To not want to stay with PIL?

[Shanners123]

We had our first baby 5 weeks ago and both sets of new grandparents are over the moon. We live 40mins drive from my parents and (a really horrible) 5.5hour drive from my PIL. The PIL have seen the baby twice (drove up for the weekend when baby was 1 week and then at a funeral 2 weeks later) due to the distance, whereas my parents see the baby a couple of times a week. Naturally the PIL cannot wait to see the baby this coming weekend, when we'll be down visiting Fri - Mon. My problem is I really can't stand my MIL. She talks CONSTANTLY (this isn't an exaggeration), about anything and everything, every thought that crosses her mind. She's unintentionally patronising and by the way she talks is the subject expert on everything. I'm quite an introvert, I speak when there is something to say and enjoy smart conversation. As a result she annoys the life out of me and I avoid talking to her or being the focus of her conversation when possible. We have a polite relationship from my perspective, because she's never truly engaged with me in any real way so I just listen to her ramblings when I have to and tell her the bare minimum because she picks up anything I say and adds her "subject expert" knowledge to it. I am never rude to her and I act interested in what she says, but every visit it gets harder because one way conversations make for a very boring experience!
We're mostly going down because my OHs grandparents are too old to travel, and they're lovely so I'm looking forward to them seeing the baby. His uncle has a beautiful brand new house 5 mins drive from where they all live, which is used as a holiday let. I asked my OH to check if its free for us to stay this weekend, and apparently now my MIL is very upset that we're not staying with them. Their house is not suitable IMO and I want to be able to relax at night knowing if the baby is screaming my MIL isn't going to be knocking on the door offering tips or help. I'm breastfeeding so at home I quite often sit with my boobs out relaxing with the baby so I'd like our own space for the privacy to do this, and also to retreat to when MIL gets to be too much for me. We have stayed with them on all previous trips but now we have a baby I want to start setting boundaries. We're our own little family in my mind now and I don't think it's unreasonable to be treated as such. I know it's because she's scared it will limit her time with baby, but he's only 5 weeks and not the most interactive anyhow!

Not wanting to stay at my PILs house and opting to stay in a house 5 min drive away... AIBU?

No-one is saying she doesn't have feelings. But if someone has selfish behaviour that simply doesn't acknowledge the limits/existence of other people with feelings, then something needs to be said. As I put above- this should be done in a gentle way.

The MIL is being hugely selfish in expecting someone to listen to her non-stop for 12 hours a day, solid while she makes no effort for anyone else. It's really, really anti-social behaviour. It's the DH's job to raise this.

I find it odd that someone as feminist as you Bertrand just has this huge blindspot where DILs are concerned. You're normally such a passionate advocate for women to be themselves, but when the MIL issue raises its head, suddenly women are supposed to put up and shut up with just about any amount of bad behaviour from their MILs like some kind of Victorian Angel in the House. Surely the same rules apply to this as to any other relationship - concern, a bit of tolerance, and space for the other person to breathe and exist in all their wonderful difference and uniqueness need to be created on both sides for it to work.

If she's monologuing, get up and start to do other things while occasionally going 'Yep' and 'Hmm'. Be obviously inattentive. She only gets the reward of genuine attention when she changes the record.

My horrible MIL monologues and I have no qualms at all now about leaving mid-diatribe....

Ooops, posted too soon - meant to add - and, more importantly, the duty of DH's to be the primary person managing the relationship with their parents needs to be emphasized. What's going wrong here is all of the social burden of a difficult talker is falling on the OP, when it's actually her DH's job to handle this. He, however, is zoning out, walking away, and generally letting the weight fall on his wife.

"when the MIL issue raises its head, suddenly women are supposed to put up and shut up with just about any amount of bad behaviour from their MILs like some kind of Victorian Angel in the House"

I don't think that for a moment. I do think that MILs get a very hard time on here generally, I find it hard to believe that they are always the ones in the wrong. This thread has been quite measured by the usual standards-probably because the OP displayed another Mumsnet trigger attitude (about liking smart conversation ) that distracted people from focussing on the mil. As far as the feminist side of it goes, I think older women generally get a very hard time on here whether they are Mils or not, and my tendency is to stick up for them a bit. I also don't think that men have a duty to be unquestioningly on their partner's side. All this "he has to choose" "he has his own family now" stuff sits very badly with me. Obviously I'm not talking about properly unpleasant behaviour or attitudes or anything worse . But 3 weekends a year with a woman who talks too much but who loves your child? Worse things, as they say, happen at sea.

This is where the Politeness Trap comes in - if you've told someone you need space and air, and they are refusing to give it to you, it's no longer rude simply to walk away from them.

OK, but has anyone actually told the OP's MIL how exhausting she is?

The OP seems to be saying she hasn't raised it because it isn't her place to do so, and her DH isn't stepping up and raising it himself.

Why can't her DH say, "Mum, the thing is, Shanners is very tired right now with the baby and she is going to need some space. We'll come and stay with you but please don't expect her to make conversation all the time, and please make sure that she has somewhere quiet to go when she needs to breastfeed or lie down and that you respect her need for peace and quiet."

Why doesn't the OP agree to stay with PIL but on condition that her DH steps up and takes some of the burden of engaging with MIL off her?

I get that people like the OP's MIL can be exhausting and draining (my own mother is like this, and has other difficult traits as well), but it seems unfair that on this occasion she's being punished for something she probably doesn't even realise she's doing because no one has the balls to tell her.

From her point of view, she'll be thinking they've stayed with her many times in the past and accepted her hospitality (even if from their point of view they didn't find it particularly enjoyable), and now the very first time they are coming to visit with her new grandchild they're deliberately choosing to snub her and stay elsewhere. I think it's very poor form and likely to do some serious damage to the relationship.

I absolutely agree that it's very one-sided, and I am absolutely certain that you are right that there will be relationships where the DIL is in the wrong. However, to state the obvious, that one-sidedness is a function of the demographics of this site, and the voices that emerge from that demographic. All we have on the internet - a medium singularly denuded of nuance and tone - is the voice of the particular poster in front of us, and I'm not sure that it always helps to question, systematically, every one of those voices. It is a bit like saying over and over again on the relationships board "Oh, well there are relationships where the bloke is trying but the woman is actually in the wrong, so we should question each one of these women forensically to determine whether they are actually at fault in order to ensure that a more balanced view of maleness is presented". While there might be a kind of 'balance' to presenting that view, to the poster at the heart of the thread it can feel a bit like gaslighting.

The other thing is that the nature of this site tends to mean that it's the worst cases of in laws that are discussed, not the best. Whenever there is a thread about good in laws, you hear a different set of people who have good, positive relationships with their MILs speaking up. Perhaps the way to redress the balance is therefore to create a separate discussion where positive intergenerational attitudes are fostered, and the warmer side of the in law relationship aired? Because there are plenty of lovely stories of truly inspiring and mutually supportive relationships that we perhaps don't hear often enough.

I'm all for tolerance, but I do think that relationships are two-way. Mutual respect is needed for them to work. Not being offered respect and space - not being given recognition (not in the sense of 'reward' but in the sense of 'recognition of personhood') by someone can be a surprisingly devastating experience.

To speak personally for just a second - the worst things that have happened to me in my life - violent attack, sexual assault, rape - have involved a lack of recognition of my personhood, of the fact that I am an individual with feelings and desire that are worthy of being heard. I find that when my MIL interrupts me, talks over me, and treats me like a 5 year old, it makes me feel surprisingly similar to those incidents. It's not as strong or as devastating or as terrifying, but it is the same feeling, just a little more diluted. And I hate feeling that way. I honestly don't see why I should be expected to suck that up just in the name of keeping her happy. Why does her happiness matter more than mine? She is the one who has chosen this course of action, and she is surely able to treat people in a nicer way if she chose to. Sometimes, if you make bad choices about how you interact with others, there are consequences.

Wow, what a brilliant post @pigmcpigface

If no one ever confronts the MIL about her annoying habits are they her fault? She could be totally unaware that she annoys her DIL so much.

Fuck me. Yeah, why not do that. It’s not as if she has feelings or anything -she’s just a mil. One of those separate Mumsnet species. Like “school gate mums” and “old biddies”

Quite.

"Why does her happiness matter more than mine? "

I think that that is a key point.

If Op can stay somewhere else & feel comfortable, why not?

Totally agree with pigface

"Why does her happiness matter more than mine?"

Because you get to be with your child every day, whereas she will only see her grandchild a few times a year and will not be there to see most major milestones in their life. And because you want to punish her for something nobody even has the guts to tell her she is doing.

I would have thought that was obvious.

Pig - I'm sorry but if a talkative mil triggers the same anxiety as sexual assaults (similar assaults have happened to me) then you need help to break that connection in your mind. And comments like the mil speaks for 12 hours at a time are just gross exaggerations not to be yaken seriously. If this is about mutual respect then both mil and op are equally guilty. It's not hard to be nice

Lethal - it's not the talkativeness. It's the total lack of recognition for me as a person with my own ideas, desires, and concerns, which lies behind the talkativeness. It's the difference between 'talking to' and 'talking at'. It's fact that every time she addresses me, it is to boss, undermine or patronise me. The never asking how I am doing, or what I am doing, or how I feel about something with any interest in me as a person, but just telling me constantly how to live my life and how to deal with everything that arises, often in a manner that dismisses or ignores anything I do raise.

This kind of behaviour is a form of passive-aggressive abuse. My husband used to vomit when she and FIL were visiting and be laid up in bed with stomach pain because she made him so acutely anxious - the FOG was so strong in his case that it literally made him sick to be around them. He had counselling (we both have) and now we have better boundaries and more of a 'team attitude' towards managing it, which includes limiting visits to a short time (a matter of a couple of days) so that we don't end up feeling desperate and harried. This will probably be extended in the near future to not staying at their house, since when we went back at Christmas they made us stay in a box room where we literally couldn't move for the amount of junk in there. It was extremely uncomfortable, at a time when we were having a lot of discomfort in our own home due to building work.

And someone really can talk for 12 hours straight. She will read out road signs and shop names in the car to keep talking.

Oh, and thanks @Juells. That made my day!

pig I think you are projecting your own issues here. All I'm getting from the OP is that her mother in law is an overbearing chatterbox who annoys and bores her, that she doesn't feel it's "her place" to stand up to her, and they her husband isn't stepping up to take some of the burden off her, as he should.

So they have gone to visit PIL multiple times, with MIL probably possibly feeling sad that no one really wants to engage with her, and no one has asked MIL to tone it down or done anything to improve the situation, and then the first time they come to visit with their new baby and MIL is probably beyond excited, they decide to reject her and go and stay somewhere else.

It comes across like the baby is being used as an excuse, or worse still, as revenge for having to sit listening to MIL's monologues on previous visits.

Tokyo - No, I'm not projecting because I'm not even talking about the OP. I'm taking about my own situation, as a way of illustrating the fact that talkativeness comes in many shapes and sizes. Some may be harmless, others are really, really abusive. I'm offering no comment on which the OP's situation is - I don't think we have enough from her on this thread to really say. She says her MIL is patronising and is an expert in everything - that could mean anything from behaviour like my MIL to more innocuous but irritating verbal diarrhoea.

I do agree completely that the DH needs to talk to his MIL, gently and in a loving way, about toning down the behaviour. I've said this repeatedly on the thread!

I think YABU OP perhaps she's lonely, doesn't really have anyone to talk to so when she see's you and DH she wants to make the most of it, I mean she hasn't actually done anything on you and its 4 days it won't kill you to be nice and let her help with the baby so she feels involved you know, Its much easier to be nice to people than harbor resentment like this.

I'm not even talking about the OP.

Yes, it shows.

I just cant get passed - 'i enjoy smart conversation'!

I think it's very poor form and likely to do some serious damage to the relationship.

No, it’s a result of the damage done to the relationship by the MIL’s ongoing rudeness. Relationships are two-way things.

The reduction of what the OP has described in her MIL (patronising, overbearingly opinionated, uninterested in anything OP has to say) to ‘talkative’ by so many is a bit eye-opening.

Also the willingness to tell a woman who gave birth six weeks ago that she must put her MIL’s feelings first, even if it means significant discomfort and distress to her, is horrible. OP hasn’t suggested doing this every visit. Just this time, when she has a tiny wakeful newborn who is feeding all the time and breastfeeding might not be at easy and straightforward as later on. The idea of someone who has recently given birth putting her own needs and feelings first seems like poison to some mumsnetters. People who would usually admonish posters to stand up for themselves seem to delight in telling new mothers that they must prioritise others, because they aren’t the first people to give birth or have newborns. It’s quite horrible.

Oh not the breast feeding excuse again!

The MIL probably doesn’t even realise she’s being rude because NO ONE HAS GOT THE BALLS TO SAY ANYTHING.

She’s being punished for something she almost certainly doesn’t realise she’s doing.

That’s what makes this whole thing so distasteful.

If she’d been repeatedly told to tone it down and had continued to steamroller everybody with no regard for their feelings it would be entirely different.

Ffs it’s a mil who talks a lot.
The over dramatics on this thread are real. It’s a bit annoying, it’s not a bloody big deal.
I’d want my own space anyway OP, ok you seem a bit too scathing and clearly don’t see eye to eye with her but as you say you are happy to have them have lots of contact with dc I don’t see a problem!

Oh not the breast feeding excuse again!

This is exactly what I’m talking about. No new mother is allowed to feel a bit vulnerable or find things difficult for the first few months.