MIL wants to see her son without her grandson & me

[Grxcegrxxn]

For a bit of context, myself & my partner have been together 4 years, we had our son 18 months ago. Partners mother has only seen our son twice. We have encouraged her to schedule a day to come & see us or we can travel to her, but she either cancels plans or just doesn’t show up. She missed our sons first birthday, didn’t see him over the Christmas break, even though she lives a few streets away. FIL sees our son regularly but always comes to ours alone without MIL. We’ve been in no contact with MIL for 10 months now but recently she has started getting FIL to communicate for her instead of just reaching out herself. FIL invited us to a bbq at their house, we agreed we’d go, then the day of FIL messages & says ‘mom recons it’s best to leave it, I think you and her need to chat face to face privately’. When my partner asked what about (assuming she was upset about something & wanted to talk it out) he responded ‘it’s nothing bad your mom just wants mom and son time with you away from everyone els’. Insinuating she wants to be alone with him away from myself & our son. Usually I wouldn’t be bothered if it was directed at me, BUT I don’t understand why she wants to be away from her grandson as well? Am I taking this too personal? :/

Edit...That MIL's husband has to visit his son and son's family ''in secret'' is very bizarre.

The MIL sounds jealous and dysfunctional.

I don't understand some of these comments excusing her behaviour and saying she probably only wants to see her son 121.

She is being rude and controlling. If she doesn't want to see OP or her DS, she doesn't need to, but the fact that her husband can't visit them without lying about it is plain weird.

I think she doesn't like you. I don't see any other explanation as she had multiple opportunities to talk to her DS and seems to be playing hot and cold game.

I would honestly have no patience for this behaviour. Leave your DP to deal with her. Leave your FIL to decide if he wants to see his grandson, it's his loss if not.

Focus on your little family and enjoy your drama free life.

I've known a few women who had close to zero interest in their grandchildren, especially when the children were very young. Too much like hard work, too noisy, stuff in the house getting broken or ruined.

It's a shame but not that unusual. My own mum actively disliked a few of her grandkids and made a very poor show of hiding it. I have 2 friends who experienced similar.

It's disappointing but some people just aren't into their grandkids.

That is really odd!
My dad didn't like being called ''Grandad'' {mid 50's!} but FIL bless him was delighted to be 'Grandad' at same age.

Yes, possibly your MIL feels 'Old' at being a granny at 40, but how vain and silly is that!

She can go to ''Grab a Granny'' nights at her local pub now, and look the youngest one there! 😂

I don't think its about your child. She obviously wants to talk to her son about something and it wouldn't be appropriate to have a small child there.
Then why does FIL have to hide the fact he visits because she gets the arses with him if he does? A grown women kicking over that isn’t poorly, she’s a prick.

I don’t see how she plans on resolving whatever the issue is without me knowing what’s gone wrong

It's her absolute right as a mother to want a private conversation with her son or simply to spend some time with him. She doesn't owe you any explanations, she doesn't need to ask for your permission. It doesn't matter how cold or bad she has been as a mother, or whether she likes you or not, or what she tells her husband about visiting you. All these considerations are simply irrelevant here - she simply wants to talk to her son and has this right.

OP I thought I was the only one in this boat! My dad has zero interest in my family (DH and 3 kids) or in my siblings' families. He's only interested in the 3 of us - me and my 2 siblings. He has said he doesn't want to get to know our children/his grandchildren let alone our spouses as he'll have limited time with them before he dies (he's not dying, this was said about 10 years ago). The difference is that he lives overseas and English is not his mother tongue, whereas your MIL lives next door. If it helps, my dad is a narcissist and I think he also has a personality disorder. The last time I saw him, with our 3 kids, he ignored them most of the time, and got incredibly sulky that my time was spent with them AND him. There's nothing wrong with you and you haven't done anything wrong, she is just not interested in you or your child, and sad as it is, there's absolutely nothing you or your DP can do about it.

No right to ban her husband from seeing his son & grandson. If she’s so eager to speak to her son she shouldn’t ignore him anytime he tries to text, call or visit. & you clearly haven’t read the part where her son did go to talk to her & she wasn’t home anyway.

People are all different, he won't know until he speaks to her- as a PP said plenty of ways he could make this happen rather than calling if he's overly bothered. Plenty of people work christmas, I'm sure they benefitted from the money of her working growing up. Perhaps she does hate being a parent, perhaps she hates the thought of being a grandparent, perhaps she hates you; it's up to him to try and speak to her.

It sounds horribly tedious now. You and DP have tried and invited and she clearly either doesn’t want to see you or talk about whatever the issue is OR she is just ramping up the drama.

Can DP just go round there and speak to her? Or ask his Dad WTH is going on?

Sorry but she doesn’t like you and she’s a bitch. I don’t know why people are focusing on the your DH seeing her alone.

She ignored you for 10min the then calls the shots and then fucks off again? I wouldn’t be bothering with someone living nearby who makes it clear they don’t like me. Support your DH who keeps trying and getting rejected and seeing her have a relationship with other family members.

But obviously I don’t have any proof she’s actually ‘stopping him’, but it seems very sketchy.

A lot of this is based on unknowns by the sound of it and assumptions.

Then he's tried and she can whistle.

Unless she makes a firm date and promises to show up and actually does then go no contact and tell spineless FiL exactly why

I agree too.
But my DH likes to have one on one time with his Mum sometimes. I think this is a good thing and I like that he cares about her. I would feel very sad if in the future I never saw my daughters alone.

Dp went over soon as she said she wanted to talk to him days ago, they weren’t home but his brother was & told dp they’d gone to the pub with a friend & wouldn’t be back till late so ‘no point hanging around’. Dp came home, called his mom, no answer, left a message to see when she actually wants to see him, days later, still no response. It’s all mind games at this point.

How would the menopause cause her to give FIL a hard time if/when he sees OP & his DS? That makes zero sense

My take is MIL is upset that your dp has a family of his own now and no longer dances to her tune as FIL does.

I agree with pp, the suggestions to be accommodating of batshit MIL are crazy.

DP can obviously see her or not see, with or without DS, but you should just write her off, OP. Welcome FIL as you have been doing but don't let MIL.

Just be wary in the near future if she ramps it by wanting DP (and/or DS) to want to start the whole day with her, thereby excluding you.

Not as sad as OP's DP must feel, with a batshit mum who plays mind games with him by ignoring his calls when he's trying to arrange a one-on-one visit.

This is so sad. OP it sounds like she regrets even having her children, never bonded with them, and doesn't want to have grandchildren. I know this may seem out of left field but you mentioned her being at the pub a bit and going on cruises; do you think she may have a drinking problem and perhaps is hungover/drinking on the days she plans things so cancels?

This wouldn’t surprise me as on one occasion when ds was a few months old she asked if she could take him out for the day, we agreed, then the night before she went clubbing with some friends, she was meant to be picking ds up at 12pm, but she didn’t show up & when ds called to see where she was she said she just woke up & was ‘unwell’, hungover non the less.

Then she’s just being manipulative.
Only reasonable excuse I could think of for her behaviour is she’d been told she had a terminal illness.
This is all about her not being the centre of attention and manipulating her husband, her son, and you by default to dance to her tune.
Ignore her. Throwaway comments: oh what a shame she wasn’t home.
FIL visits : lovely to see you DGS loves seeing his grandad.
and so on. Don’t mention her, don’t ask after her. Ignore.
Stupid woman.

No right to ban her husband from seeing his son & grandson. If she’s so eager to speak to her son she shouldn’t ignore him anytime he tries to text, call or visit. & you clearly haven’t read the part where her son did go to talk to her & she wasn’t home anyway.

You've both tried she being strange - my advise keep inviting rest of family to thing but try and keep it to events that it doesn't matter if they cancel last minute - try and meet them at places or have BBQ at your house.

I wouldn't chase, phone, or get engaged in any conversations about her with rest of family - just change subject - the rest of the family have to decide if they want to see you all but that it there issue not yours - yours is to try and minimise any impact them changing their mind has on your plans.

Then I'd try to not give her any more head space and see if her behaviour changes as you go forward but accept it may not and if it does you don't have to jump to accommodate either.

Bets way to deal with mind games is just to ignore and not play and don't get drawn in.

Agree re the being manipulative and ridiculous.
Not understanding the posters still determined to blame op and completely disregard the actual issue with the whole ' oh you are awful op! Why won't you let the poor woman have mum/son time ever, you're sooo mean to her!' 🙄

Could your mother-in-law have a problem with alcohol?

It's correct that she has no right to ban her husband from seeing his son and grandson. I was just commenting on what you said about MIL trying to resolve a supposed problem without informing you and asking for your help.

As for the visit, it was an one-off incident - nobody knows in fact what happened that day, since she didn't explain. Such misunderstandings happen, even with visits between friends or relatives that have no such issues. MIL and your DP are free to try again to call and see each other and clarify everything. It's not like if she missed this only chance, she isn't worthy to see her son anymore.