My MIL was once outgoing, had friends, a job, left the house and did normal things. She has been with her partner for 10 years but very quickly stopped doing anything or going anywhere when they got together. She stopped working, doesn’t have any friends or hobbies now and can’t even go to the shop without him having to go with her. I’ve always found him very creepy and like there’s just something off about him.
Since having our little girl just over two years ago it became more apparent that she literally can’t leave the house without him and he’s very controlling. She’ll say no to going places (because he says no). She has barely seen our child. At first she used to come a walk with me but he would follow us in the car and always just hover around, it was so weird. One day she was standing chatting to me at my door before we went a walk, he had dropped her off 15 minutes before. We live in a cul-de-sac so there was literally no reason to come into our street but I looked up and saw him drive straight past my house. He was obviously planning to drive past then realised she was still there, he didn’t even look in or wave and I just got such stalker vibes from the whole thing. I said to my husband I didn’t ever want to leave our little girl with them without one of us being there because of his weird behaviour and he agreed he’s definitely controlling.
She’s never offered to help or asked to babysit so the conversation has never came up luckily and she goes to nursery now but this week she has randomly texted me asking to take her to her house regularly. My child doesn’t even know who she is as she sees her once every 6 weeks if she’s lucky. I felt so put on the spot by it as I have no way of telling her no without saying why. I’ve said I’d be more than happy for her to spend more time with her at our house or we can arrange days out at the weekend (which they won’t do as he won’t leave the house). She’s said no to both options and only wants to take her to their house on her own. My husband is now saying itl be fine and since I have the problem I should tell her why, I think he knows it’s not fine but gets defensive because it’s his mum. He still agrees that his behaviour is extremely weird. What can I say? Should he speak to her about him? Am I being over dramatic? Just don’t really want to take the risk, especially when they’ve made no effort before now!