MIL took DH out when we had a 4 week old

[TatDeDrummond]

Reflecting on my relationship with my MIL and my bitterness towards her, wondering if I'm wrong and over reacting to things. There has been that much stuff I think I've lost perspective but this is one thing I keep doing back to.

Very brief background - MIL has always been obsessed with DH and will call him multiple times a day, wants to see him constantly etc. A year ago when DS was 4 weeks old I was really struggling with PND and anxiety, DS was colicky and screamed for hours each evening, I was just about hanging on by a thread. MIL at the time lived very close to us and witnessed how hard everything was. She asked DH to go out to the ballet with her and take her for dinner as a production she fancied was finishing the following week. She told him he needed a break and they went out and left me to cope alone and she put pictures of their evening all over social media.

I know DH was wrong for going too (I think) but I was too mentally fragile to stand up for myself properly. I think as a mother she should have never done this as she must have known how inappropriate it is to pressure (and she did) a new father into a night out away from his wife and child.

AIBU here or is it no big deal?

OP report your thread and ask for it to be moved out of here to relationships.

@Needadvices
You are aware this a support site for parents.

One 4 week old, no other children? Not wrong for him to go, at that age they mostly breastfeed and poop anyway. Sorry to say you sound a bit dramatic.

How can you possibly say that this is what the OP's baby was like? Plus she was struggling with PND and anxiety. Did you just not read the OP properly or are you just trying to make her feel shit?

OP, when DS was 4 weeks old, all he did was scream his head off with colic and reflux. I was on my knees. I totally sympathise if your situation was similar.

You have a DH problem, not a MIL problem. He should have said no and stayed home.

Blame your DH not your mil. It sounds like you resent 'sharing ' your DH with his mum. I think you need to accept she was his son before you became his wife. That's a bond you shouldn't resent but your DH has to learn how to manage both of you although you and your ds should be his priority

Support in fixating on her dh being out one evening? Not making op feel shit, but see things for what they are. Spend one evening alone with a newborn, happens to all of us, OP survived, no harm done. To answer the question not wrong for MIL to think she could have one evening with her son even tho there was a crying baby home.💁‍♂️we all had difficult moments with our babies, and OP is referring to one episode, doesnt say she was constantly left alone or didn't have a break herself. But dont let facts stop MILs bashing on mumsnet eh.

We had a colicky baby and it is so so hard. But your husband needed a break, and as his mother she seen that and acted on it. the problem is you did too.

I don't think it's her fault and I don't necessarily think he is the worst in the world for taking a break, it's just that you should have been able to have a break also.

Ah this could be my MIL but the only reason it isn’t is that my husband would have definitely said no (which in itself leads to loads of hassle of emotional blackmail and sulking). I agree with others, you anger is a bit misplaced, your husband is the issue. He needs to have managed it (and I’m guessing a lot of other examples) better.

I’ll never understand parents that can’t accept their children grow up and have their own lives and that has to change things with how they see/ interact with them.

If your MIL was a kind person, she'd have offered to have the baby for the evening, so that both parents could have a break for a few hours.

I agree with PP that the fact this is still distressing to you a year later is possibly at least partly because it's a difficult memory that hasn't been soothed by better behaviour since.

I don't think you are in any way unreasonable to feel that this was a shitty thing to do. I think that it was really unkind of both your MIL and your DH: unkind, selfish and showing a staggering lack of empathy.

The question is, how might you move on and do you want to?

Hi OP

I dont think YABU to be a bit miffed. Its hardly the ideal 'break' from a newborn for a new father - taking his mum to a ballet production that she fancies. So sounds pretty selfish on her part and I can see it made things harder for you.

I would however be more pissed off with your husband - he definitely should have been putting you first and it sounded like you needed him

I'm not sure its healthy to still be angry about it after all this time though

Why should both you and your dh suffer because your baby who mostly needs his mom is at a difficult stage.
Knowing her son, she may have felt he needed a break.
It’s not wrong for her to have asked or him taken up on the offer.

They perhaps should have gone about it more tactfully - perhaps arranged for another relative or friend to come over for the evening to help you.
My c-Sec is booked for next week and I don't mind DH going to an important milestone bday two days later I've sorted a family member to come over and help me in the evening.

He took his own mother out on a date odd at the best of times. Apron strings need cutting..

Maybe I am being unreasonable then. There are loads of other examples but all similarly low level, nothing awful just things that make me feel bad at the time. I thought this was categorically wrong though so the fact that many people think it's fine makes me think I probably do have a problem with the way I see things.

Multiple phone calls a day - massive red flag right there - I wouldn't want to have sex with a man who enabled this kind of behaviour from his mother, let alone marry and have a baby with him!

Here we go! Son and his mother has a close relationship and it's a red flag! This site is so bloody predictable.

I don't think it's fine. She should have considered the impact taking him out for the evening would have had on you, as you were not coping well at the time by the sounds of it. Putting it on social media is just silly. Why rub your face in it. Your DH should have been more considerate too, of course.
The multiple phone calls per day is also odd and I would find that annoying... he's a grown man living his own life. She should respect that but he should stop playing along.

@TatDeDrummond
I don't think most posters think you're unreasonable at all but most think your DH is/was.

I would have been happy for my husband to have a night out. He went out for an evening not a week

YANBU. Both of them were shit for doing that, I'd have been annoyed too.

When DS was a few months old I found some cash in a drawer. Unusual because we rarely use cash, always card. I asked DH about it a few days later and it turned out his mum had given him money for him to treat himself as we were now struggling a little financially with me being on mat leave, and told him not to tell me. I was furious, as for the last 6 years I had largely supported both of us, having a salary over double his and using my inheritance money for a deposit on our house. How dare I put us in a position where DH can no longer have the luxuries I afforded him Particularly stings when you don't have a mother of your own to make things even.

I get that they have a natural instinct to look after their own, but as fellow mothers you'd think they'd understand better.

If my dp had gone out to the ballet and dinner with anyone when .I struggling with a colicky 4 week old and PND and anxiety he would be an ex. Attach the blame to the right person. She was insane to ask him. But him agreeing to go was unforgivable.

@Whitechocandraspberry
It’s not about you though is it.

But this is a bizarre thread. Usually a MIL only has to wear a slightly irritating shade of green to be vilified.............

Is it really that bad to go out for one evening when you have a newborn ? Would you have minded him going out at all, or is because it was with his mother?