Ok, this is long. And goes back over a few years. It's all re surfacing now as we are having another baby in 2 weeks.
My MIL was awful when I had my first child 5 years ago. For the last 2 weeks I've been re living the first year of my DD's life and can't stop feeling massive anger towards my MIL. I repressed my feelings back then, thought it was me being unreasonable, and now I am so angry she took advantage when I was vulnerable. Completely manipulated me as I was trying to find my feet as a new mum.
Brief history is my DH and I had a baby 18 mths after meeting. We knew we were meant for each other the day we met, and DH proposed and asked me to move in within 3 months. I chose not to move in then (felt it was too soon) but did move in when I was 3 months pregnant. We remained engaged for a few years and married after our daughter was born.
DH has a big family, 5 siblings. 2 older sisters with no children/un married/early 40's. Our daughter is the first grandchild on both sides. In my family I lost my mum to mental illness at 16 and my dad died in my 20's. I have no siblings but am close with my large extended family.
My MIL's behaviour changed when I became pregnant. It began with inviting herself to our scans and assuming she would be in the delivery room. She came to the scans and sat holding DH's hand and didn't utter a word to me. I felt like rent a womb! She knew we didn't want to find out sex but pointed to screen saying "it's definitely a boy, I can see something!".
She was not taking no for an answer on being there at the birth and DH would not stand up to her. He won't stand up to his parents, and is deeply entrenched/conditioned to his family way of life (they all overstep boundaries massively). So we agreed he would not tell her when I went into labour and only call her after baby was born. She turned up at the hospitial immediately, crying, in a state, picked up my daughter from her cot without asking me and held her, weeping, ignoring me.
I went home that night. The next day MIL was over, and spent the next few weeks crying to everyone that I was 'keeping her away from her grandchild' because we said we only wanted visitors every other day. I had a very traumatic delivery and was damaged, bleeding and all sorts. I felt scared and threatened by my MIL, she talked about my baby as though she was the mother. My MIL still visited every single day for the first week and wanted to do bedtime every night.
Over the first weeks I had massive pressure from DH's sister and father to 'give baby to MIL'. She would never communicate with me directly, and always ignored me when I talked about baby's routine or how I was doing things. She is a mother of 5 and was insulted I would even dare to tell her about my way! She wanted sleep overs at her house, first bath, bedtime bottles almost every night, just way too much for me. She wanted a baby seat in her car - where was she going to take her?! She bought all the first clothes, literally everything down to nappies and nappy cream. She chose christening outfit and first birthday outfit. I let her do all this to keep the peace. She openly disliked the name we chose for DD and refused to pronounce it properly for a few weeks. It's a very easy name to pronounce.
After a couple of months I was pressured into letting MIL look after DD once a week for the day. I never felt liked by her or accepted by her and thought if I do this maybe she will like me and we can forge a relationship. She always told me repeatedly and very loudly that she loved me like her daughter but it was odd, I never felt she was genuine.
She completely ignored my wishes for DD's care on these days - I brought her food, she binned it and made something else. Non organic, never any vegetables and loads of salt. She co slept with DD against my express wishes at nap times, took her to visit/be passed around her friends and family without asking or even telling me until after the event. She refused to let me say goodbye to DD in the mornings, always pulling her away or walking into another room telling me to 'just go, it's ok'. In the evenings when I went to collect I was put under pressure to let DD stay the night and for me to come back in the morning. I did this once, and the next day they really pressured me into leaving DD for another night. I cried the whole of the second night but felt I couldn't say no. DH, his mum, dad and sisters were all telling me I should enjoy the break and let my poor MIL have some time with her GD.
After about a year I stopped the childcare arrangements, I finally got the courage up. I suffered huge fallouts with her family after this. SIL asking why I was taking DD away from MIL etc. MIL was distraught and cried for weeks. Even though she was still seeing DD 2-3 times a week, doing her baths, dinner time, bedtime story, bottle.
I hope you're still with me ... Almost there! An ongoing problem is that my MIL never ever says 'no' to my DD. My DD could hit her or say something rude, and she says 'that's ok darling!'. I have asked my MIL repeatedly not to do this but she ignores me. DD cottoned on to GM being a soft touch when she was about 18months, and always behaves badly as soon as we are in her presence. This means I have to be really strict and really discipline DD in front of my MIL. I hate doing this because my MIL takes this to mean I don't have a positive or close relationship with my daughter. She has said this to my SIL.
So in the end, all of this history has resulted in me feeling as though I didn't and still haven't bonded well with my DD. I was so stressed and upset by all the emotional blackmail from my MIL in the first year and it still lingers on today. I feel my MIL thinks she is closer to my DD than I am. My DD flocks to her which makes me feel worse. I know this is partly because MIL never says 'no', not even to 4 bags of crisps or 10 biscuits! DD is told it's 'their little secret' and not to tell mummy.
Now I have another baby on the way and feel anxious and scared about my MIL taking advantage again when I am vulnerable post birth. Every member of DH's family believe my MIL is the best mother/GM in the world. I feel she has manipulated me, knowing there are no maternal GP's around to challenge her. If I say no to her, she cries or goes all quiet and tearfully tells me she just wants to help and loves me like a daughter.
I can see clearly what she did when I had my DD now, and I feel so much anger towards her that I don't even want her to spend any time with my DD or even cuddle my new baby.
How do I get over this? Telling her is not an option. As I've said if she is refused she cries and tells me she loves me.
I'm sorry this is the longest opening thread ever. Felt I needed to write it all down for clarity.