At the end of 2021 I had a life changing illness.
This has resulted in me having to have surgeries. Whilst I’m recovering from surgery I’m pretty much unable to leave sofa/bed for 8-12 weeks.
We have 2 DS 8 year old and 5 year old.
So as you can imagine we have needed a lot of help with the boys/school runs/pick ups etc. DH works full time.
The first time I had my surgery it was unexpected, everyone in my family rallied round to help look after me and the boys-most of this responsibility fell on the shoulders of my mother. She’s in her 70’s this was up in the morning to help me, get the boys ready, take them to school, back to pick them up in the afternoon, give them tea she also did little jobs like the washing etc. My auntie was cooking meals for us and bringing them round. My MIL offered to come and help only when I was in hospital-hubby was off work and declined and said he needed the help when he goes back to work.
As you can imagine it didn’t take long for this to all become too much for my poor mum. We reached out to my MIL to see if she can help with a school pick up once a week-she refused and said it’s my mum’s responsibility to do it and she only lives 5 minutes away and really couldn’t understand why she doesn’t want too, she then went on to say a lot of nasty things about my mum and myself. I actually resulted in a big family feud between MIL, DH and myself. DH on my side as MiL is very bitter and twisted and a difficult woman.
MIL reluctantly apologised and surgery 2 she offered to come and do some cleaning for us (only at weekends when DH was home) which just involved her sitting around drinking tea, not cleaning anything apart from a little dusting. Following DH around and generally being more of a hindrance. We said again it’s childcare we need help with.
Surgery 3 is now in the pipeline-we are now aware of what we need to make life easier and employed a childminder to pick up a few times a week and to have over the school holidays and a cleaner once a week. We have asked MIL to do 6 school pick ups. Since asking she’s already dropped out of 2 as she had appointment (morning I might add) and she’s now making noises that she might not be able to do the others due to further appointments. As this is a planned surgery for myself I feel like she could arrange her appointments accordingly.
This is now causing constant ongoing rows between myself and my DH I’m miffed this is a huge nightmare that we are living as a family that she thinks it’s ok to not to put herself out for a few weeks to help us.
She is not close to the her grandchildren. She does not interact with them at all she is very awkward and cold around them.
She has my nephew twice a week after school and twice a week in the holidays.
I’m really struggling to be civil to her and hate it when my DH meets up with her like everything is ok. Even though he fully agrees that it’s not ok what she is doing.
At the end of the day the children are our responsibility but I do not feel we’ve been unreasonable to ask for support at a time when family should come together.