Posted about part of this before but I’ve been crying all evening and I just need some non-biased advice. Friends tell me ‘she’s still his grandmother’ and I feel powerless.
I’ve been with my DP for two years. My MIL (I know she’s not my MIL, but for abbreviation’s sake) hates me.
She has never warmed to me, and when I got pregnant 8 months into the relationship she was awful. She went mad at me, asked me why I wasn’t on any contraceptives and said I was ruining her son’s life. At the time I thought I was having an ectopic pregnancy and I told her this, but she ignored it and carried on shouting at me.
A few months into my pregnancy she started being nice to me. And I thought maybe everything was okay. She’s always been really nice to her other DIL, loves her to bits, is always posting photos of the two of them together and saying how much she loves her and will often post photos of her saying how much she misses her. It’s great that they have this relationship but I’ve always felt secretly jealous. I had a really close relationship with my ex’s mum, and went we split we stopped contact, I miss her and I guess I just hoped for that relationship again.
Throughout my pregnancy she was fine. I had a problematic pregnancy, I’ve had major surgery so I was high risk, I was actually told I couldn’t have children due to it and had been offered IVF. I had gestational diabetes, hypertension and constant reduced movements, so I ended up having a section at 38 weeks. Being in hospital alone was hard and my baby didn’t cry and had intermittent grunting so he was on watch for sepsis and given antibiotics, he is fine, but it was still scary for me.
I had already been diagnosed with bipolar disorder five years prior, and I have been stable ever since after starting medication, with the odd bout of hypermania which only lasts a few days. But around two-three weeks after the birth I developed post-natal anxiety and OCD. I am on medication and start CBT next week. I am also under the perinatal team and have frequent medication reviews.
I’ll be honest, I’ve felt like a shit mum. The medication they put me on was highly sedative and I couldn’t wake in the night to do night feeds so my partner would do it. And when just starting it, I found it impossible to wake up. I would fall asleep while feeding my baby. Some days I slept until 12pm. I also don’t use a bib on my baby because he gets it caught on his face and struggles to get it off and tbh it heightens my anxiety so I use a Muslin. He also falls asleep on the bed with me and I cuddle him for an hour or so before putting him in his crib. I love that time with him, and he loves it too. It won’t be forever, but for now it’s special.
My MIL has been making comments constantly since I had my baby 15 weeks ago. At first she said it was ridiculous I didn’t use a bib, and when I explained she said it’s stupid, took my baby off of me and said to him ‘I don’t care what your mummy says, you’re wearing a bib with me’. Another time she walked in on my baby on the sofa, got angry about him not being in his crib, asked me why and when I replied I like him with me she stormed out and slammed the door. About half an hour later I went outside with her and the rest of her family, and tried to make an effort with DP’s stepdad. I was asking him questions about his work. She shouted at me in front of everyone telling me to stop asking him questions. I felt embarrassed and went back inside.
One morning after staying there, I didn’t wake up until 12pm because they had just doubled my dose of medication. She told my DP it was ridiculous that I was doing that.
I came off the medication after that because I agree it was ridiculous but it wasn’t intentional and the medication really was helping during the day.
She has told me that my partner is taking on most of the parenting, that I’m lucky to have him and he is too good to me. For doing simple things like getting a bottle or changing him.
Later that day, my partner went outside to speak to stepdad. She came in the room and started having a go at me for various things. Again bringing up the bib and the sofa, telling me he’s ‘not a fucking toy, he’s a baby, he needs to be in his crib’. My baby sleeps through the night and is the happiest baby you could ever meet! She then started telling me it was ridiculous that I was on medication, that I can’t parent properly doing that and that if it wasn’t for her son I wouldn’t be able to cope.
I was shaking at that point and she left the room. When my partner came back in, I told him everything and he packed up the car and we left. He told his mum she was being awful but she got defensive.
A few days later she mentioned her other son coming down from the other side of the country. He will be travelling through London on public transport on a 10 hour journey, and wants to meet my son. With my anxiety being the way it is, I said I was uncomfortable with it due to the virus. She started patronising me and telling me she will be driving him down, and that we can meet in a park. I said I will speak to DP about it as he was also uncomfortable. She then started being sarcastic about me being uncomfortable.
Her other son also messaged my DP and said ‘she’s fucking doing this on purpose’
By this point I had had enough and I told her that I was very upset with all the criticism and that I felt like a bad mum because of it. She ignored me.
My DP phoned her a couple of days later and she picked up the phone, asked if I was there, refused to talk to me and handed the phone to her DH. DH told DP I was ‘disrespectful’ and was talking to MIL like a mate and not like a grandmother. That it’s nuts that I was sleeping so much, and that I can’t be a parent doing that.
My MIL then got on the phone and asked what my problem was. I said I felt she was undermining me, and she started screaming down the phone at me and then hung up.
That night I decided to write a message to her and explain I do appreciate help, and how I was feeling, and how I felt I was treated differently to other DIL. She’s done quite a few things to say she much prefers her. Such as buying her gifts for her birthday and writing a huge post about how much she loves her, while writing ‘Happy birthday.’ To me.
She rang my DP and said I was rude, that she doesn’t want anything to do with me and doesn’t want me in the house, but DP and baby can visit. He said no.
She replied to my message telling me i was basically toxic and her son would be happier without me. And then again mentioned the bib, cot, and medication and said she had done nothing wrong but give advice.
She has been texting DP saying I am disrespectful, toxic, that the whole family hate me and want nothing to do with me, that she feels sorry for my son having to grow up with me, and how I am brainwashing my DP to be against her.
He stuck up for me again but she again told him I was forcing him to think that.
Since, the whole family including DIL have deleted me on social media. I know it’s only social media but it hurt because I know that must mean she’s been telling everyone horrible things.
She even phoned my DP’s dad to tell him despite the fact they haven’t been together for 15 years.
She told me everyone had deleted me because of something I’d posted, despite having not used Facebook for days so I didn’t know what she was talking about.
She’s now said she will arrange to see my son with DP.
It’s causing massive strain with me and DP and I feel so on my own. All of our decisions and feelings regarding her actions have been joint; but she has told him he has done nothing wrong and that she knows it is all me.
I showed my health visitor the messages and she agreed that I had been fair and diplomatic, and the way she has been acting is awful.
It’s worsening my mental health and I feel depressed and can’t stop crying.
I just don’t know what to do. I don’t want her to be around my son because I don’t want him to grow up around someone who is so awful to me but I know he has to because it’s my DP’s mum.
I’m sorry this post is so long, I just needed to get everything out. I’m so lonely and scared that she is going to do something nasty like use my mental health against me.