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

Think there needs to be some compromising here.

Your DH is struggling and I think you need to think of visiting MIL for his sake, not hers. I think being a bit uncomfortable is worth showing your DH you care. Agree to go once a fortnight or something?

@Aisleseat says 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.

Doesn't sound MIL is that keen to see anyone.

Wow I just lost my mum in November and my husband was so supportive of me during the three months from diagnosis to her death and since. I don't know how I'd of got through it without him. Maybe stop thinking of your self and how you feel for her and think of him and be supportive. Maybe he didn't see her but she was and is still his mother who brought him up.

Oh she was chatting away in the hospital to DH
It was the kids that she ignored.

YABU and quite heartless. I'm very glad I'm not your DH.

Put yourself in his shoes and her shoes. Soon you won't ever have to see her again so you might as well put in the effort now, not just for her but your DH too. If I were your husband I'd resent you so much I'd probably have to divorce you after MIL's death.

So, she’s married him, she presumably loves him, he clearly has complicated feelings about the terminal decline of a parent he neglected for years and is trying to make up for it before it’s too late — what’s not to understand?

"This woman"?

This is cold and heartless. You and your children are.

The kids probably don’t know what to say to her because they have been brainwashed against her . You might not like her but you are acting so cold towards your husband. Cold and bitter .

I would not want to expose my already reluctant kids to being ignored by their grandmother, dying or not. You need to hold the home and business fort. Be really tender with your husband, but don't go.

In my family we took the children to see their dying GP's for for one last time. After that as the end was starting to look near - it was left to the siblings of the parent to do the last few days. My husband was not at the death of my parents and I was not at the death of his parents. In your case I would go with your children on Sunday to see your MIL - you don't know when the end will happen and you can be caught out. You don't say if your Husband has other siblings that can also provide support - if he is on your own - then you as his wife will need to support him until the bitter end - even if you don't have any regard for your MIL

A dying arsehole is still an arsehole.

I would consider going myself to support my husband but I wouldn't make my children.

He's set up a monitor in her room? Does she know this? Is she OK with this? Is this so he can watch her die? This is very odd.

Mothers are not automatically saints, even with terminal cancer.

In this case, OP says her husband didn't bother much about visiting his mother before the cancer diagnosis. Then, post-diagnosis, OP visited with her children and the MIL said nothing to the children. Maybe too ill, for sure, but I can't see it's a good thing to force the children into making further visits to be ignored.

It's also creepy to set up a camera to watch the mother. Seriously?

I would go to support your DH if nothing else.

My MIL died in a hospice in the summer of 2020. Due to COVID and her having cancer I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wasn't close to her but I wish I had had the opportunity to see her one last time.

Maybe she wasn't really sure what to say to them. Is she able to tell him what she'd like? Would she like to see them again?

Oh right ok. Seems odd. I don't think your DH is coping ok. This is understandable.

Personally I would go and visit but make clear this is the last time as it will only get more and more distressing for the kids

No one has suggested either the mil or the DH are ‘angels’. He’s neglected her for years, but he’s not indifferent to her dying. I think the OP is being unreasonable to expect a dying woman who is possibly in pain and weak to engage sociably with grandchildren she presumably barely knows, because their father never fostered a relationship. It’s a messy situation all round, but it is what it is.

@Aisleseat

The thing is there is more than one way to be supportive of your husband at this difficult time he has obviously got complicated feelings for his mother,
guilt big time has set in, now the terminal prognosis

You obviously don't need to take the children with you to the hospital to vist,
Could a good friend or a family member take care of them whilst you vist her too in hospital?

Just rember how you would feel if you were in your husband's situation

No matter the relationship, it's his Mum and you need to be there for him. If the kids can't do it then they don't have to be there in the room. Times like this, got to stick together or there will be regrets xx

My father was an alcoholic, he died in January. He was far from a saint, he was a difficult man. But I really wanted to stay with him when he died… after all these years of trouble it felt like a sort of closure. My husband supported me, he brought the children over just for a quick goodbye and them drove them home again. Please support your husband.

I don’t quite know to be honest if she wants them there or if he’s pushing for it.

If it were me and I were dying, I wouldn’t
want a crowd around me but there has been a constant circle of people sitting around her in silence for the past few weeks.

If the children don't want to go, you don't want to go AND mil won't talk to any of you when you do go then what is the point?

You can support him in different ways, just not that way. Letting him visit her for days at a time while you run the business, the home and look after the children is the biggest support you can actually do, and you are doing that.

And honestly, that camera watching is creepy and kind of morbid but I guess that is how his guilt and grief is showing itself.