MIL dying, husband angry at me for not being closer to her

[alicedbr]

MIL has a terminal illness and it's looking like she won't be with us for much longer. Understandably DH is beside himself, he is very close to his mum and an only child.

I've never got on with my MIL as I feel like she's always given unsolicited advice, tried to get over involved in my parenting and in our relationship with DH (examples: got very offended that I didn't want to have a C section as she advised, said things like "mummy isn't being very nice" to my DS when I was attempting to put him down for a nap that he was resisting, given cake to DD "because it's what grannies do" when I specifically asked her not to). Because of that I limited the time I spent around her, although I never stopped DH spending time with her and encouraged him to visit solo, but DCs are very clingy to me so never went without me to see MIL.

Now that she's ill my husband keeps getting VERY angry at me that I didn't just tolerate her treatment of me, always saying "she didn't mean it like that", "she just wanted to be a hands on granny", annoyed at me that DC are much closer to my parents than MIL because we saw them more often, blames me for 'time wasted' that she could have spent more time with our DC. In my view I have never been rude to her or restricted her contact with DH or DC, just protected myself from stress and comments that I didn't like.

Unsure how to deal with this. Is he BU? Is this a natural reaction? How should I be responding? I don't feel like my mental health was or is worth sacrificing just because one day she would die earlier than me, but equally I see why he's upset.

@Comedycook I agree, but this puts me in mind of the classic question about dealing with conflict: "Would you rather be happy, or right?"

I think this and what @theresnolimits said is right - sometimes there just needs to be a bit of flexibility.

I have a DM who can be very clumsy with what she says and often blurts things out without properly thinking them through.

I don’t think any of the examples given sound terrible. But I think once you’ve taken real offence at something, continuing to take offence is much easier than trying to see the alternate view.

If you’re honest with yourself OP, you are well aware that you deprived your MIL of a close and loving relationship with your DC while simultaneously fostering a close and loving relationship with your own parents. No wonder your DH feels resentful. Surely you could have just busied yourself in the house when she visited rather than flouncing out with the DC in tow?!

Certainly her remarks sound a bit blunt at times but she doesn’t sound so awful that it warrants virtually cutting her off. There is a middle ground between being a complete doormat and refusing to see her, knowing that this would mean your DC wouldn’t see her either.

It doesn’t sound as if you were willing to try and develop a good understanding and now that your DH is wrapped up in grief, long-held resentment is understandably coming out.

I hadn’t really considered this in my first response, but I think this is very true and resonates with my experience of having a newborn around my MIL. I had two DC close together and I found her stressful. She spoke to me like she was the expert, even though it was 35 years since she was around a newborn. She found it difficult to accept that best practice had changed and we would be doing some things differently to her. She took this as a judgement on her parenting, instead of her son and DIL trying to do the best for her grandchild. She made a drama out of having two close together. Things got better once the DC were older and we all enjoyed a nice relationship, but she did it again when I had my third 4 years after my second. This time she couldn’t say I didn’t know what I was doing, but she clearly thought we shouldn’t have had another, never congratulated us, suggested other names for the baby once we announced the name at birth, commented on baby’s appearance(!) and made comments about the older two being emotional, left out etc.

Again, once we were past the newborn stage, it was better. I know she’s got it in the locker to be a madam, but generally we get on well. I think it would have been incredibly difficult if she had received a terminal diagnosis at those newborn times as our relationship was strained and DH would have found it heartbreaking as he loves his mother.

I suppose reflecting on that, I think you should just aim to be there for your husband now. There’s no point raking over what’s gone before, just try to support him in making memories and being there with his mother now.

My mother and grandmother never liked each other; however, we would frequently stay for the weekend and holidays. I don't understand the children never visited her more frequently even if you were not present.

To me, what’s quite fascinating is that your DH clearly chose a wife very similar to his mother - both strong headed opinionated women, both convinced they are right and unwilling to take anything lying down. Both strangers to compromise and blind to their similarities. It’s quite touching, really.

These can be admirable and compelling qualities (I personally LOVE a strong woman), but they also have consequences. You now have a decision to make on how you want to approach your grieving husband - do you want to comfort him or be right?

How unwell is she now?
Time for the children to spend time with her before she passes?

I think it sounds like you have been rather intolerant towards her and he is feeling guilty

There is no kindness in your post, it's all about you, that's the thing death is so final and I am sure your husband will ruminate a long time on your unpleasantness

The woman is dying and it's still all about you isn't it ?

Several PP including me have given suggestions on how to de escalate. Google de escalation of conflicts if you don't like our suggestions but basically it's

• be calm
• acknowledge his feelings
• don't try to argue or solve prob
• stay present

Try active listening techniques such as paraphrasing "I can see it's really upsetting you that you can never eat that spanish dish your mum loved to cook"

My father has cancer. He may not be with us very much longer (prognosis currently unclear) and is likely to spend a large chunk of his remaining time in hospital receiving treatment. He is immunocompromised and faces a number of months stuck alone in a small isolation room, heavily monitored, with visitors unable to hug him or get close to him.

If it helps, let me give you my two pennies-worth.

A lot of men are emotionally lazy. Many are brought up like that from childhood. They get away with avoiding emotional labour in a way that women usually just don't. They are also often unfairly the beneficiaries of emotional labour on the part of women (their wives, partners, mothers, sisters etc.). So many men are used to receiving all this emotional care from others in their lives but they are not necessarily accustomed to giving it.

When emotional labour is required of men, often they outsource it to other people (their wives/partners/other family members) or they just don't do it at all. Because they're "busy with work", "busy training for this", "busy doing that". They comfort themselves with the thought that there is always more time, that they'll get around to it eventually.

It's quite stark when actually time is running out and you can't ignore it. There are regrets, yes. Looking back, I wish I had seen my dad more often. I wish we had spoken more and done more things together when he was in better health. I wish we had squeezed in just one more family holiday abroad (unlikely to happen now) and I regret all the trips and outings we talked about but never got around to doing. I wish I had got around to booking the steam train day out that he sent me the details of but I was exhausted with a non-sleeping baby and just didn't follow it up.

But these are peripheral regrets. We made a lot of other stuff happen. He was always welcome and I made time for them. I took the children to visit whenever I could. We may not have done as many of the 'big ticket' items as I would have liked together but we visited garden centres, built the sandpit together, shared takeaways, watched DIY shows together and just made each other coffee. During Covid when we weren't allowed to meet indoors, we'd each drive hours and meet and sit on a sodden bench in a rain-drenched park somewhere in the middle. My dad and I would nurse takeaway coffees while my mum played with DC. A lot of these things were done independently of my DH - he is a workaholic and finds my parents a bit much.

When your DH blames you, what he is really blaming you for is failing to take on his emotional work and nurture his and his children's relationship with his mother. When you stepped back, he may not have realised it but he had a choice - either step up or leave the gap unfilled. He chose to leave the gap unfilled and now he probably regrets it. I imagine also, mixed in with the guilt, is a fair amount of bewilderment. Like I said, many men tend to be the recipients of emotional labour. Now he is in a position where he has to provide emotional support to his mother, instead of receiving it from her, and I imagine that is hard as he is not used to this and he is feeling the burden at a time when he is also scared and grieving.

Sorry for the length of this. Just some random thoughts.

Yep. I’d be telling him that I am sympathetic and it’s his grief talking but that does not give him carte Blanche to rewrite history. I assume he wants a relationship with you once shes dead , that’s the relationship he needs to be prioritising.

Well worth looking up 'anticipatory grief', btw.
It can be devastating

Honestly I've had worse from my mil, but I just 'forgive' and move on, she's part of the family, life is too short

It does sound sad that the children's grandmother hasn't been allowed into her grandchildren's life. It is most likely a regret your DH has felt all along but it has come into sharp focus now that there is no time to make up for it. Of course MILs say annoying things. They are another generation/ culture. They have been through it all before in another time and context. We are finding our own way and don't welcome criticism. But at the same time I think there should be give and take. You MIL hasn't gone along with your prescriptive way of doing things but neither has she tried to cause harm or neglect. My MIL was incredibly annoying but I knew she was good hearted and my children adored her. We all miss her terribly now she is gone and we all have lovely memories of times together. This is most likely what you DH is struggling with.

Thé short of it is that your DH is a mummies boy who's too afraid to stand up to his mum and puts her on a pedestal;that pedestal has gotten so much higher since she's now dying and your DH is projecting onto you his own regrets.

You married him not his family;nobody is obligated to like or spend time with their partners family if they aren't comfortable in their presence.

The thing you have to remember is that your mother in law made the man you love and choose to spend your life with. And she feels about her son the way you feel about your children.

And he loves her because she is his mum.

That knowledge should inform decision making about behaviour.

This. And this absolutely doesn't go down well with Spanish families. The grandparent-grandchild bond is sacred ('da igual' if the DIL is awkward).

You should have let DH take the kids to see her without you if she bothered you that much.

He should direct his anger to his mum but he can’t do that so you’re getting this. Tell your dh to stop this aggressive attitude. If he doesn’t stop putting the anger on you tell him to move out and stay with his mother. He could be caring for her 24/7.

I think there’s not enough context about her earlier behaviour. If she just did all that out of the blue then yanbu. If your parents were heavily involved and integrated then I think that, along with the culture difference, could have put her on a very erratic and frantic path concerning the ONLY GC she would have

Mummy is mean" is a standard response by health visitors, nurses etc to anything which mummy has to do which baby doesn't like. It's just something to say, there's no meaning behind it.

It damn well shouldn't be a standard response. Yes it does have meaning behind it it is painting the mother of that child to the child as being nasty. How about supporting the mother when she has to do things the child/baby doesn't like instead of blaming her and undermining her?

OP should not have had to put up with comments and undermining from her MIL, her husband should have stepped in and told his mother to button it and butt out, if advice or opinion was wanted it would be asked for.

I am sorry you are receiving this unfair backlash from your husband @alicedbr, I think JaziaD's response is fair.

If you restricted YOUR contact with her and DC never went to see her without you, then yeah you have restricted her contact. I know it's frustrating when they say these things but you do sound a bit sensitive

"Sorry that you feel that I should have tolerated more rudeness, instead of you know... you actually doing something to help the situation"

"I won't be teaching our children that rudeness is acceptable in any form even from family members, because when does constant rudeness become a form of abuse?, they need to be brought up to recognize these things, they should be rebuked, not enabled"

Isn’t it her husband’s job to work on his relationship with his two small children if they aren’t comfortable being left in his company? How could OP actually resolve that issue when it’s very clearly his?

When my MIL was dying she became even more abusive about me to everyone else. I had stopped seeing her by then but I encouraged my children and my dh to visit for the sake of closure at the end. You may find that what she is now saying to him behind your back is stirring up his emotions even more.

I was lucky, my dh was under no illusions about his mother and therefore did not take it out on me but it must have been hard for him to listen to the bile she was pouring in his ear.

I wish I had adopted boundaries earlier as you did.

I just wanted to empathise with you. My mil was a difficult selfish woman. My dh had avery emeshed relationship with her. She passed in January after 7 weeks in hospital. DH has been in counselling since. He has said some horrible things to me, is still short inpatient, better with the children. But because we didn't have her over for lunch every Sunday or see her every day I got short thrift. He spoke to her every day, lived 5 minutes away. I didn't not see her just very different people. Never stopped children etc. It has affected our marriage terribly, he still very much acts like I was and am to blame, his mood swings are awful and he's vile to me sometimes. We are on the edge of seperating.

I don't have mich advice but grief is terrible and it has affected my DH terribly and I 🤔 worse than many. Hopefully for you the anger and resentments subsides. It's very early days
Unfortunately for me in am now very resentful of DH and how he's made me feel through our marriage being second best and also how he's let this destroy him and our family..

your MIL sounds like an absolute horror

your DH sounds like he is hurting. Badly.

Losing your mother is one of the hardest things.

I would go for a no nonsense / broken record approach and put this back on him while supporting him.

“I understand you are hurting. your mother wasn’t perfect, neither was I, neither were you.
We can’t change the past, we have time with her now.
what do you want to do differently now?”

Do you want to see her this weekend?
shall we do something nice for Christmas? How can we make it extra special?

I would be clear that I am here to support him but the random blame game needs to stop. It’s not helpful and all he is doing is damaging his marriage. You are a team and you want to support him through this but you won’t be an emotional dumping ground.

as an aside I would be unfailing nice to her face now no matter what and try and think of thoughtful things that cost nothing. Get the kids to make a card to send her, send her snaps of her DH and the kids…