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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU about PIL visits

86 replies

MuniK · 15/05/2016 16:19

Sorry about the long post, but i think a bit of background is needed. I have a 12 week of ds. My dp is French and his parents live in France (they are divorced). When ds was born MIL came over to help out, I had an emergency C-section and i was in a lot of pain for the first 4 weeks. My relationship with her was quite nice before i got pregnant, but since i got pregnant she became very obsessive and wanted to know all the details which i found very intrusive. She also suffers from anxiety, is very insecure about herself and very awkward socially eg would not even talk during dinner/mealtimes etc. She stayed for the first 7 weeks with us after ds was born, during this time i felt really undermined and judged by her eg each time baby was crying she made me feel it was my fault by making lot of snide remarks, eventually it led to a big outburst towards the end of her stay. So our relationship is very poor at the moment and I feel extremely disturbed about the little outburst we had. My relationship with my FIL is much better he is pretty relaxed and easygoing i enjoy spending time with him, however he is also very obsessive about our ds. I understand they want to be part of our ds life as he is their first grandchild and since my dp is an only child there is additional pressure/obsessiveness.
I am from a different culture too and my parents live abroad too. They have not visited us so far and are not planning to visit us anytime soon due to personal reasons.
The reason i am posting is that my dp would like his parents to visit us every month and stay with us over a long weekend, since they are divorced they would visit separately, so we will one person coming at a time each month. I do not like this arrangement 1) because of the episode i had with my MIL i still quite disturbed and upset with her i cannot imagine seeing her anytime soon but i dont want dp to be sad so i am ready to compromise 2) i really find my PILs presence overbearing i feel suffocated by there presence as they do not respect my presence, ever since ds is born they just completely ignore my presence and just want to spend time with ds 3)I would not mind having them more around but since ds was born they have become extremely obsessive about him and i find it quite unhealthy and intrusive.
So i suggested my dp that they can visit us for a long weekend a month at a time and then give 2 months break in between were none of them visit us. AIBU to ask this?

OP posts:
NonnoMum · 15/05/2016 18:08

interesting article

There is no right answer. You are experiencing a culture clash. You are getting a lot of replies from (the mainly British?) posters who say your needs come first.
Perhaps on another site (with a different cultural bias) other posters might be more supportive of your MiL.
However, it's for you and your DH to thrash out and to try to find some compromise.
Good luck and congratulations on the new grandchild new baby!

Gide · 15/05/2016 18:09

I would hate the constant intrusion. French people can be overbearing and controlling and don't understand the British subtleties and cues - expecting to do things together. They also have a more hierarchial parent/child relationship in a lot of cases. And the sons - oh very important. DH is French - so I speak from experience and some of the rituals drive me insane.

Oh Bugger off with your racist stereotypes. I speak from experience too and what you've said about the French being overbearing and controlling is simply ridiculous.

OP, I can't believe she stayed 7 weeks, I'd have killed her by then! That's far too intrusive. Helping is fine, asking intrusive questions is bang out of order. Coming once a month each is over the top. As your DC gets older, he is going to be out at parties and you won't want to be restricted to seeing grandparents and organising your weekends around their visits.

I think the issue is your DP more than a PIL's problem. I can't believe he phones his DF every night. Bonkers. Skype, as mentioned, is a marvellous thing. Don't be bullied into allowing this, you'll have this life forever more.

gabbyevs · 15/05/2016 18:27

missing their devleopment? theres alway skype

Janecc · 15/05/2016 19:25

[Gide]. I speak as I find having lived in France for a number of years and just taking one post and describing me as racist is ridiculous. A lot of Dhs family is pushy and I find the French in general more forthright. Im sorry if what you read into what I said as offensive. This once again turns into silliness because a tone of voice couldn't be heard.

Op Skype sounds like an excellent idea.

MuniK · 16/05/2016 04:17

Thank you everyone for all your replies, I feel much better after realising that i am not being unreasonable and majority of people would feel the same way as i do. My dp keeps making me feel guilty about not seeing his family enough. We had another long discussion last evening regarding his parents visits/behaviour/expectations. He was very unhappy that i dont want to see his parents every month and obviously did not like my suggestions. He suggested his parents could just fly over for a day and then leave the next day. He just does not seem to understand what problem i can have with that and then tries to emotionally blackmail me by saying they might not live long enough to see our ds grow, btw they are early 60s and very healthy. Another important thing is that his parents fail to distinguish that our ds is a different person from their son, it really feels like they just want to replicate how they raised my dp and my dp wants to do that too.
Janecc I dont know about French people in general but really find dp's family overtly pushy. Since leaving US we have literally spent 5 months at his fathers house last year. It was meant to be like this, we planned on going travelling after leaving our stressful jobs in US and also started TTC. We thought it usually takes some time to conceive, fortunately and surprisingly it worked the very first time. I then ended up with HG from week 5 to 22 roughly, lost 5 kgs from regular vomiting. Had nausea for all my pregnancy including two emergency hospitalisations. We moved to the UK end of last september, since then his father has visited twice before baby arrived. one short stay (3 days) and one very long stay over Xmas (10 days) and his mum also visited twice two long stays(10 and 7 days). They wanted to visit more right before baby's arrival, my dp kept insisting that i need help in the last trimester and his mum is happy to help. I was fine and really dint need any help, but it was and is still a constant struggle to convince him to limit his parents visits.
I just find these constant discussions about his family's visits/behaviour extremely draining, all the free time we ever get since our ds's arrival gets spent on discussing his family. I just feel i get bullied more by my dp regarding his parents because i come from a culture were living with in laws is a norm and he never fails to bring it up each time we are discussing his parents. He also keeps citing examples of my friends who are happily living with their PILs. Obviously i dint envision that lifestyle, partly one of the reasons for not being with someone from my culture. I just feel very emotionally weak right now and also very frustrated, instead of enjoying my time with our lovely ds i am stuck with this PIL issues which feels like a constant nagging headache which never goes away.
I would really appreciate any help/advices on dealing with the emotional side of things.

OP posts:
Janecc · 16/05/2016 06:05

You sound cosmopolitan, well travelled and not the sort of person to follow a living with in laws style family tradition. I thought you were from the US from your posts but Americans don't seem to have a massive parental bond (from what I see on the tv). It looks like he's perhaps made some kind of assumption based on your culture. He's also possibly using every trick up his sleeve to illustrate how unreasonable you are being I imagine as well. You sound like you had a really rough ride. I would have hated anyone around me as I got to full term. If my DH were like yours, I, too, would have "needed" help in the last 8 weeks. All I wanted to do at this stage was nest - I came back to England from Belgium 7 months pregnant, struggling to walk, having been abroad almost 10 years. So I can relate to the moving around and wanting to settle and have time with the baby. I'm sure my mother would be like your in laws given half the chance but I don't want her around constantly. She's very narcissistic. Did you ever discuss his parents role in your baby's life beforehand?

MidniteScribbler · 16/05/2016 06:06

Three or four times a year is plenty of time for contact.

I think this is a pretty sad attitude actually. I had a lot of contact with my grandmothers growing up, and the relationship I had with them was very special to me. They attended school events (often in place of my parents who were working) and I was able to grow up with them considered to be part of my life. I really can't understand the attitude of some on here that a visit a couple of times of year is more than enough with a grandchild.

OP, I don't think a visit with a grandparent a month (although it is really once every two months per in-law, so only six visits each per year) is too much at all. I do think that asking them to stay in a local hotel or B&B is reasonable as hosting guests can be time consuming (and expensive), especially on a regular basis. Perhaps when your DS is a little older, you might actually like them visiting as your DH can take DS over to the hotel or out for lunch with them, whilst you get some time alone to do a hobby, or even just chill out and relax.

You aren't going to change cultural expectations which is what you seem to have here, but you can compromise and make things work for everyone in the situation.

CheerfulYank · 16/05/2016 06:35

Jane it depends on which part of the US you're speaking of. Some are very family oriented.

We are American. We live about 10-15 minutes from my in laws and they see the children about once a week. (Usually at theirs or they will ask if they can pop by and take them for ice cream or to a film etc). My parents live 300 miles away but if six weeks go by without them seeing the kids my mother gets upset and guilt trippy

I'd say alternate every few months or so. I don't really think a visit once a month is too much really but that's me personally. If you're not comfortable with it, don't.

fedupofpeppa · 16/05/2016 06:52

I think it's nice that your PIL care about your ds but it has to work for you too. To me it sounds like you need a bit of a break for a bit to get the 7 week stay behind you. Probably a discussion with your partner about what he sees as appropriate relationships with grandparents are covering time spent, how involved they are in making decisions on how to raise children etc would be good. Lay all cards on the table then try and compromise.

However in the meantime can you do anything to show them that it's not you don't want them around at all. I send my mil photos quite frequently of day to day activities so she can see how he us changing. I also let her know if we do anything important like go to doctors or get checks done. Not for her opinion buy just to let her know what's happening. Might not work for you. My mil is great so easier for me.

waterrat · 16/05/2016 06:54

Actually op I think that one family visit a month is reasonable.

It sounds like the problem is that the in laws have been overbearing and that is influencing your feelings about a monthly visit.

Do you think That if you sat down and agreed to try his plan that he wpuld take on board your points about their behaviour in the past?

Essentially this is a real blockage as he wants to see them and the headache isn't going to go away....

If he really can understand why their behaviour in the past was wrong perhaps the visits can be a bit more controlled

Baconyum · 16/05/2016 07:00

There is a culture clash going on here which makes things difficult. I've several friends who are half-french and the French grandparents are very much more involved with grandchildren. But I disagree they are overbearing normally, I suspect this is more to do with your dp being an only child.

Yes a compromise is needed but not just by the OP, her dp needs to recognise her culture is different than his too. He also needs to speak to his mother about her approach and encourage her to be a bit less overwhelming and certainly that undermining the OP is not on. And remind her that the OP is from a different culture and wishes to do things at least slightly differently from the French way.

Also having a prescribed visit every month is too much, especially as they don't get much time together as a couple. Plus as baby gets older there's other things they'll want to do at the weekends. But I agree with moulding the situation to your advantage too op. Have grandma visiting when you want a weekend/evening away/out! Grandma gets time with dgc and OP and dp get some couple time.

randomsabreuse · 16/05/2016 07:02

Slightly different situation here as we need regular help from GPs at the moment but I find my PIL very very difficult.

The things that would make life easier (accepting inevitable visitors) would be them staying at a nearby hotel/b&b giving you space to yourselves and probably 2 monthly visits overall so each IL gets 3/year. Make sure you have an agreed plan for Christmas and other significant dates as well...

I totally get the guilt - my FIL did a lot of work on our house (pushed me out from project managing and not to the standard I wanted) and we're massively financially beholden to them so I feel I can't deprive them of their (2nd) grandchild but they drive me insane with comments on how they would do things, taking over my entire house etc.

bakingaddict · 16/05/2016 07:40

Do you actually have a spare room for them to stay in? If so then making them stay in a B&B or hotel is a bit disrespectful. My PIL come for a long weekend once a month and MIL sometimes more. I've found my MIL overbearing in the past and have now managed to thrash out ground rules about her stays. My DH was onboard with me but it sounds like you have it worse because your DH is supporting his parents more than you.
Perhaps your DH is pushing this as your side of the family aren't getting involved with DS and your child only has his parents as GP's to bond with

MTPlate · 16/05/2016 07:48

Can't they Skype or similar? Not the same as actually being with you, obviously, but they can still see and interact with the baby. Visits once a month is far too much when you have a small baby, Dp who works long hours etc. I'd say offering to host every other month is more than generous!

rumblingDMexploitingbstds · 16/05/2016 07:48

Your dh needs to do less being very sad and do more taking responsibility for things getting to this point in the first place. If he'd done less insisting and more listening and supporting you during previous visits (and you clearly have tried to make them welcome and involve them) you probably wouldn't now see spending even a day with them as a stress inducing nightmare that makes you cringe to think about.

The biggest issue is their behaviour, not the visits. If you found them unstressful and pleasant to be around you possibly wouldn't feel so horrified at the time with them. Yes, there's possibly a culture clash but then both cultures have to do some compromising, not just yours. Yes GPs can get over excited and get the GP crazies with the first GC. That doesn't make your experience of the crazies any nicer or make the behaviour something to let steamroller ahead. So usual MN question, what is dh prepared to do to address their behaviour with them and stand up for you so future visits aren't nightmares you dread? What will he do to stand up for you when GP are visiting? What are the boundaries you two agree?

If he agreed to talk to them and stand up for you while they were visiting, to accept you had a really miserable time during pregnancy and the seven weeks after giving birth with his parents there and he plays a large part in that, would that help? GPs staying in a b&b is another very good protective factor at least until they calm down a bit, and it would make sense that right now you want a serious break from them of several weeks if not a month or two. And then maybe you can talk about dates, but as other pps have said, letting people get into set habits and routines of visits creates bad feeling if that routine has to then be interrupted for any reason.

He needs to accept he's helped to create this situation for you. He still seems to be focused on wanting you to just do what he wants.

RidersOnTheStorm · 16/05/2016 08:09

Each grandparent will only see DC once every 2 months, that seems fair to me. 6 times a year isn't a lot of time to spend with a DGC.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 16/05/2016 08:21

House guests are a strain unless they're the sort of really easy-going types you'd be happy to see any time, and who don't care if you haven't been going mad with vacuum and duster.
I would say not more than one every 6 weeks , and if they occasionally want to come more often they can stay at the Premier Inn and just visit in the afternoon. In laws should understand that you need most of your weekends to yourselves, and to do your own things. I speak as a MiL.

diddl · 16/05/2016 08:25

"Each grandparent will only see DC once every 2 months, that seems fair to me. 6 times a year isn't a lot of time to spend with a DGC."

Fair to whom??

I don't see why Op should have to put up with a pita, bullying MIL.

Op, does your husband think that in the future your son should be forced to spend time with someone who bullies him?

And yes, exactly what a pp said.

Tell him that if he hadn't bullied you into accepting that his mum stay, things might be better between you.

He needs to take responsibility here.

If you start seeing every month how easy would it be to cut down if it doesn't work?

rumblingDMexploitingbstds · 16/05/2016 08:39

Maybe step one is that he sorts out visits - after you've had a break - that are not stressful nightmares for you. He proves with his parents that they can visit and it be a good experience for everyone. And after a few of those going consistently well you might then be able to talk with him about setting up a routine arrangement.

Right now it sounds like 'you know you went through hell for seven weeks with my mum? Ooh and with my dad too pre birth? And they were rude to you and difficult to be around with a tiny baby when you were really vulnerable? Well I want you to sign up to doing that monthly, forever, starting immediately.'

zipzap · 16/05/2016 10:09

As it seems to be there is a big cultural clash going on regarding expectations of visiting, time spent together and so on, is it worth having a very general conversation with him around what happened when he was little - were his GPs around a lot, any differences between the way that his mother and father's sides of the family were treated, how that related to what his friends experienced, what the general expectations are that he's grown up with and takes as normal...

Then move on to finding out what he thinks you grew up with - how often he thinks that you would have seen your GP and what you think is normal, what your general expectations are of what people in your situation would normally do.

Double check that he hasn't managed to rationalise any particular quirks - eg if you didn't see some GP very often because they lived a long way away, then he might just assume that you would have seen them more but couldn't because it was too expensive or that the travelling time didn't work when you had school/parents had to work. Or that he thinks that they didn't care so didn't bother but that this was 'abnormal' and that your friends would have spent similar amounts of time to him with GPs. Or whatever.

You never know - you might discover that his parents figure that as your parents are so far away they see it as their duty to come even more often so that your dc gets to see a grandparent at least every month or they see it as an opportunity to come even more and so on.

Hopefully the conversation will throw up that you both have very different experiences and expectations of what being a parent involves and how grandparents fit into the picture. Make sure that you emphasize that this doesn't make either version right or wrong, they're just different and that's fine. But that it does mean you need to actively find a compromise rather than for him to assume that you will neatly slot into his expectations or vice versa.

You also need to go back and talk about how you felt in light of this when his mum came to stay previously - it's not going to be easy unfortunately but hopefully if you couch it in terms of 'when she did xxx I felt yyy' rather than 'she did xxx wrong' which is going to put his back up (rightly or wrongly!) and put him on the defensive of his mum. And then go on to say that the cumulative effect of feeling yyy and yyy and yyy and [insert as many examples as you have] was that you felt undermined, unable to bond with your child, pushed out, and so on, to the point that you would have preferred to have been in pain and without her there. That you put up with it for a long time because you love your dh but you also feel upset that he cared more about his mum and her expectations than he did about you and your feelings at a time when you were feeling very vulnerable and could have done with his total support. If you're using words like bully and torture to describe her behaviour towards you then he has to know otherwise he is never going to understand why you have such a problem now because in his mind when you said she could go home because you were well enough to cope, you didn't put up a fight and so probably wanted her to stay longer (It's easy to rationalise things that you want to happen - ie you want your mum to stay longer, your dp says she can go home, but as she doesn't really protest hard then she was probably just being thoughtful towards your mum and was actually really happy to have her help out for longer)

Say that as you've had to endure seven weeks of having somebody there, you need at least that of having nobody there to get yourself back on an even keel. And that you're not prepared to commit to a regular visiting schedule beyond that, you'll agree to a single visit initially from each parent, see how it goes and then take it from there. If they behave all goes well, then you can arrange the next visit in a couple of months time. If not, you'll wait longer until the next visit is arranged.

It sounds like you get on better with your FIL than your MIL so would it be worth suggesting that FIL is your first visitor of the two of them - it won't be so terrifying to think of it happening, see what happens and what works well, what doesn't and use that info to help when deciding on a date for your mil to come.

And finally - if your dh keeps on saying that you ought to move to France, just keep saying (even if you don't mean it) that you've been thinking and that because of the way the visits have made you feel so far, you think that actually you'd all be much better off moving back to the USA again, that you think you'd all be much happier there. There's no way he's going to want that - so at least that might get you to stay in England with more reasonable visits vs moving to france! It will also remind him that you're a partnership - and that as equal partners you get to compromise, he doesn't get to make all the decisions!

Kidnapped · 16/05/2016 10:23

And let's not forget the partner works long hours. So these long weekends will presumably see him working on the Friday and the Monday at least.

Not acceptable for him just to offload that onto his partner.

OP there's a lot of what he wanted/wants in your posts. You have to be vocal with him about what you want. Him whinging that his mum has only been here for 7 weeks while you haven't seen your parents at all is very insensitive of him and he needs to hear that. And if you need help with the baby, then it is up to HIM to step up, not his parents.

Baconyum · 16/05/2016 12:33

Zip excellent post

TeamEponine · 16/05/2016 12:47

Op - I can really sympathise. DH isn't British, so we also have the issue of his mum visiting, and also culture clash issues. MIL is, essentially, lovely and well meaning, but she's quite overbearing, intense, inflexible and anxious at times, which can lead to clashes. It's almost like she tries to squeeze all of the time apart into the time she is with us.

It seems that actually your DH is a big part of the problem. He needs to support and back you more. I'm sort of lucky that DH is probably more "anti" his parents than me! We came up with a "joint strategy" that we were both happy with, and then just did it.

I was going to suggest weekly skype-ing, but I see that is already happening.

One big change we made was to book MIL into a local B&B. That took lots of the intensity out of her visits and gave both DH and I a little time on our own to recover the reserves! We don't really have a spare room anymore, so told her that we didn't feel comfortable making her sleep on the couch. She got quite upset when we first told her it was happening, but we insisted, booked it and paid for it ourselves, so there was no discussion at all! Her visits are far, far more enjoyable now.

MuniK · 16/05/2016 18:16

Thank you all for all your replies, they have all been very helpful to me. Overall it made me realise there are two major problems 1) cultural differences 2) effective communication. I believe PILs are too old to change their cultural expectations but i need to communicate clearly with dp what i feel and make sure he effectively communicates with PILs about boundaries. I believe that has been a major problem so far. He does agree with me that his mums behaviour was unacceptable, however does not communicate with her and does not tell her what needs to change.

He has already been pushing me into their next visit, he wanted them to visit this month but i refused so now they will visit in july. I am not against their visits but i need time to recover mentally and emotionally which he does not understand.
zipzap I think you have made some really interesting points about our childhoods, we have had very different childhoods. dp has been very close to his maternal GPs and not too close to his fathers side, his mum dint like them. I was raised for the first 3 years by my maternal grandmother and she has been the most dearest person in my life, sadly she passed away last year. I think since my dp's family know about my childhood they expect me to be more open to demands.

"You never know - you might discover that his parents figure that as your parents are so far away they see it as their duty to come even more often so that your dc gets to see a grandparent at least every month or they see it as an opportunity to come even more and so on."
I think since my family cannot be around as much as they are, they are taking advantage.
They keep saying they dont want to bother us and want us to have our privacy but still keep asking if they can visit each month.

OP posts:
diddl · 16/05/2016 19:04

"and not too close to his fathers side, his mum dint like them."

Oh the irony!

So she, as a DIL kept away from her MIL.

Yet expects to just force herself on you?