I apologise in advance for the long thread, but there is a lot to unpack here as a lot happened in a very short space of time!
So me and my in laws have had a very rocky relationship. I have been with my now husband for coming up to 11 years and married for almost 2 and we have just had our first baby.
They live abroad out in the sticks and all three of their sons all live in the UK as there are no job opportunities where they live.
Everything seemed to settle down when we got engaged, we got on really well up until the point where I gave birth. We told them not to come over until two weeks after my due date incase baby was late (landed up being 8 days late!) as we wanted them to spend as much time as they could with baby before they had to go home. They were offended by this as they wanted to be here for the birth, but we had made it very clear that we didn’t want a house full of people the moment we got home from hospital.
Our baby was born on a Tuesday and they were due to arrive very late on the Friday night. Due to some very heavy complications with my birth and having to have an emergency c-section, I wasn’t discharged from the hospital until late Thursday night.
On Friday afternoon we received a message asking if they could come and have a quick visit to meet baby for the first time and they would be with us around 5pm. We said yes, but could only stay for an hour as I needed rest and we were still trying to get to grips with our new roles as parents.
They didn’t arrive to us until 8pm, 3 hours later than they said they would be. We tried to get hold of them to find out what was going on, but there was no answer and we tried everything. Calling, texting, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, but they did not reply. We knew they were in the country by this point as we knew that their ferry had arrived. What they had chosen to do instead was go to their hotel and have dinner before coming to us. As we didn’t know what was going on, we didn’t eat and we’re waiting on tenderhooks all evening for a car to pull up on the driveway. When they did arrive his mother was incredibly dismissive of me. No congratulations, just stormed through the front door and literally said ‘Give me my baby’.
This was the first red line crossed. It was not her baby, the baby was mine. Later on my husband was feeding the baby and she then told him he was doing it wrong and literally tried to take the baby out of his arms mid feed! My husband shouted and told her to leave them alone. Her response was ‘what, do you think I haven’t done this before?’. Again, I was outraged, but I physically didn’t have the strength or energy to say anything. I sat there in silence for most of the visit.
After an hour had passed my husband politely asked them to leave as we needed to eat something and go to bed. (we hadn’t eaten dinner at this point as we didn’t know when they were going to arrive) they stayed until around 10:30pm, well past their welcome, they just ignored him whenever he would mention that he needed to start making dinner, or I needed to sleep. I was exhausted, in pain and very upset, but at this point I just thought I was being very hormonal. We told them that they could come back Saturday afternoon to see the baby as my mum and dad were coming to meet baby the following morning.
Saturday afternoon rolled around and they didn’t show up until 3pm. They asked if we wanted to join them for lunch, but we declined the invite as I still wasn’t up to leaving the house. (I couldn’t even get up the stairs unaided, let alone get dressed to go to a restaurant). When they arrived, we were again met with the ‘give me my baby’ greeting. This really got my back up at this point. My husband pointed out that it’s not her baby, it’s her grandchild and to sit down and he will pass the baby to her when he is ready. She replied something back in French (I didn’t understand) and my husband just looked at her (death stare) and didn’t say anything. They eventually leave around 6pm.
Now rolls around Sunday (Father’s Day). I had given my husband his gifts from baby and my parents were due to come to us for an hour in the morning so I could see my dad. They left after an hour and we told my husbands parents that they could come around 1pm. They actually arrived on time on this day and were actually quite respectful, asked me how I was (first time they had asked this since arriving).
My husband made teas and coffees and my MIL was holding the baby. I was sat on the floor with my legs out trying to stretch and my MIL noticed that my legs and feet were really swollen. This was one of the things the hospital told us to watch out for as it could be pre-eclampsia or a blood clot. I called the maternity unit who then said I needed to come back to the hospital straight away.
When I came down to tell them this, they automatically assumed that I would be leaving the baby in their care and they would stay at the house while we went to the hospital. I told them that I was taking the baby with me (no way was I leaving my 6 day old baby with anyone) and we needed to leave now so they needed to leave as well. She seemed to be very offended by this, not that I meant to offend her, but I’m not letting my 6 day old baby out of my sight, it wasn’t negotiable.
They left and we went to the hospital where I spent the remainder of the day into late night while I was being monitored / having tests done. The whole time we were there, my MIL was blowing up my husbands phone asking what was going on, when we are coming home and how long we were going to be. He explained to her that this could be something serious given that I was recovering from a traumatic birth and the hospital were very concerned at this point. She didn’t care. She even then told him to leave me on my own and to bring the baby over to their hotel for dinner. My husband then turned his phone off at this point. He couldn’t believe just how unworried she was. The hospital allowed me to go home at this point as long as I kept to strict bed rest and as they knew I had my day 5 midwife appointment the next morning and had organised for them to come and see me first thing so they could take some more blood from me.
Monday morning rolls around and we have our day 5 appointment. All is fine, I’m still on strict bed rest. I knew that we had arranged for my husbands brothers to visit this day so we knew that his parents were also going to turn up at the same time. We tell them to arrive at 12pm. They didn’t arrive again until 3pm…again they had decided to go out for lunch and would rather us work our day around them again. So they finally arrive. My husband opens the front door to be greeted by a dog, two brothers and my MIL and FIL…my husband immediately says, that dog is not coming in my house. No-one told us that a dog was coming…we then had to scramble our cat (who was in the garden) up into our bedroom and lock her inside and then let the dog in our garden. My husband went outside to talk to his brother about it and apparently my MIL told him he could bring the dog and we wouldn’t have an issue with it…
No-one asked us and no-one told us. If they had of asked us, we certainly would have told them that they couldn’t have bought the dog…
1.We have a newborn baby
2.I have just had major surgery and a dog jumping up at me could potentially put me back in the hospital.
3.We have a pet cat and this is her space. She’s terrified of dogs.
4.I don’t like dogs anyway so regardless of the above, I wouldn’t want one in my house.
So the rest of the visit was incredibly frosty and my MIL spent the entire time saying things like, ‘I’m going to take this baby away with me’, ‘oh are you sure your the babies mum, The baby doesn’t look anything like you’, ‘Oh, I haven’t seen you with the baby yet, are you sure you even want her’ (I was struggling to hold her as it was just too painful).
All these things were just crushing me on the inside. Any happiness I felt about being a new mother at this point was gone. I felt utterly useless, not good enough and I just sat there thinking, clearly, I’m not cut out for this and I should never have made the the decision to become a parent to this little baby.
They trashed my house while they were here. They literally used every glass, cup and mug to make drinks for themselves (whilst I wouldn’t have a problem with this, I would expect you to clear up after yourselves) mud from where they had been in and out of the house and not taken their shoes off, honestly, our house looked like it had been robbed.
When they finally left, I had a full blown panic attack. I have never felt as low as I did back then, it was horrendous. My husband cried as he could see how bad it had affected me. I told him that all I feel like is just a vessel for their grand child and now I’ve had the baby being civil or even somewhat polite doesn’t matter anymore. He then told them not to come back until their last day.
Friday rolls around and they come over to say goodbye. However with them they bring my husbands grandfather. Didn’t tell us that they were bringing him, just invited him over without asking us first. They had also told him that he could leave his car on our driveway for a week as we only have one car so didn’t need two spaces. At this point I was so over the fact that they were here, I sat in silence the entire time, barely spoke to them and just waited for them to leave. My husband then told his mother very clearly, that this was our child and our lives. If you want to be in our lives, then you are to respect how we chose to live it, how we chose to parent and abide by our rules in our house with our child. If you don’t, then please don’t come again.
She was very taken aback by this (secretly I’m cheering inside that he’s finally stood up to her) they leave and we literally both taken in a deep breath and all of a sudden the dark cloud that had been hanging over us for a week is gone.
Fast forward to this week. We have been keeping them at arms length since we last saw them. We Skype them once a week and my husband says to them that we will come to France for a few days for my MIL birthday at the start of October. (Which we were going to surprise her for her bday, but my FIL told us NOT TO COME, as he didn’t want to drive three hours to pick us up at the airport)…She found out and is making him pick us up at the airport…
We had also booked a very last minute holiday for the start of September. It just so happens that my parents will be at the same place for a few days whilst we are there.
Yesterday we told them that we had booked our first family holiday together at the start of September and we were going for 10 days. The immediate reaction to this news from my MIL was are my parents going? We said that they would be there for a few days, but that’s all, both our holidays just overlap slightly. She the hung up the phone. We haven’t heard from them since.
AIBU to want to have a family holiday without them, it is coincidence that mine and my parents holidays overlap slightly, but not intentional by any means. We also went on a family holiday with them last October, where we told them we were expecting.
But the way we were treated during that week after I gave birth has meant that we don’t want to go on holiday with them. We don’t even want to go to France to see them as we are still deeply hurt and upset, but want to make sure my husbands other family get to meet baby.
Now we feel like we have to tip toe around on eggshells incase we upset them again. They cannot expect us to only holiday in France with them for the rest of our lives. I think my MIL is angry that we are choosing to spend 10 days on holiday and then only 3 days in France when we do visit in October. But my husband can work where we are going on holiday (self employed) and he can’t work where his parents live as it’s so remote and the internet is literally still on dial up!
Again, I’m sorry for the long post and thank you for reading if you have got this far!