My MIL is on her own, in her 80s and has always been "difficult" and an unhappy person. Rude to strangers, racist, complains about whatever she is offered food wise when she visits, often gets into conflict with people she meets and insults them, refuses to wear a mask when she shops, the list just goes on and on. Whenever she speaks to DH she says how miserable and lonely she is. We have been seeing her regularly throughout lockdown, once a week/once a fortnight sometimes more. My DH feels very guilty about her being unhappy but finds her very difficult to be around as she is always so negative, rude and hostile. I have encouraged him over the last year to invite her over more often and be pleasant to her while she is here (often they just end up sniping at each other).
She came round 3 weeks ago for lunch and as soon as she arrived started being really, really horribly racist. It came out of nowhere. I couldn't even write here the things she was saying. Although she's always been racist this was in a new league of awfulness. I very calmly said that while we understood that she was lonely and wanted to welcome her, I wouldn't accept anyone speaking like that in my home, that those views were simply not acceptable. She had to understand that she would not be welcome here if she spoke like that. She laughed in my face and told me I was "peculiar".
We haven't seen her since. Apparently my DH has spoken to her and told her she ought to apologise but she refuses and doesn't see why she should.
This morning my DH announced her has invited her round for lunch tomorrow. Didn't check with me. I feel as though her being so unpleasant is just being swept under the carpet.
His position is that she is his mother, she's alone and unhappy and he has a responsibility to her so he has to see her despite not really wanting to. He feels VERY sorry for himself that he has this burden in his life and that is all he can really see. And I do get that. We are talking about an elderly woman on her own. She is his mother. And things are so much harder in lockdown.
But I am really struggling with the powerlessness of having someone in my home whether I like it or not who is both personally unpleasant to me and poisonous in her views.
Don't really know what to do. I could put my foot down and say she's not coming. But as my DH makes very clear - that just punishes him because he has to then drive to see her.
I'm thinking I may just absent myself and take the dog for a walk but don't really want to get into a situation where I feel I have to leave my own home every week to avoid her.
As context I had a step mother who was very cruel to me when I was a child and when I got upset my DF would just tell me how difficult the situation was for him and how he had told her not to behave like that but she just wouldn't listen and how difficult to was for him. The parallels I think are affecting me but when I told DH that he hit the roof and got really angry.
Any advice?