We can’t help if it’s impossible to !!!

[Greyspiders]

Today we have had a massive argument with MIL. She has uninvited us from visiting on Boxing Day due to what she describes as our selfish and cruel behaviour towards her.

Dh was miles away at a hospital appointment with oldest dc. I was at home and then picking up youngest dc from school. MIL phoned me in a panic saying she couldn’t get hold of her son-I explained hes at the hospital and probably can’t answer / no signal? She wanted immediate help to get to the emergency vet and wanted dh , she said she couldn’t even lift the dog (and also she doesn’t drive) and SIL was at work and she refused to disturb her. I said how sorry I was and could I help by sending her the taxi money ? She said it’s impossible to get a taxi that will take a sick dog and that she can’t carry him anyway so what use was that. She said she will keep trying dh and I need to as well as he needed to come straight back. She then said I should be doing things like appointments it’s ’not a mans job’ !!!

I asked was there not some kind of emergency vet that could visit and again said if cost was an issue we would help. She hung up on me. Dh then started messaging as said she was calling him and he couldn’t answer and had messaged her saying he will
call when out of hospital but she kept calling and did I know if she was ok.

She’s now said that I’m stopping her ever having support from her son ?? Which isn’t true as he does a lot for her . She messaged ‘don’t bother visiting on Boxing Day I’ve had enough of you’ .

AIBU as how can she have a go at us for not helping when we were not able to do what she needed ? If he had been here he would have !!

How old are you?
Do you honestly think older women like the OP’s MIL are the norm?

I’m in my 60’s with women friends in their 70’s and 80’s and I don’t recognise this ‘helpless older women’ theory as being the norm at all!

All my friends drive, use technology and go away on holidays on their own sometimes. The majority are single or widowed now. My friend C (widow) who turned 80 last year has several health conditions including a stoma bag. She travelled to Sri Lanka on her own this summer for a 3 week holiday. She didn’t go with a group but organised her own trip. Friend J (widow) went to Morocco this summer on her own. When she was in her 50’s she and her husband sailed from South Africa to the USA and then to Ireland on their sailing boat by themselves enjoying lots of adventures along the way.

The only women I know vaguely like this MIL are those who never went out to work after getting married and relied on their DH to do everything. My Aunty was like that. However, after her controlling husband died, she moved into a sheltered housing complex and actually had a great final few years making lots of new friends and getting out and about and even going on holiday.

My own mum was a WAAF in WW2 and was in Bomber Command. She worked in a senior role up until retirement. The idea of her or any of her friends being a helpless old biddy is frankly, laughable.

You're the one who is being ridiculously sexist and ageist here and pigeonholing older women!!!

In addition the ridiculousness is - even if OP had attended the doctors appointment, the DH would still have been required at home and unable to help because he would have been needed to collect the other child from school.

How awful. YANBU.

She had an emergency and you couldn't help her for very valid reasons and she's had a hiss fit. But it was all due to the stress of her situ. Maybe not the first time - some people can't self help - but I'd ask your DH to call her.

The issue is parents are not always going to be around, so don't cut ties.

She clearly doesn't like you and is a misogynist, so you need to be a little guarded as do any children she spends time with.

Just for info, a professional dog walker woukd likely have got the dog to vet if requested (for payment).

She was obviously very distressed about her Ill dog but she was totally unreasonable. She could have asked a neighbour

I would just go with the flow , don't go on boxing day unless she apologises.

She's cutting off her nose to spite her face. She will suffer far more than you will by banning you from her house on Boxing Day.

I think this is very revealing. It’s not an uncommon phenomenon when a woman is a single mother for the DS to be promoted into a proxy husband role - not sexual obviously, but from a practical, emotional and psychological perspective he becomes her surrogate ‘partner’. I think this is possibly what happened here and you will probably never unwire that thinking. She is, on many lengths, quite emotionally damaged.

The Sister gets a pass because she has been abandoned by her DP/DH and is now doing it alone, too. MiL probably resents you because you have the stable functional relationship, the model of family life she wanted, and she will do what she can to sabotage it in order to affirm her world view: ie relationships don’t last, but ‘sons are forever’.

Sadly only your DH can renegotiate this and make her aware that this is not acceptable - and it does sound as though he is/has been trying. And, personally, I would go as low contact with her as possible.

She sounds awful! I really hope you aren't visiting and also YANBU.

You have nailed it, @Greyspiders when you said your husband lived with her until he was 26 and she thought she'd have him at home forever. She sounds very brittle, immature and narcissistic. You should all step back from her now, as you no doubt plan to. She has harboured this blame and resentment towards you for a long time but has now let the mask slip. As I side issue, did she call the vet and explain her situation? She needs to be left to experience the consequences of her behaviour, anyway. You've been very understanding of her til now and she's completely overstepped all boundaries.

but That’s not the mil problem, why did op not make provision for someone else to look after the other child ??!

will be what the mil is thinking, suppose what im saying is as much as we all know the mil is totally unreasonable, the mil feels perfectly justified. It’s wild isn’t it!

She has the opinion that somehow SIL job is a real job as she goes out to work whereas as DH mostly works from home.

Perhaps he needs to tell her that he's full time out of the house next year!

She may be older and frail but she still could have phoned SIL (her own daughter) rather than demanding her grandchild misses a medical appointment.
Solutions were offered, which she declined.
It has nothing to do with being a MIL, or being a woman. The issue is the attitude of entitlement.

Yes. Conversely it also pisses me off when people start on about frail elderly people any time someone mentions a MiL. The OP met her DH when he was 26. For all we know the MiL is 50.

YANBU.

I can only assume the 55 or so people that have voted that you are have either not read your post, have mis-clicked or are just like your MiL.

Enjoy your Boxing Day off. She's made her bed, she can damn well lie in it. I hope your DH also chooses to stay home with you and the kids, but I can imagine the guilt trip he's about to receive/started to receive will be hard to ignore.

OP let the dust settle and let your DH deal with it.

But yes she has shown her true colours and it appears she's jealous of the fact that your DH is actually parenting.

Don't get pulled into it.

she’s actually really nice but she ALWAYS does this kind of thing. Some kind of sudden urgent request and if we can’t do it she goes mad and then won’t talk to us for a few weeks.

She's not 'actually really nice' at all, then, is she? She's a cow.

Yes you’re right ! It’s taken me till
now to see through the nice act I think.

No, they're the dog-loons who think any mistreatment of human beings is absolutely fine if there is a dog somehow involved that can be prioritised over everything and everyone else.

I feel your pain, sounds just like my MIL. The latest is she isn't happy with us only having them to stay for two nights at Christmas so has decided not to bother coming at all (I have a long-term very debilitating illness and 2 days of hosting is my absolute limit if I'm to avoid a crash). I've had to learn to just let her have her strop and move on, sad as it is for our kids / her grandkids. Horrible when you're made to feel like the problem is you :(

😂 Do you have experience of my gran!! 😂. This is exactly her MO. So frequent and predictable it is, that we have stopped responding altogether.

OP your MIL sounds like a massive attention seeker. She's only thinking of herself and you'll probably find she secretly doesn't like you very much as in her eyes you "stole her son away". Her behaviour is irrational and she sounds quite unhinged if she thinks that your husband should drop his child's hospital appointment to go and take her and her dog to the vets. She clearly can't see that her own grandchild's needs are important. Honestly she sounds toxic and needs to be cut off. Enjoy a peaceful Christmas and Boxing Day without her negative presence

Then she would have called her daughter for help. She didn’t because she is a sexist moron and ‘it’s a man’s job to help and a woman’s to do medical appts.’ She is an idiot and has been horrible to OP who offered to help her.

Enjoy Boxing Day at home with your husband and kids OP. Your husband absolutely needs to stay home Boxing Day too or she will be causing major marriage issues between the two of you. Your husband needs to make it clear the way she spoke to you was unacceptable and if she was that concerned she has a daughter she could also call.

😂 Do you have experience of my gran!! 😂. This is exactly her MO

No, @gallivantsaregood, but I had my own late, exMil who conformed to pattern

She also had a superbly passive aggressive phrase for anyone who dared to challenge her on the slightest thing: "Ooooo I'm living too long" - designed to shut it down and encourage an outpouring of denial in its place

It worked only for a very short while ...

Oh dear not good! Just leave her be. When animal is sorted and she's calmed down she will see what a mess she's made. Dont worry just let her get on with it. Just you and DH stick together.

2 days is more than enough! I will never understand these weirdo control freaks that cut off their nose to spite their face.