AIBU to think DH is reasonable not visiting MIL daily in hospital?

[sabotaginglizard]

MIL is unwell (pneumonia) and in hospital on a standard ward. Other patients there have a variety of illnesses it seems to be a general rather than pneumonia ward. So some may have contagious illnesses.

DH is getting pressure to visit daily. He saw her the day before she was admitted and plans to see her when she’s home - BIL and SIL are really getting annoyed about this. We have young dc and don’t want to get ill. They are saying DH is not helping and that MIL wants to see him. Hes messaged her and called her and said he will see her when she’s home ? AIBU to think hes being perfectly reasonable and sensible ?

This isn’t always true. I work on an urgent care ward and we regularly have Covid and flu patients in bays because A&E fail to swab. D&V is also a regular occurrence, not to mention to odd meningitis that do slip through.

For approximately the tenth time, this mother's son drives for four hours every weekend, to take her shopping, tend her garden, and do her DIY.

Should he have gone to the hospital? Yes. But he cannot be accused of not caring for his mother. And OP facilitates this by accepting him being absent for half of every weekend, and her having to parent their small children alone.

So "cold and heartless" really doesn't fit these people, even if he has erred this week.

Ugh. I'm going to have to walk away. This thread has been spectacular in the way that virtually everyone has totally ignored the lengths that this guy goes to every single week, to care for his mum. Just so they can call him vile, awful, disgusting, a narcissistic and generally pile on.

I was as horrified as the next person at the beginning if the thread, but at least I actually bothered reading, retaining, and considering the information that OP gave not long afterwards.

I can’t really see why he can’t visit during her hospital stay? If the reasons feel valid, he should speak to his mum about that and then communicate that with his siblings. How they then react to that is up to them and none of his business, they can be disappointed or whatever but if he’s doing his share to support her normally, and he’s had the conversation with his mum, then how they feel is not relevant.

I doubt this will play well in the future in your family. You've cooked your goose a bit.

Not visiting daily? Fine. Not visiting at all? Awful. Deliberately misleading thread title? Poor form.

Don't they move to isolation side rooms once swabbed though?

When my son had suspected gastroenteritis, he was straight into an isolation room and that was without any swabs. He actually had an intussusception, not a gastro bug in the end.

He ended up staying in hospital for a long period of time and even when he had a cold, he was moved to a side room. Before swabs too.

This was two different hospitals. He had to be moved to the second hospital where he stayed for a long period of time because the first hospital didn't do the surgeries he needed. The first ward in the first hospital was just a standard assessment ward and then the next hospital was a surgical ward.

My mum died from pneumonia in hospital.

One minute they were talking about rehab for her and the next end of life care. It can change so quickly.

I would say visit as much as you can.

It's scary and lonely being a patient in hospital and having visitors means a lot.

Men cant do anything right on MN.

Do your children attend nursery or school? In my experience my DC has caught bugs from there not when they visited elderly relatives in hospitals and care homes. You only get one Mum . He may regret it if something happens.

His mum wants to see him and he hasn’t been, poor lady. I find it odd he doesn’t want to go and see his sick mum out of love and concern, she must be so upset he’s not cared enough to go.No matter what goes on, disagreements etc, human instinct should be to drop everything and get there as soon as possible.

Exactly.

Not visiting even just once is heartless and you both come across very unpleasant as a result. It’s his mum and she’s been ill in hospital - he has to visit. And I say that as a parent of children who are ill often and in and out of hospital a lot, so I fully understand the fear around catching something.

I suspect that if the mum's will is changed to reflect his lack of care, he will wonder why.

If it's genuinely a hospital/health phobia there are other things he could offer to do to help lighten the load for his siblings and make his mother feel supported, but there doesn't seem to be any thought of doing this (e.g. offering to stock up her fridge with groceries or some pre-cooked meals for when she gets back from hospital).

Yeah, there is. I was at the reading of my uncle’s. 😂

Well she doesn’t think that. She has asked if she’s reasonable to agree with him. So they are as bad as each other. But when she saw the way the responses were going she tried to sound more neutral and say it was up to him.

She’s been in hospital a week and he hasn’t visited once? That’s appalling. I assume that if you were in hospital you’d expect him to visit you, “risk of kids getting sick” or not.

I think he should have visited mid week but the people saying they visited their parent daily or popped in at lunchtime mostly live in the same town as the parent. While I think he is wrong for not seeing her in hospital he does see her frequently and help her. As OP lives two hours away seeing her MIL monthly is quite frequent.

It isnt that at all. It's that we would make the effort despite being a distance away.

Perhaps he doesn’t get on with her and is enforcing his boundaries?

@Anonymouseposter I don’t think anyone has said he should have visited daily

But for someone who supposedly cares for his DM, he has ignored her request to go and see her and he hasn’t shared the load with his siblings, all because of his dislike of hospitals and his rigid routine. Although he hasn’t really thought through his avoidance of hospitals when offering to pick up from discharge, as that can take hours. Wonder if he will sit in the car until his mum can leave

And OP never mentioned that? I admire your generosity but nah, he's just making crap excuses.

He's just sticking to his schedule. People are creatures of habit. Not saying it's right or wrong.

@PineConeOrDogPoo but when someone is ill and needs help or comfort schedules need to change. What would have happened if the siblings had said we are not changing our schedules so not visiting either, so no change of clothes, toiletries or just company for MIL