AIBU for not wanting my baby to view my partner’s ex’s Mum as ‘Nanny’?

[fellinlovewithawar]

My partner and I are expecting our first child together at the beginning of next year. He already has two children and maintains a good relationship with his ex, as well as her family. I’ve met the majority of them (always in a setting such as a party, or with the kids about), and they’ve all been incredibly welcoming. With that said, there are times I struggle with the dynamic. This is very much a ‘me’ issue, but sometimes I feel like I don’t really belong in the setup. This is something I’m working through, and I support the co-parenting relationship as much as I can, but I just don’t feel comfortable right now establishing a relationship with the rest of the family.

My partner has expressed that he’d like us to meet up with her family separately eventually (outside of family gatherings) and when we’ve spoken about a wedding in the future, he’s told me he wants them all to be there. He doesn’t have much of a relationship with his own family and views his ex’s Mum as his own parent. She’s always been supportive of him, and I would never want him to lose that, nor the relationship he’s built with the rest of the family. He wasn’t the initiator in the breakdown of his last relationship, and it doesn’t feel fair for him to suffer because of it. However, when it comes to conversations around our son, I’m finding it really hard to accept this. The main sticking point is that I can only see his ex’s Mum as exactly that. He said he wants her to be one of the first people to meet our baby. When I’ve spoken about my own Mum babysitting, he’s suggested that we could always ask her instead. When we’ve spoken about returning to work and I’ve considered spending a couple of days at my parents to WFH, he’s suggested I could go over there as an alternative. He’s also said our son will be calling her ‘Nanny’.

We spoke at length, and I explained why I felt the way I did, and didn’t feel it was fair that he’s made that decision on viewing her as ‘Nanny’ without talking it through with me first. He understood, but I think this all really upset him. I can see his point of view, but something about our son being integrated into his ex’s family just makes me uncomfortable. I’m happy for him to meet her, to go over to play when we bring the other children, but I cant get past the idea of him calling her his ‘Nanny’.

I need to know AITAH for feeling uncomfortable and telling him I don’t want this? I don’t know if I’m not fully understanding his viewpoint and if I should just push through the way I’m feeling.

I can see your point but I'm looking at this and thinking 'bonus Nanny, extra love, making your little one feel close to his siblings'. All good things.

I think the fact that your partner seems to be pushing this and not just letting it develop is an issue though.

Seems nice to me. Maybe you need to spend time with her to develop a bit of a relationship? I don't think kids can have too many loving people in their lives.

And to be brutal about it, no one knows how long grandparents will be around. You might be glad of an extra granny.

It sounds like she is his mother figure. I don’t think you can deny him that. If she is happy to take on the nanny role I think it will cause issues if you get in the way. You must have known how he felt about her prior to this but maybe didn’t expect her to be nanny. It’s quite nice for the children to share their nanny I think.

I would baulk at the notion of treating her as your own Mum or MIL by suggesting you go to WFH at her house, or her babysitting ‘instead’ of your Mum. It is understandable that he values the relationships with her, and she is grandmother to his kids, after all. But extending her to you is perhaps too much.

But in terms of your baby being treated as an equal by her alongside their half siblings, I suspect that will be positive for the sibling bond and blending.

My Mum was called the ‘granny name’ that her grandkids called her by every child in the extended family… and my DC’s close friends. You could always call her Nanny A or Nanny Jane or whatever.

Is it that your Ex sees you and your new baby as an extension of his existing previous set up rather than as your own new family?

Talk all this through without fighting, if you can.

YANBU.

You are being really accommodating of them continuing this relationship and your son potentially also having a relationship with them.

It's completely reasonable for you to draw the line at him calling her 'Nanny'. She's not his Nanny.

They sound okay. They've extended their welcome of your DP to you. As there are two elder siblings who call his ex MiL 'Nanny', perhaps Nanny Jane, as a PP suggested, is a liveable compromise.

There does appear to be a level of enmeshment here, though, that would raise certain amber flags for me. The insistence that she be one of the first people to visit you in hospital, and to take on roles in place of your own mother - the child's actual grandmother - would for me be a boundary breach with an actual MiL, let alone the family of my DP's ex.

It's a good thing that the family of your DC's half-siblings are well-integrated and have positive relationships, but I think firm and healthy boundaries are vital in the future if this is going to work.

I'd compromise on the name. That really doesn't matter. But I'd not be prepared to give on the amount of time spent with them (don't let that encroach; it's easier not to start in the first place than to break precedents), that there isn't a 'hierarchy' where Nanny Jane is privileged over DC's own grandparents, and as for visiting you in the hospital, you as the patient completely get to call the shots here. And I'd call that one as a firm 'no'. She can visit you at home, along with other relatives, after your child has been visited by their own grandparents.

Hope it all works out okay for you, OP, but if this is to happen you might need to start as you mean to go on.

As others have said, it’s a difficult one, she is a mother figure to him and if she was anyone else other than his ex’s mum then I don’t think you’d bat an eyelid at his expectations of her role in the baby’s life. It really would depend on her opinion on the dynamic and his ex’s opinion on it tbh, I wouldn’t want to set up a relationship like he wants to take it away if there ends up being some pushback on their side if ex has another partner etc

Definitely not unreasonable. She’s no relation to the baby. No relation to your ex either. It would have me the creeps.

My mum died when my son's were 3 and 5. She was their only grandmother. Someone my exH worked with asked her mum if she would mind being a grandmother role (I wanted my kids to have a connection with older people) and she agreed.

My son's loved her and she treated these two little boys the same as her squillions of related grandkids. She died last year and her own children treated the boys (now grown men) as family.

No such thing as too much love.

No, not an asshole or unreasonable imo. I don't have any children, my partner has a 7 year old from his previous fiancee. We aren't actively planning a baby, and i have an implant, but if the slimmest of possibility of an accidental pregnancy happened, we'd keep it. I wouldn't want anyone but the actual biological grandparents referred to as such. My own extended family is shit, still got a living grandparent, aunts and uncles on both sides but am NC with all of them, dads family always shite, mums family abandonned me when she died in 2010. I'm also super close to partners mum that i see her as a mother figure to myself, so am well aware "family" is far less blood and more the closeness of your relationship. Partner doesn't see ex or her family, just his child, his mum does pick ups and drop offs. "MIL" is married to what is the second husband since she divorced partners bio dad, and her husband came around when partner was an adult, so only ever been first name not step dad etc.

If i have a baby, he will only have MIL and my deceased mum as grandma, and my dad and partners bio dad as "grandad". MIL's husband will just be first name like he is to me and partner, and partners exes family would just be older siblings grandma/cousin etc. If my own dad got a new partner, she would only ever be first name too.

Partner occasionally when telling a past story will call his exes mum or dad "ex mil" etc but would never think of them as a new child betwen us' family in any way.

Honestly i couldn't be in your situation, its too enmeshed and overly familiar, i would have ended a relationship with my partner if he was close to his exes family like yours is, i'd feel like the outsider in my own relationship.

I called my Dad's first wife's parents "my third set of grandparents" because they accepted me and my siblings into their lives when we were young. My Mum thought she'd never be that close with them, but she eventually was.

Sadly they died about 10 years ago. So strong was our relationship I named my DCs after them. My Mum doesn't mind at all.

The more love the better.

It's not typical, but I think the more people your kid has to love them, the better.

@2jacqi I don't think it's at all weird. "family" can mean many things and a biological relationship is only one of them. This woman is a mother figure to the husband so she absolutely can be a grandmother figure to his child.

My ex’s mother is one of the nicest people you’ve ever met. She’s endlessly warm and kind and my DH’s attitude is very much that it can only be good thing for our son to have someone like that in his life. We are also friends with my ex, who is also lovely, we just outgrew each other. She used to foster so has hoards of honorary children and grandchildren alongside her own, and everyone calls her Mama NAME, including my DH.

If someone brings happiness and love to your family, let them.

I think there's a middle ground here.

It's actually really lovely that she was happy to welcome her grandchildrens new half-sibling into the fold. Many don't. I think that's something to be cherished.

But your partner needs to be very sensitive to the fact that it might be unsettling for you that he has such a strong tie via a previous romantic relationship. He therefore needs to go above and beyond to make sure that you are just as much part of the welcoming in and that you feel.comforable. If he doesn't do that I'd say it demonstrates either a lack of care towards you or a willful lack of effort to understand.

I think the main point here is if she is “nanny” to the other kids? If so, and given she will be in your child’s life as well (given close relationship with your DP) it makes absolute sense for your child to call her “nanny” too. Look at this from your child’s perspective and don’t let your insecurities and jealousies get in the way of what could be a happy and healthy situation for all the kids .

Absolutely batshit on his part. YADNBU! Lay down the law now. He needs to move on with his life and put them in his past! Pronto

Yes, this all makes me wonder if his lack of boundaries had anything to do with why his ex left. It sounds a bit suffocating and strange to me. Was she edged out?

I thinks it's normal for you to feel weird about it, but it's also lovely he has this positive parental support in his life. I would just keep working at it and ask him to be patient with you and it's perfectly understandable that you also want support from your family

This. I grew up with a granny who wasn’t a blood relative but was every bit as important to me as my two blood nannies. It will be nice for the baby to share a granny with siblings as well. I think if this woman is as important to your partner as you say then you need to get your head around it really. Parental figures are really important even in adults lives.

I @Antoniacabbage
Exactly
I see this with Dh.
He's not got a strong relationship with his dm, unlike me and my own ds.
He did have a good relationship with his one of his uncles which very much helped ground him.

My DH was very close to his ex GFs family. There were no kids involved but her gran was an incredible person and we use to go visit her together and took DD when she was born. Everyone called her gran. If the siblings are calling her nan no issue with that and if you need extra hands for babysitting then take them , but only if you are comfortable with it.

I understand where you are coming from OP and 10 years ago I would have agreed with you completely. But the experience of my own marriage breaking down & building a new blended family has taught me that all the posters saying that a child (or an adult for that matter) cannot have too many loving relationships in their lives are absolutely spot on.

It’s hard because you have to de-centre yourself right at the moment when you are probably feeling your most vulnerable due to being pregnant so don’t beat yourself up for finding it difficult. But honestly if you lean into the love, wherever and whoever that is coming from, you can’t really go wrong for all the kids involved.

Also don’t worry that your child having a relationship with Nanny Anne (or whoever - the Nanny-first name thing is something that definitely works for us) somehow will diminish their relationship with you or your parents. My kids don’t think that their relationship to their step-mum (who is lovely) is the same as their relationship to me or that their relationship to my new partners parents is the same as that with their own grandparents. But they do embrace all these positive relationships.

Hope this helps OP and all the best with your new baby.

Try to take the 'ex' out of it. This is your partner's adopted family. He sees them as his family. They are good people. He is excited to introduce baby to them. They have been welcoming to you as his new partner and want to treat your baby the same way as their existing grandchildren, which will make baby feel more connected to the older half-siblings.

I know some beautiful blended families like this, where people were able to overlook the unconventionality of it. All it takes is maturity and appreciation that the once romantic relationship has changed to a fully familial one. If you consider them just as his family, as he clearly does, none of this would be 'weird'.

Embrace the additional love your baby will have, and swallow any insecurities, pride, 'but it is weird', 'but it is his ex's mum!', etc. The only thing that should matter is whether your baby would be safe and loved. By all means, put in strong boundaries when it comes to your baby's safety, but don't deprive your baby of loving 'relatives', because you don't understand this dynamic. Not everyone is lucky enough to grow up in a family where you were able to build strong family bonds with your own flesh and blood. Reducing those ties to 'just the ex's family' does not accurately reflect them.

I do think you would be reasonable to demand of him to make a pro-active effort to integrate in your family, too. If your family are good people, too, they hopefully fully embrace your step kids.

It may seem a bit strange, and if you'd rather actual family looked after your dc then dh should not insist but having another person loving him must be a good thing. It sounds like she's a replacement mum to your dh so being his ex's mum is not important to him. My aunty broke up with her dh and had another child. When she broke up with that child's father her ex treated her dd like their own dc as did his family. She's now in her 30s and they are still a big part of her life - unlike her actual father or his family.