MIL, she is ill, i DO feel awful, but am i?

[sunburntats]

So, story is that after i had 4mcs, she never came near, she never even offered to have ds (only gc) for half an hour while dh came to sit with me in hispital.
Nothing, awful felt very let down.

Now she has a suspicious mass.
doesnt look good, she is only 58.

She has been in and out of hospital. Dh goes to see her.
I am working full time, and have not yet been to see her. I have spoken to her on the phone though.

Hmm i have parents who are the same tbh. ATM i feel the same,if anything is happening i don't involve myself. My mum is ill too (but not serious atm) and if she was really ill i still don't think i'd see her more often etc.

Don't know if that makes me a 'bad' dd but you reap what you sow and all that?

yeah, come on - she might be a cow, but if 'It doesn;t look good' you should really be the better person

thats it, i am just not "involving myself" with the whole thing, no mallace nor nasty ness, i just dont feel comfortable about becoming all close diligent dil.
She has never been interested in me nor really my boy, who incidentally loves her to death.

M-i-L is the same actually and if it was mil who was ill i would step back and let DH get on with the visiting,i would support DH however and be there for him iyswim??

Yes you don't have to be mean about it. She has treated you like shit so i would just keep it civil. You don't have to try and be the better person imo because you already are.

So maybe i am not being THAT unreasonable...?

It depends on the exact situation I think. You say it doesn't look good but that can mean that the suspicious lump has been identified or she is waiting for identification and possibly treatment.

If it is unidentified then I think you're OK as you are.

If it is identified and she is now waiting for treatment or has been told something worse then I think perhaps some effort should be made, again depending upon the exact circumstances.

If waiting for horrible treatment (and it is, and exhausting) then flowers or some such would be nice. Whilst undergoing treatment then do as you would be done by - just because she didn't help you in your need doesn't mean you can't help her in her need.

If the situation is worse than that, then I would try to throw caution to the winds and be as good a person as possible while you have the chance.

It depends why you haven't been to see her before we can say if you are being unreasonable or not.

She is awaiting identification of the mass.
I will of course be sending flowers, and a card from ds.

I beleive the teatment to be awful if confirmed as cancer.

So were my 4 mcs, losing my babies, her grandchildren with no one but dh for support, was hard for us both.
Dh had to ask her to please just watch our son for half an hour while he came to be with me as i was on morphine, gas and air and was very very distressed.
this she did, but we heard nothing from her after this, until dh took our son up to her house to see her weeks later. (she lives about 20mins away in the car)

I just think that im not a bad person, i have never fallen out with her, never had words, but both the ils just do not seem to like me, they tolerate me i think.
They distance themselves from me.

So because she didn't visit you in hospital, you are refusing to visit her? Tit for tat?

Your poor DH.

nah! Would have died a thousand deaths if she had have come to the hospital!!!

What i mean is, she didnt get (nor care) that maybe i didnt want to be alone going through it. Wanted dh with me, but he had to look after ds.

I feel guilty that she is now ill, but wondered at what level of unreasonable it would be to send flowers and a card, to speak on the phone, but to just step away and let dh actually visit her.
Would go if i thought she wanted me there, but i think she would not like it very much.

and that is a whole other thread, my poor dh.
Its his mum and its very hard to not think negative in terms of outcome. (if it is indeed cancer)
I just let him talk about the whole thing, try not to comment. Try to say very positve things so as not to upset him.
poor love

My MIL has cancer, I go visit her and she is still rude to me. I think you have to do what you can deal with at a later stage. My philosophy is that if MIL dies then I was always good to her and I won't have any guilt to deal with.

Sorry about your loss though, I can understand why your upset.

oh confuzzled, you did make me giggle at that, "she is still rude to me" I jsut have visions of you biting your tongue and counting to 10 allot!

She is never rude to me, but you know when you jsut know that some one doesnt like you.......

I do sunburntats, my MIL is never obviously rude to me, just snide comments etc.

Last time I visited her I winced when I picked dd up as I have spd and my back gets really sore. It wasn't an all out groan just a tiny wince. She told me she'd managed with 2 toddlers, 2 dogs and 2 horses when she had spd with her 3rd.

I think unless your MIL is openly rude to you and your dh sees it then he won't get it and he'll just think your cruel because you won't visit her when she's ill.

I would do the right thing, so I have no guilt to deal with.

I understand how you feel.

My MIL and FIL for that matter have disappointed me massively in the past.

The main one was when my DH was abroad on business, my two year old son needed to be admitted to hospital with pneumonia and I had a dog at home. I rang them and asked if they could have the dog. The answer was yes, but they couldn't come and collect him from the house as they were too ill with a cold. OK, so on the way to the hospital, I drop the dog off - only to find them up and dressed about to walk down to the local shops! He was in there for 3 days - not once did they ask me if I needed anything or visit.

Before that MIL didn't help at all when I had my son but enjoyed the support of her own mother for weeks cooking meals, doing the ironing etc. (my mum died when I was little).

She expects everyone to drop everything for her though, makes a massive deal of any slight ailment.....I have no idea how I will react when it is something more serious but I am hoping that I will 'be the better person' show her how family care for each other and not just themselves.

When my mum was dying my husband didn't visit. I went on my own or with kids (she lived 8 hours away and he gets less hol than I do) I didn't see this as a problem. My mum wanted to see me and her grandkids, she wasn't that bothered about my husband (they got on OK, but he wasn't really family and someone she really wanted to see). As long as husband is visiting that sounds fine. It sounds early days if they haven't even got a diagnosis yet. She may not want a load of people fussing over her, I wouldn't.

If she is that cold towards you then yeah she probably wouldn't welcome your presence now. My reading of what you say is not that you are doing this out of spite but that you feel it is the most appropriate approach given the history. I think you are right. Support your DH as much as you can and do whatever is asked of you but there's no point visiting or feigning closeness at this stage.

Sorry but I just can't get my head round

' beleive the teatment to be awful if confirmed as cancer.

So were my 4 mcs, losing my babies, her grandchildren with no one but dh for support, was hard for us both.'

Please tell me that you aren't thinking because she screwed up in the past it will be ok for you to ignore her possibly terminal illness?

Just how old are you?

Yes you are being unreasonable. Make an effort, put yourself out, give up time that you would otherwise have spent comfortably with dh because THAT is what family does. The past can't be changed but you can shape the future - for your mil it may be pretty crappy - why on earth wouldn't you want to do anything you can to improve that? Are seriously proposing to leave your dh to deal with it and as long as you're at home saying 'the right things' you think that will cut it?

'In sickness and in health' doesn't just mean your sickness or health you know! Maybe she doesn't like you - tbh going by this post I can see why - so go on surprise us both!

When I said "your poor DH", I meant that I sympathise with him because his wife is acting so immaturely when his mother is ill. Northernlurker has put it more bluntly and I agree with her.

Go and visit your MIL.

Relationships change all the time. But it usually takes an outside event to trigger the change. Maybe this could be it? You have nothing to lose by giving it a go. If it fails, at least you tried.

Who knows what her reasons were for her behaviour? I find people sometimes have surprising reasons for what they do.

It's possible that she didn't know what to say to you when you had m/c's. It's possible that she felt badly, but thought you might not want her to come visit, just wanting your DH's support. Lots of things are possible. M/c's are one of those things that people often just don't know how to comfort someone, so often try to avoid it entirely.

If nothing else, I would think you would visit and be nice to her just to be supportive of your DH and to show a good example to your DS. You said you haven't fallen out with IL's, that they just don't seem to like you. Maybe they feel the same about you? Maybe they take a little longer to get comfortable with people, and by that time you'd gotten the impression they didn't like you.

Hope you can get past this and visit her.

Rang her tonight and she is quite chipper!
She is enjoying Wimbledon and was telling me about her hospital appointments.

Still dont think i will visit her, although DH is plannng on nipping round at weekend, think i will buy her a wee chocolate cake for him to take with him, she likes chocolate cake and a cuppa!

Think i will jsut "support from afar", think that is best.
Still feel guilty But dont think she would want me there. Always feel like i am intruding iyswim.

Would love to have some good news to give her, like all of this ttc lark has paid off and there is another gc on the way, think she would love news like that.

and is there any need for that?
When diffiult times just gone and difficult times are ahead?
Just need reassurance, not a blasting, but thanks for your kind words, both of you.