MIL keeps interfering in my relationship

[lboogy]

Background
DH is one of 4 sons. His mum has always lamented not having a daughter and with the introduction of grandkids she's always felt she's in second place compared to the maternal grandparents.

All her sons live several hours away except for me and DH who live less than an hour away. She and DH have the closest relationship out of all her sons. He's not quite a mamas boy but he is very sensitive - much like her

before I got pregnant, MIL and I had a decent relationship, but over time I realised that all she does is bitch about her other other DILs and the fact that their mothers get to see the grandkids more than she does.

At first being nosey, i listened but always advised her to stay out of her son's relationship by not bringing up her gripes about her perceived unfairness of the maternal grandmothers having more visits than her. She's tried to form relationships with her DILs but they weren't particularly interested. And i suspect the reason is that she has verbal diarrhea, constantly repeats herself and gossips, so you end up moderating anything you say to her.

When I got pregnant she was super excited because we were less than an hour away and she assumed she'd be round all the time to see my DD. During my pregnancy my tolerance for her chit chat was greatly diminished.

I gave birth 2 months ago and in the first 2 weeks she was round every other day and baby blues made me hate her presence. But more than anything I wanted to establish that just because she doesnt have to drive for hours to see the baby, doesn't mean i want her round all the time. I explained this to DH and said I didnt even want my own parents round all the time either. After some time he seemed like he understood and asked his parents to give us space. Since the first 2 weeks, they have visited or we've gone to see them every week for a couple of hours.

DD has suddenly started cluster feeding at the most inconvenient times. Last week his parents came over and DD kept on wanting to feed. I didn't want to BF in front of them so took DD upstairs to give her a quick feed in the hopes that would settle her so I didn't end up keeping her upstairs for ages since I didn't want his parents to feel like they weren't welcome. They came to see her afterall. Unfortunately DD wouldn't settle with the short feeds and every time i gave her to MIL after a feed she would cry , so i took her off MIL to feed her. This happened about 3 times. At one point she said she was never able to BF her 4 sons.

In between DH said i should order takeaway from uber eats. While i was trying to work out what everyone wanted MIL was chatting away and at times would ask me questions which I didn't hear as I was concentrating on ordering food.

After we eat, DD wanted a feed again so I had to take her upstairs. FIL said they would go soon but I said I wont be long, I'll feed DD quickly and bring her back. But they said dont worry lets say goodbye now.

FFW to yesterday and my mum rings to say MIL rang to tell my mum to tell me ( i know it sounds ridiculous already) that I should try and feed DD for an hour and not do short feeds. She also complained that when I visit, i'm always looking at my phone and that she was upset that she tried to pass on toys and blankets that DH and his brothers used when they were babies but i said I didn't want them. DH didnt care about them and neither did i so yes i said i didn't want her musty things.

I was really angry with my mum for not shutting MIL down but more so angry that MIL felt it was her place to ring my mum and complain about me. I told DH how annoyed i was and he got really angry and said me and my mum were gossiping about his mum and along with a whole bunch of things said i've been niggly with his mum for ages and was rude to her when she came round and that me and my mum are acting like a pair of cunts. He then started crying which I was shocked by but since he called me and my mum cunts I wasn't prepared to hear anything else he has to say

Right now I just want a divorce. I'm fed up of his mum and her interfering ways and annoyed with DH for calling me a cunt. I never swear at him when we argue since I believe in being civil even when arguing, also it doesn't come naturally to me.

DH went to his parents house and told them everything, and his dad tried to call but i've blocked their numbers.

I wish DH had some friends to talk to other than his parents - he's been in the spare room all day, hasn't checked on the baby once and is clearly sitting alone depressed. I want to call his brother and ask him to offer DH support - but at the same time, they don't have a super close relationship. But I am worried that if he keeps letting his mum let her obsession with seeing DD and interfering in how she's raised will result in our separation and then he'll have no one when they inevitably die

Was I unreasable to be upset with his mum ringing my mum and what can i do going forward.

Move further away. Much further away. My MIL started when we had a baby and trivial but still upsetting nonsense just turns into worse and worse behaviour. If your DH can't stand up for you at this early stage, there's a big problem.

His mother has way too much influence over him. He might realise it if he hardly ever sees her. (Why do you think the rest of his family don't live nearby?)

The fact that he has no friends except his parents is very worrying.

It's also very worrying that he turned on you so quickly when his mother wasn't happy.

I think what your husband called you is appalling, no-one should use language like that, ever, particularly to a new, breastfeeding mother.

However the biggest problem is your mother in law though she probably doesn't realise it or mean any harm.

Plain speaking is best. If she is with you and starts dissing other people, tell her it isn't fair of her to tell you as it puts you in a difficult position, you don't like it and don't appreciate gossip.

As for her speaking to your mother about you, 'giving advice' etc, tell her you would rather she spoke directly to you if she has something to say. Also tell your mum she shouldn't be passing on stuff like that.

This will soon be over and good relations restored.

I don't see why you have to remove yourself out of the room to feed in front of your in laws or anyone else for that matter in your own home. You could be breastfeeding for months. You and them will have to get used to it, just put a shawl round yourself. Also, I don't see why they expect to be fed when you have a new born to look after, they (and your husband) should be helping you by making a meal and visits should be kept very brief in the early days unless they are there to help! Tell him to get the app on his phone! Your partner's language is vile and unacceptable and he needs to know that it will not be tolerated and he needs to act in a mature manner, especially now he's a father. Children sulk; you have one child, not two. You will quickly lose respect for him if his behaviour doesn't change and quickly.

Congratulations on the birth of your sweet baby girl.

I feel your pain my (ex) mil sounds so similar. My ex was one of 4 and we were also the closest when dd was born.

Unfortunately for us, my ex was never able to make the transition from son to father. His mum and her meddling ways always came first. She could never accept his position as a father and continued to treat him like a little boy. He lapped this up.

He also had nobody else to tell or get support from so went running to his Mummy when things got tough.

I think good communication with your dh is paramount here. A new baby brings so many wonderful changes as well as all the problems that come along with everyone managing their new roles. I hope your dh realises his priorities lay with his family unit - you and your dad. Not his Dm!

Over 10 years later and my ex still hasn't been able to maintain and a meaningful relationship with anyone- and his mother is still constantly visiting his, staying for over a week at a time each visit!!!!

Think your DH should not of called you a C**t, but I honestly think you are being quite dismissive and rude towards your MIL.

Your DD quite possible is not getting enough milk cluster feeding, and it could appear you were taking DD upstairs on purpose to avoid Mil.

This is your DH baby and family. You sound like hard work.

I think it's awful he called you that but I also can't imagine turning down my mil's baby items she's saved. That seems cruel. I suspect there is perhaps more going on here than meets the eye and perhaps your husband has sensed you being cold to mil for a while.

I'm torn on this one. MIL has behaved outrageously in phoning your mum but I can also see where her hurt is coming from. When she accused you of using your phone was that when you were ordering the food? Or is there some truth to her saying you were on your phone a lot during the visit? As you've already acknowledged, you could have just accepted her gifts and not used them, rather than refusing them. I imagine in her mind she believes she has already compromised in visiting less and this felt like a rejection too far.

Really you have a DH issue here. Sulking in the house while you look after the baby is ridiculous. And as a grown man he should be capable of downloading his own bloody app (or at least operating your phone!)

don't see why you have to remove yourself out of the room to feed in front of your in laws or anyone else for that matter in your own home. You could be breastfeeding for months. You and them will have to get used to it, just put a shawl round yourself.

It’s not that simple.

There are lots of reasons why the OP might want to remove the baby from the room to BF. Modesty is just one (completely legitimate) one.

The baby will still be learning to feed for a reasonable amount of time without sleeping. It’s easier to monitor what’s happening, and to make sure the baby hasn’t dozed off when not distracted by other people in the room.

The early stages of BFing can be a haze of bleeding nipples and pain. It might be impossible to latch without having breasts on full view. It can be too painful to put a bra on straight away after a feed. Nipple cream might need applied. I wouldn’t relish doing any of this in front of FIL.

Even if the baby is a good feeder/latcher, they might be easily distracted by mum chatting, or other voices in the room and delatch.

There’s no way I would want to cover a newborn’s head with a scarf, such as you need to to preserve modesty during the early stages of breastfeeding. Aside from it being hot and itchy for the baby, you need to be able to see that they are still breathing. If an older baby will tolerate this kind of cover, and mum doesn’t mind - fine. But a newborn can’t move fabric out of his/her face or reposition if the shawl slips.

Leaving the room to feed can be a good way for a new mum to ‘check in’ with the baby when there are other people or distractions in the room.

Even if none of these reasons apply, the OP has every right to take the baby away to feed for whatever reason she wishes.

Your mil was out of order to call your dm and so was your dh with his name calling.
BUT you were rude to refuse her offer of dhs things. You could have taken them and put them in a drawer. I feel sorry for her there. Imagine if that was you in a few years with your baby things. Mil s are often a bit vunerable when its dss child as mothers are more drawn to their own mothers so they do get left out.
Also its ok for your dh to cry. There would be no problem if you cried so there is no problem if he cries. You called him an emotional man in a derogatory way but imagine if he said l don't want to be married to an emotional woman that wouldn't go down too well.
Its early days. You will be tired ( and emotional!) with sleepless nights/ feeding etc so hopefully ye can work it out.

She also complained that when I visit, i'm always looking at my phone and that she was upset that she tried to pass on toys and blankets that DH and his brothers used when they were babies but i said I didn't want them. DH didnt care about them and neither did i so yes i said i didn't want her musty things.

I can see why it all kicked off

(though sorry it has escalated)

Both your DH and MIL were out of order - but you are also being a bit dramatic blocking their phones etc and wanting a divorce over one incident. You have to remember that she has been saving these baby things for goodness knows how many years. You probably hurt her feelings. I would have just taken the things and not used them if I didn't want to. As your baby grows - you may decide you want them to have a relationship with your m'n'law - you will need to be the bigger person and sort this out for their sake. I can't stand my m'n'law but I suck it up as I want my children to have a relationship with her more than I care about my own feelings. I just work out my boundaries with her and stick to them. Congratulations on your baby, I am also sorry things have esculated - I hope you can sort them out.

I told DH how annoyed i was and he got really angry and said me and my mum were gossiping about his mum and along with a whole bunch of things said i've been niggly with his mum for ages and was rude to her when she came round and that me and my mum are acting like a pair of cunts. He then started crying

So he cried once he'd called you a cunt to shut down any repercussions or anger you might have towards how he's behaved towards you. I wonder where he learned that kind of behaviour.

Your MIL was wrong to go tattling to your Mum. You know that - you need to speak to your Mum and make sure next time she's prepared to shut down the conversation immediately.

Your DH is the one I'd be most cross with, though, and most concerned with. He has two choices here; partake in his immediately family life and ensure that MIL knows he is entirely devoted to his unit, shuts down any future games she plays and back you up or he chooses to let her do as she pleases, simply to please her, and runs the risk of losing you.

I think he needs to know what your bottom line is. Mine would be right before the word "cunt", personally.

Crikey. This escalated quickly. Your husband is either having a mental health crisis or he is incredibly manipulative, perhaps even a sociopath. From what you have said about not knowing if you can be with such an emotional person, I imagine it to be the former. To not check on your child is really not normal at all. Unless he’s been very inattentive to your dd I would actually be quite worried about him.

What he said was horrible even though he was talking about one off behaviour, not you as a person. However, if you want to get anywhere with this I suspect you may have to tread with far more kid gloves than you want to right now.

You said about the pressure you are feeling. I imagine the pressure he’s feeling is ten fold tbh. It sounds like he’s a massive people pleaser and his mother has him right where he wants him. I’m not suggesting to acquiesce btw as in doing so will transfer the pressure to your dd to become the next performing seal.

I am the daughter of a narcissist, who has put untold pressure on me to perform. Until I had therapy and into my 40’s I had my mother’s voice running inside my head on loop governing my every choice. I therefore effectively had no choices and had no idea who I was as a person, I denied my desires and became a quasi opinionless being, afraid to act as I wanted. It is very difficult to describe just how damaging and disempowering this is. From what you describe it wouldnt surprise me if this is also happening to your husband.

If this is the case, I cannot stress enough how difficult if is when first becoming a parent and coming to have the subconscious thoughts that something is terribly terribly wrong but yet not allowing yourself to acknowledge those thoughts. The pressure is enormous.

I went through a very very very angry stage when dd reached around 4 months old. So much so that I actually have little memory of that time and for about 6 months thereafter. I didn’t know it at the time, but having had a great deal of therapy I’ve concluded that as a 4 months old I first became aware (emotionally) that something wasn’t right in my relationship with my mother. Perhaps your dh is going through the same thing. Perhaps his mother is phoning him a lot and even if she isn’t, she sounds omnipresent in his life. That’s pressure on him for all of his life from the moment he was born. Not wanting to suffer the consequences, it sounds as though he has gone along with her every desire and promised her the world to appease her.

Now that he’s got the goods ready, you’re not playing ball. That’s quite some cognitive dissonance and I really do understand why he’s acting this way. Shutting down is his defence mechanism. He’s not coping. Can you just imagine how badly he’s feeling to actually ignore your child? It’s really not normal and I think this is pretty serious actually and your husband is in danger of becoming a broken man.

That is unless he’s a manipulative sociopath.

Now you can choose to support him or you can choose to divorce him. But whatever happens this man is the father of your child and will probably be a far better father if you do your best to help him through this. And yes, I get that is hard. I understand that what I’m telling you will be incredibly difficult journey and I would only stick around if he were willing to work on himself, which means research, probably therapy. People often recommend the books “Toxic parents” and “Toxic inlaws”. I haven’t read them but I understand them to be very good.

As for the advice and visit timings, I remember vividly my mother arriving to visit at a time, when I told her dd would be asleep (dd was in a routine) and my mother demanded I wake her up. She was most offended when I wouldn't. I had to not let my mother into the house so we sat in the garden until it was about the time dd would wake up. That was how controlling she is. No way was I going to take dd out of routine. I got dd in one as she and I were both suffering a lot with her irratic sleep cycle, whereupon she had days and nights of very few hours sleep and others sleeping so much I struggled to feed her.

I also had the feeding thing, where she thought she could tell me how to breastfeed despite only doing it for a very few weeks. At the time she told me her milk dried up around 4-6 weeks when she introduced bottles. However, having gone through cluster feeding and growth spurts,where dd was attached for at least 10 hours out of 24 and with only just about enough milk to feed my dd, I suspect she didn’t realise how often and how long a baby needed feeding - and of course all babies are different. You just need to eye roll this. Your mil doesn’t have a clue.

Right now, I think keeping your fil/mil away for a while is a very good idea.

Thanks ladies

I acknowledge now I should have accepted her heirlooms - but given I'm not sentimental , to me those things were of no consequence. But, just because she wants something to happen doesn't mean it should.

DH is a people pleaser and he's obviously promised him mum that she'll see dd regularly and since I'm not willing to accept her visiting more than once a week I think he feels like he's letting her down. Mil has 4 other grandkids but she seems to be most obsessed with dd.

Whether it's because DH is secretly her fav son, as he rings and checks up on her regularly or because dd is the youngest grandchild I don't know. DH is 42 by the way do his behaviour, crying etc is even more alarming to me

Anyway I tried to talk to him today and tried to get him to understand my perspective. He's convinced that I've deliberately invented offence so that I can prevent him mum from seeing dd, which is totally ridiculous. I was more than willing for his mum to see dd, I simply asked him to tell his mum not to ring my mum. He said so what if his mum wants to ring and have a chat? She doesn't mean any harm but I've deliberately twisted what she's said. He said since his parents are old and may not be alive for long he wants to give them the thing that makes them happy. They are 76, they are in good health and could outlive any of us.

He said he's taking dd to his mums on Saturday and I said no. Dd is only 8 weeks old is breastfed exclusively and I'm not prepared to have her taken away from me. I told him to let his parents come to our house to visit . Also prior to the argument I was still willing to go to his parents house and be polite etc but since he said he didn't want me to come I didn't go. In fact I told him to fuck off to his parents house but he's not taking dd with him. In the end I said I'd divorce him before I see him attempt to take dd away from me . Obviously I regret saying it but I'm just shocked he's prepared to try and separate me from dd just to please him mum

I don’t think he’s convinced you’ve invented an offence. I think his mother is telling him and herself this and your husband is so under her influence that he is unable to see otherwise. That’s what people pleasers do. He is more scared of his mother than he is of you so he pleases her to the detriment of anything and anyone else. Even himself.

Your DH should've ordered the food, and if he didn't want the old toys etc he should've told her, he's using you as a buffer then blaming you for his mum's upset. I can't imagine only seeing my mum or MIL for a couple of hours a week with a new baby, I see them at least that much already, but we all get on well.
She's being pushy, but you also had preconceived ideas about her as a grandmother and pushed her away as soon as you fell pregnant, whereas you spent time with and talked to her before, she probably doesn't understand this change. Also people give me parents unwanted advice, just look at most of these boards, you need to be a bit more resilient, water off a duck's back, you do your way. This is probably why your mum didn't shut MIL down, it private happened to her too, smile and nod, then ignore or be assertive and say actually that's not for us.

Your DH used some upsetting language (personally why should a name for female genitals be more offensive than male, - misogyny, you wouldn't be as upset if he'd said you were acting like dicks, but there you are) but he is clearly very upset about this situation, people who are calling him a child for crying, men are allowed to express emotion, would you say that to a woman who felt her parents were not having the relationship she wanted with her child? His sulking is unreasonable.

You do need to talk calmly and see his point of view as well as get your own across, it is his baby too and it's not solely for you to decide on family access.

Your MIL see’s you and your DD once a week and you describe her as being obsessed with her?

Your husband is a mummy's boy who hasn't properly grown up. He's been under his mum's control all his life and that's not going to stop now.
A weekly visit from the in laws is absolutely more than enough and if the baby needs to sleep or cluster feed during that visit tough tits!
Your MIL was massively out of order phoning your mum and complaining about the way you feed your baby etc.
You really do have a DH problem.

OP you're coming across as very 'it's MY baby' she's not, she has two parents. You telling him to fuck off to his mum's rather than talking calmly is not helpful to anyone in this situation. He has the right for his daughter to see his mother, if you say you don't like her he probably thought the solution was to go without you, more difficult due to breastfeeding. If they come over go for a long bath and a nap, he can tell them you're resting, it's ok for her to be out of your sight for a while. I think your comment about him'taking your baby away' is a massive over reaction. Have you spoken to your health visitor! This might be more than a touch of baby blues.

mY x mil was awful so I sympathise but i'd take control of things by announcing that you're both sorry, say ''i'm sorry i didn't take your blanket and you're probably sorry that you phoned my mother to complain about me, that puts everybody in an awkward position, which isn't what you want, but........... we ''

Get their attention by starting with sorry. Hopefullythey'll allow you to finish the sentence.

I wonder if your MIL doesn't see much of her other GC because of similar behaviour with her other sons. It might be worth contacting one of your BILs or SILs.

As a side issue-if your baby is cluster feeding it's because she is "training" your body to make more milk. So it is better just to sit down and let her get on with it, rather than trying to satisfy her with little feeds. It won't last long-she's just getting ready for a growth spurt.

I really think you have all blown this completely out of proportion, your MIL and DH sound very dramatic and quite frankly you sound very cold.

Everybody needs to be a little kinder and stop talking behind each other's backs. This should be a happy time for your family but everyone seems to be thinking of themselves and not considering anyone else's feelings.