Why would this family member behave so un-compassionately?

[Teaandshortcake]

It’s my partners parents. The mum makes all the decisions and the dad is easy going and goes along with everything she says.

She is just the most void person when it comes to giving support or showing empathy I’ve ever met. For example her step mum has developed cancer (she has been in her life since a teenager) she makes every excuse to not visit or offer support to even her elderly father whilst he takes his wife for chemo etc. His mum will book holidays and just disappear. She does the same for all occasions where she would need to offer empathy. For example disappeared on holiday when grandchildren are born. Her go to is oh I don’t want to make anyone sick. But she isn’t sick and it’s just an excuse.

We have a child going through ASD referral with extremely challenging behaviour and they are nowhere to been seen. No offers of any support, no visits, no messages to ask how we are doing. She has been told we are struggling as a family whilst we wait for the referral to go through and it’s literally like the struggle doesn’t exist. If you do see her she won’t mention the issue, she will completely ignore that you are going through something.

Ive never met a person who was so one track minded. She does what makes her happy and only that. She has no pull of emotions to anyone in her family who may need a little empathy.

I hate to say it but do people just not have empathy and cover it up by making really shitty excuses. When really she either doesn’t care or maybe doesn’t know what to do? It’s really hard to portray it but a family member could literally be dead and she would be carrying on as normal, no sign of distress just robotic happy.

We have a child going through ASD referral with extremely challenging behaviour and they are nowhere to been seen. No offers of any support, no visits, no messages to ask how we are doing. She has been told we are struggling as a family whilst we wait for the referral to go through and it’s literally like the struggle doesn’t exist. If you do see her she won’t mention the issue, she will completely ignore that you are going through something.

Well, whilst reluctant to 'diagnose' someone I don't know perhaps she's also ASD or has reasons for her lack of empathy. You clearly don't like her at all - but this just seems to be her. I'm not expert in autism, but everything you have said points to her sounding like Sheldon Cooper.

Maybe there is a reason she lacks any kind of empathy.

I’d like to like her but I’m not sure how to build a relationship with someone like this. I don’t dislike her she just doesn’t have any part in our life. She is happily on the outside having no connection to any of us and not wanting to either. I can’t understand her behaviour.

It’s weird because it doesn’t feel malicious it feels like if I just ignore this then it’s not happening. But why I don’t understand. It’s really not nice to be on the other side of it.

I second @Hatty65 s view that it sounds very probable that your partner's mum is also ASD. She may genuinely not be able to see that she 'ought' to offer empathy, she is living life on her own terms.

This behaviour is common in people with ASD.

(Although the example you mention about her step mum - it's also common for people to not like their step parents and refuse to have anything to do with them when they are grown up. You don't know what their relationship was like when she was a child/teen).

The last 3 posts I have read on Mumsnet have the common theme of laying expectations purely at the feet of mothers, 100% overlooking fathers. The last one was from a woman with an abusive father who had emotionally and physically abused the mother, yet her overriding emotions are of anger and resentment towards the mother. Why do we expect so much more of women and focus our resentment purely at our mothers? I'm not criticising the OP directly - its just so commonplace. Its as if her father's lack of presence/ support is completely irrelevant to the narrative.
I would also agree with the poster saying that it is a completely autistic trait. My family is very neurodivergent. I care hugely about people but have only started to process in recent months/ years that I probably don't communicate it or show it in actions enough. Its like I need to remember that, then work out what I should do, then make the time to do it. A healthy bit of PDA or ADHD thrown in will render that process almost impossible.

Neurodivergence runs in the family.

My mil was similar, not an ounce of sympathy for anyone, her brain just didn’t have the wiring for it. Hugely frustrating and upsetting to live with.

(Side note: I’m ND too and have huge empathy. You wouldn’t believe how different two people with the same diagnoses can be.)

I get that. It’s the mother’s step mum and dad so you would expect her to have empathy. The dad is pretty easy to speak to but the mum is hugely controlling over most things and he I think has just grown into letting her have the control.

Yes there is just no empathy whatsoever. It really isn’t nice because you could literally be dying and ask for some support and she will be like I need to check my diary, I need to check this and that. She needs to be in full control of if she offers support. That fact that you need it won’t be part of the equation.

People with autism can come over as controlling. They are trying to make sense of a life that can appear (to them) completely chaotic.

ND person here with autistic DD.

Ok. I often feel she is completely blinkered. It really doesn’t feel malicious it’s just it’s her way and only her way. She does sometimes smirk or laugh at some of the things I say or do. I don’t like that.

To be honest if she is autistic and her autism manifests in this way, then you can probably get away with never seeing her or contacting her again. She won't miss you or worry about it.

oh lovely, although that is exactly how it’s coming across. I have stopped quite a few
months ago contacting her because there isn’t much point really and I dont hear anything. She/they don’t come and visit grandkids, it’s sad. I don’t understand how she doesn’t feel bad or want to see them.

Some people just aren't wired to get excited or show sympathy for things they have no interest in. The fact that she takes herself off and doesn't talk about stuff, is better than her sitting there and causing upset because she doesn't know how to behave in ways you find socially acceptable.

@Teaandshortcake

I think I'm your partner's mum OP. Not literally, but figuratively. I have a similar relationship with my family, only I've taken it a step further and deliberately isolated myself from them to the point where we don't really have any contact.

She is happily on the outside having no connection to any of us and not wanting to either

This is how I feel about my family. They're not my friends, I didn't choose them, I have nothing in common with them, they have nothing to offer me I want or need, and I've made it clear I'm not interested in visits, or being a babysitting service and so on.

Some people get everything they need from a few friends they've chosen themselves, or are quite happy doing their own thing and being left to their own devices. I'm sure it is difficult for some other people to understand, perhaps especially so if they are close with their own families, but we're not all the same.

It's not malicious, and it's not that I'm incapable of empathy or compassion, I just have limited time for social interactions and prefer to spend the time I am with other people doing things I actually enjoy doing, with people I enjoy spending time being with, not a bunch of randoms I have nothing in common with just because we're related.

I also have an ASD diagnosis, but as I say, I don't lack empathy or compassion. I work in a role that is basically a support role for people with serious MH/substance/deprivation issues, and I couldn't do it if I wasn't able to empathise or feel compassion, but this is my choice to do this. I don't have any choice in who I'm related to, who their partners are, or whether they have children or not, hence why I feel no obligation to host, visit, socialise with them, or offer babysitting etc.

To me it sounds like she could very well be autistic in some form. She seems to thrive very much on routine and when something interrupts the routine it's like she maybe shuts down emotionally.

That’s really difficult to read.

Everything you say, OP, suggests to me that she is neuro-divergent.

I have an autistic DD. My DD has empathy but struggles to turn it into words. She would run a mile from a discussion about feelings and emotional matters because she knows that she doesn’t know the socially correct things to say or do in these situations. She has also learnt that she tends to say the wrong thing which then annoys and upsets people.

Recognising neurodivergence is a new thing. Assuming your MIL is neurodivergent, she will have grown up without any recognition of it and, most likely, frequently finding herself excluded and upsetting people because she had no idea what to say or do and came off as uncaring and strange.

So it’s entirely possible she actually has no interest in us or our kids outside of what she wants? She disappears because she doesn’t care and doesn’t want people so see she doesn’t?

Gosh I’m quite shocked reading this. Extended members of the family, sure, but it’s a very different thing to view your children and their families as “randoms I have nothing in common with”.

Yes it is entirely possible she has no interest in you or your kids beyond what she wants.

Yes there are quite a lot of people like this. Some of them are autistic and some are not,

Some people just aren't wired to get excited or show sympathy for things they have no interest in

This is the jist of it.

I suspect she disappears because her lived experience is that she won’t be able to say or do the socially acceptable thing and will in fact say or do the wrong thing. Before my DD’s fairly recent ASD diagnosis, she had a trail of broken friendships with friends whom she had upset/annoyed/hurt in ways which were very obvious to those friends (and often to me if my DD explained what had gone on) but very hard for my DD to understand. Your MIL may have experienced that repeatedly growing up so she finds it best to remove herself from the situation.

I don't have children through choice, but I didn't choose my parents and they certainly never consulted me about siblings, so yes, they're every bit as much accident of circumstance as any other "random" people out there.

Yes it could be. She is very good at leading. She has always been the heads of committees. She is always the person arranging dinners. She does have good relationships with a select number of her family. I suspect they are safe relationships, they aren’t really relationships where empathy is required.