AIBU to be upset at mother in law for saying i put DH under too much pressure?

[Ideas22]

Firstly mother in law is great we have never had any issues in the last 10 years. DH has been very stressed and hasn’t been enjoying his job lately. He has a history of seizures periodically throughout his life since he was a child. He has had a couple in the last few months after not having any for many years so its been stressful all round and we have young kids. The aibu comes when talking of holidays i say i was telling dh that we need to take kids on holidays and we need to give them more memories while they are young and I don’t want them to be the only ones not doing anything during the holidays as they will be left out at school if friends are talking about stuff they did. Mother in law then says i put dh under a lot of pressure. Am really upset by this as it felt like she was saying i am the cause of his stress therefore the seizures. Aibu to feel this way? By the way this isnt true at all instead am the one who has supported him throughout this and he has consistently said to me that he is so happy at home and loves how supportive i have been. But now i think his family are blaming me for his illness and they think am the cause of the stress. She also said if I wanted to take kids out i should do it by myself and leave dh but thats not a solution to me why cant we do stuff as a family.

He is getting proper treatment don’t you think that was the first priority? Do people think we would just watch him have a seizure and then go back to our day like nothing ever happened? Obviously now he is stable and has been seen by the specialist and being treated before anything else is even a thought

Absolutely. Or, very sadly, you could be left making memories without him in the end. That's a painful fact. We almost lost my dad to workplace stress-related illness.

Focus on his health.

Creating memories with your children and having time away from day to day doesn't have to cost lots of money. I would wonder why his mum has that impression of pressure and if he feels this but has not voiced it to you. Expectations need discussing between the two of you.

Also from what OP has written his seizures are being investigated and managed. His health is a priority for them. I am guessing he was on medication for epilepsy prior to them coming back again??

You make it sound as though you only want to go on holiday to keep up 'with the Joneses', maybe your DH doesn't think you need to take the kids on holidays to make memories as memories can be made anywhere.

Nobody ever said he needs to continue in his job. I have repeatedly said he needs to leave he has refused. What am i supposed to do ? Call his employer and resign for him ? And no i can fund myself and more than happy to and he knows that. Money isn’t the issue here so he can leave his job whenever he wants but refuses to and says he will move company instead

He is under no financial pressure as i can up my hours back to full time and earn enough myself but obviously his mum knows nothing about my job and my earnings so maybe assumes i need his son to fund me which isn’t true and I don’t feel i need to discuss my finances with her.

He wasn’t on any medication because apparently before i met him when he last had a seizure him and his doctor decided he didn’t need the medication. But since he has had one this time around i have made sure to be the one to book his appointments and go with him to all of them and he is now on medication.

YANBU. He’s a grown man and it’s not her role to insert herself in your relationship dynamic. If she talked to him privately about whether he feels he’s under a lot of pressure - without specifying, “from that mean, irrational wife of yours” - that would be different. But right now she’s blaming you for what sounds like a complicated situation, and casting her son as this infantilized figure who needs his mother to stand up for him.

Your kids don’t need to go on holiday, though.

So money isn’t an issue, just book some holidays?
The way you’ve reasoned it is a bit weird though. Why not say, “you’re stressed, let’s book a nice holiday to look forward to” instead of the mental kids need to make memories excuse. It puts unnecessary pressure on the situation and turns it into something that sounds a bit stressful.

Mumsnet classic response on this one, I see. Make a tonne of shit up as fast as possible.

Nowhere in the original post was "abroad mentioned". She said he wasn't enjoying his job lately. That is all. She did not say he was working extra long hours and she certainly didn't say she was making him do so, let alone to pay for a fancy foreign holiday for their kids. She also never mentioned "keeping up" with anybody, named Jones or otherwise.
She just basically said, "it would be nice for the kids to have something to talk about".

If we're making stuff up, why not go the whole hog.
OP obviously doesn't have a job and spends all day painting her nails and clip-clopping round in diamond studded Louboutins while the full time nanny looks after the kids so she can whip her husband in to working thirty nine hours a day before he comes home where she makes him cook an eight course meal and scrub all the floors at the same time. She's got to be depriving him of his mummy's love and doesn't care about him at all. Probably threatened to leave him and fuck off to the Bahamas with the hunky pool boy too. Lazy selfish evil witch that she is. She can't read or add up neither so he has to organise everything, on top of working 60 hour a day to pay for it all.

I also very much doubt a man who has been having seizures since childhood, as OP stated, has not seen a doctor. He has a long-standing medical condition that might need a fresh visit but that's his call. That is for him, as a fully competent adult male, to decide and sort out. It is his responsibility, not OPs and certainly not his mummy's.

I give up with this place, I really do.

Yep. Mil is right.

we need to take kids on holidays and we need to give them more memories while they are young and I don’t want them to be the only ones not doing anything during the holidays as they will be left out at school.
You don't need to go on holiday to give kids memories. You don't have to go out with DH either. During the holidays I just took them to different parks with picnics, walking down canal feeding ducks, walks in the woods building dens. My DH was working all the time so didn't come with us. We live near Thorpe Park legoland and Chessington but never went as couldn't afford to take them.

I voted YABU as I agree with others that although your intentions may be different, your wording on why holidays are important I don’t want them to be the only ones not doing anything during the holidays as they will be left out at school if friends are talking about stuff they did. is utter tosh and completely superficial.

He is under stress and has told you he doesn't want to - I would dig deeper on why he has had a change of heart after previously enjoying them

It does sound like you're pressuring him to go on holiday, presumably because he's reluctant? Holidays aren't relaxing for everyone, especially when you've got young kids. I find them quite stressful to be honest.

I don't think your MIL is saying you've caused his seizures by stressing him out - she's obviously worried about him and perhaps gently wanted to remind you not to put pressure on him.

If he's never said he doesn't want to go and likes to have something booked then why was it necessary to talk about the children potentially missing out? It makes no sense.

What if you rephrase it? Dear DH, I know you are under a lot of stress. Would you like for us to go on a holiday together or is this stressful for you as well? If you do, I will book us something with kids club so we get some time to relax as well. If not, would you like to be home alone for a week while I take the kids? Maybe that's what you need to really relax?

when talking of holidays i say i was telling dh that we need to take kids on holidays and we need to give them more memories while they are young and I don’t want them to be the only ones not doing anything during the holidays as they will be left out at school if friends are talking about stuff they did.

I would phrase it, and prefer it was phrased to me, more along the lines of "where do you fancy going on holiday?"

I’d try what others have mentioned. Don’t paint it as memories for the children or mention that it isn’t fair on them to miss out when others in school will go on holiday etc as he may feel pressured and/or guilty.

Try sell it as a relaxing holiday for you and him. Somewhere with a kids club so they can be entertained and have fun and he can lounge by a pool or on a beach in the warm sunshine or even just relax in a nice hotel room with room service/buffets.

Children can make memories very cheaply. Picnics in the wood, climbing trees, crabbing at the coast, water fights at home etc. They don’t need to go on holiday. Holidays are about adults making memories and they can be important to feeling refreshed but not when that money could be used for something else. If my husband was having tests to understand his seizures but we were pretty sure it was work related, I would be saving in case he needs to leave work suddenly or he needs to go on sick leave.

Also OP, don’t put pressure on yourself either or feel guilty. It might just be that this year it won’t be possible while he is dealing with this and you’re not sure how things will end up with his job and health yet and that’s perfectly ok.

Lots of children do go away in summer (or during other half terms) but a lot also don’t. Some will go abroad, some will go caravanning/camping in the UK, some will just have the odd day trips to the beach, zoo, park etc. We can all only do what we can do.

You don’t say how young the dcs are. It’s fun taking DCs on holiday when they are young but you will be the only one with the memories not them. I just had a conversation with my DCs and some of their friends, my oldest 12yo barely remembers anything of our family holidays when she was little and we spent a fortune on making them happen. My youngest DCs 7 & 10 also don’t remember things that happened 2 years ago.

i won’t go into the seizure aspect as you’ve had a lot of response on that, I will say the way you worded your op sounded like you were putting pressure on DH to make holidays happen. Just because he’s saying to you he’s happy dose not mean he’s not secretly stressing about the pressures to “make memories”

Exactly this. A holiday should be enjoyable not something that must be done for the sake of the children.

If your MiL is generally great she's probably just worried about her son.

At first I though YWBU, and I do think if he’s stressed and having seizures due to stress you should back off on the guilt of not giving his children memories and not booking holidays etc. holidays are not the only way to spend family time or make memories. Booking holidays (and affording them) can be stressful too. But as you’re saying finances aren’t a problem if you want a holiday perhaps you could agree a budget and a week and book a nice relaxing holiday for you all. You could also discuss how your finances might change if he were to change jobs or reduce his hours etc.

I think with the other info you’ve provided she is BU. I wouldn’t really be impressed that she criticised me at all, did you ask for her opinion on your marriage?
if she was genuinely worried about her son she could have said she is worried for him and the stress he is under, it’s expensive to pay for things like holidays etc and she thinks worrying is adding to his poor health.
instead she just criticised you. Does she think he’s unable to speak his own mind and is just henpecked by you? That he needed his mothers to get involved? It’s incredibly rude. If she really is great maybe it was an accident this one time, but I would be saying something if she comments again.

Well, for a start, you and your husband need to stop discussing his private health issues with his mother. The less she knows, the better!

He is getting proper treatment don’t you think that was the first priority? Do people think we would just watch him have a seizure and then go back to our day like nothing ever happened

Apologies, but it wasn't clear from your opening post that his condition was now under control.

So it seems the crux of the problem is that your husband is under a great deal of stress and it's impacting his health and his family relationships. And from your subsequent posts I can understand your frustration. You've suggested a few things that could alleviate his stress - job change, reducing hours - but he just dismisses those and subsequently nothing changes.

It's not really taking the kids on holiday per se but rather his inability to even consider it because of stress coupled with his refusal to address what's causing this extreme stress in the first place. Is the entire family supposed to remain in limbo waiting for his stress to magically disappear?

I think he needs help in sorting himself out. If you can't get through to him then what about suggesting some type of counseling?

As for your MIL...tell her what you've explained here. You know he's under stress and you've encouraged him to address it but he doesn't seem able to right now. I know she shouldn't be sticking her nose into your business but she's probably very worried about him. If you've had a good relationship all these years I'd be inclined to cut her a bit of slack. Good luck with it all.