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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To never want to see my husbands family again

98 replies

user1495362060 · 21/05/2017 12:28

I am about to have my second baby via c section. Neither me nor my husband have parents who could help (his deceased, mine very ill). He has four siblings living abroad, some married, some single and a big extended family. I am an only child so no help from my side. His family members like to talk about the importance of keeping the family together since his parents died but it mostly means mandatory get togethers for special occasions and very little beyond that. To give an example not a single person from his extended family was available to babysit DD, even when we were staying nearby and I had to visit my dad in the hospital. However I try to keep in contact with them mostly for the sake of DD who likes the idea of having relatives. So we still visit them every time we come back and I got used to the situation.

So obviously I didn't expect any help after the operation this time around and indeed they didn't propose or even ask how we will get by. In principle ours is a family oriented culture so my friends keep assuming that some family member is coming over to help. I feel slightly uncomfortable/ashamed saying that no one is coming. However we have many friends who proposed to help, take DD overnight and bring meals, so it is fine.

Coming to the point of the story, it turns out some distant elderly relative chided my husbands siblings that no one is coming to help us, they should be ashamed, they should really come over, shell pay for the ticket etc. And I know about this because... they immediately wrote about this in a family chat which me and my husband are members of. In the sense that haha, she is so crazy, to expect we will fly to London. Inviting us to laugh with them. The conversation ended with them asking about my section date (I guess they didn't remember) and proposing we send the video of the birth as it happens...Nobody asked if we have help with DD, if we are OK or anything of the sort again.

I have to say once again that it is completely expected in their culture to help family members and they all receive such help with their kids from the other half parents usually. So it is not like it is foreign to them, it is just that they really don't think they should do anything.

Now I really don't know - on one hand it is nothing new and I didn't expect them to propose help. But I just don't know how to come there again and look at them with a straight face. I am just feeling sad to have to answer all these questions about our extended family or really hearing how people leave kids with family members etc and then come back there and meet these people who have no common sense or , I don't know, decency, to not at least invite me to laugh with them at the mere idea of them helping out. Or indeed to at least ask how me and my husband are coping. In short AIBU to just want to keep future contacts to a bare minimum? And anyway to think that they are unimaginable jerks?

OP posts:
user1471439727 · 21/05/2017 15:12

There's only one unimaginable jerk in this story, and it isn't them...

TheMysteriousJackelope · 21/05/2017 15:28

I don't think OP is mad about the relatives not coming over - she posted in her OP that she wasn't expecting them to.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 21/05/2017 15:32

YANBU - because what you are asking is not "should they come and help me" but "should they NOT have invited me and my DH to laugh about how crazy the elderly relative is to have expected us to come and help us".

They are being insensitive to expect you to go "haha, yes of course, we need nothing from any of you, silly old woman thinking that any of you might actually come and help!"

YWBU to expect them to come though - despite their protestations of "faaaaammmly", they clearly don't think it's worth a plane journey to fulfil cultural expectations. But since that IS how they feel, I certainly wouldn't be fulfilling their demands for you to send them videos or blow-by-blow accounts of the birth, fuck that!

I'm sorry that you don't feel like you have any support - maybe you should stop feeling ashamed, as it's not your fault that your ILs all live abroad or are dead, and just ask friends to help out if possible.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 21/05/2017 15:34

To clarify (damn shorthand!) my "YWBU" stands for "You would be unreasonable", not you were being unreasonable as you've stated that you weren't expecting them to come anyway.

Justalittlebitfurther · 21/05/2017 15:35

It doesn't sound like you would go over to help them so how can you expect the same
from them. YABU to cut ties over this, its a non issue others manage in worse circumstances.

annandale · 21/05/2017 15:38

It sounds as if you were kind of OK with the situation until the elderly relative weighed in. Note that they weren't offering to help either, but took time to tell off the younger generation for being crap - not helpful. I think if your own parents are dead (or even if they aren't) you can feel that the opinions of the older generation count for a lot, partly because they should have their voice in any family, and partly because you are still wanting to have that close/child relationship with older people. It is hard every now and then to realise 'oh I'm the adult now and it's all up to me', I would be surprised if nobody on this thread has ever had one of those moments where however grownup and responsible you are, you suddenly feel like you would like to have your mum or dad say 'it's OK, I will sort it'. I think perhaps you had one of those moments, and hearing your siblings and cousins laughing about it was like having them laugh at your mum, or at your own emotions about missing them.

Maybe I'm overthinking it. You are pregnant, and tired, and perhaps a little apprehensive at having another child - plenty of threads on here about 'I'm about to have my second child, tell me it will all be OK' and nobody calls those threads entitled or ridiculous Confused Flowers You will be fine, just carry on with your life as you were before, and yes, be glad at least that the silver lining is not having to entertain your least favourite sibling for a fortnight while recovering from a c-section.

ZaphodBeeblerox · 21/05/2017 15:54

DistanceCalls - don't want to derail the thread but I genuinely find it hard to believe that people don't have normal expectations of friends and relatives. We can argue about what constitutes "normal" based on societal and cultural norms etc, but it's only on MN that people swear they would never be upset at all at friends or family failing to meet what I think of as very normal expectations of human behaviour.
As in, you can never be upset if GPs don't take an interest in GCs because no one owes you anything. Sure, in the strict sense no one owes you anything, but hand on heart you wouldn't find it odd if GPs (health permitting) wanted to occasionally have GCs over for a sleepover or offered up some babysitting or just wanted time with GCs? Yet it's only on MN that posters are always told YABU to have any expectations at all.

user1494949919 · 21/05/2017 15:59

Wow, it really feels like people are relishing telling OP that she's BU and making her feel small for needing extra help after her CS to boot (after all no one with a newborn and toddler really needs help after major abdominal surgery if a husband is in the picture... the poor couple won't need a rest or anything).

From what I've seen from friends from Spain, Thailand, India and various African and South American countries it's really normal for family to fly over weeks or months after a birth and pitch in. It's a different sense of community there and the patterns of employment are different allowing people to get away for longer periods.

Plus from an evolutionary perspective it's not natural for a woman and male partner to care for a child alone after a birth. In traditional societies women and babies are still very much cocooned from the outside world and from the responsibilities of looking after a house for the first few months.

I think people are seizing on this idea of entitlement and using it to bash the vulnerable and disenchanted over the head when really a little empathy wouldn't be out of place.

Sorry your extended family are not going to be around to support you OP, and sorry people here are not more sympathetic. It's disappointing to find out that you won't be supported in your time of need and it is not unreasonable to feel like they are jerks and that you don't want anything to do with them. Maybe you'll feel differently in a few months, maybe not, but YANBU to have these feelings now with pregnancy hormones rife, the stress of an impending CS and a small child to look after...

Mummyoflittledragon · 21/05/2017 16:03

I think it's bloody rude to send this email to you. They may laugh amongst themselves about the relative. But to send an email to you or your dh this email is incredibly unkind both to you and to the elderly relative. Yes you did choose to live in another country from them. However, they are failing to appreciate how it feels to have no parents or family close by on either side to share this experience with. Moreover they are ridiculing someone in their family, who has thought about you and at the same time asking for a video of a very intimate family moment - the birth.

I totally get where you're coming from. I also don't this that what they're saying is anyway malicious. I also think that this is bringing up feelings both of your father when he was ill and they didn't help you out and the sadness you must feel that you have neither parent to share the joy of having a child.

I think you would be going overboard to go no contact. However, I would make it clear that a) I thought it inappropriate to ridicule uncle/aunts x and b) you will send a photo of your new addition in due course.

Mumzypopz · 21/05/2017 16:09

Seriously, why do you need help anyway. You are having a c section, you aren't going to be laid up in bed for weeks on end and unable to cook meals. They won't let you leave the hospital unless you are able to look after yourself and a baby. Why you expect his family, who live abroad, is beyond me.

Huskylover1 · 21/05/2017 16:10

How many times have you flown over there, when they have had a baby?

It's a bizarre expectation, in my opinion.

They work and have kids of their own. So it's impossible for them to do what you're expecting.

My family were only 45 minutes away, and they didn't move in with me when I had my kids. I wouldn't have wanted them to either.

Bizarre on so many levels.

Mummyoflittledragon · 21/05/2017 16:11

Once her dh is back at work, isn't she going to struggle to look after her elder dd? I would have thought this to be the time for family to help out. And they think it's a joke.

Floggingmolly · 21/05/2017 16:15

Why would anyone be wondering how you'll manage to "get by"?? There are two of you... People do this all the time without having to draft in reinforcements.

reawakeningambition · 21/05/2017 16:34

Yanbu to wish you had more support x

How about replying:
"I have to say I really wish mum and mum in law were around so I'm quite touched by auntie x's protest even though it's unrealistic. You do feel differently about being close to family once you have kids don't you?"

DistanceCall · 21/05/2017 16:40

DistanceCalls - don't want to derail the thread but I genuinely find it hard to believe that people don't have normal expectations of friends and relatives.

They are her in-laws. They live in another country. Yes, it would be nice if they could come. No, it's not normal to expect them to drop everything and come and help her. Much less threaten to cut contact with them because of this.

LedaP · 21/05/2017 16:47

I would have thought this to be the time for family to help out. And they think it's a joke.

The Op will do whatever her and her dh planned to do when they decided to have another baby.

mychilddoesntlookdisabled · 21/05/2017 16:48

So you expect siblings who may be working / have their own lives to fly to stay and help when you have a baby? How far away do they live?

PyongyangKipperbang · 21/05/2017 17:03

I didnt get that the OP is expecting anyone to do anything, but that she is hurt that they find the idea that they might help to be hilarious and ridiculous.

At no point did she say that she expected anyone to fly out.

I would be pissed off if someone invited me to laugh at a family member who was trying to help and that they clearly dont give a shit about the OPs family. The OP makes an effort to see them and keep in touch but it seems that they are not in the slightest bit bothered about her. So why should she put herself out to see them again? I wouldnt if thats their attitude.

PyongyangKipperbang · 21/05/2017 17:04

Oh and there is a huge difference between going NC and simply putting the same amount of effort into someone else as they put into you.

WeAllHaveWings · 21/05/2017 17:05

unless you are going to give us a massive drip feed of how you or your dh have dropped everything and flown to theirs several times just to help them out when they needed it post birth or to babysit, then yes YABU.

You have your dh who can take parental leave and the pressure off by doing the cleaning and cooking and you have friends who are offering support. you are much luckier than many.

Original poster
user1495362060 · 21/05/2017 17:06

OK, maybe YABU indeed.

Still just to clarify - the issue was NOT that I expect anybody from the family to actually come and help us. After all they don't even when we are there.

It is just that it would have been nice if they proposed just for the sake of propriety, so I could politely refuse and we all save face. Instead they discuss the idea with me like it is some kind of joke to even presume that they would....

OP posts:
ThumbWitchesAbroad · 21/05/2017 17:07

Good lord, there are so many posters on this thread failing to read the OP properly!! She's NOT expecting them to fly out and help, she thinks her ILs are insensitive for expecting her and her DH to join them in laughing about anyone thinking that they might go and help!

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 21/05/2017 17:08

Sorry OP - xposted with you there.

MissShittyBennet · 21/05/2017 17:13

Wow, it really feels like people are relishing telling OP that she's BU and making her feel small for needing extra help after her CS to boot (after all no one with a newborn and toddler really needs help after major abdominal surgery if a husband is in the picture... the poor couple won't need a rest or anything).

This, a thousand times.

Quartz2208 · 21/05/2017 17:19

I think perhaps you are reading the joke as why would they help you. When actually its how on earth does the elderly relative really think we have the time/money just to jump on a flight, leave behind our jobs and families etc. More a how out of date is she joke (and I assume some of them are women as well which adds to it).