Feel awful about MIL's passing but struggling with baby - AIBU?

[Charlottef94]

My MIL sadly passed away last week after a terminal illness. She and FIL live in a very very remote part of UK which takes around 12 hrs door to door from us. We were there a week ago luckily before she passed, with our 4 month old.

When she passed overnight last week I stayed as we had already postponed our babys vaccines by over a month due to all the travel over Christmas and up to see them, and they were due to have them that day. DH went up to FIL straight away - however I now feel that he is angry with me that we didnt go immediately and is being quite insensitive to me in having to make this huge journey now on my own as well as currently solo parenting our baby who is going through 4month sleep regression.

I have offered to go up asap, however with the funeral date tbc I would like us to stay up there, until the funeral rather than come back home and back up again. I just feel that it's so many extremely long journeys for our baby who was v unsettled last time we went up there, has just settled down at home again - this is why I wanted to give him a few extra days to get over his jabs and be at home before more upheaval. We have also only been married a year and I did feel that at such a raw time for FIL, having me there hanging around in the very beginning would feel intrusive on his grief as he is alone with DH at the moment.

I just feel my DH is not caring about us at all at the moment, he is barely speaking to me and keeps making sharp comments about how he wants me to get there asap as FIL is really keen to be surrounded by all the grandchildren, as if I am refusing to go. His SIL gets there today with baby. There is a turn in the weather this week meaning I am unlikely to be able to make it to where they live this week or could get stranded with our baby, but I feel DH will tell me we have to try and make the journey.

AIBU in feeling a bit upset myself? I know he has lost his mum but I am trying my best to hold everything together and stable here for our baby and I feel so alone and worried that I've been unreasonable in staying home for a bit longer given the circumstances.

This OP sums up the people telling OP to go. Full of the milk of human kindness… not.

If you think this man would travel 12 hours to spend a MONTH at his in laws house in the middle of nowhere in winter then you’re kidding yourself @Cornecopia

I mean, perhaps an unpopular opinion, but having read all your updates, I don't think I would go to be honest

There is no way a man would be expected to stay a month with his MIL. It just wouldn’t happen.

There’s a lot of misogyny on MN, I think many here are imagining OP should go along and cook and clean after FIL and DH for a month.

She doesn’t have a 10 year old.

Who gives a fuck what other random men would do?
Your obsession with other men being shit is not relevant at all.

Many women have married good men who actually do put themselves out for their families. It’s incredibly sad that you don’t like that life and can’t understand the concept of a man not always putting himself first.

Do keep up @Completelyjo The poster asked ‘What would of happened if this was your mother op?’ Why not ask her who gives a fuck?

DH and I have been married happily for years precisely because we are reasonable people who don’t expect each other to do unreasonable things.

I’m going to be spending a few weeks to help my mum after an operation soon. I won’t be expecting DH to come with me. It’s possible to support a parent without your spouse having to tag along.

That’s not remotely comparable to your mum having just died.

It was to address your assumption that somehow you are superior than those saying this trip is not right for OP.

I do a lot for my family as does DH, but we are pragmatic and the needs of a mum and her 4mo baby would come first, so your pseudo sympathy about how ‘incredibly sad’ it is unwanted, thank you all the same.

I’m incredibly sad at such rigid and inflexible thinking like yours.

@Charlottef94 hope that if you decided to travel you've got there fairly easily and safely. If you've stayed at home, don't feel guilty; it's right to put your tiny baby and even yourself first. Your DH will be grieving whether you are there or not, and he has family around him. Going up a few days before the funeral is fine.

I don’t think you are being a psychopath at all.

Yes, it’s sad that MIL died but life does go on around you and things like vaccines can’t really be delayed too long .

A 12 hour journey alone with a four month old is way too far and being sleep deprived too isn’t going to help.

It did cross my mind that the reason why FIL and DP are so desperate for her to be up there.

No - you misunderstand.

I am judging none of them. And having lost both parents far too young, in one case in extremely sudden and tragic circumstances, I am the last person who needs a lecture about how it feels to grieve a parent.

Your concluding sentence says far more about you than it does about me.

Im sorry i Respect comments about being there fur him but I disagree. I’d not go. It’s too far x I’d never travel that far with a new baby. I’ve been through a lot of trauma tho and people pleasing so now I only ever do what’s right for my children and that’s my boundary in life. I wouldn’t drive 12 hours anyway so no point in ever expecting me to go to that. I suffered all my loses alone you get through it xx

I think people are projecting here.

More likely FIL wants to see his Baby grandchild. Baby's are hugely healing you can't not smile at a baby.

DH probably want to feel supported have a cuddle, get support from his partner, feel she actually cares about him.
See his baby too.

@Completelyjo a good man wouldn’t expect his wife and 4mo baby to decamp to the other side of the country for a month, and dictate when she should come and how she should travel there

If you are someone who sees death and terminal illness on a daily basis, I assume that you work in health care. If that is the case, I am appalled that you are actually hoping that people who are supporting the OP get rejected by their own children.

Unless you can also show compassion to a post-partum, obviously struggling mum as well as to her bereaved DH and FIL, I think you are probably in the wrong job as you are judgemental and lack empathy. Do you judge the bereaved families that don't grieve in the right way?

You are so nasty and your last sentence is so disgusting. OP literally did that very long trip with her husband and baby very recently. Why should she do it again so soon and on her own? Her husband is too lazy and cheap to pay for a plane ticket and pick her up from the airport. He'd rather her take several trains and a ferry with a tiny baby.

I think OP should stay home and if her husband wants her to come at a later date to the funeral then he needs to pay for her flight and collect her from the airport! Also, babies aren't emotional support animals. It sounds like the husband and his dad just want the baby and don't care about OP.

I know 100% my man would. Maybe set your bar higher

🤣🤣🤣 it definitely isn’t

I agree. It doesn't even sound as though OP's DH wants her there because he is missing her and the baby. It's because he wants her to deliver the baby to his dad. He is planning to work remotely all the time that he is there and OP will be left to care for the baby for a month, away from her support network, in an unfamiliar house with an overbearing FIL. Delaying a funeral for a month so that a 10 year old can attend seems unusual to say the least.

I'm guessing that cash may be the reason he's trying to dictate how you travel.
Flying and the sleeper train are really expensive.

That said you need the easiest option just bang it on a credit card and get there rested

Your bar of a “good man” is incredibly weird.
There is nothing keeping OP in their current location, no work, no school, no schedule to stick to, no logistics that have to be worked around or older children that need to maintain structure. The only reason was the vaccinations which were last week.
Why is the DH not a good man for wanting his wife, who has no current obligations to work around, to join him in his family home after his mother had died?
One annoying day of travelling with a baby who is light enough to just go in a sling shouldn’t really be so cumbersome that it stops you being with your very recently bereaved husband.
The journey might be shit but it’s one day. It shouldn’t really be an impossible ask within a marriage.

I think you should go, but on your terms.

Travel how you like. Book a hotel / air B&B. Take everything you need for a month to "live" in the new location, not just be a guest in a grieving persons house

. Make sure you have your own space and see it as an interesting bonus of being on maternity leave that you can support your husband to be close to his dad at this time.

I can only think that some people don't really on their spouses for emotional support that much. I would do it for my husband and him for me, without a moments hesitation. He is my absolute rock and there are times when I just need him, and vice versa.

I put him first in his time off need, as would he in mine. I couldn't imagine not being by his side in one of the most difficult times of his life. It makes no difference to the baby (trains aren't dangerous, potential delays aren't dangerous), and for a day or discomfort to be by my husband's side doesn't feel impossible I agree.

The good reason is if she doesn’t want to. She has a tiny baby and a routine. Her own family and friends. Her own home and life.

It’s clear you don’t see OP as an individual with her own wants and needs, you just see her as an appendage to her husband, dragged around at his will.