MIL....bloody MIL

[Whyyyyytho]

I am in the very early stages of pregnancy. I had to tell her about this because we were out together and I was taken ill. I asked her to please, please not tell anyone, including his siblings as his sister is rather unpleasant and has caused some problems in the past with nastiness.

Obviously she has now told the sister and does not think she has done anything wrong/can’t see the issue/won’t apologise. Despite having said she wouldn’t tell her, her answer is “we are a family and I don’t want to keep secrets”.

I’m only 8 weeks ffs I don’t want anyone to know. Why has she done this?! AIBU to just never tell her anything ever again or update her re the pregnancy. I’m so irritated.

Supposed to see her this weekend for DH’s birthday lunch but not sure that’s going to happen now...

Good grief.
Tell her you are going to go, but then don't. [joke]
After all, there's nothing wrong/no issue/no need to apologise for promising one thing then doing the opposite in her book, is there?

@messolini9

Haha! Made me chuckle!

I am really surprised at how many people here have experienced similar. I honestly thought that keeping a pregnancy quiet until told otherwise was just bloody clear and sacred. I’m keeping about 3 pregnancy secrets other than my own currently 😬

My MIL did the same to me. As she lives overseas and happened to be staying with us in the early stages I couldn't hide it from her. I'd had a very early miscarriage before and didn't want to announce to anyone before the first scan. My scan happened to be on NYE, as we were already planning to take IL's and my grandparents out for dinner I though this would be a nice way to let my GP's know. Whilst I was getting ready, my IL's and GP's were chatting in the living room, when I came out my nan screeches Congratulations at me.

I was FUUUUUUMING. MIL was just like sorry, I thought they already knew which was complete bollocks as i'd already told her not to say anything.

So yeah, the title of your post about sums it up really

God it’s even worse when people have had miscarriages and scares etc - can’t believe it 🤬🤬🤬

Look we are probably uninvited from lunch Sunday anyway after this 🤷🏻‍♀️

Congratulations OP!

This happened to me too. We told my MIL and my parents at 8 weeks, but were keeping it quiet other than that. My MIL told her friends, one of whom mentioned it to my DM who was fuming.

I miscarried and it annoys me to this day that her friends new when none of my extended family did.

We tell her precisely nothing now

Why would you tell anyone the gender? If you don't want people knowing then why tell anyone? If you don't mind people knowing then it's no problem telling your mil. As soon as you tell one person it's no longer a secret.

Actions like that truly need to have consequences. I would expect and demand an apology and let her know you will not allow her to see the baby until she has apologised. I think that is fair enough.

RuggerHug
this is the best idea ever!

@TellMeWhoTheVilliansAre

You have misunderstood me. I don’t plan on keeping the gender a secret! I just don’t want to tell her a bloody thing

She's not going to apologise so I think I would say to her something like:

'we are so disappointed that you haven't kept your word as we asked so we have no alternative but to tell you nothing until we are ready to tell everyone. It's a shame since we were looking forward to sharing early news with you but obviously won't be doing that now.'

I bet she apologies but too little too late, stick to your guns.

Well if you don't want to tell her, don't. She'll find out, but it won't be from you so that can be a win. Stop telling her anything.

On another note, why not keep it a secret? I'd think that would be better revenge on her as she'd be going mad trying to find out!!

we are so disappointed that you haven't kept your word as we asked so we have no alternative but to tell you nothing until we are ready to tell everyone. It's a shame since we were looking forward to sharing early news with you but obviously won't be doing that now

Why bother with that? People like her don't care. They don't see the problem with what they've done, and pointing it out to them just reinforces their belief that they did nothing wrong and you're just a drama queen!!

If you're not going to tell someone anything anymore, just stop telling them things. No need to tell them you're not going to tell them!!

OP, when you're in labour don't tell anyone and then announce the birth on social media and let them find out that way, same time as everyone else.

I am really surprised at how many people here have experienced similar.

My friend's MIL phoned my friend's DF to tell her about the birth of their shared DGC knowing my friend was about to phone her DM then her DF. She also put "Delighted about the arrival of my new grandson..." on Facebook while on the phone. Apparently she was "too excited"

People are utterly, utterly selfish.

She now complains often on Facebook about being the last to know everything

silverysurfer

I’ve already sent her something similar (albeit a lot saltier wording 🤬) - but her response was to... ah fck it here was this exchange (don’t judge me for the rudeness, this was after she had a long exchange with DH where she was saying I don’t feel comfortable keeping secrets I’ve done nothing wrong we are a family
Blah blah blah)....

I said
“ MIL, it was absolutely NOT your place to tell SIL about our pregnancy news. I am actually flabbergasted that you thought this would be ok/didn’t care if it was or not.
If you don’t feel comfortable “keeping secrets” from SIL (keeping someone else’s pregnancy news quiet as requested until the usual 12 week mark is hardly a secret), then we simply can’t and won’t share anything further with you. How disappointing”

She said “Gosh. Not quite sure what to say.
We don’t see things the same way on this one. Not to worry.
Wish you better.”

I replied “Usually the thing to say when you’ve broken someone’s confidence is “sorry”, but that’s fine MIL, I wouldn’t expect that from you. Not sure what was hard to understand about “don’t tell anyone”, particularly given the upset you and your daughter caused during the first trimester of my last pregnancy.
Really not sure why I bother.”

Anyway this was on a group chat with her, me and DH and she then went on a private chat with DH and said “gosh” as if I am very unreasonable. And they had another exchange where she insisted she has done nothing wrong 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'd tell her that if she can't respect your request for things not to be broadcast to the entire extended family, you will regrettably not share with her anything that wish to keep just among close family.

Oh well she's beyond reason. Tell her nothing, stupid woman.

I am really surprised at how many people here have experienced similar.

DP's son and his partner wanted to keep their pregnancy quiet until the 12-13 week stage. However, they told DP's ex.

At a party that she had somehow wangled an invitation to (by sucking up to DP's ex SIL!), she made a point of telling DP she needed to talk to him about something to do with their son. He thought it was something serious, but she told DP about the pregnancy and then told him that he wasn't allowed to talk to them about it as she had been sworn to secrecy!

I'm slightly ashamed to say I let the cat out of the bag accidentally on purpose.

@lakielady

But that means you told everyone about the pregnancy to spite DP’s ex?

Or you just told his son and partner that she had told him?

Firstly congratulations on your pregnancy - how lovely for you and your husband!

Just wanted to show support really - whoever it is, when you trust this early news with anyone and they don’t respect your wishes there’s no way to turn back the clock and put it right and the hurt is very real.
Hopefully there is a little comfort in so many of us experiencing similar - my own MIL has serious form for telling everyone else’s news when it suits her, not to do with any kind of personal request for privacy, secrecy or respect of social norm so when we had to tell early due to quite nasty illness we were extremely blunt with how secret it was and that breaking our trust would end up with no information for the rest of the pregnancy. Cue the remaining 6 weeks of my first trimester being bombarded with messages around how stressful life was keeping the secret and how unfair it was, requesting daily updates on anyone new that had heard so she could discuss it with them and then when we announced on some group whatsapps that she was also on she felt the need to respond not with the traditional smiley face or excitement, but pointed posts about how difficult it had been keeping the secret!! Funnily enough mil I think everyone else guessed you already knew, you don’t need to prove we love you the most! The follow up phone calls from extended family all included comments about how terribly sorry they felt for mil having to keep secrets from friends and family and what a tricky position we had put her in!!!

Families hey!

@wingingit101

Way for your mother in law to make it all about her! Horrible! And thank you 😊

Tell her nothing. Completely suit yourself. And add a week onto due date.

I had this sort of thing with DM. I made the mistake of telling her my waters had broken with DC1 and asked her to pick up a couple of bits for my hospital bag. The moment she left, she texted just about everyone she's ever met and gave several people (I don't even know) my phone number, so they could ask for updates.

I was then inundated with unknown numbers asking about my progress. She also told a close friend of mine, who then shared in a group chat, so I had continuous notifications of them discussing why I hadn't told them yet.

Then she called and texted constantly after I let her know things weren't going well and sat outside the hospital in her car, demanding to be let in. Despite me saying I didn't want her to come.

DC2 we made sure she didn't know anything until they were here.