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.

Melodramatic much? Some people feel that MIL could have had some foresight and stayed at home. No one's suggesting she is not allowed to grieve. Give it a rest.

Then I hope your family extended more empathy towards you, than your comment demonstrated you might be willing to show OP’s MIL.
You’ll know that someone grieving is not responsible for entertaining the people around them. Particularly when those people are supposed to be family.

You’re missing the point that people grieving don’t know how they will feel at any given point. Should everyone in grief just lock themselves in a cupboard until their ‘misery’ won’t impact on others? How long would that take do you think?

Or this is about a woman who thought that a holiday with her family might lift her spirits but found the opposite. Plus we only have OP’s words that she’s ‘moping’ - for all we know, she’s having a few quiet moments to herself and it’s just that she is not too keen on doing a conga down in the Old Town…

PS. Telling people with opposite views to you to ‘give it a rest’ is tiresome and rude.

According to some of these posters she should be doing that. Because how dare a recent widow be trying to get on with her life whilst still in the trenches and feeling unbearably sad.

Your MIL is grieving, a year is nothing in terms of processing her loss. She will be thinking about her husband and their holidays in the past, try not to be too hard on her, she might be surrounded by family but she is alone in her grief.

That is the thing with grief you cannot control it and you cannot control how you feel from one minute to the next.

And all we have to go on are two posts from the OP herself who never bothered to return to answer any pertinent questions that could have given us a better picture/understanding. Her posts were completely one sided, inviting all to agree and thankfully many didn’t, which is probably the reason we never heard from her again.

I agree. Usually people don’t respond because they are seeking validation that doesn’t come.

That sounds awful, you have my sympathy. Lesson learned though - don’t repeat the invitation.

That’s true, because in many cases the OP would have lost her DF so they would be supporting each other in their mutual loss. That would also be so if it were a long-time stepdad who had died.

it is different when it’s the FIL who died, as usually the relationship isn’t that close. My FIL died in a car accident 7 months after my DH and I got married. My MIL was a mess for a long time afterwards. I tried very hard to be empathic, but for at least 18 months afterwards she would go on about the accident and complain about the police investigation. (She couldn’t accept that her DH had made a mistake.)

We did have family holidays with her, and they were at times very uncomfortable. My SIL found this, too, especially since she’d recently had their third baby, which was hardly spoken about.

I wasn’t always as empathetic as I should have been. It didn’t help that I was also supporting my DSis through a difficult divorce after an abusive marriage. Or that I worked for the solicitor who was handling my MIL’s insurance claim and had typed the letters explaining the circumstances of the accident to her.

My MIL is actually the nicest person you could meet and a lovely grandma to our 2 DDs, and, 21 years later, I’ve really grown to appreciate her. It just took a very long time for her to come to terms with what happened to her DH and, whilst she was indeed very difficult to be around at times, I do wish I’d been more empathetic to her than I was.

That’s not nice. The MIL won’t always be like this, she’ll come to terms with her loss. The OP herself says they had a good relationship before.

No sympathy for the grieving mil though.

'This type of person'.
A bereaved one then?
FFS.

I know! It’s just a ‘funk’ though.

A life changing traumatic loss is just a funk.

I agree. If she was still so grief-stricken as to not enjoy it to the point of ruining it for her loved ones she should have had the self-awareness to not go.

I understand why she's upset but I'd leave her to it if she's not up for doing stuff. Offer her the opportunity - oh Sally we are just off out to the beach, you're welcome to join? If she declines - want us to bring anything back for you? Just try to be supportive but don't let the sadness drown you all. DH should have a private chat and see if there's anything that would make her feel better. Perhaps some 121 time for them and you escape for some me time for a few hours?

Yes, I've revised my comment.

I still stand by my earlier comments if the MIL was being horrible or negative or complaining and actively ruining others' enjoyment which is the impression I got at first reading, for whatever reason. That's why I said that's very different to being sad. Grief, however awful it is, is not an excuse for behaving badly with others. But in this situation that isn't the case at all! So if you keep reading you'll see that I've already adjusted my answer.

Anyway I'll let people read through from now on rather than replying every time someone doesn't join the dots. I mean at least I bothered to come back and take it back!

Maybe her son wanted her there and she’d hoped they could feel closer over their shared grief, and she went for the grandchild too. Maybe she was hoping to see her niece who she seemed close to (more comfortable with), maybe a lot of things together with her grief. Perhaps she regretted going and it didn’t feel she could express this. Maybe, unlike what the dil professes, they don’t get on that well. We can’t know. What we do know is she is grieving.

Me melodramatic!? 😂Okay.

How can MIL have some foresight when she might not have realised how going on holiday without her husband was going to make her feel. Sometimes we don't know how we are going to feel about something until we do it.

I will 'give it a rest' as you say, when some people on here have some bloody compassion for a grieving widow. Complaining that she is moping? FFS!

I lost my mum four years ago and I swear some days it hits me more than in the days immediately after. Grieving is unpredictable, it doesn't conveniently go away when you're in company.

Maybe when the holiday was arranged she thought she'd be in a better place. Maybe she knew she wasn't ready but was worried about letting people down by not coming.

MN is brutal sometimes.

OP is letting her spoil it. She doesn’t need to do that and it’s well within her control to enjoy her holiday still.

What’s she actually done though? Been a bit quiet and sad, and invited your husband’s cousin over?

Thank you for your lovely and honest post. Sometimes we just do the best we can at the time and look back and think we could have done more. But the testament is the relationship you have today. ❤️

I agree, it’s lovely. ❤️

I thought the funk was a style of music - now I know it's just a bit of tiddly fiddly grief.

And I also know now that we shouldn't 'enable/validate' it - because why WOULD you enable or validate people's legitimate feelings of loss?!

Much better to ignore them and get the Ouzo down your necks before the midnight disco down in the bar!