MIL on holiday with us at the moment but all she has done is mope

[Summerispantsthisyear]

We’re currently on holiday somewhere in Greece & have bought my husband’s Mum (who I get on with well) with us for around a week, she was widowed late last year & we thought it would be a lovely break for her, she’s close to our child (& we do not expect childcare at all) . We’ve paid for her flights & accommodation in a beautiful apartment but all she has done is sit on her own, barely spoken to any of us & wallow in almost self pity, making it really difficult for us to enjoy the first part of our family holiday. She took it upon herself without asking to invite a niece & partner of hers who are staying close by to join us at our apartment for drinks today but they’re now not coming, she’s upset & frankly I’ve found the whole first part of the trip exhausting having to tread on eggshells the entire time. I absolutely hate to sound selfish & thought we were doing the right thing but it’s been an absolute disaster & I feel horrible. I had an honest chat with her last night hoping things would change today but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears & we’re all back to square one. I feel awful even writing this but need to get it off my chest.

Nonsense.

She probably didn't realise that she wasn't ready to go on holiday until she was there. How was she supposed to know how she was going to feel? She probably thought a change of scenery would do her good and didn't know she would feel this bad.

Sitting on her own and not speaking much is hardly spoiling someones well earned holiday. If she wants to sit and reflect and be thoughtful then why can't she? Why can't people just do their own thing? Why can't everyone else just go out and enjoy themselves.

Could you offer to fly her home early - check flight prices first though

I’m so glad no one said that to me after DH died. I would have thought them insufferably smug and patronising. Just goes to show we’re all different.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I would say to the whole family while making breakfast tomorrow - ‘Right chaps! Let’s get up and at ‘em today. We can go to the pool, head in to the town, or hit the beach, we’ve got dinner booked for 8pm so let’s have a great day. I get 21 days annual leave a year, this is 14 of them, so let’s make the most of it. Sue? Happy if you want to stay here and we’ll meet you for dinner later’.

I think you need to carry on without her. She’ll drag you down if you keep trying to include her.

Wow

Imagine losing your husband? What do you expect her to do, some cartwheels on the balcony? She’s mourning her dh and probably wishes he was there to share the holiday.
If it bothers you that much, go out and enjoy your day.

I assume she's still grieving for her husband.

Fucking hell! Is this real? You sound incredibly self centred.
You can’t control how someone else behaves or feels. You can accept how it is with grace. She might just need some space to sit quietly whilst being around her family.

To those of you who have said she needs to pull herself out of her funk and stop being miserable, I hope to god that none of you ever understand how difficult she is finding life right now. As a widow of 2.5 years I can tell you that it is incredibly difficult to navigate this passage and those that have never been there will simply never understand. At her point, I was in a darkness That I very nearly didn't come back from and that still hits even now.

Educate yourself about the profound grief that occurs when you loose your life partner and have some empathy.

To OP I'm sorry that this is difficult for you both to navigate. It's difficult for her and those around her. Try and focus on happy memories with your LO and treat her with grace where you can, trust me she is in a level of hell that I hope you'll never have to understand x

It could be possible she’s not moping but is in functional freeze (burnout). I don’t know how old your MIL is, but my mum is of the boomer generation who married at 21 and went from her parents house to her marital home. When my dad died nearly 20 years ago, even though she was only in her 50’s, this was part of the shock to the system. This generation sometimes have very little experience of living alone, and it’s just not the same as learning to deal with life alone in your 20’s or 30’s. Many of these women will have had shared finances at the very least, shared all spending decisions, bills, etc.
So it’s not just the grief - it’s also going to being the only one responsible for your life. That’s stressful. And like with any stressful situation, when you’re taken out of it for a while it’s sometimes not that easy to feel the relief - it can just expose that all there is in your life is stress, you’ve been fuelled by adrenaline.

THEN there’s the grief, on top. Which is separate. It’s been covered well here already how inadequately people understand this type of grief. I don’t, and my mum went through it.

Who invites a recently bereaved widow on holiday and expects them to be a barrel of laughs? She's not moping, it's called grief.

This is patronising, as true as it is, she's grieving her husband.

Is she maybe feeling guilty to be seen to be enjoying herself OP?

The only people stopping you enjoying it is you OP. She isn’t making demands she is just quiet so what. Go out for the day let her do what she wants to do and you do you

I went on holiday with my mother and DD1 a year after my DDad had died. She wanted to go away, and wanted to go to the seaside. She was vile to me and DD the whole week. I get that she was missing my Dad, but all she wanted to do was go out drinking, and to lock DD in the room. When I refused to do this, and suggested we got wine from the bar and some snacks, and sat on the balcony, this wasn’t good enough, and I was “shit as a daughter.” We ended up going out late in the evenings so that she could have a drink, taking poor old DD with us in her stroller. DD couldn’t do anything right either - she should have been speaking/potty trained etc etc. I get that the anger was grief (and it continued for about 15 years), but I never went away with her again after that. I think you don’t know how people are going to react, but a bit of self awareness would have been nice. So I sort of get where you are coming from, OP!

Is there a reason the cousin visit wasn't rearranged?

I don't think she's doing anything wrong if she's taking herself away and quietly sitting on her own. Grief is terrible and unfortunately sometimes you can't just put a mask on and pretend you are okay to make others happy. Just give her space and get on with your holiday and do whatever you want. It's not like she's kicking off or being nasty.

It doesn’t look like the OP is returning.

I can't see anything wrong with pointing that out to some people. So many on here seem clueless about it and are totally lacking in empathy.

I think she wanted 100% validation and people telling her how awful her MIL was. There have been a few with hearts of stone, but OP hasn't had it all her own way.

I agree.

Grief is not as black and white as that. One moment you like the idea of something and want to do something fun, the next the reality of it can be paralysing. You’re trying to exist in a world that keeps on turning, whilst your own has been shattered. There’s no quick remedy for grief, and you can’t plan it.

”Sorry you’re grieving (which we knew before we invited you on holiday) but as you’re bumming us out we’ve booked you on the 6:30pm to Luton - don’t worry though - we’re paying! (And we checked the prices first - we’re not made of money!)”

You are totally projecting what happened to you onto the OP. Her mother in law hasn't been vile, wanted to go out drinking or lock anyone in their bedroom. She is simply grief stricken.

Some people on this thread have never known the depths of really paralysing and deep grief. I’m glad that you haven’t and I understand you can’t have empathy as a result. But surely you can have some sympathy.