Reply to BIL called DH’s Mom a B****

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It may be that MIL is starting to lose her marbles. 80 is quite old. Even if she was always somewhat like this, if she's getting worse, that may be an early sign of dementia or even high blood pressure. Plus, older people don't handle stress well, and even simple things, like a family dinner, can be quite stressful for a person that old. Keep in mind that older people can be really, really good at hiding it when things start to go south. It can be very subtle.

So, my first concern would be for OP's husband and his sister to have a calm conversation about whether their mother is starting to lose it a bit. Maybe it's time to speak with her doctor.

Then, as I would tell our grandchildren, it's never ok to name call. BIL is an adult. He is capable of executive function control. He should not have exploded that way. It was wrong and he needs to hear that from OP's DH. That said, I don't think he should be held hostage to an apology either.

Rather, the concern should be for the future. Since MIL is only likely to get worse as she ages further, I think it is fair for OP's DH to sit down with his sister and BIL and express his concern about how MIL will be treated as she ages. It may help for the family to come together and come to a shared understanding about how to cope and help each other.

It might also be helpful to see if OP can find some culturally-relevant materials on how to help aging parents. The local center on aging or perhaps a local non-profit may be able to offer support.[/quote]

Thank you for this calm and collected perspective. Yes, I will coach my husband to approach it this way. I think the conversation needs to shift to what we are going to do about it as opposed to who is at fault.[/quote]

Of course the only perspective you like is the one where MIL is 80 and losing her marbles despite the fact that you say she has been like this her whole life.  You will coach your husband to sit down and shame BIL by talking about how he wants his mother treated in future.

What a shame none of you have been able to talk to her and sit her down and talk about her behaviour and how it affects other people.  I am not sure why your husband needs to get involved in other people's drama's.

People say your BIL shouldn't have said this one thing.  Called her a name. You still will not answer if your BIL has done this before.  I am thinking not.  This sounds like a once off. I get that its offensive but so is ongoing rude behaviour by your MIL.  Why is her behaviour ok but BIL is not allowed one misstep.  You can forgive your MIL over and over but not your BIL. You say you previously got upset with your MIL but BIL is not allowed to have a moment of being upset.  I would think you would have some empathy with him and show him some support and in doing so simply explain you don't want that language around your children.  If anything keep it at that, I am sure he would understand that and apologise for that.

I would rather teach my children and tell them, that if they are continually rude as your MIL is, people get upset and angry like what happened with BIL.  That there are consequences for being insulting to people.  Its a lesson to say that your BIL made a mistake himself in calling names but sometimes people are stressed and if its out of character then this when you support family.

This is why there are so many people on these forums with family upsets because people get told its ok to treat family like cr*p.  They are family so they will put up with it.  The real lesson is that you teach your kids to treat family with respect and that BIL's outburst is what happens when there is no respect.  A teaching moment that you should be able to stand up for yourself and there are good ways and not so good ways to do this. Your kids see how your MIL is and you are teaching them to accept abuse.  To be silent about it.  You yourself say she has mental health issues and are now teaching your kids to accept any abuse she throws their way.  Hopefully they don't continue with that belief in adulthood.

Of course underneath all this, is that you really want to teach your kids, to accept any behaviour of yours.  As their parent you really want to teach them to defer to you, to put up with any bad behaviour on your part, to stay silent, to say nothing, to respect you even when you are not respecting them.  Because ultimately your MIL is not showing one ounce of respect for any of you but just because she is older you feel you have to take this.  And the cycle continues.

But you go ahead and feel that you need to have the conversation about her being older and losing her marbles.  Whilst your husband has never stood up for you, you will also never stand up for your SIL, BIL or your children.  If all of you turned around and told her to stop and that her behaviour was offensive, if none of you accepted it, perhaps she may have gotten help for herself and gone on meds.  Something tells me she probably could have toned herself down a little, she just didn't need to because you all give her a green light to continue on.[/quote]

You either have serious reading comprehension challenges or magazine racks full of issues (or both). This isn't some black and white issue where the choices are either vengeance or complicity. That's extremely immature thinking.

FYI - Encouraging the family to calmly discuss - presumably positive and more appropriate - ways they can work together to handle MIL's rudeness is not condoning it, excusing it, or overlooking. Rather, what was suggested is that the family help each other and that they come to a shared understanding of a healthier and not abusive way of managing grandma. If grandma is getting to be too much for someone, for example, then maybe they have a pre-existing agreement with the others to "tag out." The target of the rudeness can simply signal they need support and the others know to come in and redirect while the target gets a few moments to find their happy again. Or, maybe through their family discussion they notice that grandma is especially rude after 4pm, when she's tired, so they all agree to only see her for brunch and leave by 1pm. I can think of a lot of tactics that would place some much-needed boundaries around grandma's bad attitude that don't require flogging grandma in the town square, as some of you seem to want to do.

And look, I agree that it would have been ideal if this behavior had been addressed when grandma was a much younger person. But, I can assure you that at 80 it will only get worse. So, what's a compassionate person who also wants to have good boundaries to do? It sure isn't the crazy talk on this thread.

OP, I hope you and your family are able to find a good solution. [/quote]

No its not immature thinking.  The only people to discuss putting boundaries into place should be the SIL and BIL together and OP and her husband together.  A group of four may not agree.  MIL may have been treating each person in that group of four differently.  I think OP's husband needs to butt out of the issues between other family members.

BIL, SIL and MIL can manage their own relationship.  This is not black and white thinking, it is addressing the issue that OP's husband hasn't coped with his mothers rudeness at all over the years and his boundaries I can assure you will vary greatly to that of BIL.  Each couple need to privately discuss what they can tolerate.

As OP herself said her MIL has been rude to her and has herself been upset with MIL, tried to ignore, tried to talk and her only option has been to go along with her husband because her husband has no boundaries with his mother.  He hasn't stood up for his wife and has allowed his mother to continue to show rudeness.

I would say that the four of them getting together may only lead to further problems when BIL starts talking about how difficult MIL is and OP's husband cannot hear it.  Because its likely that OP's husband cannot even hear the truth about his own mother.

This is between BIL and MIL.  Getting a huge family involvement is unnecessary.  If Op needs to talk to BIL about language in front of their kids, fine, anything else is creating drama.  [/quote]

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