To be furious that DH went behind my back...

[MrsSandraDee]

On Mother's Day? Weird title! I'm extremely new but was guided here by a friend.

BG: have dated my DH for 5 years, married two years later. My relationship with PIL was okay, went to family outings, saw them regularly and was friendly enough but when I had our first DC back in December MIL became particularly over bearing as the story goes.

Some examples I had asked that no one come to the hospital the first day so that I could recover from my C section and so that DH/I could bond with DC, and also for me to get the hang of BFing MIL completely ignored that and came up to the hospital straight after DC was born, I was in a private room so they rang ahead to ask if MrsSandraDee's DH's mother could come up. I told DH to tell her no, that she was already told no so he went to talk to her and eventually. Once we finally got home MIL wanted to come up that day, I said no I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep as DC had latch problems and I had hardly slept, a few minutes later I get a call from FIL saying that "We're going to come up and see DC." In my shocked and tired state I agreed and quickly hung up, when they came I admit I was childish and brought DC upstairs for a feed and a nap because I felt forced into the visit. So basically from that MIL has been stepping over boundaries for me, calling herself mommy and FIL daddy, not respecting my parenting choices and basically saying she'll do what she wants with DC, posting pictures on Facebook without asking and labelling DC as hers, coming to the house without calling ahead and staying for hours on end, assuming she'll be babysitting and crying/running to DH/FIL when I've told her she won't be. Demanding I express so she can have alone time with DC, crying to DH that I'm keeping her away from DC, that I'm an evil bitch ect DH is completely useless as he's a mommys boy. So we see them once a week which is more than enough for me and I think is fair since DH never saw his grandparents every week.

So as you can see bad blood and something's are just petty and yes I understand grandparents being excited but I really don't trust PILs now so when my first Mother's Day rolled around with DC I thought it was sweet that DH let me sleep in and had presents and such. Later on Facebook MIL had posted a photo with DH, BIL and DC gushing about how great her Mother's Day was with the "3 most important men in her life her sons"...I was furious and confronted DH, who for a good hour lied to me about bringing DC to MIL while I was sleeping before finally admitting he had. I'm gutted because it was my first Mother's Day with DC even with DC being a baby it felt special to me and the other fact that DH knew after everything that has went on with his parents still went behind my back to make her happy.

Completely ready to be told I'm BU and precious but I'd still like to know the majority

You and your MIL both sound controlling. She's calling your DS son? You're annoyed that your DH took his DS to visit her at a point where it didn't affect you one jot? One of you really needs to let up or your poor DH will lose it.

I hate to say it because I cannot stand my own MIL, however, I think that if you had just let her see the baby from the offset, the majority of the problems you now face wouldn't exist. It clearly got her back up.

I think you anticipate problems before they arise.

However, she is overstepping. The formula thing was particularly unpleasant - even if you had been ff it could have been the wrong brand, but it does seem she is trying to deny/usurp your mother status.

DH can't see it because you react in the same way to lots of things. He lies/hides the truth because he thinks you overreact. He can't distinguish the real issues from when you're just feeling a bit insecure.

As pps said, pick your battles. Stupid labels on FB? Grumble in private. Encouraging DC to lie to you? Unacceptable, so you say so.

Once a week may not feel like much to PIL but is pretty frequent contact in my world. MIL can be told that she is overwhelming/upsetting you, but if she could calm down (especially mouthing off to DH) then she might see more of you and therefore DC.

I get where you are coming from. My own MIL referred to me as 'an incubator' repeatedly throughout my first pregnancy (although of course this was supposed to be a joke ). She also constantly called DC1 'my baby' etc. In fact I woke up from my EMCS to find my MIL in the delivery room holding my baby which is something I cannot forgive her for. As a result of her behaviour I distanced myself from her and FIL somewhat.

It changed though for me and DH when we announced my second pregnancy. SIL was pg with her first at the time and the reaction we got when we broke the news about ours was 'oh well, we knew that' (they really couldn't have). This was the beginning of their current pattern of behaviour whereby they don't give a shit about our DC as they have BIL and SIL's DC to be surrogate parents to.

So in a nutshell, I can see why you are annoyed with their behaviour regarding your DC's birth and how they have acted after. YAB(a bit)U though with the Mothers Day thing as like pp's have pointed out, you were asleep anyway so it didn't impact you in any way. I think they put your back up with their attitude and you are possibly trying to punish them for this a little by showing them who is boss and keeping your DC away from them (as you can see from my experience, I empathise with this). I would suggest to try and look at each incident for want of a better word, objectively and try not to judge them repeatedly on past behaviour. Also, pick your battles. DH taking DC to visit them? Not really a big deal. If MIL tries bottle feeding your DC against your wishes? Go nuclear.

Erm. Ill have your MIL. She was super excited to see her grandchild post delivery but you kept her away and on pins as it wasnt convenient. Yes, the baby is yours but she's also part of a larger family network. Dont deny your child that.

My grandmother - whom I adored - used to call me 'her baby'. She loved me so much she could have burst. I have so many happy memories of times spent with her.

My mum is similar to my children as my grandmother was to me. She loves looking after my children (which Im thankful for).

I hope in years to come your dd wont blank you on mothers day....

In terms of this all, I know I can be controlling and I admit this but not to this extent. The things that set me off we're all that was said above, not respecting parenting choices, insulting my feeding choices, demanding I express ect. In hospital I was weak and tired and wanted time with our new DC and didn't feel under obligation as I don't think any new mother should be forced into vists even if it isn't for them.

Yes I did not want visitors after birth, I was kept in for 5 days after my section for monitoring after a blood transfusion during the operation, infection and clotting. But PIL got to visit every single day after that, I didn't think one day would be so bad to wait.

PILs have got to see DC once a week since he was born for a full day not just a few hours incase anyone thinks so. It's the forced visits and demanding sleepovers when I don't need or want them for my 4 month old that got me annoyed, it was constant even when I had said no thank you.

Yes Mother's Day was an overreaction but in my terms was the principle, I suppose I see Mother's Day as for mother and child not grand child. I was not stopping DH from seeing his mother now was I stopping DC, it was just this one day. And so what if I got to sleep in? DH didn't wake me that morning and doesn't help with night feeds so yes I was exhausted

Op, why did your friend guide you here? You clearly think you are being reasonable. What did she think you would get from it?

And yes I think expecting pils wait until their grandchild is a week old before meeting is unreasonable.

Your expectations of mothers day are not your Dhs.

I think mil is being unreasonable too, but I can see why she thinks you are pushing her out.

She, where exactly are you getting a week old? I asked them to wait until the day after DC'd birth, not the next week.

I totally understand.
Your mil sounds very much like mine, she wanted to see Dd as much as possible, which was fine, but it made me uncomfortable that she wanted that time without me there.
As the months went on I think I figured out what was going on, I'm sure she was playing 'mummy' to her, she'd ALWAYS change her clothes, pretending she'd been sick / nappy had leaked etc, I think she just liked dressing her up.
When dd got older I'm sure she called her 'mummy'. Yeh babies say things wrong but just something didn't seem right.
She'd always ignore my requests. I'd take home made baby food for her and she'd feed her a jar of baby food instead...I didn't want her eating jars. She fed her cheap sausages at about 7 months old! I'd never even given her meat and there she was feeding her absolute shite! I wanted to cry.
There were so many times when she'd undermind me and it really knocked my confidence, especially in the early days, i'd even go as far to say she contributed to me having PND.
I lost count of the number of times I told DH he needed to speak to his mum about the way she is with her, he never did.
Things came to a head when I asked her not to do something with DD and she refused to grant my wishes.
Now as a result she doesn't see her as often, I never leave her with her, she sees her most weeks but only when we just visit them. I feel much more confident now that I've not got another woman standing on my toes all the time and I'm much happier.
If we ever have another baby I'll be much more firm from the word go.
Sometimes I feel a bit guilty that she doesn't see her grandaughter as much but I think it's her own fault for disrespecting me as her mother and DH's fault for not having a back bone and speaking to his mother about how much she was upsetting his wife.

I don't think your DH was being unreasonable to take your DS to see his mum but I do think he was being very unreasonable to lie about it.

I don't think anyone's saying you shouldn't have a lie in!!! The U bit is being 'furious' about your DH taking your DC to see him own mum on mothers day while you were enjoying your sleep. This is a perfectly normal thing to do in a family. Many mothers of young children (me) find themselves cooking meals for their MILs on mothers day, and it only mildly pisses me off! What is your own family situation like?

Unless dysfunctional or toxic, extended families can be a massively enriching thing for DCs. I love to hear my DCs talk about their families, they feel so loved by their grandparents and cousins etc and its worth biting my tongue and going along with plans with which I don't always agree with, to make this happen.

Only you know what's really going on here but if there's anything to make life easier for yourself, your DH and you DCs it can only benefit you all. Ofcourse that depends on the degree of actual aggravation.

You don't have a MIL problem, you have a DH problem.

This with knobs on.

do any GPs really call themselves mummy and daddy to their DGC??

she sounds very overbearing but you don't sound the most cooperative, compromising person either.

Surely on mothers day you do something nice for your mother. Like visiting with a beloved grandchild? It's what I do to distract her from the cheap flowers and card

YABabitU about the Mother's Day thing (though not about the lying) but YANBU at all about your MIL, she sounds incredibly draining. There's a difference between "being an involved, loving grandparent" (which my parents and PIL are) and "trying to muscle in on parental decision making/parental role" and it sounds like she's well over that line - bringing formula when you're BF, copious uninvited visits, demands to take a 4 month old overnight (there is not a chance in hell I'd have let my BF 4 month old stay with anyone else overnight, not least because of the amount of time I'd have had to spend attached to a breastpump), the weird "I'm his mother" thing... Your child is not hers, nor is he/she some kind of toy that she has to "get a go of". Also I had serious pregnancy/birth complications with DS2 and damn right I had minimal visiting. My parents and PIL understood completely.

Agree that you need to pick your battles, though, and it would be unfortunate if you couldn't come to some kind of compromise where DC still has your grandparents in his/her life. And yes, your DH needs to stop capitulating to his mother all the time. He is the child's father, yes, but his mother isn't the child's other parent and they won't be raising DC as some kind of weird incestuous couple.

I wouldn't have a problem personally with my DH and DC visiting his mother.

I would have a huge problem with him lying about it, pretending to give me a lie in and then sneaking around there.
Now both parties may be at fault, but DH needs to at least admit his fault and agree not to lie like this again.

Your poor dh....he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. I think you have built all this up to be something far bigger than it needed to be, and now it's got to the stage where you are just seeing wrong in everything your mil does. And your dh is stuck in the middle.

In all honesty when I came to Mother's Day protocol I thought that's what you do, see your child which is what I wanted. I know now I'm BU about it but lady and mummy you've hit the nail one the head for me where it was more since MIL started doing these things the resentment has built up to the point where I don't know how exactly to get rid of it or handle it and then the pretend gesture of kindness (lie in) and then sneaking around made everything blow up and seem worse than it is.

So....I really don't know what to do, like candy I feel like MIL really is trying to shove her way into the parenting role which really is making me recent being around her when she's near my DC but I also know it's terribly had did DH to be in this position

Yanbu

its really hard. once someone winds you up you cant stop feeling het up every single time. we have similar tensions in our family. MIL insisted in staying at ours when DC was first born even though i expressly forbade it. but some people just keep pushing and pushing.

dont know if this helps at all but here is my coping strategy. 1: count to about five hundred. 2: she;s not doing it to wind you up she's just insensitive and nothing you do is going to change that. 3: if you keep getting wound up (whilst totally understanding why you would), its gonna get worse not better. so you have to find some way of rubbing along that doesnt put your DH in the middle. he might have been being a bit of an idiot on mothers day but Im sure he didnt mean to - hes probably feeling the pressure from everywhere.

maybe you should take her out with baby and no husband? she might respond to you extending a bit of an olive branch. you might need to borrow DC's teether to bite on if she puts her foot in it. xx

I am a pretty lone voice here , but I would be terribly upset if, on my first ever Mother's Day, my DH let me sleep in and took our four-month-old DC to my MILs or my mothers without telling me -- and then lied about it afterwards.

Your first Mother's Day is one of those moments, isn't it? It is the only "first Mother's Day" you will ever have. I kinda understand why op wanted that ideal first Mother's Day morning of sleeping in, family intimacy, bonding and being a "mum" for the first time on the day that is all about mums, and why her DH taking DC to PIL subverts that.

More than that, it is the eternal problem of parents and parents-in-law forgetting that the birth of a grandchild is not just an event in their lives, but also primarily an event that takes place and is situated in their childrens' lives.

How you adjust those expectations without people getting upset, I do not know.

You MIL sounds extremely possessive and controlling and it is obviously very wrong of her to act as if you DC is hers. Having said that you also sound quite controlling and possessive as you seem to think that your child is only yours and not your DH's as well. I can see why you wouldn't have wanted him to go to his mothers with your child on Mother's day but considering you were asleep and he is your babies parent too, he had every right to.

babies baby's parent

YABU - and seem to have got entrenched in certain unhelpful patterns of behaviour & leading to DH covering up visiting his mother on mothers day with his son

You both sound difficult. Mothers Day was weeks ago, I think it's time to get over it and move on.

(Ten years on I have no idea what I did on my first Mothers Day)