MIL suddenly refused to babysit

[Want2727]

Tonight having a meal with my family for my brothers 40th birthday. The meal is booked for 8 in a really posh restaurant. It has been planned for ages and we asked my in-laws to babysit DS 6 about 2 months ago.

MIL has just rung to say she won’t be babysitting as it is disgusting we won’t be including Ds in the meal as brother kids will be there.

Now my brothers youngest kid is 18 so very different to six. Where we are going has no kids menu. The adults menu will have nothing Ds wants. My brother did check when booking it and I said “your birthday your choice and it would be nice for us to have a night out without Ds”

So now DH is having to stay at home and I am fuming. MIL had known about the exact reason they are babysitting for 2 months and today on the day of the meal she decided she won’t be babysitting as it’s unfair we are not taking Ds.

So 2 AIBU here the first
Should we bring taking Ds tonight?
And
AIBu to be fuming at MIL

I'd distance myself too and let her stew in her own shit.

What an awful stance to take. Sometimes we just want to go out without our children. We want to eat adult food and maybe have a little drink.
We sometimes want the company of other adults only.
I don't think I'll be having much to do with mil for a long time.

Sounds like a bitch and reminds me of my dm and dsis they agreed to have my dc when I went to hospital as an emergency and had my son prematurely he was v Ill and I got discharged after a few days we went home and a 930 pm got a call saying to collect our 2 y o immediately why should we have a child free evenings/nights she was asleep they woke her and had her ready at the door crying it was awful I was trying to express milk for the baby and crying all the time they acted like we would be relaxing and going out

Say nothing more till after the event, then tell her you were able to go anyway. And of course you'll know now not to rely on her for babysitting for nights out.

I'd definitely be cancelling on her last minute, oh sorry, ds didn't fancy it and if course we can't message his side 🤷‍♀️

*leave

Jesus what a spiteful twat. It never ceases to amaze me the lengths some of these MILs will go to to cause problems. She could have voiced her issue at any point in the 2 months leading up to it but to wait til the day of the event is twattery at its best.

That's appalling sombrero iguana you're never going to forget someone treating you like that

Surely mil realises this will have implications?

Yanbu and glad to hear you found someone.

Something similar happened to us except mil waited til 15 minutes before we were about to leave! Cue a rush to get our boys (1 and 3) packed up and in the car with items to keep them occupied. Husband was fuming and decided after that not to ask her again. Funny enough, she has taken her other grandchildren on a trip away last week to give bil & sil a break (sil is due with her second) and said she would do the same for us if we were close by and husband scoffed and said yea, right.

Say nothing at all. Even after the dinner. If she mentions it just say "oh, it all worked out"

How often do you usually have contact.

She either didn't want to babysit - had a better offer or wanted to punish you in some way.

What a nasty thing to do

I’m glad you’re still going

What's it got to do with her, anyway. It looks as though she is looking for an excuse not to babysit, or possibly more likely, she has some agenda re. your lives and interferes too much. Either way, what a cow!

Your mother in law is very unreasonable to let you down at the last minute - and to be cross about your son not being included, he's only six.

I wish you had someone else who'd babysit for you so both you and husband can go.

I think you are excellent parents for not taking the child to a late dinner at a restaurant. And I agree with other posters here that it will drive MIL mad if she won't be able to control you and you keep your distance from her. The best revenge will be so so so easy.

This is almost certainly someone who likes causing trouble and/or dislikes the OP (perhaps OP doesn't defer to MIL - or to her DH - in the way that MIL thinks appropriate). I expect the 'form' is for a variety of petty bouts of troublemaking over which OP has tried, so far, to give the old cow the benefit of the doubt.
But, as PP have said, the best way to deal with someone like this is (as you have done) get another person to help, and don't let the spiteful person know that you have resolved the situation.

Oh, isn't she a delight? Reminds me of my MIL - on the da of our engagement party, she decided that DH's little sister's dance practise was more important (her sign of "I don't approve of the engagement, as she later told dh) so didn't come. Fine by me - the poisonous lovely lady isn't a part of her gc's lives, we're happy all round.

The issue with your son not going is a load of shite. She just wanted to ruin your evening. What a viper.

Sounds a bit peculiar really. Is there another reason she won't sit but doesn't want to tell you?

Be honest. If this was not a MIL wouldn’t you want to know what was going on? If a friend cancelled babysitting at such short notice and with such a strange reason, i’d want to know more before I decided what to do next. What I did next might well be never wanting to see the friend again, obviously.

No, it being any other relationship wouldn’t make any difference to me in this situation - I wouldn’t expect nor accept behaviour like that from anyone. Not my parents, my friends, my PIL, my OH. They’ve given a reason, it’s a ridiculous reason, their behaviour is unreasonable and I’d be pretty fucked off whether there was form or not.

Fuck I wouldnt be telling her you were sorted and I wouldnt be contacting again let your dp deal with her. Btw what did your dp say?

We really need to the OP to come back and give more detail here..

What a nasty person she is! Very controlling.

It's nothing to do with her if you're taking your son or not. She cant force you to take him either- clearly!
Have a good night ❤