to be really pissed off with my mil - very long

[cba]

ok, I will try and keep this as short as possible and to the point.

We have three children ds1 6years, ds2 4, and dd 2years,

Ever since ds1 born mil has always been a pain in the arse and very unsupportive. Firstly was the fact she smoked and at first refused not to smoke where the baby was. She I had to say if that was the case then i wouldnt go. She then relented and said her and fil would smoke in the kitchen.

I use to visit her five times a week on several times she would look after ds1 while I went to the gym, but she would never come to us.

I asked her if she would like to go the park with us and she said she dosent do walks, swimming and babysitting.

I then fell pregnant with ds2, she said she would get a car seat to help and take ds1 never happened still waiting.

Encouraged her to look after ds2 to form a bond she looked after him twice but said she couldnt cope when he cried as he use to start coughing and she thought he was going to choke.

In between the births she has caused many problems for dh so much so I use to dread him going over there.

I have many converstations with her in a nice way saying I would love her to be more involved but I feel I am having a go for asking all the time.

mil said she wasnt ready to be a grandma when ds1 was born and when ds2 was born she had her own thing going on.

I then fell pregnant with dd and unbenown to me dh was having an affair. Another thread. Anyway, in the two years dd has been alive she has not looked after her once or spent any time with her. She comes over to my house only when I offer to cook for her. I go to their house as often as possible probably once a fortnight on a weekend.

She has now started babysitting her friends granddaughter who is four months, which I am not bothered about. But, she had her overnight at the weekend.

Now she phoned dh last night and said she would like to have the boys stay at her house once a month. She said we can get someone else to look after dd.

Both dh and I have discussed and said no, as she has caused alot of trouble for us and not been supportive at all. She lives 15 mins from us and when I came out of hospital with dd, dh had to go on business for three weeks, I had three children under the age of 4 and she never came once.

Both dh and I think she needs to spend a little time getting to know all the children because at this moment in time if I say we are going to her house they moan, if she is coming here they ask why.

On a recent family holiday we had sepearte villas 30 seconds away from each other she only came to our villa once when I cooked a barbecue and invited her to eat. She never offered to look after children for a couple of hours when they were in bed. She is very shelfish and just thinks of herself.

When i found out about dh affair I did not tell her as I thought I am going to get grief. Eventually she did find out from dh as he felt so guilty, she then said to me I should make more husband time and I need to look at myself to see the reason why he had the affair.

I have asked the boys if they would like to stay as i do not want to deny them, they do not want.

What are peoples thoughts on this, I think world war three is going to break out.

My inlaws never call, send gifts and have never looked after dd who is 4. They has so little to do with dd that she doesnt know who they are. Im sad but not because i dont get the suopport but because i wish they had a good relationship with her, as my mum and dad do
Lisa

Why do you spend so much time with her? My in laws live 10 mins away and I see them once a month if that - and they like the children. I think you should back off and stop trying to force the issue. And don't go on holiday with her again.

It sounds as though there have always been issues and although everyone here can totally appreciate your reservations about the smoking, she may have seen that as a 'put down' and it could have left her feeling that you thought she wasn't good enough to look after them.

3 children would be very difficult for a great deal of people to have all at once tbh, much harder when they're not your dcs and very daunting. If she doesn't feel confident maybe it is better that she is honest with you about what she can handle. There was a wonderful article in the papers a few years ago about how completely irresponsible grandparents can be (unintentionally obviously!)

Without being harsh as I can see why it is annoying for you, I do think you are very lucky to have any help, I would have chopped my right arm off at times to have an hour at the gym!

I agree with others in that you are expeting too much from her.

It sounds to me like you're pushing too hard and trying to make her behave in a way she doesn't want to. You say she is unsupportive, then mention several ways she has supported you. You can't force people to behave as you want them to. I think as others also, that you need to stop asking and pushing and wait for her to call the shots. So she is a gtg, well, in your eyes that makes her selfish, but she's done her stint of motherhood,

I feel sorry for many mil tbh. Too involved & they're interfering, not involved enough and they're selfish & unsupportive. Seems like a case of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't. Dreading becoming a mil myself.

You say "I am very honest she says to dh that I am like a school teacher and make her feel like a child, I am only being honest ffs. " What do you mean by this? In what way are you "honest". Becasue often that means speaking your mind plainly which isn't necessarily the best thing. maybe you're too abrupt or forthright with her?

My il's have never looked after my dd1 who is now 9 and they only live around the corner. They have probably visited 5 times in her life didn't even come to see her on her birthday. They just don't do visiting they expect us to go to them! Whereas my mother (who lives in Australia) has looked after dd1 for whole weekends, and if you ask dd1 she would tell you that she prefers nanny in australia who she sees every couple of years. The way I see it is that they are the ones missing out and I'm not going to chase around after them or force dd1 to visit when she doesn't want to.

Thanks everyone. I do want the childrent to have good time with her and have tried to make it really exciting but at this moment in time they do not want to. Perhaps if they are left for an hour here and an hour it will help, but I have tried this with her and she didnt want to.

Maybe she has now suggested she might be more willing for me to drop them off once in a while for the odd hour so they can get use to being there without me.

Perhaps I have been too forthright with her but that is just me, is everyone else just nicey nicey with there mil, is it better just to keep the peace. I am interested how others deal with these situations.

chrissee, yes that sounds a little like my in=laws perhaps I have just been expecting too much, as my mum does loads and looks after all three children on her own and is nearly ten years older then mil.

Far far better to keep the peace. Family is family and you can't change it, just try to discover your common ground. There will be some, you just might have to dig a bit!!

thanks for that wisteria, think I will let dh deal with it and take a back seat and in the future if mil is direct and abrupt with me I will resist the urge to do the same and be non-commital.

I haven't read the entire thread but really I think it's up to the gps how large a role they play. I'm thinking ahead to when I'm a gp; I would be pissed off if my dil/sil just assumed I'd babysit and wouldn't expect them to be aggrieved if i didn't want to for whatever reason. That said, of course I'd want to be involved, but I'll have done more than my fair share of parenting by then - I have 4 children - and a bit of me is looking forward to the freedom of a grown up family, with time to pursue my own interests.

To date my DDs have seen my Mother 5 times this year and MIL only twice. My Mum has looked after DD1 3 times and never DD2. MIL has never looked after any of the DDs. Both live about an hour away.

I'm trying to get my head around it and live with the fact that they aren't that interested in their grand-daughters and just get on with it but it's so hard when you hear other people's parents taking their kids for weekends or looking after them so they can go out and work.

When they do visit they sit on the sofa and watch the DDs play, expecting food and cups of tea made (even when DD2 was less than 48 hours old). It does P* me off but you have to except thats the way they are.

I think there have been some very useful points here and some good ideas of how to move things forward. What has jumped out at me is that there is some underlying frustrations to how things have gone/or not in the past when dd was born especially. this was obviuosly a v difficult time in your life and I wonder if you need to deal with those feelings re you MIL and put that aside if you can.

If she is initiating contact then there is clearly some form of change and you should look at this as a new phase and decide how to handle things without looking backwards.

But also the big issue is that the boys need to be happy with things too. I think you said they did not want to go to grandmas.

good luck

this is it.

my mum is really busy looking after her mum's house, her house and her second-retirement-investment-by-the-sea-home, that she doesn't have time to come and visit us. but, i have to accept that my children won't have an as close relationship as they do with my PIL.

after years of trying to encourage my mum to come down, i have given up (they : 3 times in 7 years, me : 9 times in 7 years and 3 children!).

Just reading the OP and skimming other responses. I think she wants to have her cake and eat it to. She can not dictate which children she has they are all her grandchildren, she should accept all or none.

I have MIL trouble too and TBH I just ignore her until I feel ready to try again. She never tries with my DC's so I dont see why they should be made to endure her moaning and bad attitude.

I think you and DH should put up a united front and she'll have to do it your way or no way.

Good luck.

nappyvalley, you are probably right that there are underlying issues from the past, no help and causing trouble whenever she could.

milkshake you have hit the nail on the head as how i feel, she wants her cake and eat it.

CBA :
"I use to visit her five times a week on several times she would look after ds1 while I went to the gym, but she would never come to us."

You would take your LO to visit 5 times a week AND leave him with her to babysit so you could go to the gym, and you wonder why she backed off?

Further:

"I asked her if she would like to go the park with us and she said she dosent do walks, swimming and babysitting. "

She has made it pretty clear hasn't she?

Why would you assume she would want to look after your kids for you? She has had her kids, brought them up and now she enjoys herself!

Also, my mother also potters about when I visit, she is a busy woman, she has things to do. What would you have her do, treat you like a formal visitor, serve tea and cookies?

Be happy she has now taken initiative to have your two oldest children.

I also think you should stop forcing the issue and let her decide how involved she is in their lives.

starry, i didnt leave ds1 there five times a week, but she asked me to visit her every day as I did, at her request.

The park visits were suggested as she said to dh i was not involving her, and she wasnt allowed to be a nana.

so this was her choice not mine.

YANBU in my opinion as I do think it sounds like she's been unsupportive and inconsistent. I also personally think it is reasonable to expect support from grandparents, particularly in the form of looking after the gc. IMO it is part of deciding to become a parent that you will in the future be involved in the lives of your children's children (if you're fortunate to have gc).
Also, I know you said it didn't bother you but I'd be ped off that she would babysit for someone else's child but be reluctant to babysit her gc.
My parents don't make much effort to be involved in ds' life and he is now 1 and they've babysat him a couple of times and altho they only live 30mins away hardly ever come to visit and only ever if they're on the way to somewhere else. It pes me off but I have said something and it made no difference so I have to just accept it. But I know that if I'm ever a grandparent I'll do it completely differently.

I don't understand this 'supportive' bit though. You've got kids. You chose to have kids. They're not severly ill or anything ( I assume, as it wasn't mentioned). It's your job to look after them.

Yes it's nice if gps get involved, but you can't force it, insist on it, demand it. It's a nice extra, not a right. Give mil of the world a break fgs.

what does that mean 'she wasn't allowed to be a nana'?

Your MIL doesnt sound unreasonable to me. She has raised her children and this is her time now to do with as she likes.
If your mother takes all 3 children for you and you want MIL to, when do you plan on having them. Having children is a big responsibility but you should have known that when making the decision - its not upto the grandparents to care for them.
Children can have a good relationship with their grans without staying over or being left in grannies care.

If you need more support with your children, maybe you should consider looking elsewhere. It sounds like asking your mother is putting a strain on your relationship with her. I stay home with four and I find help here and there. My mother does take them for me but only once or twice a year. It works our for both of us. As for the smoking issue, you just have to be firm. If you mother refuses to stop smoking around the baby, then don't have the baby around your mother. A friend of mine has a little girl with emphazema from second hand smoke so this is important.