Ever Grieving SIL

[meatsandcheeses]

OK, prepared to be flamed, but my SILs dad died 10 years ago and yet, it's almost daily but definitely weekly, she's posting her grief on Facebook, he much she's missing him, how grief is so silent and misunderstood. And jesus how that escalates for father's day, his birthday, the day he died, the day they found out he was ill, Christmas, Easter, her kids birthdays, her birthday, the neighbour five doors down birthday. At what point is this just attention seeking? It drives me mad, I've gone so far as to silence her because I can't bear the "hope you're OK hun" stuff.

I used to get on with her well, but she's always driven me mad by text and socials.

No it doesn't sound very much like I like her. I did, at one time, but this behaviour has absolutely trashed my opinion of her. She even got in competition with a relative of hers raising money for charity, because she had to be the one seen to be doing it and wouldn't collaborate.

Am I just mean spirited?

Admittedly I will put a lovely pic of my mum on her birthday or Mother’s Day, just because I think it’s nice to remember but other than that. What I find difficult is not having new pics, as silly as that sounds! She will be forever young.

I'm really sorry about your dad xx

However, I don't think what your aunty is doing is performative. Sometimes we like to keep our loved ones memories going, as it kind of keeps them alive. As I've said before, we all deal with grief in our own ways, and it just seems so unfair to judge ..

Losing your parents as an adult is a rite of passage. It doesnt mean it's easy by any stretch but if you are still not coping with life 2 years + on then there is a problem that extends beyond grief. Publicly remembering them on special occasions (mothers/fathers day and birthdays) for the rest of your days is personal preference. More that that, you have to ask yourself why you are posting and for whom. You would hope that your parent loved you enough to want you to move on and have your own life and to have made that clear to you. Sadly, people who are locked into grieving prison for a parent aren't often in that position.

Exactly. As Ernest Hemingway said, every man has two deaths: first when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name.

A lot to lose, can’t be easy

I rather think the responses would be different if it was a parent doing this for a child they'd lost.

Thank you. I knew the saying, but I didn't know where it came from. That's exactly what I was trying to say xx

If she is just like this on facebook please just mute/stop following her newsfeed. I know a few people who are a bit similar on Facebook, I just think it is how they cope. No point wasting your life getting stressed about this, it is why Facebook as the function.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I’m a ruthless muter these days! Do it.

I’ll never forget the day my manager came to find me at work to say my family had been trying to contact me because a parent had died suddenly. A colleague that sounds very similar to your SIL fell to the floor sobbing (without tears) because hers had also died, I later on found out they had died 12 years earlier. My manager did turn round to them and say that’s very sad but Teenys has just passed so let’s give her chance to process it rather than causing a distraction (she phrased it better than that)

I have a relative like this, only it’s closer to 20 years and nobody is allowed to be more heartbroken or suffer grief to anything like the same extent. It has caused very hurtful incidents because said relative’s grief is the only grief that counts, and I for one will never forget that. Or, quite frankly, forgive it.

YANBU, saying that as someone who lost their last parent 2 yrs ago. The first year was incredibly hard, second year had it's moments. Now I just want to get on with celebrating the living and quietly mourning the dead.
I even get annoyed at people msgs saying 'thinking of you today'. The pressure to go to the cemetery for every possible reason and if I don't, why not. Just FO. I'll do it my own way and I don't need to post about it.

Grief is complex. Everyone has a different reaction. You dont have to get involved..

Grief endures and hits people at all times of random times. But endless relentless posting about it, when it is someone who died at a ripe old age, does make me raise my eyebrows

Sometimes I wonder if they realise other people have lost people too or whether they think their grief is unique

I have also noticed that the people who do this incessantly are often people who constantly bitched about that same relative when they were still alive!

Anyway, just mute or ignore .

Well... of course, what's the point you're trying to make?

I don't feel that way at all, but then perhaps me n ernest have little in common

It sounds over the top and performative.

I'd be interested to know what she iys like IRL- if her behaviour in person matches up with her Facebook behaviour.

I'd be annoyed too if in person she seemed like she was no longer affected by that level of grief. There are people out there who are genuinely stuck in grief for years, and I don't want to judge someone struggling.

But from your post it sounds like she's okay in real life but milking her loss for all it's worth on Facebook, which is a thing some people do.

I would mute her on Facebook. She'll never know so it won't cause drama.

Oh right so only parents are allowed to grieve openly. Everyone else has an arbitrary cut off point where if they aren't over a death in 6 months there's something wrong with them.

Opinion…. Is just that an opinion. Doesn’t mean op is right and the SIL is wrong. People hand things differently

My parents' and their entire generation are dead and I never met my grandparents

Death is a fact of life and people who whine decades after someone has died, really are a nuisance

Yes it's sad, but life carries on

I'd mute her on SM

There's grieving, and there's posting every other day on facebook about how much you are grieving. They are very different things.

I’ve got a relative whose mum died about 20 years ago and does this! The whole family are sick of It!