To want to limit MIL bonding with DD

[username20]

To tell the full story would be a VERY long post so very quick synopses

MIL is living with us until next summer
DD (MIL only grandchild) was born 4 months ago
MIL retired last year and seems very lost in what she does now (only leaves house to go shopping twice a week)
MIL is a wasp and if something annoys her she goes cold and snarky for a few days or weeks never actually speaking about what bothers her
She is VERY old fashioned in her beliefs (against marriage equality and babies out of wedlock)
She seems anti woman (doesn't think any woman can get pregnant by accident- it's either coz they are stupid or planned with or without the dads knowing)
She has made me feel very crap in the past 6/8 months when things aren't the way she'd like

AIBU to want her to have a limited relationship with DD because of the above
Even though I know she will love and spoil her?

Any suggestions on how I could make my gorgeous baby not like her? Joking - well kinda 😐🤣

(DH is very supportive of me and knows she is hard to deal with. The snarky/cold behavior would be towards him too.
She is him Mum though and of course he loves her.
So I really try not to make him feel torn as much as possible)

Practically I'd want a living room that she doesn't come into, equally she should have a private room too

The personal comments about your daughters weight or appearance need to stop.

Questionable views or behaviour otherwise can be mitigated, my own dear grandmother is racist and homophobic, my mum just raised me that “not everyone you meet in life feels the same and it’s ok to disagree with nan if you want to”.

I was going to say YANBU..

.. until I read that you have WILLINGLY literally bought into a situation whereby your MIL will be living with you for the rest of her life.

Even when you build her a little house in the garden, she will still consider the main house her territory. And you have invited her into the day to day lives of any children you have, by agreeing to this setup. You really aren’t able to pick and choose what involvement she will have, as you could if you lived remotely. YABVVU in the circumstances you have CHOSEN.

All you can do now is set emotional boundaries, and encourage your MIL to broaden her horizons.

Or, you could sell the house for its market value now and split the money accordingly, and move on with your lives.

If, for example, you end up divorced as a result of the stress of this setup, sale of the ‘family home’ would probably have to happen, and your MIL would be out on her ear (unless her house will be separate and the freehold of the land split?).
Or you would have to buy your DH out at the market rate.

Both sets of grandparents lived very close to us growing up. As soon as we were old enough we could see for ourselves what they were like, for good and bad. We quickly had them ‘sussed’ in terms of their attitudes and behaviour. So don’t forget that your DD will have a mind of her own and might well pick up on her DGMs attitudes and behaviour. You and DH are the greatest influence in her life until the stage where her peers will have a lot of clout.

I think under the circumstances it will be very hard to stop your DD bonding with her DGM. Unless DD naturally doesn’t bond so much with her. It could be that your DD brings out the best in MIL and as long as you challenge any of her opinions that are anti feminist, anti equality etc, then it might well work out ok. If DD does bond with her that’s the best you can do I think. At 7 months DGD would hold out her arms for me to cuddle her when I walked through the door after not seeing her for 6 weeks. they Very soon work out who they think is ok or not ok. I’d see how it goes but wouldn’t try to stop your DD bonding or vice versa.

Not really difficult to protect your DD from MILs influence in this at all, I'm sure most of us have done it to a degree with various older relatives. Just use your MILs bad behaviour as a teaching tool for your DD as to how not to behave/think. We had similar with bigoted, racist, snobbish attitudes from GMIL, she could be lovely, but her views were out of the Ark at times & could be very offensive. My DF has his moments too

A simple, oh no, Nana/Grandad is off again, we don't talk about people that way anymore, it was never a nice thing to do, but Nana is old & doesn't understand sometimes that it's not kind, but we know better & know it's not nice don't we.

Or Oh dear, your poor nana doesn't value herself very highly does she when she thinks of ladies so badly, she doesn't realise that you can be anything you want to be & don't need a man if you choose not to have one. Silly lady isn't she.

DD is now 15 & it hasn't affected her at all, other than to teach her that not everyone is the same & that bigotry or sexism of any kind should be challenged. DH & I both always challenged comments from them, though usually in a jokey, pee taking way to lesson any tension

Saying that any comments about your DDs weight need stopping immediately.

my MIL always picks on looks -
"she's got a funny nose"
"doesn't Robert Redford look old now",
"the thing that gets me about Donald Trump is the way he purses his mouth all the time when he talks" -

ten MINUTES - those were all in the same TEN MINUTES -

so the reponse was
"don't be rude",
"you are older than him" (the "and look it" was merely implied),
and "FFS MIL it is not how he says it, it is WHAT he says that is so despicable".

Respond EVERY time, to EVERY comment. She makes less of them now - sometimes I think she just does it to fill the silence.

OP, I think you sound rather kind and patient, actually, and have been given a very hard time here by some people who sound like they haven't read the thread properly.

I think you are going to have to be brave and face the situation head on. Every time your MiL makes an offensive or inappropriate comment, about your daughter's weight or anything else, you need to tell her it's inappropriate, both you and your husband. Kindly but firmly explain you won't tolerate that kind of behaviour/talk around your child (it doesn't even matter whose house you're in), and you both need to keep up a united front in this and be ultra polite in how you handle it.

Your daughter is too young to have had any views influenced by your MiL by the time she moves out but as she gets older, I think you need to be honest and explain that some of the things her grandmother says and does are inappropriate and unpleasant for this or that reason, and let your daughter know that it's OK to love her grandmother but still disapprove of some things she does and says. Ultimately she will take the majority of her influence from you and your husband, and having to deal with a misogynistic grandmother could give you great opportunities to help her understand why some of what your MiL says or does is wrong. How you handle this could teach her a lot about fairness.

Spot on @RockinHippy Use this as a way to help your DD understand better.

She's only 69 and the boy leaves the house to go shopping? She might have another 20years to live like this. She needs some clubs.

I think it's a tough one. I have a similar situation with my MIL but thankfully we don't live in close quarters. MIL has manic depression so I tend to structure family occasions with activities to avoid long conversations about people/animals dying, health anxieties and general moaning. I totally understand her needs but I am determined to avoid her constantly negative chatter rubbing off on my 7 year old. At times I have to be assertive with her about the things she is saying which can feel uncomfortable and leave a bit of a cloud hanging over the day. My husband finds her irritating and doesn't go far to hide that so I do my best to manage that too! So needless to say we don't get together that often...