AIBU To not want to visit my MIL who is dying

[Aisleseat]

As background, I’ve been married for 19 years and never had a close relationship with my MIL. She lives a few hours away and my DH would be pretty bad at visiting also. To make up for this he has spent the last number of years just buying her whatever she wants to appease her - and trust me, she’s always looking for something - from tvs to phones to hotel stays, he forks out. My kids would see her a couple of times a year.

Just before Christmas she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer with a poor enough prognosis. My husband has now gone into a complete tailspin and since December is spending a few nights a week staying with them. He’s 54 btw. We work together in our own business so I’m picking up for him while he’s out.
The problem for me is that he seems to want us as a family to be ever present when she’s dying and I quite frankly just don’t want to do it. She was in hospital for mothers day and we went to visit her (because according to him its likely to be the last time she would see us together) with the children and she didn’t say one word to them. It was unbearably awkward and my poor kids didn’t know what to make of it.

So tonight, DH has arrived back from his overnight stay and has told me that we will all go to see her again on Sunday.
Ive just told him no, it’s uncomfortable for the children and for me. He can spend his entire week down with her for all I care but I just don’t want to see her.
If I hear again “this will probably be the last time she sees her grandchildren”
I’m trying not to be a heartless bitch here but it’s hard when he’s now stormed into the other room and is watching her on a monitor that he has set up in her house.

AIBU by refusing to go visit when quite frankly I feel nothing for the woman

She didn’t say that in the op so many of us will have missed it. Will try to find it now.

Yet it’s okay for him to abandon OP, who also has a dying parent, as well as leaving her alone to support their children and to run their joint business alone?

It may not be in the OP but it’s been mentioned multiple times in the last few pages of the thread.

This thread makes such awful reading.

He's got regrets it's not uncommon when a parent is dying relationships are complicated and we get them wrong .Support him as he comes to terms with things .Yes the kids should go and see her but maybe short visits and you take them away and leave son and mum together for the bulk of the time .

@LiveLaughCryalot OP never said her father was dying. Sounds like he has cirrhosis and may potentially die. Unless there's more drip feed coming, he's not actively dying.

She also has not said her DH is not supporting her through her father's illness.

Stop spinning her story to fit your own narrative.

How do you feel about you dying alone while your family watched you on screen from far away, and your kids never visit ebcause their partners dont give a shit @Aisleseat

Holy shit lol.
OK, so the OP has taken on the full load of their business, is visiting her ill father in hospital every evening and is dealing with the children. Again, can you articulate exactly why the OP doesn't need any support?

Someone with end stage liver failure is dying.

Where is his support for her while her father is in hospital with end stage liver failure and she’s raising their children and running their joint business single handedly?

OP hasn't asked him to, has she? It's not like she's asked him to and he's refused

If she wants her husband and kids to come visit her dying father regularly, then she needs to make that known to them all and schedule the visits, and if she finds it easier to visit her dad on the same days that her husband would like the kids to visit his mum then explain that and split the visits in a way that works for the family.

I just got the sense she doesn't like visiting sick parents - which I do understand - but it's an important part of family life.

@CarterBeatsTheDevil no, she says she doesn't expect him to, so why does her expect it from her?

@Pigeon31 she sees her sick father most days - it's in her posts. Her father is also choosing not to see his grandchildren because he doesn't want them upset by his condition.

I couldn't even be bothered to point that out 😬 methinks that poster just wants to bash a woman, any woman for anything. The replies on this thread are bloody soul destroying. Women are too eager to tear other women down.

He doesn't seem to give much of a shit about her either.

Why has there been such a scant relationship in the last 19 years?

It sounds as if it is based in your DH being terrible at visiting. You didn’t visit, you resent the gifts… you resent covering the business now he is finally paying her some attention..

Go with your DH. Take the kids, pop in with the kids and some hand cream or a magazine or whatever as a gift, then take the kids for a pizza or to a local attraction while your DH stays the afternoon.

I bet you he wished he’d had a closer relationship with his mum all along and went along with the distance thing as you clearly don’t like her and it was probably easier for him to go along with it. Hence the guilt and buying her things. He probably thought he had time and now he’s panicking and just trying to do what he can now knowing she is dying. The poor poor man. Stop making it about you and support him and if you really can’t do that whole heartedly then at least pretend to and your kids are old enough to do the same

Because he's a different person who needs different stuff at different times. Christ, what a life when you ask your partner to come to see your dying mum and her answer is "well, I don't expect you to come and see mine"

@Aisleseat so you have a dying parent as well?

That puts a totally different perspective on this situation.

I wish you had put that in your OP. You and your DH need to work out how to support each other and what's feasible re visiting parents.

I would suggest that both you and your DH needs to see their IL at some point.

OP, I'm sorry that you are getting so little empathy here (ironic, given that you are being so harshly accused of that yourself!). I'm also sorry to hear that your father is so ill, and that you are under so much stress generally.

When my husband's uncle was in the last weeks of his life, he had to stay with him in hospital to provide personal care be because the nurses weren't able to. I was left to manage at home, run a business, look after the farm and generally just get on with it. My husband was very vocal about only being able to support his uncle in the way he did because I was picking up the slack everywhere else. I felt terrible about not visiting more, but everyone (especially the uncle) was very kind about it, and told me that I was playing my part by keeping everything together at home. Your situation is similar, I think, except that you have the added stress of your own father being so gravely ill.

I also think that visiting someone who is at the end of their life is a very intimate thing and I can understand it feeling awkward if you have never been close. We have always taken our children to visit relatives who were fairly close to death, but if it was in any way distressing for them, we didn't force them and allowed them to stay at home or with a family member. Since your daughter has said she doesn't want to go, then I think that needs to be respected.

I do think there is likely to be a point where your husband starts to blame you as a way of dealing with his guilt over not having been a great son, but that doesn't mean you need to do what he is demanding of you now.

So the DH's behaviour towards his own mother for the past 20 years is the OP's fault too? Poor poor man indeed. Can you articulate why the OP doesn't need support too? Her own father is dying. Though I obviously need to point out because a poster has actually said this, not as 'quickly' as the Mil 🙄

How horrible. You should be supporting your husband and not putting your own feelings first.

@CarterBeatsTheDevil well, given that he thinks it's okay to disappear for days on end, leave his wife to run their business and support their kids single handedly, it's hardly surprising that she doesn't want to make much effort.

Especially when he never bothered with his mum until her diagnosis and she ignored the children at their last visit:

It's hardly like her attitude has come out of nowhere

Yeah, she's such a bitch running their business, raising their kids and supporting her own dying parent 🙄

Please read all of the OP's updates.