How do you get over guilt?

jbbonce

Yesterday at 1 am the police came to my house and informed my husband his mother had died but told him they didn't have any more information. We had a 7 and a half hour wait to speak to the coroner, who hasn't done the postmortem yet but was able to tell us that she had been lying dead in her living room for 3 days before the police broke into her flat and found her body. thankfully, DH does not have to identify her body as the coroner found her passport.

We had not seen MIL for 10 months, and had barely spoken to her in that time either. She was not a bad person, she was a nice woman at heart but her alcholism and other problems meant that she was impossible to be around because we could all see what she was doing to herself but she wouldnt admit her problem or accept help, and she was sometimes unintentionally a danger to others as well as herself. over time her husband, her daughter and her sister gave up on her but my DH hung on in there, being her rock for no thanks and in fact even getting abuse from her occasionally. 10 months ago, DH made a decision that he wasn't going to have anything more to do with her until she sorted herself out and was safe to be around our baby. Obviously she wasn't able to and so never met her only grandchild.

DH is sad that MIL has died, obviously, and regrets that she never met our daughter, but overall is coping really well and doesn't blame himself at all. I am having a harder time dealing with it, and i am ashamed to say that he has had to console me several times today.

When my MIL was having one of her good spells, she and I got on so well, and I am having trouble reconciling that with some of my treatment of her. At my husbands request, i did not return her calls for the last 10 months, nor did I thank her for the birth present she sent my daughter (Instead i was upset that it was late and inappropriate) In those last 10 months i sent her only one letter and three photos of my daughter. She phoned DH a month ago and asked for a new photo but I never got round to sending it. I am so ashamed of myself. I can't believe i treated her so cruelly and I don't think I will ever be able to forgive myself. I can't look my DH or our daughter in the eye knowing that i was so heartless to my MIL.

For all her faults, MIL did love us, even though she wasn't really able to show it, and I don't know how i will ever be able to get over the fact that because i was too wrapped up in my own business, I abandoned my MIL and she ultimately died alone hundreds of miles away from her family. Will i ever get over this? Maybe i deserve the punishment of regretting it for the rest of my life.

jbbonce

I'm just thinking, maybe i am looking at her through rose tinted glasses just because she is dead. the following is an exerpt of a post i made about her in november, which maybe justifies some of what I/we did in ignoring her calls:

Mother in law
A chain smoking alcoholic. Retired, divorced, lives alone,perfect health. She treated her own daughter so badly that they havent spoken for 15 years. Even though their parents were loaded and MIL was a housewife, when my DH and SIL were growing up, MIL could not be bothered to buy them clothes that fitted or wash their clothes. Both DH and SIL were bullied at school because of it, and both have lifelong issues stemming from this and the fact that mil would get so drunk that she would fall down the stairs of their 4 storey house and forget what she had done, and (falsely) accuse their dad of beating her up.
MIL is now 67 and when we announced our pregnancy to her, her response was 'I'm too young to be a grandmother'. She has shown no interest in her grandchild and does not even ask after the baby (or me or DH) when she contacts us.
We went to visit her in september, and despite the fact that we gave her a months' notice of our visit, she could not be bothered to clean up.The house was absolutely disgusting, with dirt, dust, ash and even poo, everywhere. We had to clean up before we could even sit down, and she smoked all over me, despite promising she wouldnt. After we got back home, my husband told her that he was disappointed about the hygeine levels of her flat, especially since we gave her ample notice of when we were coming, and after a four hour drive straight from work, we did not expect to have to clean up for her.
She didnt have much to say for herself, but on my dh's birthday, a letter arrived from her, no card, no present, not a mention of his birthday or me or the baby, but a 17 page letter saying that it was the window cleaner's fault the house was a mess (?) and that she was very angry at DH for not doing
chores for her, and a list of all the things she wanted but could not afford. She was basically blaming DH for everything that is wrong in her life. DH decided then that he wasnt sure if he ever wanted to talk to her again, and hasnt spoken to her since. she phoned aggressively for one weekend, then left a message on my mobile asking how dare i not make DH phone her.
Every phone call and every visit is agony. She gets drunk, makes meals with broken glass and fag ends in, serves turkey that is still frozen for christmas dinner. She makes any occasion something to dread, and has ruined every christmas DH and I have had together.

researcher

No-one but you knows all the circumstances and it sounds as though your OH stood by his Mum until he couldn't take any more. Sadly you'll just have to live with your regrets. 'If only' is something we all experience.

My only advice to you is to give your husband the support he needs and accept his for you. Try and learn from this and make sure that you live your life in a way that you become a better wiser person.

In the meantime it might help for you to write to her - but all the things you're thinking down on paper and then burn it. At least you'll get what you need to say out of your head.

Lastly, don't forget that she choose the life she led, you didn't chose it for her.

Don't be too harsh on yourself.

sparrer

jbbonce wrote: »

Mother in law
A chain smoking alcoholic. Retired, divorced, lives alone,perfect health.

Sadly too few people reaslise alcoholism is a mental and physical illness, all they see is the dirty, dishevelled drunk about whom they feel disappointed and disgusted.

Your mil was an alcoholic at a time when the illness wasn't understood. Don't beat yourself up over it, just be grateful the sad, lonely lady is out of her misery.

At best her family can breathe a sigh of relief that there will be no more uncomfortable letters/gifts/visits, at worst you have to make up some story, in the future, for your daughter about why she died...unles you tell her the truth and explain that you all learned too late that Granny was a very poorly lady..

Good luck and God bless
Sparrer
(a recovering alcoholic)

princess

Hi there, I am very sorry for your loss.
Only you know if you could really have helped your MIL more. It sounds to me as if you and DH did everything you could and you struggled on for as long as you could manage. MIL was clearly very troubled/ill, but that doesnt mean that it was your responsibility to make her well or put things right. Not everything can be fixed. We only have a certain amount of strength...energy...devotion..call it what you will and I think we have to use it where it is effective and where we are able to make a difference. Taking on too much will make us ill and not help the other person either.
I have a person in my life who I am not able to help at all. She is clearly in need of help, but is not able to change or make use of support or advice. I could give her limitless time and help, money, advise etc and it would not make the blindest bit of difference to the sorry state of her life. It would however steal time that I should be giving to other family members, to my job and to things where my energies can really make a difference. It would also make me ill with stress. I have to say that i dont see her now as there is no benefit for either of us and I dont feel guilty at all.
Maybe you have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. Only you know what you are able to take on and when you have reached the end of your strength. You cant meet everyones needs and no one would expect you to.
Are you able to think of MIL at peace now? I'm just wondering if realising that her struggles are now over, might help you to feel more at peace yourself.

Mips

You weren't to know this was going to happen. People will understand more than you realise. If she hadn't have died under such awful circumstances, it would have been less of a shock.

Try to relax and perhaps ease your guilt by giving her a decent funeral and if I were you, I would write her a long letter explaining how you feel. You can bury her with it or leave it on her grave, or simlply just hide it. Tell her exactly how you felt and how you are sorry.

She didn't have a life by the sounds of it, by some of the things she said.. perhaps she just had a wry sense of humour.. or was misunderstood.. or was just a miserable woman.. but you have to be strong now for your little one and put the past behind you. It can't be undone.

You are not the only one to abandon a family member for these reasons. xx

floss2

I'm sorry for your loss. :grouphug:

Please remember that your MiL was an addict and as such was not in control of her own life, but was in fact controlled by her addiction. She very likely did not act the way she did by choice.

Remember that you did have good times & pleasant memories, and focus on those as you move on with your new family life.

I would agree with other posters who suggest writing down your feelings - I am a great believer in "getting things out of your head", and you can then bury the letter with her or destroy it, whichever feels the most appropriate.

You have nothing to feel guilty for - she could just as easily have been run over by a bus on her way to see you or to a clinic.

onlyroz

There has to come a point at which you stop helping a troubled person. If you've made every effort and it *still* seems to make no difference, then what more can you do? Like others have said, it's better that you put your efforts into helping out people who can get some benefit from it, rather than risking your own health on someone who doesn't want.

kizzykizzywizzy

Please don't feel guilty, it sounds to me that you did more than enough to help her.
Unfortunately she wasn't able to help herself.
You have had some awful times because of her "illness", & so has she, she is now free from all of that & you are too, so try not to think about it anymore & upset the happy future you can now have.
Good Luck to you :A

belfastgirl23

All I can say is that time will hopefully help to give you some perspective.

When someone dies it's natural to remember the good times, the stuff you liked and respected about them. The extreme of this is when people venerate the dead and pretend they didn't have any human flaws. Over time though it's easier to reconcile the good and bad parts of them and see that they too were only human. Okay there were things that you would have done differently had you known what the future held. But then again who is to know if they would have changed anything?

I think you need to forgive yourself for this. In the end I suspect you weren't going to be able to help her. Which is terrible and very sad but nonetheless true.

Just give yourself some space to grieve right now.

jbbonce

I am ever so greatful for your replies. they really have helped.