When your father-in-law dies from a terrible disease like ALS, the last thing you are expected to do as the spouse of a grieving man is show any shred of glee. The rules of conduct dictate that as the life partner of someone in mourning, you must share the sadness and carry yourself accordingly. It would be considered equally cruel and even disrespectful not to carry the grief.
And yet, I never shed a tear for this man. Not one. I tried, mainly for the sake of my husband and my children. But I never could, because my father-in-law was an asshole. And nothing could have prepared me to juggle that knowledge while consoling and supporting his son through his loss.
We’re supposed to be there for our spouses through grief; that’s part of the “for better or for worse” vow. I have honored that vow and will continue to do so. But it is incredibly exhausting and stressful to not let my true feelings about the deceased seep through my words, my tone, or my demeanor. I’ve had to listen to my sweet spouse repeat what a hero his father was while repressing the impulse to shake him so he might finally see that he is a better man than his father could’ve ever hoped of becoming. But I likely never will, because it would break him. It might even break our marriage.
My father-in-law was a present dad (not a great one) and a sweet grandfather to our kids. But he was also a manipulative, selfish, bordering-on-narcissistic man. I only started to see the real version of my father-in-law about 10 years ago. I won’t delve into the details, but it involved infidelity and manipulating the narrative to portray him as the victim. This all peaked once he was diagnosed with ALS, because guess who came back home to his wife with his tail between his legs when he started to realize he could not live on his own anymore and his great love affair vanished into thin air once real life hit him hard?
One man’s hero is everyone else’s festering open wound.
He always painted himself as a great man. He wasn’t. I know this; my mother-in-law knows this. My husband does not. Rather, I suspect that subconsciously he knows. There is no way the man I married is not aware that his father was full of shit. I have to believe this.
Losing my father-in-law is not about me. And watching my husband go through this loss breaks my heart. Just like life is not lived in absolute terms, death is a complex event that can bring distilled clarity and release or deliberate fantasizing about the dead. No one will admit this out loud, but there are overlapping realities within the experience of grief. One man’s hero is everyone else’s festering open wound.
My father-in-law battled ALS for five years. I could never hate anyone enough to wish them the living hell of this cruel, brutal, and devastating disease. My heart broke every time I saw this man lose more of his abilities, more of himself, all while his mind remained lucid. We were watching a man become a prisoner in his own body: unable to speak, to eat, to move, and even to breathe on his own. And there was nothing he could do about it.
But I am glad he is gone, and not just because of the unavoidable relief that swept through our family after caring for him 24/7 for what felt like decades. I am also glad he is gone because he was a jerk. In a way, his disease was a reflection of how he expected his family to be around him. To accommodate to his needs and wants, no matter the consequences to everyone else.
What always made it so hard for me to move past all this was how much of myself I saw in my mother-in-law. If I were to accept this as “normal,” what would that say about expectations for my marriage? I don’t judge my mother-in-law for her choices; her and I get along great. When she passes, I will be devastated. There will be many, many tears shed. I will mourn her preciously. She is my confidante, and I am hers. We had each other during my father-in-law’s prolonged illness. She would confide things in me that she could not possibly share with her children, and I always had her back.
I was her greatest advocate because, even in his illness, her husband would attempt to twist the narrative of things in his favor. As compassionate as I was because of his physical deterioration, I could still see through the “woe is me” act. And had it been anyone else, I would have accepted it, because life has been shitty enough to you if you end up with ALS. But from him, a master manipulator throughout his life, I could never fully trust it and lean into it, even in moments of extreme hardship.
It was the first anniversary of his passing the other day, and my husband wanted a family dinner to honor the date. We have already celebrated the man’s birthday last month. I don’t know how much more I can take without breaking “character” and letting my true feelings pour out. And I hope I will continue to have the strength to keep biting my tongue whenever praise is spoken about the deceased. But it gets harder every week. My commitment to my marriage and my husband outweighs my resentment for his father. For now.
