To want my MIL to take a back seat & allow her son to be happy

I empathise with your situation but I also don’t understand why is this your responsibility to solve? He is as an adult: his feelings and life choices are not your responsibility.

I don’t understand why this is your responsibility to solve: he’s an adult. Let him figure it out. You are not responsible for his feelings or his life choices.

Then that needs to change, and that can be a process in these cases. Ultimately you do need to sort it together, but I repeat, don't give up lightly. There are a lot of responses on here from people who've never been in this situation. I have, so I offered my advice based on my experience.

Don't give up lightly, deal with it together

But that's the problem. The op's partner refuses to deal with it.

Your relationship is in very big trouble unless your partner grows a pair and puts up some serious boundaries with his mother. You simply can't compete against that type of emotional terrorism. Unless your partner takes control and puts you first, it's already over.

You're getting a lot of negative responses here OP.

I got some serious resistance from my German PILs when DH moved to the UK. I'd been flavour of the month up till then, key to the house and everything.

As a parent myself, I can understand a pang if the kids move away, but it was hardly the end of the world he'd moved to. Their attitude caused a lot of unnecessary problems, but they were troubled people with a difficult history.

We've been married for thirty odd years and it works very well indeed. Don't give up lightly, deal with it together. x

I think the main problem is that he home sick. He probably isn’t shutting her down because that’s how he feels.

I think, even if she did stop you may find that not much changed or he still goes back. He stayed because he was in love, which is understandable. But now real normal life has set in, it seems living outside his home country isn’t for him.

That’s the issue.

It was a little different for me — my husband and I always lived apart from his family in the U.S., but they always traveled to see us, no matter where we were.
It was exhausting for me — cleaning & shopping for a full house for one week then cleaning & shopping for another week & so on.
But his family got to see a great deal of the country and they were delightful. We always had fun and they were generous.

What’s stopping your husband’s family from coming to visit you@1011y?

Is he the only child?

You need to have an honest discussion about what he actually wants. He either wants to continue to build a life here with you and his child and to do it wholeheartedly or he would rather return to Norway.
If it’s the former than he needs to set boundaries with his family. If they can’t cut it out with the emotional blackmail then he will lessen the contact or even go no contact and he can’t be leaving you with these feelings of him being torn. It’s focus on the life he has and be firm with his parents or the relationship has no real future
Or, he tells you his heart still lies in Norway in which case you discuss whether the three of you can make a life there.
Would things improve if between you two and the in laws you made a plan for visits? Like you visit one year, they visit the next, or whatever works?

https://welshnorwegian.org/

We have this in Wales!

He does seem very passive in all this. He really needs to tell his family how much they upset him and that they need to support his choices or he will reduce contact with them. He's a father and a partner first. I do understand feeling homesick but he has to embrace life here otherwise what's the point? Are you near a city? Could he find a Norwegian Social group nearby or start one? Can he plan a holiday so he can visit home? He needs to take the initiative and help himself.

You don't have a MIL problem, you have a fiancé problem. What's he doing about it all?

You seem to be placing all the blame on your MIL, I think the issue is with your DH.

Wow, some of these messages are really one sided.

As a parent myself (of a 12 and 5 year old) I imagine it must be so very hard to be away from the children, where there are long periods of not being able to see , touch, hug them. When we have raised our children with a culture and identity, to see that change all of a sudden, must be very hard. I accept that different cultures operate differently; some western cultures are very open to their children making their own family and own life and not seeing their parents very much. Not all cultures are like that, and your partners culture is one of those. Maybe this is something To consider, for the long term.

why won’t his parents visit him?

Does your DP go back at all to visit for a week or so?
He must get some holiday time from work, during which could you all go so his family could meet and then perhaps regularly see your DS. Is there a reason why you can't? (eg the inlaws are still horrible to you)
Apologies if you already do/have done this.
Good luck, I hope you can work something out.

Trust me, as someone with similarly overbearing in-laws. Your marriage is doomed if your husband can't stand up for you. It is the only thing that will stop the behaviour, and save his mental health.

It took mine a while - longer than I'd have liked - but once he'd done it, the weight lifted off him. It was honestly unbelievable. He seems them infrequently now, two or three times a year, they don't talk much, but he isn't living in that state of stress and dreading the phone ringing, and neither am I.

If he wants to go home, you both need to create a realistic plan to make that happen, whether it's a two year plan or a ten year plan. You need to bear in mind your son, that any childcare will feel like it ties him to here, and the relationship your in-laws have with you, alongside all the other practicalities. If moving there is never an option, you need to both accept that, and your husband might need to talk to someone to process it and put it to bed.

You know, allowing his family to exclude OP and their child, acting like he has no agency in the decision, generally allowing his family to mistreat OP without comment.

I am Scandinavian myself and have lived in the UK a long time and raised my family here. I get desperately homesick sometimes, it's a yearning for the forest, lakes, air that I can't describe. Maybe that Scandi darkness or melancholy that is part of our heritage. BUT I have made my life in the UK and have made that clear to my family who have largely embraced it. The key here is your partner, not your MIL. Your partner needs to own his choices and make that clear to your inlaws.

And btw, we bought a little place of our own in Scandinavia, having a modest house back home has made me feel much better about living abroad. It csn be the best of two worlds

What sort of work does he do? And will they accept you once you are married? Where are you getting married and what sort of ceremony?

It is really important that you both learn to put your own family unit first and they your fiancé feels some (joint) ownership of that decision. The North Sea is always going to exist between you and one set of grandparents and (his work aside) moving there would be impossible for you if his family exclude you. It would help if he asked for his family to accept you: love you as the mother of their grandson, appreciate your efforts to learn their language and participate in their culture. He also needs to pull his socks up for his son and stop moping about. I’m sure moping isn’t very ‘Norwegian’.

How would they feel towards you if you were married? Are you the barrier to him returning? Does he honestly want to live in the UK permanently? I'd give Norway a go if possible tbh.

He’s not willing to put you and the family you’ve created first so yes - unless he sorts his shit out - the relationship is doomed.
eh he moved country- on what planet is this not putting his partner and child first?! Is it always that one has to concede in every single way?!

From the other side op, not the same thing Because we moved within Ireland but I live rurally and for years was so upset and homesick. Dh and in laws used to hate my family talking about getting me back to Dublin but it was because I’d ask about different things I was missing and saying if I won the lottery we’d be coming back. In the same way (but obviously a bigger scale) I have two friends abroad that say the same thing- if they could get back to Ireland they would but their other halfs can’t get jobs and they can’t afford houses. Your dh is homesick, your ils might be adding fuel to the fire but I think you need to discuss how strongly he feels. I’m still the same, I get a yearning when I go home. Lottery win I’d be gone and dh would be where I was/ am

You seem to see your H as a bit of an empty vessel, passively being filled with emotion from either his family or yourself. They can't make him homesick if he is otherwise happy here, and you can't make him entirely happy here if he has a pull to his family and country of birth. He needs to take responsibility for his own feelings and choices, and you need to allow him to. You can't control how his mother speaks with him, and continuing to try is simply going to reinforce her view that you are pulling him away. He's a grown man who needs to balance this conflict within himself. All you can do is carry on as you are, offer sympathy and compromise if you feel its justified, and otherwise leave them to it.

Frankly speaking your partner is choosing his parents over you and your son. This is doomed.

I agree with this . Your partner needs to grow a backbone and tell his family that he has made his choices and is happy where he is so they can get on board with that or butt out . If he can’t / won’t do that then nothing will change and I personally wouldn’t carry on with that relationship because you will spend forever propping him up and when one or both of his parents die it will be all your fault that you separated him from them . You need to have a very difficult conversation and sort this out now .