Row with Mother in law

[Mckenzie123]

This may be a long one so apologies in advance!...
I need some advice on a situation that arose between my MIL and I a few days ago.
To start from the beginning, I met my husband when I was 19. He was 26 and already had a child that was 3. He was a single parent as his ex partner had chosen not to be in the child’s life. This meant that when our relationship became official, I took on the role of step mum to the little one and decided that if I was going to do this I would raise the child as if he was my own and nothing less. That was 9 years ago and I have since fully adopted my step son (who I’ve referred to as my son for years) and I am now 18 weeks pregnant with my first after years of struggling with fertility issues.
My MIL and husband have a very close relationship as most mothers and sons do. My MIL can be a nice person but she is very intimidating and opinionated if she doesn’t agree with something that I want for my son. We haven’t had many disagreements over the years but the worst part about it is that my husband never sticks up for me when we do. My MIL is very much all about showering ds with love and affection (which we all want) and making out as though she knows him better than I do. She undermines me all the time and feeds ds junk food and rubbish whenever he spends time with her which is a lot as we have had to rely on her help because of work commitments. I have tried to raise this with her on a few occasions but she gets defensive and nasty about it. Cue the drama that unfolded this week... ds was to stay at her house for the night as it’s half term and she suggested that they get fish and chips for tea. Usually I wouldn’t mind as a treat however my husband had treated ds to a McDonald’s breakfast that morning. I objected and offered her food to take from my house for her to cook. She flat out refused and still said that she would be getting fish and chips. As a final attempt I then offered to cook for my ds and then drop him over to her house later on once he had had his tea. My husband then told me to ‘shut up and stop being funny about it’ and my MIL stormed out - I admit I was so angry in the end after my husband said what he said I did lose my temper and bit and told them to do what they like. My husband chased my MIL out of the house with ds in tow and told her it was fine. Before I could do anything my MIL had driven off with my ds. My husband and I had a huge row because he accused me of being ‘funny’ with her when all I was trying to do was offer to cook for my ds without being too confrontational. I therefore decided that enough was enough and drove to MIL’s house to pick my son up and take him home. By the time I got there she’d already got him the fish and chips so I felt I couldn’t just take it away from right underneath him. She said some horrible things and I told her that I was sick of being undermined and I was finally sticking up for myself. My reasoning was just that - is she going to think she can do the same when my new baby gets here?!
Basically I want to know if I am/was being unreasonable? I haven’t heard from her since the row and I am just so hurt and upset that my MIL and husband both did what they did. I am just so done with being walked all over and I want to be respected for the mum that I am. I can’t talk to my husband about it because he will just defend her 🙁

He’s 12. 12! Presumably like many 12 year olds he buys himself chips on the way home from school?

And seeing his mum and his grandma scrapping over him over a fish supper is much more damaging than the fish supper!

We recently fell out with DHs parents after I questioned in a text why MIL had bought DS2 (7) a McDonald's AND takeaway pizza in one afternoon/evening. I felt my text was non confrontational and she felt we always criticise her.
Things still aren't back to normal and I can't see myself being friendly with her anytime soon.
You have my sympathies OP. I'd also be extremely unhappy with DH telling me to shut up

1. When you said no to fish and chips she should have said okay
2. Husband shouldn't have run out like a baby crying to his mother he was sorry you didn't want son to have two takeaways in a day
3. You shouldn't have driven over, you should have just told her not to do it again when you next saw her

Everyone was unreasonable but you wouldn't have been if your MIL or Husband listened to you in the first place!

I understand your issue and can completely empathise. I also relied on my MIL and FIL for an element of childcare when DD was little. Unfortunately, they are and were obese, with very little wish to eat healthily. I am a massive advocate of healthy eating and I was constantly terrified that they’d lead my DD into bad habits, so might have overreacted a few times. It’s horrible, having to trust others with your DC, when you have very little in common and you know they won’t respect your ideals and guidelines. Even my own DM, whom I love, told me she agreed with a neighbour who said, ‘Agree to do everything they (ie the parents) want, then when they’re gone, do what you want!’ I imagine you’re also anxious about who is going to look after your new DC when you go back to work. Knowing what his DM was like with unhealthy treats, your DH shouldn’t have taken DS to McDonald’s for breakfast and should bear this in mind for the future. He should also have supported you in front of his DM. That said, you need to get it into perspective and apologise for overreacting this time, but also make your feelings about junk food very clear in the future, with your DH backing you up. I’m sorry you feel so frustrated and unsupported.

Farrah The very fact you were asking questions would probably get someone’s back up. Does it really matter if he has eaten that one day out of 7?

"He should also have supported you in front of his DM"

Even if he thought she was wrong?

This has nothing to do with fish and chips and everything to do with lack of boundaries and respect. Please set firm boundaries with the new baby. The person you should be mad at is your husband. He needs to stand with you in a united front. You can always have it out privately later. Did you ever hear the expression “ the cheapest way to pay is with money”? By having the MIL do childcare you have invited her to think she has something to say about your child and how your house runs. By the way, I am a grandmother and MIL and would never go against what mom and dad say.

Massive dh problem. Would have been better if you hadn’t driven to her house though!
You and dh together should apologise to your son for having seen thst and he should say something like I know your Mum works hard to cook you (and presumably me) good food to eat and we love and respect her.

@marylou1977 is right.

I had the childcare issue. MIL did 5 days a week. It caused a lot of stress and unhappiness. And although I was grateful for her effort, I did not want it. My husband pushed for it (aggressively) and my MIL is a 'kill with kindness' type. I put a stop to it in the end. Boundaries are blurred, marks overstepped. The children were confused and their mother felt pushed out and isolated.

Don't accept 'free childcare' - it is never free.

I would not have gone guns blazing over fish and chips, but this is just the straw that broke the camel's back.

I don’t think you were being unreasonable. My child turns into Chucky becomes very hard work after he’s had too much junk food. If I told a carer that he’d had junk food for breakfast and I’d be happy to cook a decent meal for him that evening, as his mother (who op is, she adopted him) I would fully expect to be respected.

If my dp has told me to shut up in front of anyone I’d be telling him to rethink the relationship - serious serious disrespect there.

I think a grandparents role is to "spoil' the grandkids. If it's not too often then I'd let it go.

Goodness me, what a fuss over fish and chips. It was supposed to be a treat; she wasn't poisoning him. He's hardly going to get obese with one day when he has two take-away meals.

People are taking on board that the child concerned is 12, aren’t they?

It would appear not, they seem to think he's two. He's quite old enough to see his gran when he wants to and decide what he eats when he's there.

@Clairetree1
Congratulations on once again writing the goadiest post on the thread. Op has adopted her son. She is her ds’s mother, not stepmother.

@McKenzie123
I think you need to pick your battles. This wasn’t one of them. Perhaps there is a big back story with your mil undermining your authority and using the biological connection as justification. If that’s the case, if it wasn’t the bio connection it would be something else.

As for your dh. He shouldn’t have spoken to you like that in front of his mother and your ds. I’d be having words with him about being supportive and getting him to understand it isn’t ok for his mother to pull rank. I imagine it’s also hard for her. You all need to try to support / parent your ds without stepping on eachothers toes.

Bert
Yeh I noticed that. Probably growing like a weed right now!

You sound like you do your best to be a good step mother, but really, she is an important adult in his life too. I would say possibly more important than you.

More important than the parent? Utter bollocks!
It's this kind of shitty attitude that makes things worse - that you're good enough to take on all the responsibilities of a parent but you don't deserve to be given the same respect just because you're not related by blood.

This is where the boundary needs to be strengthened by OP.
OP is not his step-mum, she's ADOPTED him!
Both mil and dh need to understand the difference and respect it.

Going forward it would be better to not use mil for childcare and keep your distance til she learns to respect you as the parent.
As for your dh, did he marry you simply so you could do the grunt work of parenting whilst he sits on his ass barking?

If this was a planned visit & the liklihood was that her would be fed crap by MIL-why was he given a crap breakfast?

(Although I'm not sure that it would have bothered me tbh).

Massive overreaction on your behalf, OP. However, your DH should have supported you. Given he won’t need childcare shortly, that issue will resolve but if you intend for mil to look after your baby, then you need to have a serious chat with her and DH on board, no point scoring, just an open, honest bit of communication.

YANBU

12 year olds are generally embarrassed by behaviour like this. Poor boy.

I think it depends on how often DS is at her house tbh. If he there's being fed once a week junk food personally I would let it go as she's doing you a favour with childcare, but if it's much more than that I would have a problem with it.

DH needs to be on the same page as you, it's a big problem that he isn't as this gives MIL the impression she doesn't have to listen to your requests.

In your shoes I would go and talk to her once you've calmed down and try and explain your concerns. Hopefully she will take on board what you've said and in future will try and be reasonable.

Op what did your son want to do? Did he want to stay with his grandmother and have the fish supper he’d been promised, or go back with you?

OP are u made to feel because you adopted him your rules/opinions are not respected as much as theirs as you aren't blood? If so, then a massive talk needs to happen. You have opened your arms, heart and everything to a young boy and taken him on as your own, what a lovely thing to do. I hope your opinion is being treated as equally as theirs, as it should be!! Sorry just had a niggling feeling reading the thread that this may be more what it's about and has finally made u blow x

However, your DH should have supported you

Why should he support her if he believed her to be wrong, as most on this thread do. Clearly he shouldn't have told her to shut up, I'm not sure how she was going on for him to say that, or if he is generally abusive

However I don't believe you have to support someone who is behaving unreasonably or talking shite, simply because you're married to them.

If my husband had been going on in a similar fashion there's a high chance I'd have told him to shut it too. I'd fully take it on the chin if the situation was reversed too.

Our vows never said "honour, love and support your spouse when they are being unreasonable and talking shite" 🤣