I'll try my best to answer your question...
When the old couple visit her the first time, they take note of the picture she has of Shoji. They remark about how he was dead and that she should get on with her life and try to be happy. She told them she was fine and content, etc. They talked about how she probably had a difficult marriage because Shoji was an alcoholic, but she never commented on this.
Later when the old lady stays with her, a similar conversation takes place. Noriko reassures the old lady that she is OK with her life as it is (I'm forgetting the exact details, but it was something like that).
After the old lady dies and she's with the old man, she confesses about how she sometimes went days without thinking of Shoji. She admits that she is worried about her future and lack of money, and that she wants to be happy again because she was NOT really happy at that point. She mentions feeling lonely, BUT she couldn't say those things to the old lady. Her father-in-law tells her it's OK, and that she's truly a good, woman. Noriko, for whatever reason, believes she is selfish, and not as "nice" or "good" as her in-laws believed.
I'm not sure why Noriko was so hard on herself. Perhaps she had extremely high standards that even she couldn't live up to. It would have been very *nice* of her to be kinder to her own self, and realize just how good of a person she was. Poor Noriko.
And yes, the grandkids needed a smack to their face, and a slap to their @$$!
"Don't you know you can't get near me,
you can only hope to hear me on your radio!"
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