Now I understand. It’s always the ones who aren’t around who do that sort of thing, isn’t it?
^^bingo. 
I’m feeling sorrier and sorrier for the MIL as people chime in about limiting contact, deliberately being unavailable for a weekly dinner, and generally treating the woman like an inanimate burden, not a human being. Sounds like the best thing she could do is die as quickly and neatly as possible so as not to cause anyone any trouble. Doesn’t anyone love this woman? Is she not still a human being?
I don’t see picking up stuff at the grocery store when it is convenient since you are already going yourself as some huge chore. Neither is cooking a meal when you arrive with the groceries. Isn’t there a long-standing human, family relationship between these two women?
Yes, I suppose boundaries are important and can become more so if a person becomes disabled, but is there such a thing as acting out of love, gratitude, and generosity rather than making guarding one’s own interests the top priority?
Sure, it is easy for me to say, because I haven’t been in quite that situation. But this is depressing me.
BTW, since the MIL asks her for the receipt and this is a regular thing, she should just hand it over.
I have a good friend who comes for the weekend on a regular basis. When he comes, he brings vegetables he has in his fridge, cheese, a few bottles of wine, etc. If I ask him to stop and pick anything up on the way or go out and bet anything while he is here I pay him for those items. I think that is a normal expectation. Occasionally someone who is visiting will ask if they can pick anything up and make it clear that they intend to pay for it. That’s normal too. H should butt out.
Grief, family relationships, marital relationships, money, power, guilt, responsibility, caregiving. Mix them all together and you are likely to have trouble unless you take great care in communicating. Everyone’s needs and feelings need to be considered, especially as the urgent needs surrounding the death ease into the new normal routines.
Each family will handle things differently, and most won’t get it right at first. Patience and forgiveness are an important part of the equation, too.
Since OP is the in law in this situation, I think the H needs to shoulder the responsibility here.
Obviously the OP is not going to leave MIL hungry or stranded. But jumping in so automatically every time is not healthy either. (OP said H said he would cook dinner for his mom but it has been several weeks and he has yet to cook.)
H needs to participate so he can appreciate what his wife is doing for his mom. That appreciation will in turn help OP not to become bitter as she serves her MIL.
I don’t think that’s what people are saying at all. I think some of us are saying that the rest of the family should be showing mil love and care, too. The OP (the dil) wrote the post, so naturally we are seeing things from her point of view. And she is (rightfully, to my mind) expressing some concerns about how things will continue to evolve as time goes on and mil needs more care, especially since she seems to already be shouldering a disproportionate amount of time and attention to mil’s needs.
Why not, if she is available and has the desire? Why is it so “healthy” to withhold yourself? I can certainly understand bitterness if one regards spending time with and helping a person as “serving” them.
I agree that the H should help too. It doesn’t have to be the same things that the OP does. There are plenty of little things to do around the house. And maybe I’m projecting here, but simply spending some TIME with my son and feeling that he wanted to talk to me would mean a lot to me. The idea that he would regard me as a chore that needed to be carefully parceled out is unutterably bleak.
I don’t think this is about the money. If everyone, including Sylvan’s husband, just expects her to take over the care of his mom I can understand why she might feel like they’re taking advantage of her, and it won’t change unless she sets some boundaries. She needs to find out what her husband’s expectations are and let him know what she’s willing and able to do, and they need to find out what the other family members can do. If nobody can commit to doing the things his mom needs, or they can’t be depended upon to do the things they say they will, it may be time to hire an on call service to fill in the gaps.
As far as the money goes, I’d let him handle it. Keep the receipts and if he wants to get reimbursed, let him ask his mom. And if she mentions it, just gently tell her that her son is handling that and she needs to speak with him.
@sylvan8798, OK, you’ve now been bombarded with thoughts and opinions. I think we all agree is that name calling is hurtful and destructive. You have been kind to help your MIL and you really need to determine how much you cheerfully WANT to do and start setting some limits and boundaries so that you don’t get sucked into doing more than you’re interested and willing because this is certainly a slippery slope and can be a thankless job to be helping someone who will need increasing amounts of help over time. Best of luck and feel free to join us in the thread pinned at the top about helping our again loved ones.
I missed the first time through that the H offered to cook dinner himself and is not doing it. He probably feels that the dinner is “his” responsibility, and as the OP has described this “who will pay” thing has been a big deal in his family forever. And he may feel guilty that he isn’t fulfilling his promise.
I think he has a lot of inchoate feelings around the whole thing, which is probably understandable in the circumstances. But doesn’t excuse calling his wife names.
I agree that there are two issues going on: Money (and really it’s more about the agreement about the money, and even more clear, the fact that not all parties were actually in agreement), and the OP’s role in caring for/helping out MIL.
The solutions as I see it:
1)the OP needs to decide what her boundaries are with regard to helping out MIL. These need to be communicated CLEARLY to everyone, and she needs to adhere closely to them so that everyone takes her seriously.
2)She needs to tell DH that she is pulling out of the money issues completely. Several people have alluded to the fact that the OP and her MIL made an agreement about re-imbursement, and DH needs to butt out and respect that. I totally disagree. This is HIS mother. He clearly doesn’t agree with the terms. So OP needs to excuse herself from this issue, and tell DH that he needs to renegotiate the deal with his mother and leave her out of it. I personally find her raising a ruckus about DH refusing reimbursement for $10 to be petty. If my DH gave me a hard time because I bought something for my Dad for ten bucks, even in the presence of a general agreement about finances, I would find that to be incredibly rigid, and while not resorting to name calling, I would have a huge problem with that attitude. Regardless of right or wrong, agreement or no, the OP cannot come out looking reasonable if she holds to this “agreement” in such rigid and literal terms.
3)The OP and DH need to communicate their feelings to each other when they are both calm and not in a state of upset. Life is too short to let disagreements about extended family come between them.
I hope these issues can be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
Don’t you think some “rules” can go out the window when there’s a recent loss like widowhood? Any idea what the MIL may be going through? (DH lost his father, but she lost a long time companion, someone who was her everyday life and identity for decades.) I vol with bereavement groups and there’s little upside. How people around them act and react is bad enough, as it is. I think many have no idea.
Agree, this seems like (at least) two different issues. What a wealthy-enough person gives, because it’s easy, nice, helpful, a good deed, versus what the rest of the family does. Look at them separately, because they are.
She may want to pull her weight, it may be an aspect of her own ethics (and dignity.) Or she may feel quite dependent, socially and emotionally, and think paying for her groceries or your trip is a way to ensure she keeps some closeness, you run an errand or sit for dinner. If she insists, I’d go with it. NOT because it’s “the deal” made with someone in grief, but after our own reflection and understanding, that it’s what she wants, not just “the deal” or pressure on her to agree. That self-reflection is key. It’s on us and I mean that in the most serious way- it has to do with us, as ethical, caring individuals. Not accountants.
Why would anyone pare back on the contact? What did she do to deserve that? Lose her spouse?
If too much falls on the DIL, in relation to the rest of the family, she deals with that separately. As for the DH saying “greedy,” not all of us always pick the right words in emotional circumstances. I can think of synonyms equally unpleasant, that would also smart, but I’d try to get past the one word. Imo,when in doubt, have a heart.
This fight doesn’t need to occur over $10 or even $50.
Adding"what I did with my mother was leave the receipt, not under her nose, but on a counter. If this MIL ‘needs’ to pay, she will see it and will, I assume. But for now, for a moderate amount, I couldn’t stand there to “settle up.”
I think there’s no need to raise an issue over $10. It could go either way. It’s not greedy to get reimbursed since it is agreed upon or you can let it go since it’s so little. The husband making an issue of it is out the line. Way out of proportion.
Money appears to be a hot button issue for your H’s family in the best of times and during grief from losing FIL is probably even moreso. I hope you and your H can resolve this and move forward. Your H and MIL really need some love and nurturing at this tough time.
“Money appears to be a hot button issue for your H’s family”
Given the examples the OP has expressed on this thread, money appears to be more of a hot button issue with OP than with her H’s family IMO. She seems to be the one more resentful of H spending money on his family.
I might have missed where the OP and her MIL agreed for her to run out and buy groceries and cook them and hand off receipts to the MIL. I had the impression that she had OFFERED to do it, and decided on her own to present the receipts for reimbursement. That’s very different from a sit-down agreement in which all parties agreed.
While it’s not about money entirely, it seems that money is very important to OP and that things are done a Certain Way when money is spent by her and/or her H on Other People. That leads to her resentment when things are not done in the Certain Way that she prefers, even when the amount is trivial, even for a non-wealthy person.
When my father died, I couldn’t tell you at all who bought what or who ate it, and all but one of my siblings lived in town. I would say the same for my mother’s passing. Who was eating what and who paid for it never even entered the conversation. Getting through the next few days without cracking, now THAT was discussed! If my H had made a fuss over how much we were spending on someone else’s food I may have had to separate from him for a bit. Holy cow is the concern misplaced there!
OP, if you are feeling put upon in shopping and cooking for your MIL, step back. Tell the siblings you won’t do it, then don’t. Research programs that do these things if the siblings won’t step up. Give them the list. Theen get out of the way. Or do it without nickel and diming her and stop fighting with your H about it. We often pick things up for one SIL who is disabled to some extent and while we’re not wealthy, we can afford it, and we do not ask to be reimbursed. If she offers to pay, we accept if we’re sure it won’t be a hardship-isn’t that was family is supposed to be for?
I have to side with @Consolation on this one.
I’ve got plenty of anecdotes where we and friends/family didn’t/don’t split things even-steven, didn’t stand on our right to collect, didn’t insist, “But she agreed.” Most of us probably spend an extra 10 or 50 on our kids and- unless there’s some point to be made- don’t ask for it back. Sometimes, I pay for dinner with a close friend, sometimes she does. No one says, but I paid at the fancy place and you paid for coffee and croissants.
The value is the relationship. And if she’spaying for the plane tickets, imo, she kind of has a credit on the few groceries you might buy and a few hours of your time.
The burden of my mother meant lots of hoops. I get it. But how we act is up to us.
Go back to Original Post to read that H and OP had a discussion and agreed that MIL would pay for her expenditures.
So, after agreeing on a way to handle this situation, H changes his mind abruptly in front of MIL. And when OP tries to talk about it, H calls her greedy.
H, who has yet to cook a dinner for his own mom, but is never late to eat the dinner OP provides, does not seem to appreciate all that OP is doing for his mom.
OP has gone above and beyond in making sure MIL is cared for. I would be deeply wounded to hear my H call me greedy when I was doing exactly what we had agreed upon.
I love this story from post #26. OP is conspiring with her in-laws to let them “win” the money argument now and then without her husband knowing. Really, I think it is very sweet. Everybody knows OP’s husband will put up a big showy fight to pay, but sometimes people sneak around behind his back. Now if it were $20K instead of $20, or it was a disagreement on how to raise the kids, that would be different. It would be important. But this is just a little harmless fun.
It feels like the grocery issue is a continuation of this. Everyone knows OP’s husband wouldn’t be caught dead accepting grocery money from Mom, but OP doesn’t know how to impose her will that way and doesn’t feel strongly enough about it to try. That’s not greedy, it’s just that she and her husband do not have the same personality or feelings about money.
If the husband wants to have a knock-down drag out with his mother and forbid her from paying for groceries, he is free to do that. But if Mom sneaks $20 to the OP when he isn’t looking, who are we to judge?
Of course family members should not tit for tat. Nobody is suggesting that (at least I didn’t read the comments that way). But an H & W should generally be a united front imho (not that I always live up to this). I would have been hurt, too, if I was OP.