Desperate situation with MIL (trigger warning-suicide))

[Olinguita]

My MIL has gone into a downward spiral since FIL passed away two years ago. She lives alone and basically can't cope with the loneliness. She is 68 and is able bodied. Over the past year, she has started drinking heavily and calling up my DH saying she wants to die and that we have abandoned her. She lives in another country but is also a British citizen so technically she can come to the UK easily to visit and can also live here. We have hosted her for two stretches of 2 months, on one occasion in our two bed flat right after my DS was born. we didn't really have room and she was not an easy house guest but it was the right thing to do, and family is family, so I stuck it out.

DH has also been over to visit her a few times. She refuses counselling or any kind of psychiatric help. She has few friends as she had a very happy but ultimately very codependent relationship with late FIL. She has no interest in making friends or taking up other activities. She has also alienated a number of friends and relatives, I think because of erratic and drunken behaviour.

She wants to either move in with DH, DS and I permanently, or she says she will drink herself to death. She says she drinks because she is lonely, and if she lives with us .... She won't.

The problem is, she is a very volatile and demanding character, and while she can be really sweet and generous at times, she has form for controlling behaviour and histrionics. Her presence in my home has really strained my marriage. I know if she were to move in with us on a permanent basis she would lean on us for her every need and would demand constant attention. I work full time and have a toddler (who doesn't sleep). I literally think I will have a breakdown if I have to live with her permanently and even if I did just suck it up, I'm not sure it would be a healthy environment for my son to grow up in.

She has assets in the country where she lives that could be sold to purchase a small flat near to DH and I. I have suggested the following options:
-She can live with us for two months of the year
-She can buy a small property nearby (we can help her) and we will see her multiple times a week and incorporate her in family life, but we will have separate homes.

• she attends a rehab in the country where she is now (we have found a beautiful place with a very holistic approach that we can afford - it would be financially out of our reach in the UK but we can fund 3 months of this in her home country) at least that would be a start, and then we can work from there.

MIL simply isn't willing to engage in any of these options.

She was found wandering the streets outside her home pissed out of her mind several times. Last week a neighbour found her face down on the pavement. I keep telling my DH he needs to get on a plane and just DO something.

I am sick with worry, DH is permanently angry and on edge, and the atmosphere in my home is frankly poisonous. Sometimes I feel like I'm the problem.

I'm so scared the phone will ring and it will be the neighbours saying she has been found dead.
Can anyone offer some words of wisdom or just a hand-held?

I really feel for you, what a horrible situation. I can see it must feel impossible.

She isn't elderly though. The fact you have put your post in this section is pretty telling. You can be the only one to unravel what it is telling of though.

Could you and your husband have some couples therapy? It certainly sounds like he needs some counselling to unravel his feelings.

Your mother in law needs psychological help before rehab. There is no need to unravel why she drinks, she knows why. She is mentally ill, in the UK there is a good chance she would be sectioned. Is this a possibility where she is?

She is desperate and crying out for help but she only wants it on her own terms which is why she needs professional help with her grief first and foremost.

On a practical level, would there be enough money for a house with an annexe if you sold your house too? Could you rent your place out and rent somewhere with her in the short term? Could you relocate to a cheaper area? Just some out of the box ideas.

@Movinghouseatlast we could technically relocate to a cheaper area and get a house with an annex. My job and my husband's can technically be done remotely. So that would solve a lot of problems.
However... Our career and earning prospects would be curtailed if we left our current location for a cheaper one and it would mean uprooting us away from friends and family, who have frankly been a saving grace in this situation. So on the one hand, I'd be limiting my earning potential and isolating myself by moving, and potentially signing myself up to become a carer. But on the other hand, perhaps it would be the right thing to do. Sometimes we just have to play the hand we are given in life. So many of my dreams would go up in smoke if I did this.
Perhaps I'm being dramatic but this option feels so, so hard.

Oh God, don't get an annexe. You had to suffer through having an alcoholic father, why would you bring an alcoholic granny into the same house as your kid? Just no. I'd be telling my DH if he's so keen he should go and live with his Mum. It is not your fault that MIL has made these life choices.

Is there any other family? BIL/SIL?

Don't do that. You have to put your family (DH, DC) first. You've been very generous and supportive of your MIL - as PPs have said, you can't force her to give up if she doesn't want to and you should not let her live near your child long term.

As sad as it is, she has plenty of options, but is not ready to engage with any of them.

I would step back as hard as it is. Focus on your DH & DC.

Don't give up on your goals for someone who doesn't want to be helped!

Don't do it. If she was a normal, nice MIL then fine. But she's not, she sounds very manipulative. Honestly OP you get one life, don't compromise you and your DC for your selfish MIL.

FIL was almost 20 years senior to DH so it was always going to happen that he passed first. Their only plan was that DH would "look after" her when she was gone, although what "look after" entails was clearly a nebulous concept. She seems to have interpreted it as turning DH into a substitute husband and totally collapsing on top of my nuclear family, rather than, say, accepting a reasonable amount of emotional, practical and financial support... I actually think this was quite wicked of FIL. He basically groomed DH to accept an unreasonable amount of responsibility for a fundamentally unreasonable individual.

But that is all beside the point

it isn't. Take a look at the Stately Homes threads on here (run a search and they'll show up) to see why you should keep this individual as far away from you as possible. If she comes to live near you you'll find your entire lives revolving around her dramatics.

You stand a very good chance of destroying your life, your marriage and more importantly your child's life if you moved so that she could live with you. Utter madness.

Sometimes we just have to play the hand we are given in life

Why do you think this applies to you but not your MIL? Her problems aren't the hand you've been dealt, they're the hand she's been dealt.

@LuluTaylor will check out the stately homes thread, thanks.
The more I get to know about DH's family, the more dysfunctional the whole situation seems
He always painted a picture of them as this perfect, happy family with a somewhat eccentric mum. It was only after I got married and FiL passed that I realised that things were not what they seemed.

Fair point! She had a crappy childhood with emotionally absent and completely self absorbed parents.
But she was happily married and absolutely devoted to FIL for 37 years. Totally pulled back from the world of work after having DH, and threw herself into being a housewife. They had quite a nice life. Somewhat bohemian, lots of friends. She got a degree from an internationally known university before getting married too. But now that FIL has gone it's like her life has no meaning any more.... So yeah, maybe she also has to play the hand life has given her and stop expecting to spend the next phase of her life settling in comfortably to controlling my nuclear family!

Absolutely, you need to protect your own nuclear family/sanity.

That's quite interesting, initially when I read your posts I assumed she was someone who lived at home, then was married devoted to your FIL and not really having much of a life. From a more of a 'traditional' culture, sheltered life, isolated and no friends. I have even less sympathy for her now, she seems very manipulative.

Sympathies, @Olinguita Can I also gently suggest the stately homes theads (who in turn recommend the out of the fog website which is excellent)
As the child of an alcoholic yourself, you will have caretaking tendencies. These are very apparent in your desire to 'fix' this situation. It is not in your remit to sort this all out.

Support your DH by all means, but it isn't on you to come up with lists of pros and cons. You need to look after your child and your own mental health as priority. There are some excellent book recommendations on the threads l mentioned. 'The Body Keeps The Score' and 'Boundaries' (second one by Cloud and Townsend) were both useful to me with some of my own challenges.
Wishing you all the very best.

Seriously stop. You’re giving your dh conflicting messages saying she can’t live with you but he has to travel out and do something. Do nothing. Don’t have her live with you 2 months a year. She can live nearby by as offered and that’s it. You’ve offered rehang and a new life. She doesn’t want to change and wants tou to do everything for her

@Merha @IWantRebeccasConfidence thank you for your comments. I am radically focusing on stepping back now. I've read The Body Keeps the score and I think "Boundaries" by Cloud and Townsend needs to go on my list too.
I guess the reason I wanted to suggest solutions to my husband is so we can work through this as a family, and also to prevent a situation where MIL gets sprung on me (so we have a "plan" rather than a chaotic situation in which my son and I will come off worse, if that makes sense). But now I am reflecting on the possibility that some of this does come from my "caregiving" conditioning and my shockingly high (learned/conditoned) tolerance for other people's bad behaviour.
DH said over the weekend to MIL on the phone within my earshot over the weekend that he was going to be on a plane to see her this week and to pack her bags to go to the rehab. I asked him later on if he was going (because I would need to make some changes to childcare arrangements and my working hours if he was away for a week or so). He snapped at me and said it's none of my business and he doesn't know if he will go or not.
He then said he will bring his mum here. I asked when. He said he doesn't know and refuses to discuss it, and that it's not my business and it doesn't affect me. I said it does affect me. I don't want to push the issue but equally it is difficult to feel like we are on standby all the time.
Now I'm just dialling out of the situation altogether and just focusing on parenting, working and trying to support DH (even though he seems to think I am the devil incarnate some days).

Well done @Olinguita You are doing something enormously difficult. I hope you keep posting. You really need people on your side. It's bound to be causing big cracks in your marriage 💐

Step back from the situation, let DH deal with it. You've come up with reasonable solutions. She will not stop drinking if she were to move in with you. Does she stop when she visits?

I'm sorry your DH is using you as the excuse, that's disappointing. It sounds like he's in a desperate situation and he's looking for a scapegoat. Not ok, but abusive parents can have a terrible subconscious hold.

I'd reiterate the options you've suggested, I'd be tempted to have her to stay now for a few weeks, if you cant bear it, so DH can promote the options, I'm guessing he will quickly realise he can't live with her, and she is being unreasonable.

She most probably won't drink if she is with us, whether that is short or longer term. She drinks (I believe) to fill a void because she is lonely, and if she is with us she will not be alone, and she can quell those feelings of emptiness by constantly fussing about things in the house, bickering with DH, asking me incessant questions and nagging DH and I about our clothes/diets/state of the house etc as if we are naughty teenagers.

Every time she has visited it has been difficult for me, but DH insists that she is doing nothing wrong and is just "expressing herself" or trying to help.

She is the kind of person that can turn making a simple cup of coffee or slinging some laundry into the washing machine into an opportunity for endless questions and suggestions about how it could be done better or differently. I know it sounds really petty but it really gets to me after a week or so. She never says anything outright nasty but constantly second guesses everything I do. To be fair, she does the same to DH. But the difference is that he is allowed to be annoyed by it, but if I express annoyance then DH blows up.

I could tolerate her for a few weeks but it would massively help if DH could give me at least a bit of prior warning, which he is currently not prepared to do.

@Merha you are correct, it has really done a number on my marriage. We were a very easygoing couple before, but throwing her into the mix is like a bomb going off.

I’m sorry that your DH doesn’t seem to have got on with therapy previously - like other PPs have said, it sounds like he could really do with some counselling to work through his grief over his DF, and his, in a way, grief over his inability to “fix” this situation with MIL. I wonder if he felt the suggestion of marriage counselling was a sort of criticism of him - I bet my DH would take it that way if I suggested it.
But a good therapist, that he has rapport with, would allow him to explore whatever he needs to, and maybe help him develop some boundaries and strategies to cope with this situations that are outwith his control.

Really hoping you and your DH can find your way through this ❤️

At a minimum the phrase, "I know you're going through a hard time DH, but it is not my fault, don't take it out on me, that's a dick move and you're better than that" might have to be written on the back of your hand.

The single transferable misery turd which Larkin described so eloquently does not HAVE to be part of your life. MiL can be miserable, it's her life. But you don't have to be too, and to a certain extent, neither does DH.

Just wanted to come back and update you all following your excellent advice 🙏
@Merha I'm about to finish Boundaries by Henry Cloud, which I bought on your recommendation. Life changing. I'm a practicing Christian but somehow I never got the memo about not enabling other people's bad and damaging behaviour. It was actually really healing and useful to see this problem through a Christian lense - the proper Biblical thing to do isn't to just roll over and let MIL do whatever she wants in order to be a good/caring DIL.

To other posters who have told me to back off from offering DH advice or urging him to do something - that's exactly what I've done! I've literally not even mentioned his mum in weeks and the atmosphere in our home has already improved. Maybe the penny is starting to drop that she is behaving badly and shouldn't be enabled to do so.

This thread has really helped me to realise that DH and DC are my priorities and I need to protect them both. MIL's antics have really damaged DH at a time when he is a) grieving and b) had been struggling to adapt to parenthood (he found the baby stage utterly overwhelming and didn't really cope. Now blossoming into a great toddler parent but it's taken 18 months to get here....) I know she is grieving but... How dare she put her son through the ringer like that and imperil has marriage?? Who does that!?

I've experienced a lot of guilt over the situation because of cultural reasons (DH is Asian). I always admired how close Asian families are... HOWEVER I have a lot of friends and colleagues from DH's ethnic background and literally none of them have parents in their 60s and 70s living with them full-time. Long visits and significant financial help, maybe. But the practice of parents moving in to the son's home (and having carte blanche to behave as badly as they like) while still able bodied is dying out, and for good reason. There are ways to support and include elders in family life without letting them bulldoze your nuclear family and dictate your every move.

I'm not against multi generational households but this particular one could seriously mess up my kid, even if MIL does not resume drinking. Sometimes traditions have to change.

@Paperbagsaremine I love your comment by the way!!

@mrs

Woops ignore the above post, it was a typo! Meant to reply to @MrsMikeDrop to say that yes, she has had opportunities in life. She actually had a brief career in a field that is notoriously competitive and cut throat. It is something extremely niche and she actually has a Wikipedia entry! she considers herself a failure but actually I think her accomplishments in the short time she actually worked are something the whole family can take pride in. However, after marriage she was done with that world and immersed herself in domesticity. Her only friends were FILs friends. I don't think he would have minded her working but she chose not to

She doesn’t want to stop drinking, she has chosen “unattainable thing” as a barrier - so she can carry on and it’s not her fault (it’s your fault). And yourDH doesn’t want to live with her, but sees anything else as falling short, so can tell himself he is prevented from doing anything (it’s your fault). It’s great that you have managed to pull back and relieve some of the tension. I hope you can maintain a firm stand any time this comes up and counter the blame that is being unjustly projected onto you.