MIL End of Life - Rest of In-Laws Hammering on Me

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-26-2005
Wed, 08-01-2012 - 11:23am

My DH and I have been married 12 years now, have a wonderful almost 11 y.o. daughter.  MIL smoked probably 3 packs of cigarettes and drank a carton of cokes a day for a very long time.  She is 82 now, been on dialysis 11 years, stopping smoking but still drinks cokes.  In very bad shape but does not look ready to throw the towel in yet.  She's been in a very nice ICU since Monday night.  Last nigth was about the 5th time we've been called for a 2 hour round trip because she only had a few hours left.  We got there last night and she was laying in bed watching tv - did not look ready to kick the bucket. 

I was madder than a hornet for being called to drop everything and run especially since we have to care for 14 horses, 6 dogs, cats and pigs in the current 98 degree heat.  So his brother said something nasty to me, I told him f.u. and he then commenced to try to tower over me menacingly in the lobby of a public hospital.  I called for security but of course there was none around.  My dear DH went after me and told me to go sit in the truck (in 95 degrees).  I heard one of his tons of family members call me a b___tch behind my back, and the rest of them just sat there saying "there's always one when something like this happens".  I don't even know these people!

I took our dd and her friend to another lobby without his 20 family members waiting in the ICU, and gave him 15 minutes or I was going to take the truck at go home.  It was 7:30 at night and we hadn't eaten yet.

Long story short I hope I never see them again, but now we're going to have to go to the funeral home at some point, and the funeral.  We had to sneak out the back door to avoid them.  What really hurt was DH not  helping me any.  I am a very highly educated, successful woman.  I am not prone to outbursts or violence but just am fed up with this crap.  I'm 95% sure she is not going to pass on but will end up back in the $10,000 a month rehab facility that the family can't afford.  They keep threatening to kick out MIL because she does nothing but just lay there.

Yes, we did go back and see MIL before we left.  The nurses at the hospital were very nice to let all 4 of us go at once.

I went through some of this in my last marriage - aggressive people in the family vicious towards me - and am wondering if I should just get a divorce and stay single.  It would devastate our dd and I really don't want to do that.  I am 52 so is DH.  He says they've treated him like that for years, he really doesn't even know half of them and that yes they are mean people.



Avatar for mahopac
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-24-1997
Wed, 08-01-2012 - 11:47am

There must be a background to this story, because here's what I just read:

"My husband's mother is in ICU.  We've been called 5 times in 2 days to come see her because she's about to draw her last breath.  I'm really pissed the old bat hasn't died when she was supposed to, because she deserves it based on her health habits.  When my husband's brother detected my attitude, he was angry at me and my husband told me to leave the room, but I refused.  Why didn't my husband stick up for me?  They're a-------s,  and I'm ready to get divorced."

If that's the sum of the situation, I'd say you're seriously in the wrong.  When a parent is about to die, the attitude to take is NOT to imply to her children that she's being really inconsiderate to YOU by not doing it sooner.

My FIL was an alcoholic who caused all his own health problems.  It didn't make his passing any less sad for his family.  I wouldn't have dreamed of saying a negative word.