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.

I think Novack's point is that we have probably all said some things in private to our close family members which would be terrible if overheard. I have said PLENTY to my husband about his mother which I wouldn't want her to overhear, and some of it was probably unjust.
Obviously the MIL here was being absolutely horrible, and she sounds pretty unpleasant across the board BUT she was having a private conversation which shouldn't have been overheard.
Can any of us say that we have never slagged off someone in private?

Well I don't suppose it matters what she actually said, the point is that the OP thought the MIL felt one way about her and now realises that she feels a completely different way. The mask has slipped.
Novack, the OP was on the phone, talking to her DH. she overheard the first bit when she was still trying to talk to him but he had gone. Are you seriously telling me that once you had heard someone you originally thought liked you start to slag you off you wouldn't listen to the rest of the sentence?

There are degrees of hearing things not meant for you

This sounds both malicious, bitchy and unreasonable rather than just a casual negative comment. OP could pretend she hadn't heard and blame herself for having working ears or be honest and say what she heard and then be honest about how she feels about it.

If I were the MiL I'd actually use this moment to really apologise and clear the air. I'd say sorry, I was well out of order and then DiL could tell me what she thinks of my drinking and smoking. We'd start a family feud that outlasted 30 generations agree to differ in our attitudes....

I would tell him and get him to apologise, he more or less sat there and didn't defend you once!!
I would be fuming at him, don't lend anything to mil again, especially anything expensive!!
I have had problems with my fil borrowing stuff so don't let him anymore

"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..."

Just to clarify... You are actually talking about treating another adult like this, Math? As oppoosed to, say, a child?

*opposed

Nonastemia - I agree, I thought the same thing when I read Novack's posts. I think her suggestions are rather extreme but she appears to talk from bitter experience with her exDH, I would presume the experiences were in themselves rather extreme. I did not get the impression that the OP's situation is as bad.

So much food for thought here, a lot of what people have suggested is true, i think that growing up she was a heavy drinker who didnt really see much of her 3 kids, most of his stories are about his dad taking them to this big lake, or him playing with his brothers, i can actually only recount 1 story hes told me in 11 years where shes been involved taking them to the beach. She constantly used to say how great it was that i hadnt had a drink all through my pregnancy and she didnt know how i managed it, er its called being responsible. she admits to having at least 2 bottles of cider a day from the age of 16, nowadays shes moved onto the whisky and anything else she can get her hands on.

as someone else mentioned kids always know when something is wrong, i had an alcoholic grandmother also who i rarely saw but when i did have to see her id dread it, i hated seeing anyone that out of control, even to this day i cannot bear to be around drunk people when im sober (when ive had a drink tho thats a different matter, im certainly not a saint ).

dp is very much a mummys boy, hes the 1st born so feels its his responsibility to look after them both, its this responsibility im doing my best to wean him out of, hes done so much the past few months for me that i think its slowly working, but i agree any chance she gets now she'll have him back, shes very lonely since her youngest left home - he couldnt bear to sit there with her while she got drunk every night and embarrassed herself.

Im not that much of a cow to say no she cant come and see her grandchild, but she can come to the hospital (if im still there) and visit her for the allowed time, then will have to leave, then itll just be me, dp and our baby at home for a while, my mums asked if she could take a few days off when dp goes back to work to help out which ive said yes to, unlike mil who told me at xmas she would have the baby 1 day a week and has since dropped 20 hours a week at work to come and help with the baby

Thankfully shes out of my life for a while, and i think if this hadnt of happened id be writing in a few weeks about my mil who wont get out of my house as dp seems inable to say no to the woman. i dont intend to cut her out of her grandchilds life at all but i do intent to make her as uncomfortable as possible for a while

The issue for me, beyond MIL revealing her feelings which is an unpleasant shock in itself to the OP, is that MIL felt she could talk like this about awife to the husband and a)not get pulled up on it damned fast, b)was confident her son wouldn't then tell his wife c)that these bitching sessions have happened a lot.

I dont want to punish her forever i just dont want to see her in my house doing anything other than leaving tbh.

Sorry that made me

YADNBU. I second, third etc everything said on here. Well done for dealing with it so well.

And don't worry about the stapler incident we've all been there -and in a few months you'll struggle to remember the name for a stapler let alone lose one

And queen Fecking brilliant

This might be something useful for your DH to look at.

When she's been like that through his childhood, the relationship is more complicated than just parent-child.

nonastemia I have a mil like math described and trust me, enormous amounts of damage have been done to my marriage when my mil and dh spend time 'unsupervised' together. She cannot and will not accept that she is no longer in charge of his life and used to spend a lot of time and energy trying to regain her 'control' over my dh by attempting to come between us.. I still get nervous when I know they've had lunch together etc!

Don't mean to hijack the thread but just wanted to say a big thanks to math for taking the time to post- I found that immensely useful.

OP I know how hard it is when you are married to someone who feels a huge sense of obligation and sense of responsibility to their parents- at the expense of their wife. It's like math said- they need a sort if training to stop being so concerned about being a good son and making being a good husband his priority.

Like you, an unfortunate situation came to a head between me and my ILs and fortunately dh backed me and things have been improving since. Mil has backed off a bit now she realises she can't come between us and dh and I are getting stronger.

Despite what a lot of people might say- mummy's boys CAN change- maybe not completely but enough to keep her at bay and make your life a lot happier.

OP I have difficult PILs and so I'm not one to defend a MIL, but I think what happens next could make or break your relationship with not just her but your DH and his side of the family forever.

I've cut my PILs and one BIL out of my life and in doing so I have cut them out of my sons life as well. It has made things very difficult at times with my DH and we have argued about it a lot, but I still feel it was the best decision.

I made it after ten years of feeling bullied and manipulated by them and to give you just a brief outline, DH has grown up being told that if he ever says no to his mother she will have a mental breakdown and it will be his fault. They used to manipulate the whole family to get their own way and if it didn't work MIL would cry and FIL would shout and they would get the four siblings involved in phoning each other and it would be ten, twenty, thirty calls a day all the same, crying, shouting, blaming each other for upsetting their mum. When we lost our babies MIL said some awful, unforgivable things to me and when I finally said I had to cut back on the time I spent with her, she and FIL effectively stalked me, following me when I walked down the street, writing to me, phoning me, telling lies about me to the rest of the family, trying to get into the house when they knew I would be out etc. I didn't just cut them out overnight, it took eight years for me to say I wanted to see less of them until they could behave like normal people and another year and a half to reach the point of never wanting to see them again and cutting all contact.

And doing so has been a relief to me but it hasn't come easy and I know it hurts DH. And it has caused some harm to our marriage that we are still working through and trying to heal.

So before you reach that point with yours, this is your opportunity to set the record straight and make things work with her. Your don't have to be vindictive but you do need your DH on your side, so I would say you need to have a talk with him where you tell him exactly how you felt when you heard his mother talking about you and he didn't defend you. It's not good enough that he told her after that he would be cleaning at the weekend, what he needed to do then and do from now on is to tell her not to speak about you like that and that the two of you will be deciding what is best for your baby.

If he can do that the next step is to talk to her and tell her the same. She's not to talk about you like that behind your back any more and that your house and your baby are your concern and you will be doing things your way and expect her to respect that.

The smoking and drinking sound like different issues and I do think they need to be addressed but if you raise them now on the back of this, without first addressing what you overheard on the phone, then she may be able to twist things to make it look like you are being vindictive against her. So again I would say that you need to talk to your DH first and make sure he understands these are separate issues you would have been concerned about anyway, even without overhearing her on the phone. Then I think he should be the one who discusses them with her so she can't blame you.

I hope it works out for you OP.

report me now that these bitching sessions have happened a lot. - This is whats been going through my mind all night, surely that cant of been the 1st conversation.

Yes ive had a moan about his mum before but truthfully only when i 1st got pregnant and found her coming across as if it was her who was having the baby, buying a moses basket and decorating a room in their house for when the baby stayed etc i just found too weird, of coursxe my own mum was like this also but i have the relationship where i can tell my own mother to calm it down a bit which i did and since then shes been brilliant, i told dp to say the same to his mum and i dont think he ever had the conversation with her so ive ended up saying thigs like please stop buying clothes, we have lots of newborn clothes in white as it is and really dont need anymore, please stop buying johnsons stuff for baby we have our own supply, please stop buying 2nd hand car seats from your neighbours we dont know the history.... its always me having to say politely please dont do this - maybe thats why she hates me, she sees me stopping all her fun of shopping for the baby, when i reality i just dont need all the stuff she is buying, dp suggested she saved the money into an accoun t then when we found out the sex we could go shopping together to buy stuff - as if thats going to happen now!.

It is as if he needs training to just be a son of theirs not their carer, even fil is a drinker but can handle his drink well, so im sure deep down he feels responsible for fil also, even down to wetting the babies head mil apparently told dp its not just men who do it nowadays its women aswell so shes invited herself along with all his friends, i told him its ridiculous that hes 35 and being dictated to by his mum still, if he doesnt want her to go (which he doesnt) then tell her so - just hope she doesnt think shes coming here to sit with me while theyre all out having a drink!

i do feel sorry for him stuck in the middle but hes done himself no favours by not standing up for me the way he should of, if it had been the other way round my mum wouldnt of even got the first sentence out!

Shake I'm not doubting the power of a MIL (or anyone else) to make trouble within a marriage/family. I am questioning speaking of adult who is presumably in full possesion of his faculties, as though he's a small child to be controlled and dictated to. I think if she starts doing that then she'll end up no better than the MIL!

I think novak has a point actually. You're on here saying cruel things about your mil, but she's in the wrong for bitching about you to your dh? You both seem as bad as each other, you lost the high ground when you started on the comments about her cigarettes and drinking. If you listen in at doors you'll hear negative things I'm afraid!

Please try to get your DH to look at the Al-Anon link. Children of alcoholics grow up being part child, part parent.

Vix hasn't been cruel at all - the MIL is the one who has complained viciously and has been caught at it. I would be concerned about any nb being held and looked after by a heavy drinker and smoker. And MIL has decorated a room for the nb so clearly envisages the baby staying over!

You don't ever want to leave your baby with her, she is an alcoholic and has no business looking after a baby

And what is it with bloody grandparents and their desperate need to take over and act like they are the parents?'

Everything you've said Vix, that's a given, he 'should' stick up for you more and your MIL sound like bitching about something, anything is just all in a day's work.

I think back to the times when MY mum has slagged off MY husband, whom I adore (I also love my mum) and I've used distraction techniques, rather than got involved in what could become an argument. I have never 'agreed' with her, but at times may not have defended my husband's honour as much as I 'should' have done because honestly, my mum's opinion about my husband doesn't matter so much. (I certainly would erupt if she ever slated him in front of me, but she never will, will she?).

SO. I'd say, take it easy on your Husband, don't become the other bitch in his life! Be his alley when together, but accept that if you ever overhear something as horrid again, and you're bothered that your DH hasn't turned into a Knight of Your Realm, then maybe its not because he believes his mother is right, but because he KNOWS his mother and how a conversation will go if he does (and hey, you're not there are you?) and for peace, he just lets her waffle on... because much as she is a bitch, he loves her.

I truly hope this has taught your MIL lessons she'll learn from (doubt it, she's probably just mortified she was caught out) but I suspect your DH will defend your honour when your honour is in the room, maybe you will be the one who makes him strong through your understanding (and by putting your foot firmly down a little more often) and maybe he does feel bad that he didn't throw caution to the wind and tell his mum to feck off. x

After all, he got your lamp of the auld witch.

yes aldiwhore your right, I do kind of get the impression from speaking to dp (not that hes actually admitted this) but that it wasn't the 1st conversation of its kind, he said something along the lines of once she starts going on its best to just ignore her, if i try to interrupt she just starts over again with a new point of view.

so i guess from that maybe that's what he was doing, just keeping quiet and trying to let her wind down of her own accord, still not heard from her though, i dont really want it to become a massive thing as i said weve been together for nearly 12 years and i get along with all his other family really well, so it would cause friction in a way, but at the same time i want them to see what shes like.

as for minding the baby, she hasn't got a chance in hell, but to be honest ive said this from the beginning nothing to do with this weekends events, shes a smoker and the drink is beyond a joke, as much as she thinks otherwise i just could not trust her to mind a baby and not have a drink or 10.

hannah spookily i did have a few twinges yesterday, went to bed and was brought my tea in bed and got a massage of dp too as i was in real agony, we were both petrified it was the start of it all, turned out to be trapped wind and today im absolutely fine !!