I'm going to be a terrible mother and I'm going to hell

It's been a while since I last blogged and with good reason.  My beautiful and wonderful mother in law became ill during October and unfortunately she passed away on the 4th November.  


It was desperately sad and my heart still breaks when I remember how she looked in the hospital during her final hours and also how much it still affects my poor husband.  The reason I'm going straight to hell is how my feelings are towards my widowed father in law.


I feel terrible for him as he has lost his wife of almost 50 years but - to cut a long story short - I cannot take any more of the selfishness, little-boy-lost, ungrateful, ignorant, and full of crap behaviour.   I won't go into full details but Husb and I are now completely broke after discovering that his father had no provision of a funeral and on top of that had not a penny to his name.  No matter what we do, there is always 'just one more thing' that he needs  - either to buy or for us to do.


For a man of God he refuses to take any of his own advice and just likes to tell everyone how he will cope and how self sufficient he is, but in reality refuses to stay at home  - ever  - and hasn't cooked (or bought) a meal since his wife has been in hospital.


Now he is sitting in our little flat coughing and sneezing (he has a cold and for that I am sorry but it would be nice if he could cover his mouth occasionally seeing as I am 4 months pregnant with his 1st grandchild), breaking wind in a very loud and smelly fashion and not once even acknowledging what he is doing, has asked me and my husb to cut his toenails (as he can't reach - due to excessive weight that he has refused to try to lose for over 10 years) and generally behaves like a toddler continually asking the same questions - usually inane, pointless ones.  The only difference is that a toddler actually listens and remembers after a while rather than having to repeat answers to the same questions that have been in play for several weeks.

If you can imagine an exasperated parent who is having to block out the constant cry of 'Muuuuuuuuum, muuuuuuuuuuuum, mum, mum, mum, MMMMUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!' then you might have an idea of what Husb and I have been contending with for the last few weeks.  Pretty sure that Husb wants to change his name.

Toddlers often forget that you saw things that they saw too.  Again, this is my FIL.  We have relived MIL's passing around 50 times and each time it changes slightly - like a game of Chinese Whispers - even though we were there too and know exactly what happened.  Similarly we have had the funeral recounted to us a dozen times since Monday (including during a 5 hour drive back to London on Tuesday).

I don't expect someone who loses their partner of 50 years to just 'bounce back' and be 'normal' straight away but I do expect them to take some responsibility for themselves.  He is a strong, relatively healthy 70 year old with so many friends and a massive church family who are all going out of their way to look after him but he insists on talking the talk but not walking the walk.  If only the BS would disappear then maybe I would have a little more sympathy.  He doesn't appreciate how lucky he is and that so many people have to contend with such tragedies all alone.  He just keeps on taking and showing very little gratitude.

So there you go.  I clearly do not have the tolerance to be a parent.  I am clearly going straight to hell.  What can i say, at least it's warm and my husband will be there with me.