To feel sceptical about MIL's cancer diagnosis

[scepticaldil]

My DH and I have been together for around 10 years. First 5-6 years I got along with his mum well, then after we had our child we've started having issues.
Just after my child was born MIL insisted she needs to come visit within the first few days of his life and, after a complicated birth, I wasn't so keen. MIL kept calling my DH and insisting, eventually called him and burst into tears saying that she actually suspects she's got cancer which is why she wants to visit because she might not have long left. Obviously her son (my DH) and I were both worried, given she had cancer about a decade before this and she used to work in the medical field so surely she's got some clue what she is talking about. He encouraged her to go to the doctors which she did eventually. No cancer.
A couple of years later she once again suspected cancer because she's got random pains that can't be explained. Suspected she's got cancer. Coincidentally at a time when we had renovations going on in our house and I went to stay with my mum overnight quite often (so that our child doesn't live in the middle of a building site when certain work is going on / wet paint / too many dangerous bits sticking out of walls or floor). Everyone panicked and organised many visits. No cancer.
Now, she's also announced that she thinks a mole is cancerous. Coincidentally at a time when my child gets super excited to see my mum but is a bit meh about MIL's visits. DH is panicking but I just can't help but think of the boy who cried wolf...

@user1471453601 granted my children are all children not adults but... I cannot imagine scaring them with a suspicion. I would wait until it's confirmed before worrying them (even as an adult) and I'm 99% sure so would my own parents with me?

Does it really matter if it turns out she hasn't? A very good friend wasn't feeling well at the beginning of September. She died of cancer on 24th. Her family would give anything for hers to have been a false alarm.

Cancer fakers are the pits.

Being frightened is NBU but manipulative behaviour is very U.

When the mole gets the all clear, text her saying ‘Glad they’ve found one part of you that isn’t malignant’.

@POTC yeah of course, first time round you think "false alarm" but when it's the 3rd, 4th, 5th is it essential to keep up the performance every time?

I don’t think it’s easy for anyone here to judge the situation. Sounds frustrating and I have sympathy for you - manipulating by saying who knows how many days she has to live before even a cancer diagnosis would do my head in.

But then you say
Coincidentally at a time when my child gets super excited to see my mum but is a bit meh about MIL's visits
and I wonder if it is all a bit one sided towards your mum? How is she aware of the different excitement shown by your child, if you think it’s prompted this latest health scare?

I have a lot of respect for physiotherapists, but it feels like your DH and his siblings are misrepresenting her experience by calling her an “ex-medic”.

So as a physical therapist (30 years retired) her expertise on medical issues is what exactly?

My DM was a nurse 30 years ago and freely admits that her knowledge is years out of date which it is At some point in retirement I'll also have to accept I have no idea on medicine either.

That the family have preserved this image of her as 'an ex-medic' is bizarre.

^This.

To me, your post entirely reads that you're fully including your mum but excluding your MIL.

It sounds like it's you that's possibly controlling (giving your mum full access to the grandchild but denying your MIL).

It's very normal for people who've had cancer to be very anxious about it coming back, understandably so! I've had several relatives who are the same, sometimes decades after their treatment. The best thing you can all do is take the heat out and tell her it's probably fine but she should get it checked out and keep you posted. It's quite likely genuine anxiety rather than attention seeking.

I know it's not a popular view on here, but I do think it's unnecessarily mean to postpone the grandparents meeting the new baby, and the dad from showing it off! That was never going to help relations longer term.

My mum called when we were together with PILs and my child got very very excited, the way he never gets with PILs.
Also, just generally, he's very unexcited, not happy, not unhappy when PILs visit but talks very fondly of my mum.

I guess partly because MIL has a giant ego, needs everyone (including DC) to feed this ego but doesn't make effort as such. Whereas my mum will get down on the floor, play, make crafts, read books if DC wants, and has always been that way since he was a baby. She'd come to visit but then offer to do something (whether that's for DC or me) whereas MIL always wants to be entertained, to hold a calm baby, to be served tea and wouldn't do anything uncomfortable or that requires effort (like climbing through tunnels with DC or doing to the effort of making pasta from scratch type thing)

I think you are sort of focussing on the wrong thing. Maybe she would like you and your DH to include her a bit more, and is that really such a bad thing? I totally get that when we’ve given birth we are more comfortable/want our own mums but and I was a bit worried about my In-laws coming to stay just after I’d had a baby. But I said yes to it because I recognised how hurtful it would be to them to say no to them but yes to my family.

several years down the line I’m so glad we had them to stay. They are fabulous grandparents who help us out at the drop of a hat and I’m really close to them, as are the kids.

it sounds like she is maybe being a bit manipulative but you
also sound like you are holding her at arms length. If you changed your behaviour, hers would probably change too.

neither of you are perfect because no one is - if you want her behaviour to change you might need to consider adjusting yours too.

"but what if it is, she's my mum, we must bring DC to her this weekend so she can spend as much time as possible"

If he thinks that he & your child don't see enough of his mum then he needs to make that happen.

Not be panicked into it by her perhaps having cancer!

It's among other examples of ways they put her on a pedestal by exaggerating.
They say that she raised them single handedly when they had a very involved dad, which they admit. Ie "my mum raised us single handedly" although dad did take us places most weekends, got up with us in the morning and cook breakfast whilst mum had a lie in etc. I'm sure she did more but... not single handedly?

Sounds like it is going to get old very quick, and weird with mum worship.

not sure how you get your DP to see this though……

A decent mother wouldn’t mention this to their children, adult or not, until it was confirmed.

I just don't understand why people start telling everyone they have "suspected cancer" when all it is is that they have symptoms that warrant further tests. I get that it is anxiety provoking, but can't they manage their anxiety in other ways? To me, it's only "suspected cancer" when a doctor says that something "looks cancerous " or is "likely to be cancerous " not if it's just a symptom like post-menopausal bleeding that puts you on the cancer pathway. They are very different things. "I am worried about having cancer" is not the same as "suspected cancer". Most people who have further tests don't have cancer. I am guessing that if she has had cancer before this will make her more anxious. However it does sound as if she is a little bit manipulative/melodramatic in the way she seems to play the victim to guilt trip people into doing what she wants.

she's likely always been emotionally manipulative like this since her kids were babies, and they will know no different. She creates drama in order to gain control and get her way. Then she quickly decides she doesn't need control anymore, and the drama disappears. Her children will be conditioned to react how they do, and it would be very difficult to change their behaviours - these behaviours are ingrained in her children like lettering on gravestones because as their primary caregiver, they would have adapted to this cycle of drama-attention-control since babies. Its called trauma bonding, and they won't even know its happening.
I expect (and I am guessing) that she does stuff like name all the normal parental responsibilities (shetler, cooking, driving them to school) years and years later on repeat, and makes them feel like she made some huge sacrifices for them, yet in reality they are all the normal responsibilities you chose when you decide to have kids. Its a way of maintaining emotional control over them and their feelings, and a way of asserting a level of importance that she doesn't deserve.

@Autumn38 on their visits I end up very much solo parenting. And each time DH says "ah yes, I'll chip in more next time, yeah we should all do something together" but how it goes is:
PILs come over. MIL wants to chat and have a tea, my child isn't going to sit for hours and politely drink tea. He'll want to get up, run around, do things. She wants a quick game with my child but anything active or taking effort she won't participate in. So I end up parenting whilst my husband and his parents chat. If we go to the playground she'll take a seat on a bench and talk, whilst I run around. We've gone to the seaside before and she will lie down, order cocktails, do her thing whilst I do parenting and my DH "needs" to hang out with her or she gets offended. Again, she'll play with my child in the sea for 2 minutes but if there's any splashing or just childlike behaviour it's on me to manage, DH entertains her and I'm parenting. If he starts to chip in with parenting she will find something to call him over for or start a conversation so effectively he has to stop helping. Before you say anything, she's not unwell or unable to be active. She's actually super active, goes for runs most days. Another example that really stands out is early on, DC had a poonami, leaked out of the nappy and onto a (thankfully leather) sofa. The logical thing would be for me to change the baby whilst DH or MIL helps to clean the sofa or help somehow (or vice versa) but upon seeing it MIL says "shall we go walk around the garden?"
My mum will get stuck in and help. With her at the beach we will all play catch. At home she will bring over a chocolate making kit. She'll invent games.

You can see how as a result my child is excited to see my mum but sees MIL as a bit boring. And you can see how her visits aren't exactly fun for me.

You have to calmly, agreeably, offer the alternative perspective. Not in a contradictory way, an ‘additional information’ way.

When he says she’s right about weaning, and she says it ‘out of love’, just agree and mention that out of your deep, enduring love for your child you’ve read the latest advice and that’s what you’ll be following- out of love.

When he says she raised him single handed, say how fortunate your DC is to have a really involved mum and dad.

When he says she may be in her last weeks, mention how pleased you are that her cancer has been treated so well. Talk about how important it is to spend time with your family. How fortunate the dc are to still have grandparents.

Don’t argue or contradict. Confirm but broaden it out so he realises you and his children count too. That she’s queen in her house, and you are queen in yours. You may need to acquire a title. ‘Queen Mummy, Lady of all things.’ The chief fairy. Household Goddess. Whatever lightheartedly works for your family and places you alongside her on the pedestal!

My mum had cancer a few years ago and I fear it returning, in fact, I'm convinced it will. I don't verbalise this but if I feel like this, I imagine many who have actually fought cancer feel far, far more worried. That first 'scare' may well have been legit. The birth of a grandchild, the fear it has returned. I'd absolutely show grace. She may well have that fear and you may well have been the dramatic (dismissive) one. I say this as someone who just doesn't get that 'no one can visit mentality', especially inlaws, so maybe that clouds my judgement. Never crossed my mind not to have loved ones visit (despite a very traumatic birth first time)

You seem to be placing a lot of importance around the timings but it seems a push really. Tbh, I'm not someone who shares my own health concerns with anyone, let alone my children but I also recognise that other people are not always the same. Having had cancer would affect people differently I imagine, who's to say it hasn't taken a toll mentally and you just didn't notice until you had a baby and became all wrapped up in that?

Like I said, I have that fear with my own mum which contradicts how I generally feel about her health. She IS a hypochondriac, had had issues my whole life. I cannot tell you how mentally exhausting it has been but I know that she genuinely believes she is ill so mentally, she suffers as well. I don't actually ask her about her health and when she tells me what she thinks she has I am matter of fact and always turn it around to what her doctor thinks. That is absolutely how I'd handle this. Without the mean dismissiveness and looking for scenarios that probably don't really exist. 🤷‍♀️

Is she manipulative in other ways? It sounds like a learned behaviour. At some point she's realised that mentioning cancer gets everyone's eyes squarely back on her, and so she repeats it when she's feeling neglected. It's the kind of thing you could never reasonably say out loud!

Your mil is acting like a normal gp in this scenario. Your mum seems overinvolved. Why do you want her doing your job so much? Why isn’t your mum saying no? Does your mum not have a life? Are you so incapable your mum’s afraid you aren’t doing a good job without her?

Or, more likely, did your mil actually parent solo and is seeing you parenting solo and thinks it’s normal while your mum had a normal relationship and sees how useless your dh is?

Think of this from your mil’s pov.

@Ozanj it's more like we spend time altogether with my mum, because she's visiting to see me and her GC, whilst MIL just wants to tick the box with seeing DC but not actually do any activities or spend quality time. Besides, if it's normal for me to run after DC, clean poo, why shouldn't DH chip in during his mum's visits?

She'll go off in a strop or cry if people disagree with her, like saying no I won't stick purely to purées. So yes I'd say so.

I get you dislike her a lot, but someone who has cancer very likely does have an underlying fear it has come back. Try to seperate out your Dislike and have some empathy here.