To call back MIL & let her know i heard her...wwyd

[VIX1980]

Dp just called to let me know he had gone to his mums on his way home from work, i asked him to pick up a lamp id borrowed her last year (and have been asking for back ever since), that was that, said goodbye and then asked him if he was having his tea there or not, he obviously didnt answer as he thought he had hung up so i shouted it again.

i heard him asking his mum if she had my lamp, she said she didnt know/thinks it might of got broken or borrowed to someone else (its not a cheap lamp, and shes never mentioned any of this to me), then she asks him if the house is ready for the baby yet (shes here every weekend so only saw it herself on saturday just gone), I then hear her saying they should google how to prepare your house for a new baby - for the nxt 5 mins i heard her basically slagging me off from everything to cleaning, decorating, tidying etc, How i shouldnt plan on breastfeeding as its selfish and wont give her or anyone else a chance to bond with the baby, how she is planning on being at our house when i come home (she apparently couldnt handle coming to the hospital ). Then she went on to say that although my mum had been good buying our pram etc she wasnt much use around the house doing cleaning or cooking so she would come round every day to help out. i hung up then cos i was close to tears.

for what its worth shes a smoker/drinker cooks everything like its a challenge to use as much oil as possible, cleans with a ciggie in 1 hand and a bottle of bleach in the other, she helped out doing the washing recently after just bleaching the kitchen floor, needless to say she declined to use the washing basket instead threw everything onto freshly washed floor so all my clothes were ruined with bleach marks, then just laughs when i went mental and had nothing to wear.

im 39 weeks pregnant, on crutches for severe spd, up until last wk i was ok and even decorated the living room, wallpaper and painted, dont the hall downstairs and painted the stair skirtings so ive not been sat on my arse either, only finished work 3 weeks ago too, I dont know if im being over sensitive, i think shes out of order, we arent the closest of people but i respect her, shes my dp's mum and it really hurts to know what she really thinks of me, wwyd.

Hope she comes up with a good apology and a fucking big bunch of flowers very soon OP.

Im kind of the same as some of you have said, ill be angry for a few weeks then think oh it was a while ago, saying that ive never heard how she actually felt about me before so itll be hard to get those words out of my head. I dont want to punish her forever i just dont want to see her in my house doing anything other than leaving tbh.

i did have a lovely text from fil to say sorry for her behaviour and he understands if i keep my distance for a while, i cant fault the man hes helped us so much in doing up the house, helping us financially, just cant believe hes stuck with a miserable dozy cow!

thanks you all again anyway, ive been super hormonal the past week so thought i was just being a bitch, any other time id of been round there shouting my own mouth off back at her, its hard to know these days whether im being daft or not, considering i had a full on melt down today cos i couldnt find a stapler i needed a 2nd opinion.

at extended breastfeeding too!

Nice of your FIL. Would've been better still from your MIL.

Try annd turn this into a positive now.

Everyone - thats you, your hubby and FIL have all seen her true colours now and realised the hurt and potential fall out. They probably just listen to her without really properly registering how awful the crap was that she was spouting. Knowing you heard it has jolted them all to realise this. You can now work this in your favour.

Make sure its moreless tattooed on your DHs forehead that MIL is not to just come to the house when you get home from hosiptal. Be civil but not close to MIL. I dont mean make a drama out of this - but make her sit up and think about her past and future actions and words.

Hopefully this will be the jolt that was needed to make life nicer and easier in the long run. I really expect she is at home cringeing and cursing herself right now - but hey, so she bloody well should.

Good for FIL.

Problem is now FIL has apologised, maybe MIL feels she doesn´t need to?

It must be horrible.
If she was a friend I you definitely probably wouldn´t bother with her again.

I doubt shes cursing herself very much right now, hmmm 20 past 10 of an eveing shes usually on her 5th whisky by now, very soon shell fall asleep wherever she lands and fil will have to help her to bed or leave her where she is, this is her usual nightly event!

to be honest i was worrying about her behaviour around my baby anyway, the chain smoking, drinking etc, shes done me a favour now as i have a valid excuse for her to stay away!

Good that FIL recognises she was way out of line, but the real apology needs to come from her (and your DH of course for not stopping her saying it sooner).

Sadly though, however much she apologises you will always know she said and thinks that. It's a real shame but it looks like she may not be as involved in the first weeks of your baby as she'd have liked. In the longer term though you need to think about your baby having involved grandparents and the positive impact of that, MIL has a while to go to earn that though.

Good Luck with how it pans out, let us know.

Take care of yourself and bubba :-)

Text FIL back and say

It is so lovely that my mum and your son are so close and get on well - I wish my MIL was as close as those two are.

that will make her think....

she is so out of order YANBU

he needs to be protecting you like a guard dog at your house once baby arrives...so literally, you upstairs in bed with baby, magazines, food etc

he downstairs, fielding phonecalls, directing guests away from upstairs, making tea, keeping them entertained so you get your much deserved PEACE with your newborn!

am sure he will step up and do this, but remind him to do this, tell him this is his job - say sthing like your midwife said you need minimal visitors until the 4th month or sthing

great idea re text from JamiemagicTorch - txt them both and let her know in text, ps, you'd like a similar lamp replacement before baby is born

BTW I had a whisky drinking alcoholic grandmother who was frequently drunk. I loved her a lot less than my other grandmother. To be blunt, children do know when something is 'off' with people. I found her uncomfortable to be around. The smell of whisky still makes me a bit .

I actually think that's really nice of your FIL to write that-he's probably really f8cked off with his wife now and embarrased by her behaviour. I would reply and say 'Thanks for understanding'.

It's not his fault his wife's a bitch.

you lent her, not you borrowed her. But yanbu.

Your MIL sounds like a very sad, frightened and unhappy woman. She will have food for thought now
I am sure you will forgive her in due course. Nothing is ever this one sided, and it would be so much better for your DC to grow up with good relationships with both sets of GPs. Good luck with the baby and keep your private time when you come home from hospital.
You sound lovely, taking photos of the baby for her, for the time she will have missed.
I hope it all works out. Family is so important and she brought up your DH so she can't be all bad!

Completely agree with the poster upthread who said you now have the upper hand and you need to use it - - be icily calm and let her come to you, and when she does, you set the ground rules.
BTW my DH used to think his parents were perfect - they are nice but, like most people, have their faults - he has over the years realised this. So there is hope for your DP, he has def realised his mum is not perfect right now!
Also, FIL sounds great! Just knowing that he is on side will help you IMO.

Your making this far greater and issue than it needs to be and you don't need to follow the bitter advice here from so many who seem to have issues within their own MIL's.

Joan I have been dying to say the same but was too scared!

Novack, what are you on about?? The MIL has been slagging off OP and should be called on it - would you be happy if you overheard your MIL saying similar things?? My MIL is (broadly) lovely and I am lucky, but I would have an issue with her if she had the same as OP's MIL.

As I wrote earlier, most people learn not to listen at he keyhole if they hope to hear something nice about themselves. Same rule applies here.

Ahh, I'd rather know what people really think and deal with it accordingly. In OP's situation, I would go out of my way to make MIL uncomfortable as she clearly doesn't think much of OP, but may be I'm a bitch.

If you read the OP's OP, Novack, you'd see that was calling out to her DP over the phone, and the conversation started out about the lamp - why wouldn't she listen? And she wasn't hoping to hear something nice about herself. Where do you get that from?

Yes, now you have the upper hand you need to use it. Not to punish her, but to claim your DH for yourself and to take him from her, put her in her rightful place and keep her there.

If you don't take this opportunity and keep on at it, she will fight you for him as long as she lives. You unfortunately have a man who needs reminding about how lucky he is to have you and coaching about how to forget about being a son and how to turn into a good husband. If you don't do this she will run roughshod over you and there will always be a most unwelcome third party in your relationship. Don't leave it up to him. He is obviously very impressionable. You need to make a bigger impression.

YANBU and you are not 'hormonal' whatever that means.

You should tell her to google third hand smoke and how its a shame she cant smoke then hold your baby!! Bf, selfish indeed! I find it completely selfless!

math how would you suggest op 'claims her dh' and 'puts mil into her rightful place' ?
I am interested as I have a v controlling mil myself who is constantly attempting to make herself no 1 in my dh's life...
My dh has come a long way but mil tries all sorts of attention -seeking tricks to 'get him back'. Very tiresome.

op YANBU and well done for standing up to dh and her! Stand your ground re the visit after the hospital.

novack your posts are unhelpful and pointless. You don't even provide an alternative view. Just nonsense.

I think she has made a good start by being open immediately about what she overheard. She needs to point out to him, really clobber him over the head, with exactly what spd consists of and the fact that she uses crutches but has still managed to get about her daily life and even contribute to the decorating.

I made the mistake of being an optimist and trusting too much that sheer geographical distance between exMIL and exH would suffice. Until way after we were divorced I preferred to not believe my gut when it told me that they had been having a little confab about me when I would enter her kitchen and the two of them would suddenly fall silent. ExMIL had been coaxing criticisms of me out of him for years, every time she visited us (and would monopolise exH on long trips to get expensive wine from a wine place on the far side of town when there was just as good plonk available five minutes down the road, or something handy but not necessary like a lawnmower sharpener..) and every time we visited her they would spend quality time at 5 in the morning emptying the dishwasher and chatting. Basically when exMIL was around exH abandoned me and ran whining to mommy, who lapped it all up and wheedled more out of him, made him feel ever so sorry for himself and hard done basically because I wasn't his mother.

I should have challenged their little trips together and should have made exH do more with the DCs and his brothers, etc when we visited exMIL's town. Basically, I should have done more to keep them firmly apart and let him see how his brothers and their wives lived, what sort of dinners they had, how many toys were strewn around their houses, the height of their heaps of laundry -- exMIL ruled her family with a rod of iron and exH had no perspective at all or any sense of how the rest of the world lived. The exSILs all grouched to me about the unrealistic expectations of their husbands where sterile cleanliness of houses went, children seen but not heard, etc. exH should have spent more time with their families when we visited. He should also have spent more time with my family but unfortunately they were on another continent and couldn't provide the necessary balance. I had no-one to speak on my behalf and I was hesitant to blow my own trumpet. I also didn't want to see an adversary in my exMIL, but she was an enemy, and I stuck my head in the sand.

The big thing Vix can do is keep her H in the orbit of her own family, have her own family members praise her and the baby to him, and also compliment him from time to time; everyone likes a bit of flattery. When it comes to breastfeeding, the male members of the family need to compliment how well the baby looks and how great a mother she is, what a credit Vix and the baby are to him, etc. She may need to prime them to say it from time to time. If his own mother hasn't really been there for him he may have feelings of abandonment triggered by the arrival of the baby and the fact that babies need a lot of time and attention, which will make her a bit unavailable to him. Vix will be distracted and he will be vulnerable to a power play by his own mother. If possible, her mum needs to take him under her wing right after the baby is born, and to sort of take care of him, to prevent him falling back into his own mother's clutches.

In the long term, she also needs to limit the amount of time the H spends with his mum unsupervised and to develop a circle of friends who are not like his mum, who value her talents and her contribution, and who are friends to her relationship with her H.

She also needs to speak directly to him about her feelings, assuming he has good intentions, and not to let things fester when he trips up. She needs to never use words like 'hormonal' in front of him, or any other words or phrases that are self deprecating. She needs to smile at him and tell him what a nice job they have done together on their house, how much she appreciates how well they have worked together as a team to build a comfortable home for themselves and their baby; when the baby arrives she needs to emphasise the WE element and to praise him for being so supportive of her a good father to their baby -- catch him doing the WE and US things (and not him and mum things) and let him know she notices them and values how well he performs at them. Her family can do this too. He really needs retraining if he has grown up in a home where his mother has been the one people have worked and tiptoed around, as seems the case.