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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 17:59

Diddl - again, imagine that the roles were reversed and the OP was posting that her DH wouldn't let her go anywhere even to her sister's unless he came with her.

Everyone would be screaming red flags.

duckdodgers · 12/02/2012 18:00

hat I will despair with you. Regardless if the SIL is the SIL from hell or not the idea that a Father cant have his own baby - and a say in its care is the biggest load of sexist nonsense Ive read on here recently.

diddl · 12/02/2012 18:01

"Basically, then, a father cannot take a 2 month old baby (almost) out for a couple of hours on his own without his wife going with him?"

Well for me, I would have struggled at that age if my husband was taking the baby to someone who I didn´t like/didn´t like me & who wanted to "learn to look after them"

diddl · 12/02/2012 18:02

"Everyone would be screaming red flags"

Only on MN!

fedupofnamechanging · 12/02/2012 18:04

I felt like I was missing a limb if my babies were away from me. My husband wouldn't have wanted me to feel like that, so wouldn't have insisted on taking my babies to visit his relatives without me.

Everyone is different, and if a mother is happy with the baby not being with her for a couple of hours, then great. If she's not, for whatever reason, then the baby should stay with the mum imo.

diddl · 12/02/2012 18:05

But until the man is the one who has given birth & has the hormone I don´t think that you can reverse it tbh.

If OP really doesn´t want to be apart from her baby yet, should she be forced to be?

TidyDancer · 12/02/2012 18:06

If that's the case, diddl, she needs to say that. The OP has not made her feelings clear to her DH. If she doesn't want to be seperated from their DS, she needs to tell him that, so he can rebuff his sister's kind offer without it becoming a huge issue. It's perfectly acceptable for a mother to not want to be away from her baby for months longer than this.

I believe the OP actually said she had a 'nagging feeling' about being sidelined, and this was because her DH sometimes had conversations with his sister that the OP wasn't involved with. If the OP could come and give any further reason for feeling that way, perhaps it would be more understandable, but she hasn't. Her feelings on that do not seem entirely rational on the information she has so far given.

I find this whole situation really really sad.

GavisconJunkie · 12/02/2012 18:06

Karma me too
diddl quite

I'm off, this is too entrenched and pointless.

TidyDancer · 12/02/2012 18:07

No, she should not be seperated from the baby until she is ready, I don't believe anyone has actually said that. But by her own admission, no one knows how she feels about this. Are her DH and SIL supposed to read her mind before they open their mouths?

diddl · 12/02/2012 18:08

Yes I agree she needs to tell her husband if that´s how she feels.

And let´s hope that both he & her SIL would be understanding of it.

hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 18:09

Diddl I have said loads of times the OP needs to talk to her DH.

Hormones are sweet FA to do with it - the man has every right to want to be with his child and visit his family without his wife, just as his wife has the right to do the same.

But if either of them aren't happy they need to talk to each other as equals and not from a position of "I have hormones and a vagina therefore I win end of"

And, like TidyDancer I find the whole situation very sad.

TidyDancer · 12/02/2012 18:09

I suspect they would be, diddl. They sound like nice people.

diddl · 12/02/2012 18:12

"Are her DH and SIL supposed to read her mind before they open their mouths?"

No of course not.

What I also wonder is what OPs husband said.

For example mine would have known that I wouldn´t have wanted to be away from the baby.

hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 18:12

I honestly think the SIL has tried in a cack handed way, because she has no experience of the situation, to do something helpful and in a spirit of friendship and I feel terribly sad that it's been turned into a negative.

Also, does anyone know if she was pregnant and lost a baby? Some sympathy for her might be in order too you know.

youarekidding · 12/02/2012 18:13

DS was 7 weeks the first time I left him. It was with my mum and aunties for 2 hours whilst my cousin and I went for a walk. I had expressed milk so they had some. Also I lived abroad and was just visiting for a week so that may have made a difference? As in it was then or not for a year!

YABU to think she should have contacted you. I would contact my sibling about their child but would think them discussing it as a couple was a given.

However I expect your BU because your tired, hormonal and overwhelmingly in love with a sick baby. Makes the best of us feel U. You can salvage this though by accepting it and making a compromise.

hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 18:14

Here's a thing. Suppose the SIL's secret chats with her brother have been about how hard she's found the OP's pregnancy because she was pregnant herself and lost the baby and didn't want to burden the OP and make her feel bad, but wanted to let her brother know just in case she found it difficult and to ask him to cut her some slack? I know the OP says she was attention seeking, but it is entirely possible that she had a miscarriage and didn't want to broadcast the fact.

We just don't know, but I honestly can't see that the sil has done much wrong.

fedupofnamechanging · 12/02/2012 18:19

I carried my babies for 9 months, endured the physical discomforts of pregnancy, the pain of labour and birth, the bleeding, the after pains, the sore nipples, leaky boobs, hormones etc. I think that does give me the right to say my baby goes where I go. I would be extremely distressed at the idea of not being with my baby when it was little and certainly wouldn't have put up with it, for someone else's convenience. Nature has made it that way - it's about more than being in possession of a vagina.

A husband who thinks it's his right to take the baby to see his family without his wife, is no kind of husband imo. His primary job as a husband is to love and cherish his wife.

Eventually, kids get bigger, and mothers feel better about not being with them all the time. There is plenty of opportunity then, for people to babysit.

Sil might not understand all that - she hasn't had a baby so can't be condemned fo rnot 'getting it'. The dh should, though.

hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 18:21

But the OP hasn't talked to her DH.

Which she needs to do.

He's not a mind reader

troisgarcons · 12/02/2012 18:23

I wish the Op would come back because these secret chats - what are they/ Siblings conversing? some heinous conspiracy? neurosis in the Ops mind .... because secret chats weren't ne#mentioned until page 2 and it was used as an all encompassing term.

Frankly the OP came across as utterly neurotic. Should I demand to be in the room every time DH talks to his brother? Or shoudl DH demand to be in the room every time I talk to mine? OMG! Perhaps I shouldnt vist my brother with one or more of my children?

OP the more I think about it the more I think you are a bit controlling.

fedupofnamechanging · 12/02/2012 18:24

I think she is scared of the row. Also think it should be obvious to a husband living with his wife, how she is likely to feel.

whathellcall · 12/02/2012 18:25

What Karma said.

hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 18:26

hathorinareddress Sun 12-Feb-12 12:52:31
If you don't trust your DH to make sensible decisions WRT care for your DS you have bigger problems than your SIL

I'll repeat myself

hathorinareddress · 12/02/2012 18:26

Bolding fail Blush

fedupofnamechanging · 12/02/2012 18:26

I think the secret chat complaint was more about manners. If my brother and his dp were visiting me, I wouldn't take him out of the room to talk to him privately. I'd phone him and arrange to meet up by ourselves, if I had something to discuss. when he is in my house with his partner, I talk to them both, together.

whathellcall · 12/02/2012 18:27

Again, what Karma said.