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.

Quoted wrong post

Sorry Seraf xx

Oh I am so very sorry for the loss of your MIL .
What a difficult time for everyone , your husband has just lost his mother.
However , that’s not a good idea to drive for 12 hours on your own with a 4 month old baby to a remote location.
Be there for your husband and your FIL but please fly there ( checking weather first as we are due Amber warning winds ) and get picked up from airport.
i don’t know where you’re heading to ?
Shetland ?
Stornoway ?
Husband can’t dictate how you travel up there

I did no such thing. You will find you're quoting another poster.

So sorry! Requoting now 😊

NP I guessed it was a crossed wire.

I would get there the safest way you could. Just tell him when you will get there not how. I would go to support him as long as its safe to go. I personally don't drive far away so my option would be train or plane. I hope you can get there safely.

I've never heard of a funeral being held up for a month so that a 10yr old can attend. How about giving the OP some consideration. Having to travel with a baby and a suitcase on two trains is no fun. She's only been with her partner for a year so hardly knows his parents as they live so far away and actually just done the journey. Being stuck with a baby in a remote place where you can't go anywhere will be awful.
The grandfather will survive without the baby and even though the husband's mother has just passed he should love and care for his wife enough to tell her to stay home and look after the baby.
He will have his hands full looking after his father and arrangements and working from the house. Give this mother a break for goodness sake. He might be grieving but he's a big boy and can handle things on his own.

He is grieving so cut him some slack BUT if you want to wait and go up just before the funeral then that is fine too. I would tell him, "I'm so sorry you're hurting and I know this is a terrible loss for you but while you are going through this, I also need to think of our children and their health and wellbeing. Baby has not been well after injections so I can't drag a small baby on a long journey with a fever and illness after injections. It's absolutely nothing against you or your dad but I have to consider the baby"

Then let him feel how he needs to feel.

Saying you wouldn't be able to go out for a walk is adding to the unreasonable ridiculousness of this post ! It's not unreasonable to decide for yourself that you will fly instead of train and ferry but go and support your husband asap or you may not have one and you'll be coping or indeed struggling with a baby by yourself permanently

Another Discusting comment. Please let’s stop telling a vulnerable woman with a four month old baby that her husband will divorce her if she doesn’t obey him.

go and support your husband asap or you may not have one and you'll be coping or indeed struggling with a baby by yourself permanently

So not only would he be right to divorce OP, he should also abandon his child permanently?

Ok

This is ridiculous.

And lets please stop pretending that every woman with one four month old baby is "vulnerable". Its an insult to women who really are in situations of vulnerability.

She has a four month old baby who in her previous posts was sleeping fine and FF. There have been a few nights disturbed sleep post a vaccination. That doesn't make her "vulnerable" it just makes her a bit knackered but otherwise a fully functioning adult human being.

Stop infantilising women.

Vulgar. Be kind.

That’s exactly it though. The reason is “I don’t want to”. Thats what people are saying is unreasonable from a spouse in the aftermath of their partner losing their mother.

All this stuff about busy trains, 4 month olds not being able to go somewhere new, and not being able to even walk outside is just nonsense.

Ultimately outright “I don’t want to” put myself out when your partner needs a fairly one off but if support is callous.

How is it unkind or vulgar to say most mothers with 4 month olds babies are fully functioning adult humans capable of the same things as anyone else?

Because most of these comments are absolutely discusting and ganging up on a grieving mother with a 4 month old baby who’s having to do an awful 12 hour trip is not the answer. You don’t know what she’s going through and these comments could push her over the edge.

I 100% agree with this. I posted earlier about my husband losing his mum to terminal illness and it was a very hard time - leading up to it and even when it happened it was hard - so I did what I could to support him and the kids who lost a grandparent. His mental health suffered so there were times he was snappy but because he was struggling. The day before she passed we were away for the weekend 3 hours away in a caravan. He left us there when he knew it was imminent, and I told him he should go rather than wait for us all to pack up and get the kids up in the early hours of the morning. And he said he’d come and get us in a few days. I knew he needed us there so that day I packed everything up - so had a lot of luggage, and also 2 primary age children, and no car as hes taken it and plotted how we could get home which involved busses, trains and lifts. And when we got back I could tell it meant a lot to have us to come and talk to and see and give him a hug.
on the flip side I then ended up losing a parent to a terminal illness and he was my rock for the year that I struggled in the lead up and during.
Babies are very resilient, and the baby wouldn’t exist without its father. Whether he’s saying it or not, he needs you there and is probably struggling himself. He may be using the FIL as an excuse or might he struggling with trying to support his dad and if they are elderly there might be a lot of admin to get through.

OP hasn't commented since Tuesday yet the thread is nearly full 🙄

It isn't. On the contrary its insulting and disrespectful to women to keep insisting we are helpless little girls who have to be "looked after" as soon as we have a child.

However there are a handful of posters here determined to push their finctional backstory on an entirely normal but challenging family situation.
I suppose inventing hideous sagas of abuse and infantilising of women are some people's idea of entertainment. Its rarely helpful to the actual OPs of these threads.

I think there is a topic here for creative writing. I'm sure you would find it interesting.

Nor is your comment helpful to the OP in any way, shape or form.

Have you read the comments about this poor woman?

I've read the OP's actual posts instead of fabricating some exotic backstory and "filling in the gaps".

You might try it.

I’m going by what OP has said, so you believe the creative writing too that her husband will probbaly divorce her over this?

This thread is a classic example of the howling moral outrage some people feel when a pregnant woman or new mother dares to consider her own and the baby's welfare, over the wants of other people however unreasonable. It's quite illuminating.