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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to have nothing more to do with MIL?

63 replies

PamelaShipman · 06/05/2012 22:08

Sorry, another MIL thread. And sorry also that it's a bit dramatic and probably doesn't belong on AIBU but please bear with me, my head's everywhere at the moment.

I posted a few weeks ago in the relationships section about MIL and her visit to me and DH in the week after our son was born. I was asking then basically the same thing due to her general hurtful behaviour. I bit my tongue as we don't see much of her anyway and because I'm not very assertive.

Anyway, something really really awful happened to DH this week. I don't want to speak about what it was, but please trust me, it was so awful that he seemed to lose his mind and disappeared in the night a couple of nights ago. When I woke up at 7am, he was gone and so was his car. He'd left a note indicating that we'd all just be better off without him, left his mobile phone, and took no money or debit cards with him. I thought he'd killed himself.

I reported him missing to the police who were round straight away, asked for a picture of him, numberplate to track the car etc. I contacted his mum to let her know the situation and asking her to please get in touch if she heard anything from him or found out that he was safe. She said she'd ring me after she finished work...

Throughout the day more people got involved in looking for DH, his work colleagues, my family. I got more and more frantic at home with 4 week old DS, convincing myself DH must be dead. I called his mum a few more times throughout the day with no response, then after I kinew she would be home from work I called her mobile and landline a few times.

Eventually DH answers her landline. MIL lives on the opposite side of the country. He'd been with her for a few hours. I cry/shout etc and DH makes his way home (where he has now got help and will never ever ever be putting me or DS through something like that again. I'm not excusing his actions, I'm really angry at him but it's totally out of character and another issue altogether).

I can't get over MIL being so cruel knowing that I was in turmoil at home, that I was on my own with a tiny baby, worrying that DH was dead and for hours he was sat with her in her house. I can't believe she didn't call or even text just to say he was safe/alive/with her, and that she didn't answer or respond to any of my calls. For the first time I have pulled her up and told her this, to which she was completely indifferent and unapologetic. WIBU to have nothing more to say to her or to do with her given this and previous behaviour?

Please don't be too harsh, feeling fragile.

OP posts:

WorraLiberty · 06/05/2012 22:14

Wow! I can see no justification whatsoever for not letting you know he'd arrived.

Even if for whatever reason he didn't want to talk to you, she should at least have insisted to him that she was going to let you know he was ok

Unless perhaps he might have threatened suicide and they're not both playing it down?

WorraLiberty · 06/05/2012 22:15

Sorry that should say now both playing it down.

olimpia · 06/05/2012 22:16

I haven't read your other posts so based purely on this one I don't know what to think. Your post is so surreal. You don't say WTF your DH was doing and why when he disappeared which is kind of the point. E.g. Depending on why he disappeared MIL may have been taking se sense into him and just didn't get round to advising you promptly that he was safe? You can't withhold all the important bits and expect people to comment constructively!

Twinkleinmyeye · 06/05/2012 22:17

Didn't want to read and run, so I'd just say sort out yours and DH's issues first before worrying about dealing with your MIL. It sounds like you have enough going on without throwing her into the mix.

Hope things improve for you.

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 06/05/2012 22:17

I don't know any of your previous threads Pamela but I'm at her blatant disregard of your situation and worry.

The police took it seriously ( did they contact your MIL at all to ask her to contact them if he was in touch with her? Or leave you to get in contact with her?)

No matter what he said, even if he pleaded with her to not tell you (for whatever reason) she could have sent you a text to say he's here.

Yes she's his mother.But you were out of your mind with worry with his baby.

It would be a Cold Day in Hell before I spoke to her again.

AntsMarching · 06/05/2012 22:18

I don't know. If it's so bad and he turned up, MIL may have felt she needed to focus solely on him and all other thoughts went out the window until she felt sure he was okay/calm/safe.

As a mother, my first priority would be my child, no matter their age.

Sandalwood · 06/05/2012 22:19

It's difficult to know where your priorities would be if something awful happened to your DC and they showed up suffering some sort of breakdown.
And not knowing what he said to her.

Really, with the police and everyone involved in looking for him (she understood that didn't she?) She should have let you know.

Tricky though - I don't know if you can say she was doing it out of cruelty.

edam · 06/05/2012 22:19

That's bizarre. Feel extremely sorry for you (and dh). What on earth can she have been thinking? Is she one of those overbearing MILs who resents you for taking her son away? (Not that you have, but YKWIM.) But to take it to the extremes of not letting you know he was safe, when the police were looking for him...

Hope dh is getting the help he needs. I'd feel quite justified in never having anything to do with her again in your shoes but the thing that gives me pause is that dh went to her when he had his breakdown. If you cut her off, will that be a massive problem for dh?

Original poster

PamelaShipman · 06/05/2012 22:19

Thanks for replying Worra, DH was suicidal at this point which was why I was so frantic, and which is why I can't believe she didn't tell me he was ok.

DH didn't know I'd been calling his mum to see if she had heard from him so she hadn't actually told him about any contact she had from me/that I'd reported him missing to the police who were looking for him or anything.

OP posts:

pigletpower · 06/05/2012 22:20

I think maybe he should go back to his mother until he has sorted himself out.I would be absolutely livid at both of them.He couldn't be so out of his mind that he drove half way across the country to his mother.Whilst he is there ask him to cut his apron strings.

mynewpassion · 06/05/2012 22:21

you don't know everything. Maybe she was trying to talk to him and calm him down. Maybe she was worried that if she turned her back on him, he would run again. You don't know yet. Until you, be glad that he was found and is relatively ok.

Get to the bottom of it a bit later.

nothingsoextraordinary · 06/05/2012 22:22

I think it sounds appalling based on the info here. Dreadful experience for you and by extension, very uncaring to your baby. I don't know if it would be possible to reason with someone who would do something like this though...serious lack of maturity.

Original poster

PamelaShipman · 06/05/2012 22:22

MIL doesn't prioritise DH, I'm not trying to bash her, she really doesn't. He's been back for 3 days and she's made no contact with him since he set off from hers.

OP posts:

edwinbear · 06/05/2012 22:26

My dad did a similar thing a few years back, it was absolutely terrifying, I'm so sorry your dh did this to you. I'm sure MIL's first concern was for her son and his well being, which is understandable, but it is absolutely inexcusable of her not to call you to let you know he was OK, particularly when you have a newborn at home.

OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos · 06/05/2012 22:26

No, YANBU. It would only have taken a text to say he was safe, it would have taken her less than a minute. There is no excuse for her letting you go through that. I can see that her priority may have been her son, but I think that would include her grandchild too, and I'm sure he will have picked up on how upset hs mother was. I would also think that she should have known that her son wouldn't want to cause his wife so much worry, he just wasn't thinking straight at the time, and therefore looking after him would include telling his wife he was ok.

WorraLiberty · 06/05/2012 22:27

I agree with mynewpassion, I suppose you just don't know what the situation was when he arrived.

There are a million and one different scenarios and one of them could have been him screaming at her that if she called you, he'd kill himself or something

Remember that he did have the presence of mind to drive right across the country and worry the life out of you with the note, so perhaps he wanted to continue that worry for as long as possible?

LaurieFairyCake · 06/05/2012 22:29

After all you've been through now is not the time to cut her out - the problem is your dh didn't tell you, not her.

Focus on helping him - if you think cutting his mother out is the best thing for him then .........

Original poster

PamelaShipman · 06/05/2012 22:35

I'm honestly not trying to minimise what DH did, what he put me through was horrendous and I never want to feel how I did that day again.

DH didn't have his phone or anything, wasn't aware that I had reported him missing or that I had been calling and calling his mum. They hadn't had any kind of conversation about him coming home or ringing me so it wasn't like MIL was told by DH that she couldn't contact me.

DH went to MIL because he had literally nowhere else to go other than home, rather than for support. He isn't from round here, has no family other than MIL and two brothers and only knows friends from his work. MIL acts in a fairly toxic way towards him and as I said has not contacted him since he left hers to see how he is.

OP posts:

squeakytoy · 06/05/2012 22:37

But wasnt he there while you were ringing? So he knew you were contacting her.

Original poster

PamelaShipman · 06/05/2012 22:40

He didn't know I was ringing her mobile, and he answered her house phone himself after it went a few times.

OP posts:

WorraLiberty · 06/05/2012 22:41

Sorry but if that's the case it would have been completely obvious to him that you would have contacted his Mum.

He left his money, cards and mobile behind with a note hinting at suicide

Of course he knew you'd ring his Mum.

squeakytoy · 06/05/2012 22:43

I am lost here... so he was at her house, she was at work and didnt know that he was at her house?

olimpia · 06/05/2012 22:44

What worra just said

olimpia · 06/05/2012 22:45

And sort DH out before worrying about MIL

Original poster

PamelaShipman · 06/05/2012 22:46

I know, it wasn't MIL's responsibility to make DH contact me, DH should have contacted me himself. DH shouldn't have left in the first place, he acted like a selfish fucker.

But what I do feel is that after I had explained the situation to MIL she should have felt some kind of compassion in her heart for me and DS, at least enough to let me know DH was ok.

OP posts:

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