I almost definitely ABU! Help me fix it, please.

[TeaAndANatter]

MiL related. She's genuinely a really thoughtful, kind, family orientated person. She puts her children first, loves my children (her DCs), and is generous and friendly to me. She's also a bit passive aggressive, and has a history of turning up when asked not to (births etc), and booking into hotels near us saying that 'we don't need to see her', which we then feel obliged to, and end up seeing her for a week at a time at times that we were clear aren't suitable. She cries and gets very upset if we don't do what she wants, and I feel really manipulated (she's a wee bit better in that specific direction these last couple of years, but with another baby on the way I worry it'll ramp up again). DH is a bit stuck in the middle, but has got better at putting in boundaries with her.

There's a lot of boring water under the bridge of about 20 things she's done that make me fume (I'm sure I make her pissy too at times), but the crux of it is that I feel I'm being unreasonably hostile (by being super polite but totally emotionally closed to her in a really mean minded way), and I can't seem to stop. I'm a grown adult and I ought to be able to control my behaviour better, and I want to deal with this relationship better, but when she does one more (usually very smallish) irritating passive aggressive thing, it makes me see red to a totally unreasonable level. I tried talking to her about our relationship twice over the years, but she just nods and smiles, and says 'anything you like dear', then goes and does whatever she wanted to do anyway. It takes almost nothing to trigger me to feeling anger at her now. I'm due to give birth again this week, and I'm losing sleep thinking of all the annoying things she'll probably do that will make me weep with impotence. I'm blowing it out of all proportion, but it feel really important to me that I've felt so out of control with her over the years.

I think, writing this, I see the answer is probably to go get a bit of therapy to talk this through, but I wondered if anyone had any advice to help me fume less and cope better when I see the PiL later this month. I don't say anything nasty, I don't lose my temper out loud or do anything really, but I'm totally un-giving to her in particular, and just go through a charade of welcoming her whilst thinking nasty thoughts about how angry I am at her over the years. It's clear that i don't want them there, which is very very small of me. It makes me feel like a super bitch, when she is (despite being bloody annoying) a genuinely quite nice person.

Any advice very gratefully received.

You're a bit hard on yourself for someone who's 40 weeks pregnant.

I imagine you're feeling extra sensitive just now.

What's often recommended is either (a) take her at face value, if you can get DH on board and/or (b) play MIL bingo: have in your head a scorecard with "whatever you like" and martyred sigh and so on, then you're amused rather than infuriated when you check one off.

I think counselling would be helpful if/when you get a chance.

With new baby, set out your stall early. It's perfectly reasonable to refuse to leave the house for a week to rest and recover, establish bfing, etc. If she wants to drop in, fine, but if you're asleep or feeding then you need to be in bed. Presumably DH will be around to make her a cup of tea?

Is she a genuinely nice person though if she's manipulating situations? It's her decision to be like this. Your reaction is understandable and you sound very tolerant tbh. You can't help your internal thoughts and you don't sound comfortable having them, but don't be too hard on yourself.

Totally hear you. Whenever I get angry I think
She is doing this because she feels very sad that she doesn't see her grandchild enough
She is doing this because she feels insecure about x y z
This is about her and not you
I take a walk or leave the room or find some peaceful time to step away from the situation.
Oh - and I drink a lot of wine. (Once you can).

Thanks Countess. I get the point about the 40 weeks, but I've been fuming about her for 10 years rather than just this week, I'm afraid!

Bingo is a great idea, thanks - we did it this Christmas with my parents, and it helped a bit to have a wry smirk about it.

I think she'll give me the week (I hope), but I'm getting my knickers in a twist because last time I asked her to not book a hotel for when I was due, and she did anyway and was at my house from 9am til 7pm every day for a week. I felt really shy establishing feeding in front of my PiL, and got upset that I felt 'exiled' to my bedroom if I didn't want to feel gawped at. My DH and I are better, I think, at establishing boundaries since then, it's just that I keep holding on to it like a well-loved grudge, and I need to let some of this stuff go so that I don't build it all up in my head until she's Beelzebub's own slippery MiL. I want the first visit to be okay, and not like this epic, built up, huge event that I'm making it.

I've imagined at least ten, slightly over-imagined, awful scenarios that I think about 'what if she does this', 'what if she won't hand the baby back as soon as I need it', 'what if my FiL makes some comment about how controlling I am about the baby' (none of which has actually happened!)

Hidden, she honestly is mostly nice. She's a bit controlling and passive aggressive, but not an awful lot more than the amount of bad traits that anyone had. It just irks me more than everyone else because the rest of the family are related to her, and I'm not (IYSWIM).

She's done a few controlling things, but more out of not having a different skill set to get what she felt she really needed by a better way (like needing to see her newborn GC, needing to see her son - it's really important to her).

I'm honestly not tolerant. I'm super civil polite, and make everyone aware that I'm not happy they're there - that's pretty passive aggressive too! And I imagine her head on a stick. Ha!

Thanks wish, I think her insecurity (about being first in her family) is clashing with my insecurity (about my needing to be first with my DH). Good point.

This might sound a bit daft but one way I've found of tricking myself into liking people is by doing something nice for them. For example a colleague at work drove me insane (not altogether her fault but she used this really annoying fake voice and was a bit lazy) I organised her birthday gift from work and ended up feeling better about her. Could you do something for your MIL? Sorry to sound a bit Pollyannaesque

You could be describing my relationship with my mother! I cannot emotionally connect to her because I can't let go of the anger I feel about things that happened years ago because she will not admit what really happened (and we're talking years of behaviour, not just one incident) and her treatment of me which continues to be different to how she treats my siblings. I feel mean, childish and spiteful; but I can't change the pattern of behaviour I have fallen into :(

The only way I can deal with her nicely is to make the focus of any contact about my kids e.g. day out for them somewhere or make sure my DSis is there too as she gets along with my mother fine and I deal better with her when others are around :)

I'm sure I am storing up years of guilt for myself when she dies because I think I behave like the bitch-daughter from hell at times by being so snitty, but I can't stop myself from punishing her in this way. At least I know who I learned to be passive aggressive from!!

its a bit late for you now but I made it clear to dp that I didn't want people knowing my induction date and once dd was born I was really funny about visiting. We were in hospital for a fortnight and it was full on. A 3 hourly routine and a baby that tired easily.
BUT, there's nothing to say that you need to let her know as soon as the baby is born, and be strict about visits. if she stays till 7pm then don't let her in until 5pm.
visitors are disruptive to your routine and will wear put any baby. I'd play on that a bit and get stroppy!

OP I actually feel really angry on your behalf. My (almost) MiL is very similar to yours and basically the way I deal with it is not to! She is DP's mother and he has to deal with it. If his mother is over stepping the mark he has to tell her and he has to put the boundaries in place. He has chosen me and our DD as his family and we are the priority - and this is right.

I think you need to get your DH to tell his mother very clearly that some things (like the hotel booking for a week) are not acceptable and if she chooses to do this then she will be visiting your town but not you for a week.

Someone who cries to get their own way, who uses passive - aggression to manipulate others is NOT a nice person. Sorry. There isn't room to put up with this crap and she needs to know that if she continues with this approach she will see far less of her GC than she ever would if she worked with you and respected boundaries.

We have been through this recently with the PiL and DP has been really good by telling them clearly when they can come and visit and for how long. (Before this they were expecting to stay at ours as a free mini break every three weeks without contributing so much as a packet of tea bags!). I don't think they are happy with having their time limited but it's either this or no contact.

If MiL's presence is causing you stress and worry when you are about to give birth then she needs to back off and then be around only on your terms.

BTW I don't think you are a bitch. Instead you have been putting up with a load of selfish, crappy behaviour from PILs who think of only themselves. Don't judge yourself harshly - I think you have been a saint not to throw something at their heads!

(I won't tell you about the awful things I fantasise happening to my ILs!)

I've imagined at least ten, slightly over-imagined, awful scenarios that I think about 'what if she does this', 'what if she won't hand the baby back as soon as I need it', 'what if my FiL makes some comment about how controlling I am about the baby' (none of which has actually happened!)

I do this. Exactly this. I find it helps to nip it in the bud pretty sharpish whenever I catch myself having an imaginary argument. It does my mood a world of good if I don't indulge in this behaviour!

I do sympathise though as it is very hard work.

By the way, I used to have this sort of relationship with my mother (no longer with us, I didn't manage to resolve it or anything).....

This is how I imagine my future. I'm not pregnant (no DCs yet) and haven't been married for as long as you, but MIL really upset me in the run up to our wedding and definitely revealed a different side of her to the one I knew. On the surface she's pleasant, generous, etc, but actually she manipulates her whole family to get what she wants - including crying to get her own way.

I know it's because she's insecure and I know she worries too much about keeping up with the Joneses, but some of my worst fears about parenthood involve her. I'm glad I've had a taste of her behaviour before ttc because DH and I have had chance to discuss how we deal with her before anything child-related comes up.

There's nothing wrong with the hypothetical scenarios you describe - if your MIL has form, there's nothing wrong with having a think about how you'll cope with potential future situations. I do the same. Just try not to let them consume you completely. You definitely don't sound out of control. Quite the opposite.

I don't have much advice for you (other than waiting a while before letting her know you've had the baby) but I know I find it easier to let DH deal with my MIL and stay out of it as much as I can. You say your DH has got better with putting boundaries in place for her and that's great - just keep working with him to get better and better and making sure she knows what they are and doesn't overstep them.

Thanks everyone for the ideas.

There's not a way to not let her know about the baby, as it would be really important to DH to tell her as soon as it's born (and I really don't want to dim his joy at telling her - he'll be so excited, and it's totally fair enough I reckon), and alas we're planning to have it at home all being well, so there's not the visiting hours thing, but we will be much clearer about the 'when you come to visit' thing. I'll speak again to DH about when he calls her, making it clear that we'd love to see them for two days in a week's time. It just feels so rude to invite someone to visit and to put such firm boundaries round it - it sounds (in my head) super unwelcoming.

When they come, it's too hard to put in a 'you're visiting me for 3 hours max per day' thing, as they just stay all day, so it's easier to limit the days instead.

I'll try the cutting down on the imagining scenarios if I can (thanks), as it just adds to me fuming about her, for stuff she hasn't even done yet.

I'd just like to find a way to be calmer and more generous in the time that they are around, rather than being snitty (great word, by the way - totally describes how I feel I behave with them!), rather than chilly and stand offish. I just feel that if I give her an inch, she'll run all over us, but I don't want to keep feeling such a total killjoy to my DH.

But don't you think it's also rude to impose yourself on a new mother and her few-days-old baby for as long as you want? If I can understand your POV, why can't she? You wouldn't have to impose rules if she popped in for a couple of hours and then left. But she doesn't. Don't you think that's also the reason that you can't be nicer when they come to see you? Because it's always on their terms and you're just counting down the time until they leave?

Do you think DH will find it easier to stand up to her when the baby is here and you're screaming at asking him to give it a few more days before suggesting they pop round? Why do you have to agree a time to visit the moment he tells her the news? Can't you give it a few more days and tell her you'll play it by ear? That you need some rest and recuperation time first?

OP, I think you're being massively harsh on yourself.

I have a difficult relationship with a very similar-sounding MIL. She is a lovely person, and genuinely means well, but she does insist on having her own way. It's not that the boundaries she crosses are huge, but it's that I know it's going to happen and I feel manipulated and pushed around. I get anxious, upset and angry about the idea that I will be pushed into doing something I really don't want to do, because essentially I don't feel treated like a person by her. I am super nice and polite to her, and I never draw lines, which is part of the problem. She treats me as a child - much as your MIL is doing to you - and I feel completely discounted as an adult human being with a voice and a position. It can even feel humiliating at times.

My BIL does a much better job of dealing with her, and I am trying to emulate him. He doesn't sweat the small stuff: he just lets it go. For example, the PIL insist on saving up all kinds of crap to give us that we don't want - he just says 'Take it, and then bin it when you get home', and it's honestly a lot more effective than trying to explain why we don't want it. But if he's tired, or in need of space, he'll just say (pleasantly) 'God, I really need a lie down - I think I might have a snooze'... and he's off. Being open and honest actually prevents there being a conflict. I am trying to be more like this: to let the small stuff go, but to draw a line very honestly and in a non-hostile way about what I can't do.

On the staying at hotels thing to force you to obey her routine - I would honestly call her bluff on that one. When she next does it, don't see her.

Oh - and as for visiting times, PIL used to come and land on us for 5 days at a time. I made it clear to DH that I couldn't cope with this, and that there would likely be a homicide if they insisted and they now come for 3 days.

I feel very similar about my MiL, who exhibits all the same traits that you have described. If you cut her open she'd have "She means well" running through her like a stick of rock. Sadly her well-meaning actions are often teeth-grindingly jarring. I find it like a drip, drip erosion of my sanity.

I also realise that I find it hard to put myself into a less hostile frame of mind around her. The best I seem to be able to achieve is a politely distanced manner that I suspect comes across as frosty and judgmental. I now know that she had a terrible childhood and that experience goes a long way to explaining her insatiable need for affection and inability to respect boundaries. However, her immediate family (inc my DH and kids) are bound to her by blood and affection which seems to help their tolerance levels, whereas I am not.

I have a Mum and its not her. I resent her need to enfold me as another daughter and have all the access to me and mine that she assumes goes with that.

My tactics are:

• thinking of her as the DDs' Granny or DH's Mum. I try not to think of the relationship she has to me - our views of what that should be are so widely apart that they can never be reconciled and it just winds me up.
• remembering the crap childhood she had and trying to see her behaviours in that context
• going to my own far-away-safe-place in my head when things get bad - or hide behind the paper
• going out for a run or for a nap if it all gets too much!

Good luck!

I agree with xenadog. You are the nice one, (brong far too nice) I'm sorry, but invited yourself when you've been asked not to, disregarding your wishes, crying to manipulate getting your own way, being PA- that is not the behaviour of a nice person. She may have other redeeming traits but she is not a 'genuinely nice person'.

You need to toughen up if your DH won't. You do not HAVE to answer the door and let anyone into your house, whoever they are. It's not about MIL, FIL, DH or You really, it's about the baby, and establishing bf is difficult, so if her being there screws it up, then don't let her. Anyone who stays in the house all day in that way where there is a new baby is a bit rude IMO.

It is not rude to have limits on visitors, it is perfectly normal, and I would do the same with anyone who didn't live with us, whether that's MIL, DM, Dsis or whoever (with the exception of my DSS!)

MILs are so hard. Our own mothers do things the way we do them as we learnt from them or we're pretty comfortable telling them what we think.

However you clearly have older DC (s?) now. Would she be useful with them? Taking them to the park, reading stories etc? This is where her real usefulness could come in. I have a jaw clenching relationship with my step MIL but when they come in the holidays, even I've got to admit it's pretty useful.

Sorry! Too many usefuls in that post...

OP you sound like you have my MiL! Although I'm not sure I would call her a genuinely nice person under all the emotional manipulation and passive aggression....

You sounds really lovely and not a bitch at all! You seem to deal with it much better than I do (so I'm lurking for ideas!).

I'm also due dc2 in a couple of months. PIL have already been demanding, tried to be controlling and generally stressful. Our situation is complicated as I will be staying with my mum while I have the baby (complicated house/living issue). I don't want to, I'd rather be in my own home but it's our only option and my mum is being very generous in letting us (me, dd and dh) stay.

This has caused massive issues with my MiL who now wants us to 'make up' the time spent with my mum over the next few years, So is expecting every holiday in the future to be spent with them! She doesn't seem to get that my mum is in her 70s and ten years older than MiL and I am not spending all my holidays and special times with mil just because I am going to be living with my mum for a few months. It's so weird! She has cried over the phone, sent whiney emails to dh and also has started her old trick of phoning up with every ailment and illness to make sure dh knows how ill she is and that she thinks it's all very serious..... She is seriously messed up.

Is you dh on your side? All I can suggest is it helps when he is. My dh has taken several years to see what his mum is like and he does support me. Although he does also feel guilty and worries about her because of all the stuff she tells him. We have set boundaries this time and I am not having her ruin the first few days of us having this child like she did with my dd. it was truly horrible.

Good luck and be strong! And also, drink lots of ! This will be my coping strategy when this baby arrives I feel!

Hi Tea, I am generally more of a lurker than a poster but your MIL sounds so like mine I had to offer my support!

YABU and I also struggle - I genuinely want to have a good relationship with my MIL and respect that she is my DH's mum and my DCs' Gran but I can't bear the constant manipulation and guilt tripping. My MIL's favourite trick is to make lots of little changes to arrangements that I feel U to refuse but add up to make the visit something I wouldn't have agreed to eg we agree to them visiting for Sat & Sun, then Fri night is added, then Sun night, then another weekend we had talked about as an alternative comes back as an addition... It drives me barmy! I also suffer with the rages about hypothetical situations.

I don't really know how to handle it and I would be very interested in suggestions. I try for boundaries and my DH is quite good but her crying fits are exhausting and upset DH so we do frequently give in...

That should obviously say YANBU!!