Hi All.
sorry for the long post , spelling mistakes etc but once i started i couldnt stop.
First post but i am hoping that someone out there will be able to give me some advice.
I come from a family of four sisters of which i am the youngest by 15 years. I dont have a close relation ship with any of my sisters at all partly because of the fact that they all treat me like a child even though i am now nearly thirty. Which means that none of them have any problem with telling me what to do in my life even though i am married with a son and another one on the way. Anyway i am due in 4 months and am actually dreading the baby being born because i know what my family are like.
When I got married everything to do with my wedding was wrong ? the church was wrong as i chise to get married in my husband?s church that he and his family attended regularily as opposed to the one my mum attends ? that i havent set food in since i was 12 years old. Of course that meant that the entire service was wrong from the hyms we chose to the readings ? and everything else like my wedding dress ? mink coloured as opposed to white - apparently advertising teh fact taht i wasnt a virgin ? even though a white dress made me look as though i was at deaths door as i am so pale. Then the house that we moved into after we got married ? it is bigger than anyone elses in my family but we could afford it ? apparently far too big for the two of us and a waste of money ? and wnet my sisters came round to see it not one could say anything nice about it.
Sundays are a big thing in my family ? well everybody forever irregardless of what else is going on in their lives goes down to my mums on a Sunday to spent the afternoon in a room where ther tv is on full blast and no one talks to each other as they have nothing to talk about cause they see each other three or four times as week and the kids are all shouting and moaning because quite frankly they are bored but are forced by my sisters to sit there. I decided when i got married and my husbands family live a bit further away that we would go every other week or even every two weeks so that we could visit his family and also have days out ourselves ? the hell i got for that ? every Sunday i wasnt there i got endless texts from my sisters asking where i was and what i was doing. I should mention that we never went to my mums for lunch so it wasnt as if we were putting her out or anything like that and that my dad is in a nursing home and until recently came out every Sunday ? but on the weeks that i didnt go to my mums on a Sunday i always made sure that i called in an saw him on the Saturday or some night during the week.
Then when my first son was born ? my entire pregnancy was public and everything i did was wrong from the type of buggy i chose ? far too expensive ? it was a quinny buzz we got half price in the sale, the hospital i chose ? it wasnt the one my sisters went to with their kids but it was the most convient for me and my husband, the maternity clothes i wore ? far too expensive for such a short period of time ? dorothy perkins . Then i was told to throw out all my pre pregnancy jeans as i would never fit into them again having put on three stone during my pregnancy ? my mum even with twins never showed until she was six months.... but when i did fit into my size 8?s three months after my son was born i was obviously starving myself ? nothing to do with the fact that i was breastfeeding a 9 ½ lb baby who was 14lb at 6 weeks....
Then the real trouble started. When the baby came everyone expected that i would start going to my mums every Sunday ? even though the house is really noisy ? she has cats & dogs running about all over the place the dog which is really old and cross ? snaps at everyone - and the cats are let the run of the house ( nothing agains cats & dogs ? i have three cats (outside) and a dog myself who has been introduced to my soon from day one and three years later are best friends) and she refused to shut the dog up or put outside when i was there with the baby ? meanwhile whilst breastfeeding he was jumping up sniffing etc ?not v easy for me. So i stopped going down because it was stressing me out ? and as my husband works 15 hour days and the weekend is the only time he has with his child i felt that it was more important to spend the time bonding with my husband and son. Again though i made sure that once or twice a week i visted my dad in the nursing home when my mum was there. Not right as my nieces and nephews and sisters didnt feel as though they were getting to know the baby .... even though they sat and played their playstations the whole time. My mum and sisters came to visit me once a week or so for the first 6 weeks after the birth but once i was able to drive ( i has a c section and then had to have a further operation when the baby was three weeks old) i was expected to do all the visiting and was phoned up regularly could i take my mums here and there etc (no one else in my family drives ). On and on this went until i went back to work three days a week ? my days of i chose to spend going to mother and toddlers, swimming pool etc meeting up with my mummy friends (as much for me but also so that my son who is looked after by my mil could have company his own ages) doing my cleaning and shopping etc so that my weekends where free to spend with my husband ? who at this stage left in the morning before the baby was up and v rarely got home before bedtime. One of my sisters in particular started giving off about the fact that i didnt meet up with them for lunch during the week ? something i have never done ? and why were my friends more important ? and why didnt i take my mum out places those days and why didnt i take my dad out ( ignoring the fact that he is in a wheelchair with v poor mobilty and i drove a Citeron C1 that i couldnt fit the buggy into never mind anything else..... ) and i was told that i let my son rule my live.......i shouldnt work around his feeds naps etc ? he should be made to wait /sleep in car seat etc etc .
My mum is constantly taking funny turns ( always the middle of the night, loses the power of speech cant move etc etc ? but when gets to hospital the doctors can never find anything wrong with her ? she has had scans and blood tests galore and is on tons of medication just in case - and low and behold if she is admittedshe recovers as soon as she is on a ward). It is at the stage where no one believes her ? not even her own doctor and as this always happens when someone else in the family is ill we can only determine this is attention seeking. Eveytime this happens i am called to take her to the hospital, collect my sister from the hospital , take clothes down etc ? which i dont mind and am happy to do ? if my husband is at home. At least half a dozen times in my sons first year this happened ? always after my sons bed time and i was told to stick him in the car seat etc and bring him with me etc and even one night my sister was looking after him whilst we went out ( the first time since he was born) my mum came up in a taxi supposedly ill and demanded that my sister take her to the hospital ? with the baby in tow.
Things eased of for a while until i got pregnant again ? after a hard battle with postnatal depression ? which my mum cheerfully told everyone about as that was now everyone in the family ? and fertility problems. I dared complain about morning sickenss ? i couldnt even keep water down ? i was told to shut up sure its what i wanted..... then i got got offered an elective section ? i should be made to try like everyone else because my sisters didnt have it that easy ... have chosen to continue to go for long walks, cycle and other forms of mild exercise ? i am doing the baby harm ? even though i have come of my antidepressants and have been advised that exercise releases endorphines to combat depression ? and as i am not stuffing my face with cakes etc i am obviously starving myself so as i dont put on weight ? even though at 5 months i am much bigger than the last time!.
In the meantime my mum has stopped bring my dad out of the nursing home as he is too much hassle. I have made the effort either every other Sunday or one of my days of to call in and see him ? but my sons hates going in ? he loves his grandad and will sit happily anywhere else outside of the nursing home on his knee and do puzzles etc and stories but in there he doesnt get any peace with the other residents and after fifteen minutes wants to go and gets hysterical if we dont . my mum said to my son at the weekend ? your grandad wants to know why you havent been down to see him this week and i told her how much he dislikes it . I was told to make him stay as his grandad was getting upset. I left and my other sister ( who lives miles away and only visits at the most once a month) gave off to me saying my mum ( not my dad ) was really upset that i hadnt bothered going down last week....
I know when the new baby comes it will just get worse ? especially when my son will be starting school in september and i wont have the same free time. My husband thinks that i should just stop making an effort to see anyone as it is getting me down so much but i dont know what to do. Whether i am the one being unreasonable ? or my family?