now raising 3 children unexpectedly alone) have lost their husbands in the last year. So I do have very recent experience of bereavement.

But in any event I wasn't talking about that. I think it's p sad that a woman who is a few years older than I am has never learned to drive and seems to have had no life at all outside of her husband.

Having such a small world makes you very vulnerable

I agree. Let's hope when these dickheads go through it they don't try and talk to their family about it and they reach straight out for counselling and be right as rain within 6 months like nothing happened.

No-one is expecting MIL to be ‘right as rain’. No-one! OP expects her to at least do a little to help herself. I also would expect an able bodied 64 year old to do a 2 hour train journey to save her DS a 6 hour drive. And having done it, and being met part way through the journey, not refuse to talk for 24 hours. Presumably OP knows the difference between not saying much because she is sad and giving the family the silent treatment.

You sound like a very caring person OP, it is a very difficult situation and if your MIL won’t accept any outside help I can see how you feel at your wits end.

I will just mention the train journey though, is it a really easy one on one train, or does she have to change trains. I only mention this because I’m slightly older than you MIL and I’ve always travelled everywhere by car. A few years ago I needed to go to London but train (a five hour journey) with one change, to be honest even though it sounds stupid I was terrified I’d get on the wrong train when it did the change. I’m only mentioning this because maybe she is in that situation.

You and your OH are doing your very best, if the visits are short I’d just keep inviting her and be prepared for her outbursts. If it’s over a weekend could you maybe plan some days out that include your children to lighten the load, go out to lunch, visit some gardens, just try and keep her busy and distracted.

I do hope things improve for you.

@Clymene Lots of women that age have never learned to drive. If money was tight it was rarely prioritised in many families for this purpose.
I know someone who recently lost their husband and is raising three children alone. She does not have to work, although young and is obviously struggling hugely.

As the OPs MIL is fit and healthy she should be fine then, she just needs someone to guide her. With my MIL she had a taxi firm she used regularly for shopping so they knew her well, the driver would park in front of the station, walk her in and hand her over. She was frail but could walk and talk so yes it might be different if you need ramps or someone familiar in dealing with certain things but that isn't what this woman needs.

People are different. That is not a 'tragedy'.

I have friends who lives overseas and also would think nothing of catching trains and I also have fiends who wouldn't ever travel and struggle to go to their local sainsburys. It is ridiculous to think just because one person lives one way so should others.

Mental wellbeing is not straightforward. Thie whole thread is staggering in the cluelessness. She is the dh's mother! Surely, surely she gets love patience and understanding? No grief does not excuse anyone acting 'like a dick', but tears and being quiet is hardly being a dick. She didn't say bye to her ds? She might have been teary and in the uptight 'sort yourself out with counselling' environment wasn't comfortable to share. Who knows. But close relatives deserve TLC imo.

@Confusion101 because someone else died, not everything needs to be about him or her. This is more about emotional maturity than grief. We all hear things daily we can relate to but we don’t make someone else’s experience about us. It’s clear from from OP wrote everything gets turned it a conversation about his death

I am amazed that you think 18 months is any where close to ever getting over the death of a partner and even more dad at such a young age.

My dm died 2 years ago after a long illness that robbed her of all her faculties and my dad still cries for her every day. He's 87.

She's angry snd miserable and hating the world. She has every right. Sorry to say but your dh needs to understand her pain will be far far far more powerful than his loss

He should have picked her up if possible too.

You are not a mean person and you've done plenty. I'd perhaps go for a more open invitation where you put the ball in her court and ask her to let you know if she'd like to come over for a visit. Don't go overboard but let her know you noticed she didnt seem to enjoy spending time at yours and to let you know in the future if she thinks she might be up for it. There's no reason why your Don should be expected to spend 6hrs so she can save 3!
Slight aside but even though she might not be especially old I do think people die of a broken heart. She sounds like she's given up so be prepared.

I agree with you OP. Her rudeness is completely unacceptable and I wouldn't be organising the next visit. She has isolated herself.

Most people try to be polite even if they are grieving and no one has said she shouldn't talk and should be over it in six month, well no one but you. However, grieving does not give you rights over other people's lives and time, her son has rights, he has a right to have some annual leave to spend with his children and his wife and down time for himself. The MIL is lucky she has family supportive enough to invite her and if she doesn't want to get on a train she should thank them and say she isn't ready to visit.

@OutForBreakfast I know no 64 year old.women who do not drive. I am nearly 63 - all my contemporaries drive. I honestly think you are getting your generations mixed up. It was fairly common in mother's and MIL's but they are 86.

And she’s not even old! I would imagine she totally depended on FIL to get about in the past and now it’s come to this.

I can identify with that. My husband collapsed at home and a few days later we had a shock diagnosis of advanced lung cancer. By that time he was on a ventilator and in a coma - we had no chance to say goodbye. It all happened in the space of ten days - we had no inkling that anything was wrong before then. I kept going over and over everything, looking for things I should have picked up on, blaming myself for not knowing anything was wrong. I also had issues about events in ITU the night before he died. When I was recommended for counselling, both myself and the counsellor realised it was far too early for me to benefit from it, because I simply couldn’t face the painful issues involved. My family provided support and an outlet for my need to talk and go over the issues repeatedly until I was ready to face things honestly and could engage properly with counselling.

As you say, losing your life partner is a massive change - you lose the life you had and it takes time for the realisation to sink in and for you to accept that life with never be the same. 18 months is a drop in the ocean for this type of loss and to suggest that MIL is selfish or ‘wallowing’ as someone put it, does demonstrate that unless you have suffered this type of loss, you have no idea what it involves.

She's angry snd miserable and hating the world. She has every right. Sorry to say but your dh needs to understand her pain will be far far far more powerful than his loss

While all this might be true, what it does not mean is that he has to let it impact on his own life more than he can cope with. He does not have that obligation. He has his own grief, his own family and job to cope with, his own emotional limits.

@Janiie it's a sore spot for me (I posted above about my own father - he's 79, not that mobile but gets out and about, but just will not get a train to me despite me meeting him on the platform / getting him back onto the train when he leaves. It's like a mental block for him because one time the train had a detour.) and I'm really trying to be understanding, which is why I've asked. I get anxiety but when it's something so simple (get on, be met at other side on platform) and the person is otherwise a functioning human, why can't they do it.

I can’t see the relevance of what some people of the same age were doing 40 odd years ago. I look back on some of the things I was doing in my late teens and I’m horrified at my stupidity and the danger I put myself in. None of that has any relevance to catching a train when you’re 64.

Clearly being driven is symbolic to mil, it made her feel cherished and cared for. Who’s cherishing and caring for her now? Nobody - and at the time she most needs it.

@OutForBreakfast I don't know - mine are much younger. Why a 12 year old?

Oh for fucks’ sake !! When you lose your life partner you have to come to terms with the fact that you have to interact with a world which no longer contains that person. It can bring on agoraphobia among other things, and I would imagine MIL is probably having panic attacks. Age has nothing to do with it and neither does whether you were reliant on your partner to get about. It’s about grief. Losing your whole way of life, and finding a way to make a new one. I hope to fuck you never have to experience it because with that attitude you’ll be sunk.

People aren't saying she should have got over it by now, but that she should be starting to make some steps to being her new way of life.

This thread also highlights the need of not being completely reliant on your partner for everything. If MIL had been used to doing some solo trips on a train before rather than her DH driving it everywhere, it probably wouldn't be so daunting now, or having an independent social life or hobbies. Or if the DH completely relies on his wife to do all the cooking and laundry. So if any posters can see this possible issue arise with their parents, maybe try and make some changes before the worst happens.

Yeah let this be a lesson to anyone who has a close relationship and relies on their dh for emotional and practical support, when they're gone don't expect any for your dil!