For some background: My husband and I have been together for 3 years and have a 4 month old baby together. I think we have a very good and healthy relationship and he’s a great dad. My husband’s dad passed away a few years before we met from a sudden illness. His mom is in her early 60s and lives on her own. He has one brother but he is not very mature/ helpful with anything to do with his mom. My husband is Canadian and his family is mild mannered, and not very expressive or warm. I am Eastern European (live in Canada) so my family is loud, opinionated, can be overbearing, and is physically affectionate. My parents live nearby and are very helpful and involved with the baby.
I have never clicked with my MiL and have struggled with I see as a lack of warmth or friendliness. Our conversations feel very surface level and I don’t get the sense that she likes me, although we’ve never had any outward issues or conflict.
About a year into our relationship my MiL started complaining that she wasn’t feeling well. Her symptoms vary greatly. She has been seeing doctors non stop for the past two years trying to get to the bottom of why she feels so terribly. A few things have been uncovered, like high blood pressure and a blood clot, but nothing to explain what she describes as being all consuming and daily (can’t sleep, hair loss, hands changing colour, fatigue, heart palpitations etc etc). She talks to my husband on a daily basis about how terribly she is feeling. Over the last few years he has gone to many of her appointments with her and taken time from work to do this. Her doctors are frustrated with her and her family doctor has on many occasional told her that she has anxiety/ depression and that her symptoms may be psychosomatic. She tried some therapy and depression meds early on in all this but has since refused to accept that mental health is an issue or the issue behind all this. At family events my MiL will often be visibly upset or totally silent. At my husband’s birthday that I planned she cried and my husband comforted her… it was awkward. We had our baby just before Xmas so my MiL hosted for once (we have been hosting holidays since she started feeling badly) and she was visibly angry most of it and barely greeted us when we came.
The situation with my MiL weighs heavily on my husband. He tries to be her main support person through all this. He feels that it’s his responsibility, especially with his dad done and brother being MIA. MiL does not seem very appreciative of my husband. She also doesn’t seem all that interested in our baby. She doesn’t ask how the baby is doing and she doesn’t offer to help (she does help here and there when husband asks but prefaces it with that she may not feel well enough to). I don’t know if some of this is a cultural difference and if it can all be attributed to what’s going on with her.
Recently she was convinced that she had MS after an MRI came back showing some indicators. Before she even saw a specialist, she bought a sweater from an MS society and started wearing it a lot, she read books on MS, was sending my husband daily MS content to review and told him that she wants donations made to an MS society if she dies. She’s mentioned dying and her wishes many times over the last few years. An MS specialist has since told her she doesn’t have MS. She is still convinced that she has a terrible illness of some kind. She does a lot of research and thinks she has something new every few months.
I feel like I’m at the end of my rope about all of this. When my husband tells me about something going on with his mom (for ex, recently she got angry at him about trying to reason with her on her health and hung up on him a few times), I end up getting upset. He then feels that he has to comfort me as well as dealing with his own frustrations with his mom. He is more willing to accept that there may be something physically wrong with her to explain all of this. I really think that there isn’t and that it’s illness anxiety and/or attention seeking at this point. I feel bad that I don’t have it in me to be empathetic or supportive to my husband or MiL anymore. I’m just so frustrated and sad that instead of focusing on our baby and new family, he is constantly being pulled into this negativity and guilt about his mom. When he tries to talk to her about all of this she will say things like “I won’t tell you how I’m feeling anymore” or “I’ll be left to suffer alone”. UGH. My husband I argue about all of this and I don’t like that it’s impacting us.
Looking for any and all feedback. Much appreciated.