Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to be annoyed with my SIL?

201 replies

RoxanneY · 12/02/2012 11:50

I will be honest and say my SIL are not on great terms since I got married...think typical MILs getting jealous their son has been taken away from them and she's the same but with her brother...my DH. We agreed back in April that we would wipe the slate clean and start again for my DH's sake, and we would both think before speaking to avoid 'acidentally' upsetting one another.

Classic comment from her to me ''these jeans are massive, they'll fit you'' - I am a size 10/12 hardly 'massive', and even if I was, not the way to speak to someone!

Another classic from her was at a family meal and DH announced I was pregnant and she promptly announced over the table 'Dad...Dad...Guess what I'm pregnant too!' - of course she.was not pregnant, just attention seeking. She is 26 by the way....

Anyway I just found out that she asked DH to take my 7 week old.DS to her flat without me so I could have some time to myself and she can learn to look after DS whilst DH watches football with her boyfriend. AIBU to feel annoyed 1. She has gone behind my back and asked DH not me (I am the mum, therefore I feel it is my place to decide childcare arrangements if required and I also feel she wants me out of her way so she can show off) 2. I am not ready to leave my DS yet, especially when he has his first cold which DH told her about before she made the invitation.

OP posts:
hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 16:09

I quoted the OP directly in my post.

I've re-read all her posts and my advice is that if you don't want someone to babysit for whatever reason, then that's fine, but you need to communicate with your DH and tell him - he isn't psychic.

But in that communication his views have to be of equal weight, unless you want to be sitting in 4 or 5 years time complaining that he never takes the child out or does anything.

One partners views in a relationship do not ever trump the other's imho.

And yes, that includes over babies and babysitting.

TidyDancer · 12/02/2012 16:10

That's odd, because that's exactly how I thought the OP's DH had conveyed it! Even the OP accepts she should give her SIL the benefit of the doubt. My take on it is still that it is the past that is clouding the OP's feelings on this and that she hasn't let go, even though she agreed with SIL that she would.

If she's uncomfortable with her DH taking their DS to visit family, she needs to talk to him about this. It's fine if she's not ready to be parted from him for a couple of hours, some people take much longer to be ready, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But it would be a huge shame to jump to conclusions that the SIL has some kind of ill intent when it's likely she's just made a very sweet gesture without knowing that the OP is not ready to be apart from her DS.

diddl · 12/02/2012 16:31

I read it slightly differently.

OP put that SIL asked her husband to take the baby without her so that she can have a break...

I read it as OP isn´t invited & SIL is dressing it up as a kindness to her.

But at the end of the day, if OP doesn´t want to be separated, then she goes also, baby doesn´t go, or SIL visits her & baby whilst husband & boyfriend watch the football.

fedupofnamechanging · 12/02/2012 16:32

I think I must be incredibly cynical, because if I was the OP, I'd be thinking that sil had changed tactics and was trying to kill me with kindness.

Might just be because I have known someone who was clever like that - everything he said could be taken two ways and you could never call him on it, because he would say 'I didn't mean it like that'. It's very hard to deal with someone like that, because every time you complain, you sound like the bad guy. As strategies go, it's very hard to fight.

But I might be reading more into it than is actually there - time will tell OP!

fedupofnamechanging · 12/02/2012 16:33

x post with diddl

diddl · 12/02/2012 16:35

And at the end of the day, if you think the mother wants a break, don´t you ask her, not just assume & tell her husband to come without her?

fedupofnamechanging · 12/02/2012 16:37

Quite

hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 16:40

Since the OP and her SIL are not that close, I don't see that it's that strange that she spoke to her brother.

Turn the genders on their head and imagine that the OP was saying that her DH wouldn't let her go and visit her sister and take the baby

The posts on here would be very very different.

TidyDancer · 12/02/2012 16:44

Or maybe, knowing that your SIL hasn't warmed to you, you ask your brother, thinking that his conversation with his wife might go better. You want to do something nice for a new mother, but don't want to directly approach her because of the past.

It's all perception.

But I say again, if even the OP realises she should assume the SIL has good intentions, my guess is she isn't actually that bad.

If the OP isn't ready to have her DS visit family, she isn't ready. That's all she needs to say. This doesn't need to be made to be about her dislike for her SIL and it would be sad if family relations suffered for it.

diddl · 12/02/2012 16:51

Well I know that I´m very much likely to be in the minority, but to me taking my 7wk off my hands wouldn´t be doing me a favour & I would have been mightily pissed off at the inference that I wanted/needed a break/me time-call it what you will.

The thing is that if the husband said he wanted to pop to the sister with baby for a couple of hours-then maybe OK.

It´s all the don´t bring the OP/ SIL needs to learn to look after the baby bollocks that´s going along with it.

hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 16:55

But diddl it's all about perceptions of what was said - the SIL may have said it all with the best of intentions, and tbh the OP hasn't been very open with her husband and hasn't explained how it has made her feel, so how is he going to know it's annoying her?

TidyDancer · 12/02/2012 16:57

See, I don't think that's bollocks at all, I think it's really sensible. If you don't know how to take care of a baby, it's a good idea to want to do it for the first time with one of the parents present.

Re-reading the OP, it sounds like perhaps the DH has said to his sister that the baby has been poorly, and then the SIL has offered to give the OP a break because of this. If she doesn't have children herself, she might not realise that a child being poorly is the time most parents want to be close to them.

I really don't get why people are not willing to give the SIL the benefit of the (massive) doubt here.

diddl · 12/02/2012 16:58

Yes of course OP needs to talk with her husband.

But why is SIL so wonderful for assuming that OP wants time without her baby?

Not only that, but time without her baby & her husband?

TidyDancer · 12/02/2012 16:59

Because sometimes parents need a break. And sometimes wives need a break as well.

Sometimes it's just nice to have some time on your own.

It's not always sinister you know!

hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 17:01

I agree completely with TidyDancer

diddl · 12/02/2012 17:01

But she didn´t ask the OP!!

TidyDancer · 12/02/2012 17:02

No, she asked her brother. Who then went and talked to the OP.

hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 17:03

The father of the baby wants to go and visit his sister and take the baby with him.

Why wouldn't he want to do this? What is wrong with this?

All the rest of it is perception and tone and flim flam - at the heels of it all, the baby's father wants to go and visit a member of his family for a couple of hours and take the baby with him.

hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 17:05

Why the actual fuck is she not allowed to ask the baby's father if he would like to come and visit?

I really really don't understand why everything to do with the baby has to go through the mother.

Suppose it was the other way around and she was posting that everytime she wanted to go anywhere her DH made her check with him that it was OK for her to take the baby.

Can't you see how ridiculously controlling that would be?

diddl · 12/02/2012 17:13

"the baby's father wants to go and visit a member of his family for a couple of hours and take the baby with him."

No, his sister has asked him to visit her with his baby but not his wife.

hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 17:16

Diddl - I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the perception of what the SIL might actually have said.

I think it's just as likely that the SIL was trying to be nice and it's ended up that the OP has read something into it (because she wasn't there and didn't hear what was said) that the SIL quite possibly didn't intend.

forehead · 12/02/2012 17:21

Let's grt this straight, The baby is seven weeks old fgs, i didn't even want to leave my newborn baby with my own mother( who i am very close to) let alone a sister in law who i have had problems with in the past.
I don't know what the sils intentions are , but the fact is that the baby is too young to be away from it's mother, End of

hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 17:22

Even if it's with the father, forehead?

TidyDancer · 12/02/2012 17:23

forehead, I think that's why the OP asked up thread what a normal age for leaving a baby is. There is no normal, so you saying 'end of' is incorrect. Some people (Amanda Holden for instance) will be ready weeks before the OP, some won't be ready for months after.

SIL, not having children, might not understand that. She shouldn't be chastised for it though.

fedupofnamechanging · 12/02/2012 17:24

There is nothing wrong per se in the dad taking the baby to visit his sister. What is wrong is the idea that sil wants the baby and dh, but not the OP.

My brother wouldn't have had a clue how to look after my children when they were babies - it didn't stop him being a brilliant uncle. I'm not sure why sil feels the need to know how to look after this baby - it assumes she will be looking after it and the OP might not want that, certainly not now, anyway. My feeling is she wants to play with the baby without the pesky mother getting in the way. The baby is not a toy and really what the baby needs is it's mother.

Possibly the Op feels that sil is going to try and write her out of the 'unit' so she just sees the dh and children. No one can say for sure if that is accurate or if the sil really has good intentions. For me, judgement would depend on her past form, which hasn't been great. Maybe people really can change, but I have my doubts.

I just know for myself that when the people I have know have said 'let us have the baby, it will give you a break', what they meant was 'fuck off and let me have the baby'. I never felt the need to have a break from my 7 week old babies.