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.

@MrsHarrisAParis

It's about supporting your DH during the loss of his parent. If you can't help but turn that into a matter where you need to 'win' then you really need to look at your relationship. In fact your prickliness points to you feeling guilty that you denied MIL a relationship with your DC.

OP isn't turning it into something she needs to win. Her husband is blaming lots of stuff on her and she does not have to take that. She's not turning the loss of his parent into something she has to win at all.
And her prickliness doesn't point to guilt. I'd be prickly if someone was blaming me for something that wasn't my fault too.

You can't repair that and support him properly until you acknowledge to yourself and him that you deliberately impacted on the relationship between your DC and your MIL.

That's bullshit. If my MIL was being awful to me then I wouldn't have been around her. Luckily the only time she was awful to me she had moved abroad so I didn't have to be around her then. Had she lived here during that time then it would have been her behaviour that impacted her relationship with the kids. I would not have had to put myself in the firing line time after time so that she could see the kids and it's disgusting that people think that women should have to do that or else they are blamed for the lack of relationship between the in laws and kids.

(because it is nonsense that you couldn't at any point have left your DC at home with your DH and MIL if you couldn't bear to be be in the same house as her)

She did leave them at home with her DH and MIL several times, one time the MIL tried to give the baby formula even though the baby was exclusively breastfed.

OP, flip the situation and imagine it was your mum dying, and the children were clingy / closer to your DH. And your DH had been, justifiably or not, offended by whatever your mum had said to him. And that before your mum became ill, your DH took the kids with him whenever she visited, which meant that she never saw them much.

Be honest with yourself, and depending on what your honest answer is, that is how you should cope with the situation.

but DCs are very clingy to me so never went without me to see MIL.

This is your problem right here. It's nonsense isn't it?

Clingy DCs manage to do all sorts of things they don't want to do including going to school because you know they are minors, parents are in charge and get to tell them what they are doing.

You have responsibility for not facilitating more of a relationship with a grandparent - you have chosen to justify and excuse the fact they didn't go alone because they are 'clingy to YOU".

Tough luck kiddies you are off to see granny this weekend with Daddy. I know you'll miss me but I can't come as I'm very busy with work and you'll have great fun when you are there. Problem solved.

Most children only have a limited opportunity time wise to have any kind of relationship with grandparents. I'm not surprised your husband is angry but he bears responsiblity for this too for allowing this collusion with the 'never went without mother" - so he's probably blaming himself.

However long she has left, if she is still well enough to interact properly with the children, throw the kitchen sink at it and maximse time spent.

If she is clearly terminal and can't interact with them now, then you have missed your boat, caused a loss to your children and its likely to fester in your marriage for a long time.

I'd add if you haven't suffered a parental bereavement, you don't really understand how horrific it is until it happens to you so be prepared for a divergence with your husband anyway. Even were a death is expected, when it happens it is still a big shock.

I'm sad for your children. This kind of thing is so awful for children who suffer because adults don't like each other. The fact she wasn't nice to you/critical etc is hardly a crime of a psychiatric patient. in daily life we all have to deal with people we don't like who don't like us but we compromise and suck it up because you know - stuff like earning money at work, or keeping the peace in an extended family are more important.

Whenever your husbands starts to lash out at you, I would reply “I know you are grieving and I’m sorry for it. While anger is part of the cycle of grieving, directing it at me and verbally abusing me is unacceptable. I’m going to go into the other room and give you time to settle down. I think it would be wise for you to find a therapist to help you process your grief in a healthy way.” Then go into the other room.

If he follows you and continues or verbally abuses you in front of the children, I would very calmly and firmly reiterate that you hate to see him hurting, you sincerely wish things had been different, but you can not tolerate anymore abuse and the children will be harmed by witnessing their dad abuse their mum. At that point, I would make plans to take the kids and stay with my own parents until he was in therapy and no longer taking his anger out on me.

I would also want couples therapy. Your husband failed both you and the children by not intervening when his mum behaved abusively towards you. He needs to own his failure and the resulting consequences, mainly the lack of relationship between you, the DC and his mum. He needs to learn that he should be a husband and father first.

My DH lost his dad a few years ago. FIL wasn’t very nice to me, so we rarely traveled to visit him. My DH actually told his dad that he needed to stop criticizing me, especially in front of our children and he needed to be civil to me (I didn’t expect him to like or love me, just be civil) and FIL refused. I never stopped my DH from visiting his dad or taking the children to see his dad. The few times my DH did take the kids, his dad chose to say bad things about me in front of them and to them. Because of this, my DH stopped taking the children and very rarely visited.

When FIL received a terminal diagnosis, my DH never lashed out at me. He understood that the lack of relationship wasn’t my fault. He knew that he had tried to convince his dad to be decent and his dad refused. When my DH went through the anger stage of grief, I reminded him that it was a stage of grief and I wouldn’t accept him directing it at me or our children. My DH was self aware enough to understand this and managed his own emotions. I told him he would need a therapist if he wasn’t able to manage his anger. He knew I wasn’t being unkind or unsupportive. I was directing him to a professional who could give him the best tools to manage his grief.

How is it nonsense? The kids are 2 and 4 now.

They weren't going to school, perhaps the 4 year old has now started but this was all over the past few years so wouldn't have been then.

She actually doesn't have the responsibility to facilitate more of a relationship with a grandparent. This is MN bullshit. especially if the grandparent is being awful to her. She DOES however have a responsibility to look after her mental health, which she did by eventually stopping putting herself in the firing line.
No doubt the MIL would have had plenty to say if the OPs mental health had suffered and she wasn't coping.

The father could have arranged to take the kids and said "tough luck kiddies we're off to grandma". Why is that responsibility on the OP? It's not, her husband is a grown man.

Tough luck kiddies you are off to see granny this weekend with Daddy. I know you'll miss me but I can't come as I'm very busy with work and you'll have great fun when you are there. Problem solved.

This is cruel to do to children- especially considering that OP's are 4 and 2.

I can’t see the op has done anything wrong. She should not have had to put up with that constant nastiness. Her husband didn’t stand up for her nor did he put enough effort into parenting that he could take his children himself and not have a miserable time. That’s on him. I wouldn’t be taking the blame for it.

It’s not cruel with an active father! I’m willing to bet he didn’t have his own days where he did bath and bed, took them for walks and made their lunch etc on the weekend.

Agree. A 6 and 8 year old yes, probably are at reasoning stage to say ' tough luck but not at 2 and 4. The problem is if they don't have an relationship before then it will be difficult to develop it. Their father shoukd have tried harder.

She does have a responsibility to be reasonable for her children sake.

We're taught to give children natural consequences when they're bad. Similarly, MILs consequences for her shit behaviour would be:

• for insulting and putting down op = op does not see her anymore, does not go to the family home

• for giving cakes against wishes = no unsupervised contact, dad is present

It's possible op has never been apart from her kids but tbh, that's not great if both children they can't even manage a few hours away with their own father. Especially for a 3-4 year old.

The MIL was nasty anyway so I don't care, just saying though

*It does sound like you have been unpleasant. You say you haven't restricted her access to the children but also say you haven't spent time with her and your children are clingy to you. So you have restricted access.

Instead if just ignoring silliness, you made it an excuse to keep your children away and now your dh is upset which is understandable.

He should have addressed it before now though. Keeping a partner away from their family or making is difficult for them to maintain good relationships is v controlling*

Agree with this 100%. The things you mention don't sound bad at all. Giving a grandchild cake?! Wow. Life is very short, as unfortunately your husband and his mum are now finding out.

Firstly, op didn’t welcome anyone into her house, she disappeared with kids in tow - so not at all similar to your situation.

Secondly, we’ve absolutely no idea who made what concessions during op’s relationship. We’ve got one side of the story.

And it’s a fact that op kept her kids with her, rather than leave them with her husband. We’ve no idea of the circumstances why. Was op controlling with the kids? Was her husband lazy? Who knows.

The fact is that the kids have missed out on a relationship with their grandmother. My opinion is that, being the ‘strong, opinionated’ woman op is - she kicked her mil where it hurts and withheld contact with her grandchildren. I think it’s a fairly good summation.

All of these could have been dealt without any upset. The C/S comment is so ridiculous I would have gone straight to amused incredulous.

The bottle I can understand but (depending on babies age) I can also understand MIL wanting to avoid screaming. I wouldn’t pay attention to eye-rolls, or the don’t be fat one.

It’s very sad really that OP couldn’t communicate with MIL, and seems to have poor skills in dealing with tricky people. Actually OP your mental health will improve rapidly when you practice being able to simultaneously solve the issue/hold your boundaries and maintain the relationship.
Generally, you only need a couple of conversations where they find out you will speak up, and that you will be the adult. It’s also a much more effective skill to demonstrate to your children.

I think at this stage you need to direct those skills at your husband now and maintaining your marriage.
A lot of people have told you that he is justified in feeling resentful at the negative impact of your choices. So really really think about what you can say to both support your marriage whilst holding your own boundaries.

To be honest I think you could have let this stuff (the rude remarks) go. My MIL has come out with some real zingers over the years, and I have occasionally got furious, but I don’t think she really meant a lot of it, and I’m glad now that I shrugged it off. I understand why your husband is feeling sad and frustrated now that it’s too late for her to build a relationship with your children.

@alicedbr I hope you are ok and not taking the crap being posted here to heart. Some of us have your back, just wanted to say that. Hope you feel able to post again.

You absolutely had to protect yourself from that crap. I totally get too why you felt you had to take your babies with you when you went out. Did your DH not react to that? Did he ever ask you why you felt you needed to do that? Did he ever offer to have your little ones and leave you to go out on your own?

There are some truly dickish replies on your thread. Please just ignore them.

I had a MIL who was both useless as a MIL and as a grandmother. She lived an hour and a half away from us and although she got free public transport, I think she only used it to visit us once. She, FIL and SIL were invited to ours every Boxing Day. Then the ILs split up, FIL died and MIL/SIL got a better offer.

MIL had no clue about the children or what their likes/dislikes were. She used to buy them totally crappy presents/things that were unsuitable for their ages or when they were smaller, frilly dillys that you would never have put on a child (stinking of fags, to boot!!) I was literally furious when she came to see my 2 or 3 day old DC, and when she left I had to bath the baby, and totally change their clothes, as they utterly stank of cigarettes - as did her totally unsuitable present!

She probably thought she was granny of the year!! She used to phone at sparrow's fart every Christmas day for example - our kids never got up early on Christmas morning!!

She minded our kids once for an hour (in 15 years) when DH went to a funeral local to her.

MIL was at a nice, safe distance so far as I was concerned, and although DH was pretty much a mummy's boy in many ways, neither of them ever made the effort for her to have a close relationship with the kids and it wasn't my job to do that either. Once SIL had her one and only, they were blown out of the water anyway. She was a totally different grandmother to him! On the other hand my parents adored our children and were always plotting and planning things they could get them or things they could do, and were present and involved in their lives. They only got 9 years of it though.

Please don't ever feel bad though! It is up to your husband to facilitate his children's relationship with his mother!! It doesn't sound as if either has ever made the effort though, same as in my situation!

How is it nonsense? The kids are 2 and 4 now.

Don't be daft! Children that age are not independent agents who can decide they are going to get a cab back from granny's or aren't going. They do and go where their parents decide they go.

2 and 4! Honestly if 2 and 4 year olds are treated as having the whip hand there is a big problem. It's not like you are making them eat gruel and get down the workhouse!

It's a big thing to choose to deprive children of a biological relationship that is irreplaceable. THe DH here has only one mother. They have only one grandparent. The consequences of sowing and in the reaping. It's said.

You must have missed this post.
She'd visit for the weekend. I'm there Friday night when she arrives. She'll roll her eyes when I say I'll go put my child to sleep / breastfeed. When I come out she'll make some sort of remark like "you know you'll lose weight when you stop breastfeeding?" In the morning she might make a comment that my baby wakes up at night because I don't give either child enough attention during the day because I had them too close together and now they aren't feeling loved. Would say something about that we can't all be naturals at being a mother. Might ask my husband in front of me about how he feels about the fact I don't work / am a SAHM. At that point I've had enough and will take myself to see a friend. Breastfed baby will need to come with me. Toddler would ball her eyes out until I come home unless taken with me.

No way should OP have had to put up with more of those appalling comments. Who the fuck says things like that to a mother of babies? particularly that the babies aren't feeling loved. Absolutely vile comments.

Then perhaps the dad should have taken the kids to his mothers himself and dealt with the upset kids etc until they got used to it. but noooooo it's all the OPs fault, she should have went time and time again to put herself in the firing line to listen to vile comments.

If a poster came on here and said my DH has told me to have a c-section (major surgery), so that I don’t ruin my vagina for him and told me that unless I do he will be traumatised by me giving birth, he has told me I have to stop breastfeeding, I am fat and it’s my fault our children are so close together in age (even though he refused to use contraceptives) - there would be 💯 % LTB. But because here it’s the mother in law it suddenly isn’t so bad?! What is this absolute batshitery!

You are right on one thing though - life is very short. Too short to put up with abusive nonsense from an older female relative. MIL played stupid games and won stupid prizes.

It's a big thing to choose to deprive children of a biological relationship that is irreplaceable.

It is. But if MIL is capable of being so nasty to the mother of those children, she is entitled to be wary of how that person would be towards the kids. It really doesn't sound like they have missed out on much. Not all biological relationships are valuable.

I'm sure she could have let some of the lesser rude remarks go, but not stuff like they're only waking during the night because she had them so close together that she doesn't give them enough attention so they're not feeling loved.

“Poor skills in dealing with tricky people” let me translate - Op refused to be a doormat who should have sat there with a rictus grin on her face whilst being insulted, belittled and mocked by her mother in law because she is a younger woman and therefore should simply accept the shit sandwich being served to her.

Actually, I am willing to bet that OP’s mental health vastly improved as soon as she stopped spending time with her MIL. If OP’s husband continues to blame her post his mother’s death for his inaction, I would really question whether she should stay in the marriage at all.

For what it's worth, I think your DH is plagued as much by guilt as grief. He didn't try to contain his mother's nastiness, and didn't make enough effort to facilitate her relationship with the kids, so instead of facing that he conveniently projects all his bad feelings onto you. The irony is he's doing to you exactly what his own mother did.

Well I do think OP you have been overly precious tbh! Some things could be ignored and some things could have been ignored- but off course not all of them and not all the times and your husband should’ve stood up when his mom was over critical or over stepping her rank.

the time has passed and none of you can go back.
but

it doesn’t mean that you have to take the nonsense from your husband now because he didn’t even put any effort for you or your children to have better or stronger bond with his mom!
right now, when he berates you, tell him you are sorry that she is dying but you wouldn’t take these insults or tolerate this behaviour because this is not your responsibility or your wish to have a great relationship with his mom, and he should have put the efforts for the kids himself- also, I would ask you to tell him to take the kids every weekend to visit their GM For few hours! without you!
I bet he won’t do that either!

men can’t use their wives as emotional punch bags because they are angry, sad, or tense, or feel Guilty!

Absolutely, everyone would definitely say to LTB.

Some of the stuff she said is absolutely vile, particularly about how they were only waking in the night because they didn't feel loved because she had them so close together that she wasn't giving them enough attention and how we can't all be natural at being mothers.

The MIL is saying this awful thing to a woman who is no doubt trying her best with a baby and toddler and is most likely sleep deprived and she's supposed to smile sweetly and just suck it up??

Absolute bullshit.