I posted a few weeks ago about how to deal with MIL who is blunt to the point of rudeness. I was preparing to talk more to DH about it when I developed preeclampsia and DS was born at 35 by emcs, so it all became slightly less important for a while.
DS is now 3 weeks old and there have been a few developments. As he was almost 6lbs, MIL kept saying she was so pleased he was born early as he would have been too big for me if he'd gone full term. DS spent his first 24 hours in an incubator and his first few days with a feeding tube, which was really upsetting and I will forever be haunted by sitting next to his incubator at 4am while he held my finger and I cried telling him I was so sorry I couldn't hold onto him longer, so he didn't have to go through that.
The next time we saw ILs, she said it again and I shut her down, explaining how much I disagreed with that and I didn't want it said again. That ended the conversation and DH backed me up.
A few days later, DH called them what we had decided to call DS. MIL's reaction was that she'd never heard of that name before and were we sure? Gave the impression she didn't like it, confirmed when she texted DH an hour later saying that it would be shortened to X and would we be ok with that?
I guessed she would react that way, DH and I were happy with our choice and I thought that was the end of it.
Just popped over to see ILs this morning and it all went quite pleasantly when just as we were about to leave, MIL felt the need to tell us she didn't like DS's name, it didn't go with his surname etc. She started asking about middle names, second choices etc. I just smiled, said we liked it and that was his name.
Came home and DH was really upset. Turns out he'd been really hurt by the phone call and had been putting off seeing her because of the reaction and was really offended by her having another dig at the name. We talked about how we could tackle it and he has driven back over to confront her about it and make it clear we won't tolerate these kinds of comments.
I am so proud of him (if sad he is so upset by it) and it was thanks to the advice I got here that I could support him to tackle this behaviour head on, which is not how he likes to do things.
Just waiting for him to come back now, but wanted to say thanks for all of the helpful advice I got here. Hoping we will put a stop to it all now.
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Relationships
Update on tactless MIL
tindel · 19/09/2015 14:00
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