DH, DS (17mo) and I travelled 4.5 hours to visit MIL last weekend. DS hates the car so we set off after bedtime on Friday and Sunday to make it easier for him, so long days for us. But MIL was such hard work that I really don’t know if I want to make the effort again.
Whenever we arrive she gives DH tasks that need doing. We pulled up after midnight and before DH had set foot in the house she pointed to pile of cardboard and told him he’d need to take that to the tip tomorrow. She has health issues which make things like this harder, but she’s definitely capable of several of the tasks she tasks DH with. She doesn’t ask if it’s ok with him and no pleases either. DH is just told that that’s his job. This happens every time we visit.
We all went out and we paid for parking, fish and chips, ice creams and an aquarium visit for everyone. There wasn’t a single thank you for any of this the whole time. And when we got back she complained that we didn’t stop at the farm shop she likes on the way back.
Every time we drive her anywhere she complains about our car. We have an estate and that apparently compares very poorly with her sister’s SUV. Every single time we hear how our car is too low, sister’s car is much easier to get into, DH’s legs are too long so she doesn’t have as much legroom as she’d like. I’m this close to saying ‘ok, drive yourself or get the bus then and we’ll meet you there’. She’s also a horrendous back seat driver.
DS likes to explore independently, which she reads as understimulation. She’s convinced he’s always on my phone (he’s never used one) and was visibly disappointed when her gotcha moment about him knowing the home button on her phone fell flat, because neither of our phones has one. She also criticises his rear-facing car seat and late bedtime, ignoring that he has low sleep needs. DS is still breastfed which she disapproved and from the start with BF she kept making comments like ‘when your milk dries up’ and that ‘nobody can breastfeed a hungry boy, you’ll need formula’ and seemed almost like she was hoping EBF wouldn’t work out for me.
MIL doesn’t drink, and I used to be a sommelier so love wine. I’m not an alcoholic and had no problems stopping drinking throughout pregnancy but MIL acts like DH and I are alcoholics. Every time we visit she makes a comment like ‘I haven’t bought any alcohol for you because I thought you could do with a weekend off’. I’ve no idea why she thinks this because she’s never lived near us so has no idea when or how often we drink alcohol and DH has corrected her multiple times but she makes the comment every time. We have maximum a couple of bottles of wine per week, and don’t drink every week anyway. We’ve also never asked her to buy alcohol for us or implied she should have.
And outside of the criticism of us, she’s just a really negative person. She spends most of the time we’re there complaining about her health, what her sister has done to annoy her, what her neighbours have done to annoy her, judgemental gossip about people I’ve never met, roadworks, proposed new housing developments... She knows almost nothing about me because she’s never asked, and she still seems to think that DH is the same as he was when he was 17 because other than his job moves she knows equally little about him as an adult. Conversation just a barrage of negativity from her and she doesn’t seem at all interested in anything we talk about and will bring it back around to how annoying all the work vans are for the extension down the road.
Whenever we challenge any of the criticism she always says she’s just joking and both of us (especially DH) call her out several times a day and she doesn’t seem to realise that her ‘jokes’ aren’t landing with us. This last visit really tested my patience and I want to say that we won’t be visiting again until around Christmas. I feel bad because she does love DS and I’m sure she’s lonely being on her own. She and DH’s dad divorced when DH was in his teens and her world has been small since DH moved out. She has a small circle of friends from a hobby group, but other than that weekly meet-up, she doesn’t do anything or see anyone. But it’s just so unpleasant being there mostly because of her attitude. And we’ve called her out, told her we find comments rude, DH snapped pretty hard a few times at the weekend but nothing has changed the behaviour.