How can I repair my relationship with FIL?

[lola884]

FIL was diagnosed with a life-limiting illness about 4 years ago.

When I first met him many years ago, he was a gregarious, chatty, charming man in his late 50s who was the life of the party. He had several hobbies and interests and always had an interesting or funny anecdote to add to a conversation. I, possibly in an effort to impress in the early days, made an effort to listen and engage with him - and most of the time, I did find the chatter amusing.

The illness has affected him and the wider family in many ways. He was very reliant on MIL before anyway but has become even more reliant on her now. He is able to manage quite a few things but I guess the illness has affected his confidence, so he is quick to ask for help rather than try and have a go himself; this impacts on MIL and the rest of the family. He is able to keep up with a conversation but much of what he says now seems silly. He's not great at engaging with DS either; MIL is brilliant but DS really treats FIL like a bit of talking furniture.

DH noticed a few days ago that my demeanour towards FIL has become colder - bordering on civil. In hindsight, I think I've been like that for at least a year now - but if DH is noticing, then it's clearly becoming obvious to everyone, including FIL. We talked about it and I agreed that I need to change my behaviour towards FIL, as it will only get harder from now on as he deteriorates further.

It's taken some time for me to analyse myself and my attitude. The thing is - I have genuinely lost affection for FIL and I find it hard to fake affection. What I see now is that the charming, interesting man is gone and what's left is a mildly irritating man who isn't able/willing to contribute to running his own life (I'm big on independence and taking responsibility for one's own health).

The fact is the illness has changed his personality and in some ways has brought out the worst in him - the things that I could shake off before now really annoy me about him. What gets to me the most is how he has handled it all, which I find very disappointing. You hear of people who get ill and declare "I'm not going to let this beat me" - well, he has practically embraced being ill instead and wears it like a medal. Rather than fighting, he has given in - and I find it hard to continue to admire a man like that. If I'm being really honest, I have lost respect for him and I am forgetting the man he used to be.

With the festive season approaching and us all spending more time together, I need some practical strategies to help me get past my attitude problem. How do I get past the illness and see the man again - or the man that he used to be in any case?

You say it's a neurological problem. Is it Alzheimers?

I think it would be good to know/to realise that "life-limiting neurological condition"'s often do change the brain, the personality of the individual all by themselves, without the psychological impact of knowing that you are terminally ill at all. The person you first admired may have altered as a consequence of the actual disease and not their fear of death, etc etc.

I have experience of this with two people very close to me on both sides of the family. In one case it became terminal, in the other, well it is still in the hands of the gods. In many ways it is similar to dealing with someone with early dementia in that you can become irritated by the repetition of questions etc. It is also difficult to reconcile a younger more dynamic person with the faltering elderly model.

My first reaction was very similar to Sunna's. Be grateful it's not your parent in this position. It must be very difficult for your MIL and your DH. You shouldn't need to feign anything - it sounds like you genuinely liked the man, but now he's an irritating inconvenience, noise in the background. Time to take a long hard look in the mirror. You don't need therapy, you need to walk in his shoes.

Perhaps consider offering respite care to your MIL? A weekend away. See if you can find some common ground with your FIL again and give her a break at the same time.

I cam kind of empathise with your situation op. and I certainly don't agree with the name calling and frankly vile comments that have been made on here.

my grandmother has a life limiting heart condition and has gone from being an outgoing vibrant woman to a frail old lady who whinges constantly that she can't do x,y or z anymore (she can she just chooses not to) and refuses to help herself. it is incredibly frustrating and it just make it hard not to harden yourself and think "man up".

I think you need to remember that he isn't doing it to deliberately annoy anyone and if the diagnosis is fairly new then it may be taking him some time to get his head around how he feels about it and hopefully he will buck his ideas up once he has done that.

in the meantime be completely honest with yourself over why you feel like this, it sounds from your op that you have never really liked him but found him easier to tolerate when he was happier. that's nothing to be ashamednof and quite natural, being ill doesn't mean someone automatically gets to be liked.

fake it til you make it may be the way forward or trying to engage him in some of the conversations or activities that he used to enjoy and you used to be able to tolerate.

It may help you with the frustration to think about where some of your illness beliefs come from and why those things hit your personal buttons: understanding where it comes from may help it feel less annoying to you.

Just to share the perspective in case it helps, I've been chronically ill for about five years now. I've had to deal with a lot of my own beliefs that I had about how people should act and how they should handle adversity just not working in reality, and learn to cope with needing help to a degree I'm really not happy with.

It's not possible to keep up with other people's beliefs. I've had colleagues who had entrenched that unless you were unconscious you should come to work no matter what. Yeah we've all pushed through a bad cold, but I had no idea before this happened to me what it was like feeling terrible and having to push through day after day after day, relentlessly, forever, without any colleague seeing it. It's exhausting. And I'd never before had to think about or dread collapsing on site, becoming uninsurable and losing my job and driving license. Family who are judgy that you don't just 'make the effort' to go to a family do and have no idea that you haven't even eaten today because you can't get to the kitchen and stand up long enough to put food on a plate, and you're dropping everything anyway. Friends who are tired of you not being able to shop for hours and hours with them or that you need to cancel so often because you never know how today will be until it's happening, or that you're always down and stressed because you're in constant fear of getting too ill to work, and you hate relying on and being grateful to people who take care of you but don't do things your way and you have to live on their terms. Get up when they're ready, go to bed when they're ready, wash your hair when they have the time to help, and see how the dynamic subtly changes when that person so kindly helps you but starts to lose their boundary over how much control they have over you, what you do, how your house should be. The loss of control and autonomy and the constant fear and stress and feeling lousy is awful. It's depressing. Chirpy and dignified independence is my ideal, but I fight the depression every day and some days I don't do so well. And I worry constantly about family and friends getting impatient, thinking I should deal with this better, more gracefully, and knowing I can't share too much or lean on them that much because no one is going to be resilient enough to take this without dreading being around me. I don't expect sainthood or endless tolerance from anyone, I try as much as I can that very few people ever know at all that I'm ill, and that's not from pride as much as from fear. It's a very lonely place to be and I often on a bad day think about can I really handle decades more of this. I'm not who I was five years ago. It's hard to like the person I've had to deal with becoming willing or not, but I just have to do the best I can with that, and some days I live hour to hour, never mind day to day.

That isn't to say that your FiL is not behaving badly! He may well be. Just that the situation is a complicated one on both sides, there's a lot of things involved in chronic illness and its not easy for anyone to deal with.

it's not possible to keep up with other people's beliefs.

That's so true, rumble. Brilliant post. I know when my mum was living with terminal cancer that a few people's relentless need - & it feel like a need - to impose their narratives about battles, miracles & doctors getting it wrong onto her situation caused a huge amount of needless pain & anger.

Something neurological happened with her in the final months, causing dementia like symptoms, & it was hard to cope with. We never knew if the cancer had spread to her brain or if it was a result of an incredibly punishing schedule of chemo & radiotherapy. Perhaps we were lucky that, personality-wise, she was very loving in that time & lost any fear of what was going to happen to her. And she had great palliative care.

The singing songs idea is lovely, lola, & there's nothing wrong with admitting you're in need of strategies. Hope you can all support each other through this.

You really need to make more effort and take the initiative in the conversations, at the very least to set a better example for your DS (I would be gutted if anyone treated me like a piece of furniture because I was having a difficult time). Reminisce about things you have all done together in the past, pull out the old photos and ask about them, bring out the board games he can play instead of sitting tolerating him and wanting to be entertained. My GranIL has end stage dementia and can still do crosswords. No harm in bringing something with you - family videos or a new game you think he might like. You don't say how old your DS is, but could they do a jigsaw together or build a model aeroplane or something more prescriptive. Sometimes when you are exhausted, thinking of what to have for dinner is harder than cooking it - do you find that? I'm willing to bet that is how FIL is feeling.

I think you need to try and view your relationships in a less self centred, box-checking way - your post reads to me like "this is what I like in a person, this is what they bring to my life, this is how they need to change to get my respect." Your new approach should be: how can you make being together more fun and interesting while he is struggling? You can still have a nice time together if you think of it less in terms of give and take and just try and make the time spent together nice - different than before - but still nice.

I have two chronic conditions and with the first I had your attitude to illness. My parents also had the same attitude, so I felt I had failed them by getting ill. I would be so exhausted I'd want to cry at the thought of going up a flight of stairs but I would push through it and tell myself I could manage if a lion was chasing me. By the second condition I had learnt how to be kind to myself, listen to my body and adapt my life to my abilities when things were bad. Guess which attitude nearly killed me and for which I shock the doctors by being so healthy? My parents have had to reflect on their attitudes as well and I think we are all happier and closer as a result, so it is possible.

My DF died from a neuro-degenerative condition. It's so hard to watch them go downhill, isn't it? To see a fun-loving, vital man deteriorate into a shell.

OP, some of your feelings may be just trying to protect yourself from hurt. It was so hard on my DH watching his FiL waste away. At times, he seemed to me to be uncaring and unhelpful. But in the end it was him trying to 'distance' himself from the pain and knowledge that my dad was deteriorating and would eventually die.

I think counseling is a good idea. Try to get to the bottom of why you feel as you do. That will make it easier to affect any change in your behaviour.

I think the condition is relevant here. I mean if it's something that affects his actual brain then how on earth can you criticise his response to it!

His brain controls everything.

I can't bring myself to empathise with you at the moment.

You sound incredibly self centred, it's all about you isn't it.

Have you any idea how horribly self absorbed you sound?

I dont think op is obliged to feel anything. Now she sees that what he was before was just charm.

Donr berate yourself op. Maybe just turn up the warmth on your civility.

Now she sees that what he was before was just charm.

Struggling to work out what you mean by this, Arven, because it sounds horribly cruel & ignorant. It sounds as if you're saying that, because FIL is no longer fun to be with but has become negative & difficult, then that's his real character & the earlier him was just superficial.

Yet lots of posters with experience of people with neurological illnesses have already pointed out that these conditions change someone's character. They affect the brain, the seat of the personality. And the reality & limitations of living with a chronic condition can change someone too. Doesn't mean that what OP's FIL was before wasn't real or substantial.

I really hope you meant something less nasty.

" Just nod, smile, show interest etc the same as you do with any other person you are duty bound to be with over Christmas."

She is doing those things. Can't people read?! She specifically said that now she's more approaching civility than genuine warmth and affection. This is bothering her, hence the post.

I actually think you've been very honest both with yourself and with people here, OP. We don't all handle illness well in others, even people we love, but few people have the ability to admit that to themselves. There have been some really insightful and helpful responses here and I hope they help you.

Lola, my FIL isn't very different from yours although I suspect much older. I am very ashamed to say that much as I love him, I also find him extremely irritating and hard to talk to him. Sometimes I'm snappy. I know that and much as he might 'deserve' that, he's very old and I should be able to rise above.

For me what works is to keep visits short and also have a purpose wherever possible. Take him somewhere, even the supermarket or out for a cup of teal then there is something to chat about no matter how mundane. I'm good at filling in forms so I do that and ensure he gets the benefits etc he is entitled to. He likes to be provocative so I ignore any such comments ( we all do). Can you concentrate on your mil whilst your DH takes over with FIL? Maybe take her out for a break while DH sits with FIL?

Any yes, fake it I'm afraid. It is hard. I would also second the possibility that he is depressed. It can very much alter a person and behaviour. I'm sure you has done this, but it helps to really understand the condition a person has so you can at least have some idea of what he is going through.

Don't be too hard on yourself, I think it's great that you want to improve the situation.

Good luck.

My FIL has a neurological condition that is chronic and debilitating. It flares up and he recovers slowly and gradually does not quite fully recover so is always a bit worse than he was before the relapse. He retired early because of it but is reasonably active and his mind is not affected, just his muscles. I have never known him when he did not have this but it plays on my mind that this could be me or DH one day and that he has not asked for any of this or done anything to deserve it. So if he is a bit moany sometimes I try and be nice and talk to him and keep him busy so he can put it out of his mind for a bit. We all get old - if we are lucky. God knows how we will react when it is our turn.

My mil has Parkinson's disease. It is progressive and her health has declined over the years. She needs a lot more support and has sadly lost her independence more and more. I love my mil and am only sad for her that things continue to get tougher for her. OP I think this is more a time for critical self reflection than any commentary on your fils attitude to his disease but to be fair I think you have acknowledged that yourself. It is your attitude and not your fils that needs work. I was listening to a radio programme with people talking about the whole rhetoric about battling specifically cancer and how they found the analogy frustrating because do days they just wanted to live with cancer and other days they just wondered 'why the hell did it have to be me'. Their point that a person was meant to engage in this constant enduring battle was frankly unrealistic and unhelpful.

Do = some