AIBU to ask DH to step back from MIL’s health anxiety?

[Stripedpyjamass]

MIL has bad anxiety, mainly manifesting as health anxiety. It seems to be reaching a crisis point. In the last 7 days she has called an ambulance 3 times, taken herself to A&E twice and called us countless times with a health issue. She calls at all hours including the middle of the night. DH has family overseas and if she can’t get hold of him she calls them, who then call us. DH spent 3 hours at her house one evening calming her down then as soon as he left she called an ambulance.

She has therapy, we’ve tried to help so many times offering solutions, she takes medication for anxiety.

DH and I have a newborn baby and a toddler. Through sheer unfortunate luck, when I had DC2 I sustained a significant birth injury which impacts my life on a daily basis with pain and mobility. I am waiting for more major surgery and I have a catheter in which is uncomfortable and limits lifting.

DH understandably is focused on helping his mum which is fine but we are literally now at breaking point. He is suggesting now that he stays her temporarily so she’s not alone? But I physically cannot manage two children alone with my health problem. He’s taking unpaid leave from work to help her, but I’m also on maternity leave so we can’t afford this. MIL is sat pots of money! I don’t want him to take the children away from me to stay with her which is his other suggestion.

I am at a complete loss of what to do. AIBU to think we can’t keep stretching ourselves like this? And that DH needs to step back? Or is there anywhere else that we can get help for me or her?

Surely he can see this is it not something he can manage? Is he a hcp?

She needs a health and social care assessment as she has a significant mental health disorder.

I'm a big advocate for dc caring for their ageing parents but this is not normal. He needs to get professional advice and support.

If she is in her 70s, she is old enough to go into a care home or sheltered housing if she needs a lot of support.

Turn off your phones overnight.

So what should the family do?

But has she got the money to pay for it? You have to be lying in your own shit to get local authority funding these days.

I simply can't get my head around the fact that your DH is so worried about his mother and her imaginary ailments due to her health anxiety while showing practically zero care or concern for you, the victim of a catastrophic medical error during a C-section requiring urgent surgery with a long recovery time.

You are ill but still caring for three children, including a new born baby while he swans off every time his mum rings. Honestly, once you have recovered, you should re-evaluate your marriage and decide whether you want to stay with your uncaring husband.

This is just an idea, and you will possibly run from it, but I'm just wondering if it might be helpful for you to go to the appointment too, in a 'helpful/caring' capacity? I'm only suggesting it because I wonder if DH might be a little too influenced, and won't have the capacity to discuss the whole issue pragmatically? He's a bloke, obvs.

I do realise that it's probably the last thing that you need right now. Just an thought.

Has this always been the case, or has it ramped up since you have been unwell? Just asking as I’ve had similar in the past with ex-mil. Every time I got ill and needed more support from ex-h, she would apparently be on deaths doors, demanding attention of now ex-dh. No matter how much I tried to discuss with him, he couldn’t see the correlation, and it eventually was part of our relationship breakdown.

Why doesnt your DH want to get his mum Professional help when she clearly needs help? What does he think he can do to help her?
What are your MIL symptoms that are making her call an ambulance 3 times in a week and visit A&E ?
What happened with the medical opinions on the above occasions and what was the follow up,what "solutions" have been recommended ?
I understand your husbands concerns about his DM but his priority has to be you and your children.
Your DH needs to be honest about the best way to help his DM ,which is professional help .

What was mil like before you met /married /had dc? Is she panicking about not being dh's priority?

His family that live overseas need to stop calling you to come to her rescue.

Let her crack on with calling the emergency services, whatever your DH it will never be enough. She’s an adult and he needs to prioritise both you and your DC.

You say he gets angry when you discuss this with him? Well maybe asking a HV or GP to reinforce the above may help him realise how her needs are not as important as his nuclear family.

I would suggest to your husband, that the best possible course of action, for all of you, would be to accompany his Mother to the GP, explain everything that's happening in mil and your lives, make certain she has strong enough meds, suggest sleeping pills and a health visitor for mil, he's spreading himself too thin, she sounds psychotic. It's bizarre that he proritises her over you, and your children, and essentially, is willing to break up your family, and leave you to fend for yourself, when you so desperately need and deserve his support.

If you were fit and well I'd understand your DH wanting to help his mother. You're in a really difficult situation yourself though with real physical health problems and intense caring responsibilities with a baby and toddler. Your DH needs to prioritise you and your DC.
Is she ramping this up because she doesn't want you and DC taking attention from her? I understand health anxiety can be debilitating but the timing of this does make me wonder if she is motivated by you needing your DH. If there is an element of that, DH needs to step back and stop rewarding the attention seeking.

He’s being stupid by him not having a conversation with her GP just by himself, to discuss how this is managed going forwards. Does he expect her to just snap out of it and it’ll all be fine? Sounds like he has his head in the sand.

If he stays with her he'll never come back because he won't be able to leave her. She needs serious medical help.

I'm so sorry @Stripedpyjamass , what an awful time for you.

Your DH should ge looking after you and the children. Is MIL able to stay with you? Do you gave any family that can come and stay with you to help you?

Personality disorder, not health anxiety.

Very difficult to treat cos they know what they’re doing.

Get a different phone for MIL that you only turn on 9-5. Talk to family and explain there’s a serious psychiatric issue that doesn’t need encouraging for MIL sake.

Talk to her GP and explain what’s going on. Take GP advice and give GP tel number you can be contacted on in a genuine emergency.

Does she have friends or much of a life outside the home?

That depends on where you live. There's plenty of options in the area I live in. My local councils have invested in all different types of over 55 and extra care accommodation.

Why doesn't he want to do that? I don't understand this bit.

Your MIL needs therapeutic help and support, and the whole family including your DH are putting it all on your DH's shoulders - which isn't sustainable, and isn't fair on you who also in a very real physical sense need him to be a partner and a parent to his own children.

A sensible approach would be to have adult SS involved with MIL and for DH's help to be of the co-ordinating care and appointments variety, not to physically do it all himself.

If she has capacity she can't be forced to get helpful help, but equally she can't oblige her son to do everything, and not can your husband's overseas family.

It's in everybody's best interests if he does not answer the phone in the middle of the night nor go rushing over there every time. He cannot sustain this level of spreading himself too thin, he's not meeting his wife and children's needs, he's not meeting his employer's needs, he's not meeting his OWN needs for sleep and rest and enough of a break from stress. The only thing he's helping his mother with is to perpetuate the cycle and reinforce her unhealthy behaviour and beliefs. I don't think he would receive it well from you, but somebody ought to be pointing out to him that if he really wants to actually help his mother, he needs to be pursuing professional input for her. He can't pour from an empty cup, etc etc. Yes, I would speak to your health visitor about it, they may be able to put things in motion and/or give your H a head wobble. Do you also have friends who you could ask to take DH out for a drink and be a listening ear and to give some friendly advice? Any of his colleagues or his boss?

I absolutely don't think she should move in, things will just escalate and you'll never be rid of her. Nor do I think he should move in with her, with or without the children(FFS!!!) because again, that would just never end and it wouldn't progress anything towards being fixed.

I do suspect that your H might have a huge part of his identity tied up in being his mother's rescuer. I don't know how to untangle that.

I agree with this OP. Something is wrong here. Why is he showing more concern for his mother’s imagined illnesses and none for you? You are dealing with significant health issues as well as a newborn and children - how dare he try and prioritise his mother’s hysterics? Who is he married to? I can’t believe he is even considering leaving you to fend for yourself so he can move back in with mummy.

You need to find your anger here OP.

Suggestion: carefully talk through with him what would actually happen in each scenario, including knock-on consequences.

If he steps back and you both put your phones on silent over night, then what? Does she actually go to the hospital more frequently? What actually changes with her? Might she perhaps, if less attention is paid to it, snap out of it a bit? What are the benefits for your healing, your family incl your income, and your marriage?

If he carries on as he is, then what? Does her frequency of A&E visits change? What about your own health? What are the family consequences of is reduced income? And what about how you feel about him and about how he feels about you, long term in your marriage?

And if he actually does drop work and go and stay with her, then what? Does that actually change anything with her health perceptions? Does it reinforce her beliefs as he takes them seriously? Does it make her more dependent on him and more difficult for him to disengage down the line? What are the physical consequences for you? What are the consequences for your family, from the loss of income? What are the long term consequences for the way you feel about your marriage? Be honest: he would be utterly, objectively, unreasonable to do this, and however nice and mild you are, you might have serious difficulty ever forgiving him. You need to spell that out to him really clearly and calmly. He needs to know that.

Get angry in return and ask him how the F he would feel if he was sleep deprived and looking after a baby pre major surgery in pain hooked up to a catheter then was told to just get on with it while having to solo cqre two tiny ones. How f**king dare he say that to you.

I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this.

Yes same here, our neighbour got funded carers, she certainly wasn't 'lying in her own shit' and what an awful way to describe those who need care.

I would honestly tell him he has two small children and a wife who gave birth and is disabled and I was worried for the rest of my life I wouldn’t be able to look at him without thinking how when we needed him the most, he wasn’t there. His mum needs help he cannot provide, his wife needs help he can provide but isn’t, and his babies need him. Get the health visitor around and tell her in front of him how you feel, including about his leave. He needs his siblings on duty for night calls so he can switch his phone off, sleep and care for babies, he needs her gp to know how bad it is, and to have said to the gp his situation. He needs to be there for you and if that means letting his mum sit in anxiety all night if his siblings can’t be on the phone then that’s on them- how the fuck do his siblings think the man with the entire load of their mum and in his situation with you and the babies should also talk to them in the early hours of the morning?? They can wait up until 2 am their time and call him.
‘mum, siblings, I am not coping. <wife> and my babies need my help and we need my job or we can’t pay the rent/mortgage. I can’t be an overnight contact anymore. Mum, you need to call siblings. Siblings, you need to be available. I am turning my phone off every night from 10pm before or more likely <wife> has a breakdown. Mum, if you need more help than that you need to be honest with your gp about your health anxiety. It’s not something we can fix for you, <wife> is having her op soon and I won’t be able to visit.

I agree with this. The problem isn't really your MIL, although she obviously has a lot of issues she needs professional help with. It's your husband and the way he handles them, ultimately de prioritising his wife and two children in favour of enabling his mother.

Are your parents supportive in general? I think you need to let them know what is going on and that your husband is proposing to leave you alone with two kids while you are recovering from major surgery and waiting for more surgery. You cannot do this by yourself and you will need help. I think you should ask your husband to explain how he thinks you will cope while he is staying at his mother's.

I couldn't personally come back from this and for me the marriage would be over, but you can think about that once you are physically recovered