How do you support hubby with loss of his mother when she treated you like this...

[jjarman]

I can really sympathize with you on this. My FIL is not a very nice man. He and my MIL were divorced with my husband was 4 and he had very little to do with my husband until our son was born. Then it was only a call every 6 months or so. We sent the man pictures of his grandson (he has one other grandchild) from time to time but there was no relationship at all. The first time I met the man he told me a filthy joke. Kinda shows you how he was. Anyway, he is a lonely old man in a nursing home now (which shows you it isn't always the kids fault that no one goes to see some of those people in the nursing home). He is also 11 hours away from us. He is sickly but a strong man. He is also 87.

My family is just the opposite. We are very close and very supportive of each other on a daily basis. I talk to my brothers all the time and my mother every day. Sometimes they are a little too involved but they are my family and I love them.

I have a trip scheduled in less than 2 weeks to WDW with my family which includes my 80 year old mother. This is the only time I will get to go to WDW with her most likely. My husband and I discussed what would we do if his father should die while I was gone. He truly understands how important the trip is to me. He is okay with me not going to the funeral if he should die while I am gone. Our son will go with him.

 

[kdudley3]

Wow - people are being really hard on the OP.

I anticipate having this problem when my FIL passes. It will surprise me though if my dh expects me to be mourning the way he is. Support for HIS loss will be easy to give, but I won't be experiencing the same loss. That is the part that is probably unexpected and difficult for the OP. It sounds like the main issue is that dh is sad that the kids aren't mourning his mom - it's not really about the OP. I'm guessing the OP's DH hasn't really "seen" the issues with his mom and their kids and noticing that the others aren't mourning as he is is causing him to recognize now that there were issues.

The OP has not indicated she isn't supporting her husband, just that she and the kids don't feel the same loss. Grief can be very lonely. Her DH wants to be around others who aren't just sad for him, but actually grieving their loss of his mother as well. Does he have siblings? Will there be a funeral or memorial? These things should be helpful.

Thank You...I just don't know how to act or what to say to my husband when his mother was mean and nasty to me when we did so much and my children have no reaction to hear death because she always favoritism to the daughter's children.

It hurts my husband and I can see why...but it's hard to say "your didn't give a rat's a** about us when we were here unless we did something for her...and the sad part is...we did the most !! It's just hard trying to show emotion (for my husband's sake) for his mother, but I'm always there...with love for my husband.

 

[eliza61]

My kids and myself really don't have any feelings towards her (there were some things that happened along the 24 year marriage). But my husband said he is dissapointed that our children aren't showing any emotion. I tried gentfully to tell him that his mother didn't have as much of a relationship with our children that she had with her daughter's children.

My oldest, 21, said that he really didn't feel anything...none of them shead a tear...either did I.

I just don't know how to make my husband feel better...because it was his mom...I just don't know how to make let my hausband feel better about the mother he loves although she treated our family like crap.

It is so different from my family...we support and are there no matter what.Thanks in advance I just needed to vent.

K

Ok, so show some support for your Husband. IMO, this has nothing to do with your dearly departed MIL.
Some one you love is in pain, enough said. You said he loves her so lend him your support. This is where the "Good times and in bad" part of the marriage vows kick in.


You say. Hon, I'm sorry you are hurting, is there any thing I can do to help?
You say. She was a good mother to you, I know it's hard. I sorry you are grieving.
why do you need to point out how she treated you? Regardless to "who did more" or 'who was the favorite". You need to step up to the plate (along with the kids) and be there for your husband.

Is he asking why the kids or you are not crying? Then simply say people express grief differently and just because they are not crying doesn't mean they don't feel any thing. Does he feel like he's not recieving any empathy (I didn't read all the replies, so I apolgize if some one ask this question already).

I agree with the other posters. Imagine how you would feel if your mom passed away and take it from there.

 

[Luv2Scrap]

Also, don't "gently" remind him how crappy his mother was to you and your kids. That is just rubbing salt in a wound. He can't fix it now, so there is no need whatsoever on reminding him about it. If he asks why you are not crying, just say something positive such as "we are hurting for you, everybody displays their grief differently." You don't have to lie and say you loved his mother, but you don't have to say anything negative at all.

Instead, if you can, find something positive to say about his mother. There has to have been at least a couple of positive moments in 24 years.

And just be there for him. Since you and your children are not grieving, then this time should be all about your husband. It shouldn't be about you or your children since you really did not have a relationship. This isn't a reciprocal situation. He shouldn't have to support you.

Since you said your family always supports no matter what, well, now is the time to support your husband no matter what.

I agree with the bolded part completely. I think he will be conflicted enough about this already. My DH has parents that have not done right by him all his life, but he still loves them. I hate the way they've treated him, and so does he. He struggles with it so much already, and I know when they die, it's going to be really hard for him to resolve all those tumultuous feelings for them.

I imagine your husband is feeling the same way, and he's not sure how to deal with that. As a result, he's looking to you for some sort of reassurance that it's okay for him to grieve for her, even though he knows she wasn't the best parent, grandparent, or mother-in-law she could have been.

 

[DawnCt1]

What everyone else said. Just remember that he may be mourning the mother he always wanted instead of the mother that he actually had. Now that she is dead, there is no hope to have the one he actually wanted.

 

[padams]

I am no fan of my MIL. She plays favorites with her kids and grandkids, and DH, DSs and I are not the favorites. My kids think MIL is a bit crazy and are not particularly close to her. I do remind them that they must never speak badly of MIL to their Dad and that she is their grandmother and they must be respectful. I also remind them that without MIL, there's no Dad, and without Dad, there's no you.

Your children may not cry but they need to show proper respect, dignity and solemnity. They may not have loved their grandmother but I presume they love their dad, and he is hurting. Your husband is likely mourning not just the death of his mother but also that your family will never have the relationship with his mother that he probably hoped for....

If I were the OP, I'd be doing my internal happy dance, but on the outside, I'd be compassionate and supportive to my DH. OP, you need to step up and be the very best wife you can be. The MIL is gone, and all the issues of the past are gone with her. It doesn't matter anymore how she treated you.

Regarding the poster who advised you to take care of your marriage, I agree. One of my friends recently divorced because after her husband's mother died, he decided my friend wasn't supportive enough. I'm sure it wasn't their only issue but it was the proverbial last straw.

 

[Disney Doll]

Our relationships with our parents can be very complicated at times.

Try and find the positives about your MIL...after all, without her you wouldn't have your DH!

Even if you say that to him.."I will be eternally grateful because she gave me you"...it might make him feel better.

As far as your kids...now's a good time for them to learn empathy. Their Dad is upset, his mother died. No, she wasn't "Grandmother of the Year" to them, but they should at least express their sorrow for their father's feelings of loss.

 

[terri01p]

 

[FergieTCat]

I was never close to my father's side of the family. I did go to my grandmother's funeral, but refused to go to my aunt's funeral . I think I was in my 20's at the time, had other plans, and just flat out said no. My parents lived out of the country at that point, and my father wanted me to go as "his representative." I said absolutely not. My sister ended up going, but she had more of a relationship with my aunt than I did. My father passed away years ago and I have had no contact with my cousins from his side. I have no regrets.

Funerals are strange. How are you expected to display any sort of emotion for someone you disliked in the first place? If it were my husband's mother, I'd probably feel bad for him, but that would be about it.

 

[kdudley3]

Our relationships with our parents can be very complicated at times.

Try and find the positives about your MIL...after all, without her you wouldn't have your DH!

Even if you say that to him.."I will be eternally grateful because she gave me you"...it might make him feel better.

As far as your kids...now's a good time for them to learn empathy. Their Dad is upset, his mother died. No, she wasn't "Grandmother of the " to them, but they should at least express their sorrow for their father's feelings of loss.

I have taught my children love, empathy, sympathy and gratefulness and thoughtfullnes...and I'm very proud of them.

I just don't know how to make my kids show greiving for the sake of their father.

I can hide my resentfulness...and actual love I felt for her over all the years (although she caused MAJOR problems in my marriage and life).

I just thought that this was one place to come to for some support.

Thank you all to supported and helped me...it means alot...and i will know that you really helped someone out today...you have my gratitude !!!

 

[kdudley3]

People dealing with death often do. Maybe we should all cut her some slack.

THANK U !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Disney Doll]

I have taught my children love, empathy, sympathy and gratefulness and thoughtfullnes...and I'm very proud of them.

I just don't know how to make my kids show greiving for the sake of their father.

If they have learned all you taught them, then it should be fairly easy for them to show grieving for the sake of their father.

I guess the next few days will illuminate how well your children learned what you attempted to teach, won't it?

I will say a prayer for your husband for peace during his time of loss.

 

[RitaZ.]

I'm trying to be there for my husband and he really understands how much
I've done. But I feel like I need to try to take the pain away from him, and I know I can't.

But it's hard to mix feelings with a family that didn't care for you in the beginning (they told him not to to marry me because I was too rich...not the case) and facing up to whole bunch of people that were told lies and didn't know the other side of the story.

I guess I just don't know how to suck it up !

I did love her and helped with their family the whole marriage. Then find out after building an addition onto our house for her (they think I was after the money, which there is probably isn't much) I did it out of my heart for her, my husband and her family and got burned. Big time.

I always helped...but was always considered an outsider. That's not just like my family is. We support everyone.

Thank you all for letting me get this off my chest and all of the advice since I've never been through this before.

Thank you all for helping me !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn't get along with DH's family. Lots of stories there. My MIL didn't like me and I didn't like her. When she passed away, also from cancer, DH was distraught. The fact is the she was his mom. He loved her. I love him and hate to see him upset or sad. It wasn't my job to take the sadness away. I just listened and comforted him. That's what he needed.

I didn't want to go to her funeral, but I did because DH needed me there. I didn't tell him that I didn't want to go. I also went with him to make the funeral arrangements. I just focused on what DH needed from me. It wasn't easy or comfortable, but I got through it. That time wasn't about me and my hurt feelings. It was about my husband losing his mother. The last thing he needed was me griping about his mother, whose death he was grieving.

Your husband's mother is now gone. You don't have to agree with how other people viewed and loved her. The bottom line is that your husband needs you right now. Keep your true feelings about your late MIL to yourself. Your husband doesn't need to be punished because his mother wasn't the person that you wanted her to be. Just be there for him.

 

[disykat]

Just chiming in with more support for kdudley3. I'm not sure where people are getting the idea you and your children aren't being supportive and sympathetic to your husband? You've never indicated that - only that he has noticed your kids aren't crying and don't seem to feel the loss the same way he does.

The issue seems to be that he is lonely in his grief, realizing others aren't feeling quite the same as he is. This is normal - even under the best of circumstances! Even his siblings won't feel it the same - loss is very personal. He is overwhelmed while the rest of the world goes on. Normal.

Keep loving him and supporting him. I think coming to an annonymous forum for support was a smart thing to do - but the DIS is not a very friendly place at times. People here like to assume the worst about others. IMO you obviously knew that your feelings are secondary at this time and that's why you came to us instead of him.

 

[disykat]

If they have learned all you taught them, then it should be fairly easy for them to show grieving for the sake of their father.

I guess the next few days will illuminate how well your children learned what you attempted to teach, won't it?

I will say a prayer for your husband for peace during his time of loss.

I just don't get this. I think it is very reasonable for them to be compassionate towards their father in his time of loss - I assume they are doing so. Certainly the OP has not indicated otherwise. But I don't get how they should cry and pretend to be feeling personal grief they don't feel?

I've gone to many memorial services and felt great compassion for those whose loss is great. However, while recognizing their great grief, I feel the loss at "my level" not at theirs.

When my grandparents died, I honestly don't remember a whole lot of personal grief on the part of me or my siblings. (we were teens and young adults as it seems the OP's kids are also) It was all about my parents, who had lost their parents. I grieved a little for my grandparents, but mostly sympathized with my parent's losses. It would have been weird to have to pretend I was experiencing more personal loss than I was.

 

[DizBelle]

I'm not trying to make it about me...well..just to you guys...not to him.

I'm doing the best I know how to say the right supportive thing...but he said he was dissapointed on how our children reacted to her death. I can't and won't make them feel bad for feeling the way they do.

I just was feeling bad for myself, yes, but I haven't told him that. I'm been supportive and gave him support no matter how I felt because it is his mom. No matter how she treated me...I would never talk bad about her. I was just trying to make him understand why the kids felt the way they did...does that make any sense?

I get it OP. I don't think you did anything wrong or are doing anything wrong. I don't see anything wrong with informing your DH (when he asked) that your kids weren't as close to his mother as the other grandkids were. That is just offering a simple explanation as to why they are not grieving as much as he is. I don't see any reason to sugarcoat it or lie because his mother died. She was what she was. I don't see any reason to give her a halo if she didn't deserve one.

Now, the OP shouldn't go around and bash MIL just for the heck of it. But when DH asks a question, she should answer honsestly and as gently as she can. Which I think she exactly did.

Surely, her DH realized how his mother was treating his family before she died? None of that is his fault. He can grieve the loss of his mother and grieve the loss of a relationship she might have had with his family that will never be. But the OP and their children shouldn't fabricate emotion that isn't there. That would be dishonest.

 

[bumbershoot]

Have you considered using a little empathy? Your husband just lossed his mother and somehow your making it about you.

Think about how you would feel if your mom died. That's what your husband is going through. How would you like him to support you through that experience?

She IS having empathy. She's NOT making anything about her. She posted here to try to get help on how she can *help her husband*.

And it's absolutely impossible for anyone to know how they will need to be supported when a parent dies. Haven't met a person yet who knows how they will react!

... he may be mourning the mother he always wanted instead of the mother that he actually had. Now that she is dead, there is no hope to have the one he actually wanted.

Very good point.

He knows that his mother treated his family differently. He knows, surely, that she was not respectful of you. My husband sure knows how poorly his mom treats me!

Probably the biggest difficulty that DH has had in mourning his dad is that they never got to really work out the junk. They had ONE nice convo while FIL was in the hospital, but no one else in the family believes that they had that conversation and that FIL took the responsibility for some stuff that happened, so they refuse to have the conversations with DH that would help.

The wishing that FIL had been different, or that they had more time to work it all out, is probably the hardest.

If it were me I would only say things that were uplifting about his mom from this day forward, she's gone now and there is no since in retrashing pass history. I'm sure by now everyone knows that you two didn't see eye to eye so out of respect for your dh let it go and just help him remember his mom in a positive light.
Be a positive influence for your children and show them how to respect the dead regardless of how you really feel and this will help your dh more that you know.

Gah. Seriously disagree.

It's what MIL and SIL are doing about FIL, and it's destroying BIL and DH's relationship with them. BIL and DH will no longer be attending MIL's annual gatherings for FIL, b/c she's now pretending he was a saint (well, they don't have those in Buddhism, but the thought is the same). BIL and DH see NO point in doing that, and by doing that, they are disrespecting the *living*.

Just chiming in with more support for kdudley3. I'm not sure where people are getting the idea you and your children aren't being supportive and sympathetic to your husband?

I agree.

The issue seems to be that he is lonely in his grief, realizing others aren't feeling quite the same as he is. This is normal! Even his siblings won't feel it the same - loss is very personal. He is overwhelmed while the rest of the world goes on. Normal.

That's a really good point!

When my mom died, and she was an overall really good person who did make a few mistakes in life, she was universally mourned. But each of us was different in their mourning. For my brother, he only talked to his wife, which is normal for him. My aunt and I, who are very similiar, cried and still cry about it. My stepfather mourned heavily for awhile, then moved on and remarried 10 days before the third anniversary of my mom's death. My dad, who hadn't been married to my mom since 1974, mourned nearly as deeply as I was! But still, each of us mourned alone.

When FIL died, if hubby needed to cry or talk, I listened to him. FIL was a horrible husband, and a bad parent. He was a decent FIL, and a good grandpa, though he stole from his wife's insurance policy and stopped paying taxes in order to continue his financial gifts to everyone (things we found out after his death) so it's hard to be totally happy with how he was a FIL and grandpa. Thankfully DH is very honest with his dad's true natures, which has made mourning that much more complicated. I listen when he wants to talk, I take it easy on him when anniversaries come up (you'll get to recognize the long stare...DH recognizes it in me, too...he and I met about 7 months after my mom died...he's never known me NOT mourning her).


As for him wanting your kids to react more...I would probably just stay silent on that one. He knows, deep down, why they aren't reacting. My dad understood why I didn't mourn his mom. She was a cold, mean, strict person, and we were the least favorite grandkids b/c he was her least favorite child, and she never liked my mom. Their divorce was also the first (of many, it turned out) divorce in grandmother's family, and she hated that.

If you have to say something, I'd just stick with "everyone mourns differently" and leave it at that.

 

[Carly_Roach]

The issue seems to be that he is lonely in his grief, realizing others aren't feeling quite the same as he is.

That's what I was reading in the OP's posts as well. It appears to me that she's concerned that her DH will be disappointed in his children because they're not heartbroken over their grandmother's passing. Perhaps you can say that they never had the same relationship with his mother that he did and that's why they're not displaying any outward grief?

If you have to say something, I'd just stick with "everyone mourns differently" and leave it at that.

I agree. to the OP.

 

[Pigeon]

I think you can be supportive of your husband's loss without either being nasty about the woman or pretending she was something she was not. You love your husband and you are sorry he is hurting. I also agree with Dawn in that he's probably grieving the mother he didn't have.

I had one grandmother I loved very much and one who was a cold, indifferent woman. When the cold one died, I didn't feel anything in particular. Kids know very well who loves them and who doesn't. My own kids have a set of grandparents who make no effort at all to have a relationship with them, and I'm sure that when they die no tears will be shed.

I wouldn't dream of trying to make kids fake grief. They can be respectful about their grandmother without shedding phony tears or reciting maudlin sentiments they don't feel. In his heart, your husband knows why your kids aren't crying, and I'm sure that makes him sad too.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Like so many say about divorce, you and your kids need to keep in mind that you have to love him more than you dislike her, KWIM. All of you can very truthfully show sadness that your DH is upset, and say truthful things like "I am so sorry you are so hurt". If you all show deep feelings for him he will probably never question anything beyond that.