MIL & DH. I think I’m going mad.

[Mamathebest]

I’m hoping to get a bit of advice here. I have DS who is now approaching 20 months. In these 20 months MIL has not done much to bond with our son. She will casually drop in after a month or two and state how much “she misses her grandson and wants him alone” then disappear again. My parents have been incredibly helpful since DS was born. At one point my DH was working nights and we barely saw him. My family really did there best to support us and make sure I wasn’t cooped up alone with a baby. I’ve had quite poor health over the last year. I unfortunately have reoccurring tonsillitis. And I don’t mean once every few months. This is 2x a month. I am basically at the doctors or referred to the hospital for treatment every month. Ridiculous fever, pain, unable to even swallow my own saliva. It’s exhausting dealing with it and looking after a now toddler but I get on as best as I can with my support system. Occasionally if I have an infection and DH is not around that particular week I’ll stay with my mum and sis for a few days for some extra support. I’m incredibly thankful for this.

I have tried my best to be respectful to my in laws and facilitate a relationship with DS and MIL. She works full time and is quite busy and I try to be mindful of that. I regularly text her “if you have any free time this week and would like to see GS. Let me know what works for you and I’ll bring him
To you or feel free to come Over”. Sometimes this is replies with a simple “ok” and no further contact is made. Sometimes she comes Over. As there’s no regular contact DS sees MIL as a stranger. He obviously is closer to my family as they tend to drop in more often or invite us around. This has always caused a bit of jealousy and bitchy comments from in laws and husband.

Things came to a head last weekend and as a result me and DH are no longer talking. MIL came around last week and stated “I want some alone time with DS this Friday. So I’ll take him”. My DH who is desperate for DS to become closer to his family, immediately said yes without even a conversation with me. DS is going through a horrible separation anxiety phase. I could occasionally leave him for a bit with DH and my sister. Now he’s screaming the whole time
And with my last attempt I was told to immediately come back! I can see this is perfectly normal
At this stage so I’m trying my best to ride it out and if i have to leave him. I would rather Leave DS in environments and with people who he is familiar with. My mum has babysat a couple of time’s and its always been at our home. She finds he tends to deal with separation a bit easier there plus it’s childproofed.

I spoke to my DH about MILs request. We have no plans to go out on Friday and currently very broke so can’t afford to. So this is all for the benefit of MIL. I said to my DH I’m quite concerned leaving DS with MIL. She shows no interest in his routines and is absolutely clueless when it comes to him. Surely it would make more sense for her to see him more often first, become more familiar with each other? And I am also confused by this whole “I can only bond if I get alone time with your son and nothing else will do??”. Maybe it’s cultural differences but where I am from no one gets to demand alone time with anyone’s kids. If parents ask that’s a separate matter. My own parents who adore DS would never and respect that. I was willing to put aside my instincts and go along with it if MIL could have DS in our home as is normal tradition. My DH simply grunted and said “yeah I’m sure it will be fine”.

Friday comes and he texts me saying that we can drop DS over to his mums. Obviously I’m a bit confused as this wasn’t the plan. We go back and forth and in the end the night is cancelled. My DH starts swearing at me and says “I see you for what you are now” wtf?!

It’s been three days and he has refused to talk to
me. I believe the last thing he said to me was “fuck off”. I have spoke to his mum, apologised for the miscommunication and explained
My feelings as gently as I could. I offered for us all to spend time together (me, MIL & DS) the next day. MIL said she was busy. I said that’s completely fine would any other day work? So we agreed on Sunday. I brought DS over, MIL barely spoke to me and made some passive aggressive comments. I didn’t reply, I just kept in mind I’m doing this for my DS. At one point during the visit DS wondered over to touch a small plastic ornament she had on display. He literally brushed his hands on it and she screamed at him. DS of course was crying and scared. He’s a toddler FFs, I mean I am all for setting clear boundaries but that seemed OTT. I feel like I’m being pointed out to be some kind of evil woman by DH and MIL. Honestly at a loss as to what to do.

Hey OP ..just to remind you you do not have to put up with this shit from your husband or his mother.Stand up stop being so nice and tell them both to fuck off and get a grip.No amount of abuse from either of them will change your mind as a responsible parent who soley it appears has the best interests of her child at heart.Ask them both how difficult they would like it to be if you left totally? Get your big girl pants on and sort both the game playing cheeky disrespectful fuckers out.
Done properly you will only ever have to do it the once.Go on frighten the pair of them senseless I would.

Your husband and his mother sound awful. You sound like you've done loads to facilitate a good relationship but she's not been interested. It all sounds incredibly controlling. You shouldn't be being treated like this!

Op you poor thing your dh sounds utterly childish.

What a sad individual, and he'd happily dump his son knowing they have zero relationship.

No. Go to the your sisters.. And seriously think about the relationship however remember if yiu separate he can dump his son there all the time and you'd never know nor not know how your son is

You sound like a great Mum & DIL. You have tried to facilitate a relationship between MIL & DS who seems to think of him like a novelty toy rather than a person. I would like you never leave DC with someone they do not have a great relationship with.

Your DH sounds like an idiot Mummy's boy who does not respect you or his DS

It sounds like you would be better off just the two of you

Your husband sounds awful.

Ignore the whole mil issue actually you need to get him to do some parenting

I can’t offer much advice with your MIL situation. But relating to your tonsillitis, I had this problem when I was a kid and my mum swore by natural yoghurt, it cleared it up....
not sure if that helps!! I still have my tonsils!

Thank you all again for your messages and I apologise for not getting back to you all earlier. I agree in what many have said it is an issue with DH. I’ve realised that a major source of arguments since I’ve had DS has been the in law drama. It’s very hard to convince DH that I am not intentionally trying to keep DS away from his family. But this is what is in his head now. I really wish that instead of wanting DS to spend more time with MIL. He would just spend time with us as a family. DS is a very outdoor child and as with most toddlers want to be out and about. I do soft play and all the fun stuff. Occasionally DH might join us on the weekend but not often. Sometimes I say let’s just go walk around the shops with DS and keep him busy. DH doesn’t want to do this in his “down time”. He does absolutely love his son but sometimes I feel he “just can’t be bothered” as well if that makes sense?

DH just had a week off work. We went out once as a family after I requested he join us for soft play and lunch. Other then that it’s been catching up with friends and sleep. I’ve asked him to get up once in the week with DS and he stated that “he just cries for you”. Which to an extent can be true, but also if you try hard enough as I’ve seen with my own parents he can be somewhat distracted at least for a couple hours.

There was a quite serious incident with MIL when DS was born. I won’t go into details but to this day I feel like the worst mum in the world for leaving him alone with her. I won’t say much but it involved a “cultural” tradition which causes baby some minor hurt. As soon as I found out from DH I put a stop to it. DH thought it was perfectly acceptable until I gave him evidence otherwise. Because “mum said it’s fine” I know it will never happen again but maybe on a deeper level I don’t trust her because of this. MIL also has some pretty steep and narrow stairs that we’ve all took a bad tumble on at some point over the years. While I was visiting with DS and he was attempting to climb the stairs. She made no attempt to go look or check on him. She just simply said “I’ve never bothered with a stair gate. Once they’ve had a few falls they’ll soon learn and not bother”.

Maybe I am being precious, I don’t know. DH and his family are clearly from a “let kids get hurt and they’ll learn” background. Which is reasonable to an extent of kids fall and hurt themselves. But anyone watching them should at least be proactive in keeping them generally safe. It would absolutely kill me to separate DS from DH but this behaviour can’t continue as it is. I wish he would just bloody support his son and me. Rather then “oooh Look how much time she spends with that family and just pushes us out”.

Please tell me she didn’t circumcise your baby.

In regards to the tonsil trouble- I’ve been on same
random cocktails of antibiotics that I cannot begin to name. It seems that I grow resistant each time
To one set of antibiotics and then I’m
Put on something new. I’ve been on a 2 week course quite regularly. The doc thinks no antibiotic in the world would ever treat it and it’s just some
Weird case of resistance that needs to be removed.

My DH is also tired of me always being “sick” and needing a lil extra help. I’ll be honest it probably sounds annoying when it’s so often. I’ve noticed that lack of sleep and stress is also a big trigger as well. It’s so odd, I had tonsillitis quite frequent until about the age of 15. Now I’m 27 and it came back with a vengeance. Weird. I have been in hospital a few times.

No not circumcision. It’s a bizarre practice that would be far too outing. Sorry I can’t go into detail.

So send the text fizzygreenwater suggested. If he doesn’t respond and start to behave within two days I would be packing bags and going to your parents or sisters and would not be returning until some counselling had taken place so he gets to understand how appalling his treatment of you is

You can’t let him carry on with this sort of behaviour, it’s not a good example for your child

Spending time with family is exactly what people do with down time! I'd go to my sister's if I were you and think about if this is what you want your life to be. He's a disinterested father now after only 20 months. Do you still want to be having these same conversations when your son is older only then your son will be noticing that daddy doesn't want to spend time with him so you'll have his pain of rejection to deal with as well. Believe me, feeling like you're not interesting enough to spend time with has life long fall out.

Send what fizzy said.... Please

Op it sounds like you need to leave him and if you did it doesn’t sound like he would make much effort to see your son either.

Like his mother...

She wants alone time because she doesn't like you. So the bright side is you can put your foot down & cut down your dealings with her by having DH take your child for visits. He'll soon twig she's actually not that fussed or a doting GM, it's more a power trip thing shell get bored off because she's not child friendly in reality - & lone visits will never be a great idea.

Your ‘D’H sound awful. Sorry, OP.

There are so many fathers who ‘love’ their DC, apparently, yet cannot be arsed to demonstrate that practically or emotionally. I’m not sure how people identify this ‘love’. I don’t recognise it.

I don't think you need to feel guilty for potentially separating your husband from your son should you split up

Husband seems to do a good job, on his own, of separating himself from his son and choosing when it suits HIM to be a father

I hope you do stand up to this man. I doubt things will improve unless he can cope with you being more assertive. You must be your strong self which will be easier when your health is better.
Your Mil sounds like a total nightmare . I wouldn't want to leave a young child with some so careless and inconsiderate.
I would also be wary of her requests for alone time with DS.
Does she have another agenda?

I hope you do go and stay with your sister and that you get the Op you need.
You sound like a really good mum. Trust yourself you have good instincts that are being undermined atm

I guess DS is insert my ethnic group
So she’s racist as well. How lovely. I’d make sure my child wasn’t exposed to her poison.

it involved a “cultural” tradition which causes baby some minor hurt
She has a history of hurting your child! Why would you even consider letting her be alone with him! That would be sufficient for me to insist on no unsupervised contact EVER. How can you be sure she won’t do it again? Your child isn’t safe with her.

OP you’re totally correct in not sending your child off with a virtual stranger. I’d expect her to visit regularly and develop a loving and trusting relationship to the extent that DC runs to her with open arms! Only then would I consider leaving him with her. And tbh I still probably wouldn’t, because of her making racist comments and hurting him.

Packing as we speak and will send the text. I’ve heard nothing from him all day. Not even to see how DS is.

Good luck OP you are doing the right thing

He barely knows her due to her lack of effort. She needs to put the hours in. I’m confused why she has to have alone time with him, especially as she doesn’t know him or his routine. You also have a DH problem, he is rude and unsupportive. He needs to back you and give his mum a reality check

Another vote for a copy and paste and then email of @FizzyGreenWater post

Good luck OP.

I'd like to think this will be a wake-up call, but I'm not confident.

If you're at home with your son & your husband is at work for a good part of the day, how does your being ill affect him?

You are doing the right thing op.
Don't ever doubt that.
Seek legal advice and don't hurry home.