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Help! My partner's family hate me & it's making me ill. Should I just walk away with my 6 month old daughter?

47 replies

Sundaygirl88 · 06/12/2015 12:53

I'm in desperate need of some objective advice.
Me and my partner have been together 2 and 1/2 years and have a 6 month old daughter. We have been recently struggling in our relationship with regaining a balance or finding our flow as parents. I've been asking for relationship councilling to help iron out any issues we have with each other. (He resents me for not working and having to be the bread winner, I think he should help out more around the house and with our daughter etc.)
These problems, although stressful would be more manageable if his family didn't hate me and we're applying extra pressure on relationship.

I met my partner on a blind date which was set up by a mutual friend. I recently moved to the area, orginally been two hours away in a different county. Even after my contract at my job ended I found a new job and stayed as the relationship was blossoming. I got on well with his parents (whom he was still living with) straight away. Especially his mother who I felt I could talk to as equals - woman to woman. She seemed very straight talking and I liked that because I felt I knew where I was with her. I was invited on a family holiday and even extended an invitation for me to live with them after I left a live in job and needed to find somewhere to live after me and DP had been serious for a year.
After a few months of living there I had to go back to my home town as both my brother and mum were ill and my dad needed help coping with them. They both suffer from mental health problems and are prone to being suicidal.
DP's family think mental health problems are a weakness and pathetic. So I didn't go into details but left on a good note.
Whilst at home I discovered I was pregnant which was a surprise - I told DP and he was in shock but also was scared and reluctant to tell his family, even after it was confirmed that I was over 8 weeks.
It was then I found out his mother hated me and had been trying to get him to leave me for the majority of our relationship and had even been bad mouthing me to extended family.
Obviously I was devastated and completely blindsided. I didn't understand what I had done wrong or what I could do to make things better.
He told me I couldn't do anything because she hated me because he loved me and it wasn't personal she was just very controlling and had a warped view of other people when it came to him.
I suggested that I spoke to her face to face about her concerns for the sake of her grandchild that I was now carrying but he assured me it would make it much worse if I accused her of disliking me or bad mouthing me and that she would get over it eventually.
She sobbed hysterically when she found out I was pregnant and then pretended I wasn't pregnant and didn't exist for the following three months. I was told I wasn't allowed back in her house and she didn't want to see me by my DP who was still living there while saving a deposit for our own home. I continued living with my family two hours away until we found somewhere to live by which point was this time last year. We had to live near his family rather than mine due to his work comitments. I didn't see his family until I was a few weeks close to my due date by which point they acted distant but not hostile and nothing was mentioned other than they had bought X Y & Z for my unborn daughter (who they now seemed willing to accept existed) I kept the peace for my DP's and unborn child's sake and sucked it up.

Since my daughter was born I have had nothing but unwanted comments about my parenting skills and pressure to leave her alone and over night with his parents. They hate my breastfeeding as it means she cant be away from me longer than a few hours and she has always refused a bottle.
His mother has not directly spoken to me in all the times I've seen her, talks to DP or DD but never to me and won't look me in the eye if I address her. She has never once contacted me about arranging to see DD or coming over to my house to spend some time with her she only wants either to have her alone or with DP present and it to be at her house on her time and when she's available. If she doesn't get her own way she argues with DP and calls her husband, older son, sisters etc and cries about how I'm preventing her from having a relationship with her own granddaughter and I'm controlling her son and ruining the family.

I'm at my wits end! Me and DP argue about them constantly and although he agrees she's trying to turn everyone against me he says there's nothing anyone can do because she always wins and she'll never back down.
When I ask him to have my back he throws in my face any our recent arguments, or says he can't cut off his family because he's scared they're going to be right about me all along and I'll leave him.
He came back from his brother and sister in laws house a few hours ago mad as hell at me because he's been having to "defend me again" and there's only so much more he can take. I'm supposed to be spending Xmas with these people and they all hate me, when I pointed this out to him he told me he knew I would try and find a way our of it and that's what they've all been saying I'll do. To keep my daughter away and ruin everyone's Xmas.
I can't win! I feel like maybe it's time I consider cutting my losses and leaving him completely and moving back near my own family because I'm feeling so lonely and anxious up here with no support and a "mother in law" (for lack of a better word) who won't stop until we break up or I do as she says all the time and be bullied into submission.

Sorry for the long post, but any advice would be greatly received.

(I had orginally posted in WWYD but adevised to move thread her)

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Thefitfatty · 06/12/2015 12:59

Jeez you poor thing. It would be one thing if your DP was supporting you, but he isn't. I'm sure someone wiser will be along with better advise, but I certainly wouldn't be going to his families for Christmas!