AIBU to not be happy with my MIL as a neighbour or to have weekly contact with her?...

[Ewg9]

Just wondering other people’s views, and if I'm just on some post pregnancy hormone frenzy but we live next to my MIL, we have done for a year now in a house she owns (we pay the bills but pay no rent). I now have a five month old and since his birth I've really been struggling with her. I'll say that she was always the matriarch, twice divorced professional lady with her own business with two devoted sons. Since the birth, the dynamic between us has changed. She irritated me early on by coming over the last evening of husbands paternity leave to hangout with us and baby and I felt this was encroaching on our time as a new family. Since then she has interfered, with her opinions (I know she is entitled to say what she wants) and coming across on occasion critical and undermining our/my ability to care for the baby (I have read that this can be really normal unfortunately). My husband obviously finds her a support and i always try to remember this but i haven't found her supportive or helpful especially since baby arrived. she made a bad joke in the early weeks how she wouldn't help with house work and she pays someone to do hers and doesn't do ironing but that she'd hold the baby whilst i did it. She had the nerve awhile ago to say to my face how I’d had a good labour and that we have a good baby and that we were having an easy time. I snapped back and catalogued the difficulties we had had (yes the baby hasn't been colicky but there have been other difficulties like all first time parents might experience. Breastfeeding was a nightmare for months due to jaundice, a tongue tie and then thrush so the first 3/4 months of feeding were terrible. Anyway, MIL sees the baby once a week as she has hosted us for Sunday lunch since baby arrived and I may seem ungrateful, but I don't like seeing her every week and if anything, would prefer to reduce the contact. If she could, she would definitely be coming round more she is only next door after all. Anyway, she has recently said to husband, that she doesn't want to cook Sunday dinner anymore as she's not getting the time with the baby because she's busy cooking. We usually arrive and eat and spend a couple/ a few hours with her afterwards for her to have cuddle time. I’m trying to tell myself to appreciate what she has done, and that she lives on her own and that it’s good for hubby and for baby and that I can retreat and keep out of the way more as baby becomes more independent and that somethings just change.

but I am posting this as I don't know where to turn, I feel suffocated living next to her, and I just want space and time to be a new family. I feel the same with my own mother (she would be seeing the baby more if she could) she also sees baby once a week. I think it's more intense with the MIL as she lives next door and in fairness to my Mum she helped us loads with meals and with house jobs and I suppose she is my Mum. There are other things I could list about the circumstances which are difficult such as I don’t value the free house, it’s in a poor area and out of the town, i have no connection to the place and I feel very isolated (both physically and emotionally) and have done since the baby arrived. my emotional state is hanging by threads quite frankly though I am doing my best in trying to get out and meet other Mums at groups. Am I being unreasonable and just psycho Mummy for not wanting a weekly date with my MIL or to be her neighbour? Sorry for the jumbled essay but feel better for finally saying how I feel...

She doesn’t sound enmeshed with her sons. It sounds as if she’s quite busy and independent. Getting on with your Mum and having a good relationship isn’t the same as being enmeshed.

Once a week sounds ok but if you don't get on with someone it's once a week too much!

Can't your husband cook a Sunday lunch whilst you relax & she has cuddles?

Are there plans to move out at all?

I think this sounds more like your feelings, and how you are feeling than your MIL. She doesn't sound too overbearing, and the things you describe are fairly minor transgressions all told.

But that does not mean you needing some you time is a terrible thing either. Those first months can be isolating (even when surrounded by people). You are your baby's all - especially if breastfeeding. And it is easy to feel touched out, to feel like you have no space.

What might be more helpful would be organising a weekend of not the usual routine. Catch MIL for a weekday evening and go on a family adventure over the weekend. Mix it up.

From what you say, it sounds like you feel your life is being dictated to you by others. What you need is an occasional change.

Visiting once a week is surely the norm when GPs live relatively locally? It's certainly the norm for us and my kids are 30 and 40 minutes away.

A grandmother who lives next door is being remarkably restrained in only visiting once a week! You have absolutely nothing to complain about. You're living rent free and complaining about the woman who's providing your home and, in the scene of things, is asking very little.

@saraclara no one can dictate to op what she can or can't complain about.

Once a week and she lives next door is very restrained. She sounds lovely tbh. A free house and she clearly understands boundaries. YABU.

What on earth is enmeshed about seeing your mum once a week for a couple of hours?

It's interesting that daughters don't get accused of being enmeshed when they want to visit their mum.

She clearly is complaining, but that doesn't mean that she's reasonable to do so.

Having a good laugh looking at some of the answers on here. The OP said he was 50+ and people are suggesting the likes of Harry Styles and Joe Lycett.

Oops wrong thread!

A roast dinner once a week is controlling? Seriously?

It's important to remember that babies have needs and their needs are solely provided by mum.

All other opportunities to interact with others are to support mum only. So whether you deny your baby of interactions with anyone, they will continue to get their needs met providing they are not denied of you.

Your MIL is concerned more about how your baby can serve her; what she wants from your baby. An exhausted pregnant mum, cleaning up whilst MIL gets cuddles is of no benefit to your baby.

She's your landlord. What provisions are you putting in place to end this contract? Have you got saving from all the rent you have not paid? Have you actively been looking? How would a move effect childcare when your second child arrives?

Your breastfeeding challenges could likely be effected by all the stress of your living situation. If you and your baby have less time to interact without others interfering, this is of no benefit to you and your baby bond.

What is your partner doing to help you feel supported?

Your ILs and your mum having equal access to your baby is not your responsibility. They can organise themselves to see you before you had a child just as much as they can now. Leave them to contact you, you focus on enjoying this time.

I never understand posters who complain about their MIL not skivvying for them when they go and visit. I don't know where the expectation that someone should do housework for them comes from.

If she literally asks "am I being unreasonable?", she's going to get answers fgs.

I wonder of this feeling of suffocation is less to do with the weekly visits and more to do with not feeling you and your husband have a separate adult life. I think you'd feel better if you'd developed your own network, lived in an area with people more like you (young families) had friends you met up with and other mums tho talk to about about the trials and tribulations of babyhood. That level of independence and autonomy is often hugely helpful in boosting our sense of self and and achievement and improving our mood. You can't have this living nextdoor to anyone's mum.
I think you need to have a conversation with Dh about all the things you are missing and that you want to move somewhere you'll get them. Reassure him you'll still see his mum. If he really can't tolerate being away from her if suggest some couples counselling....

When you first said she lives next door I was expecting you to say that she was constantly in your house uninvited-not that you go round for dinner once a week….

We've posters expecting that grown adults are to be given a free house from someone who they don't even have the decency to visit. I'm not particularly surprised that they'd expect that same mug to skivvy for them when they graciously allow them over the threshold of the free house that they provide.

@Ihearyousingingdownthewire
The OP says she sees her mother once a week and her mother cooks them lots of meals. You do not suggest that is enmeshed. TheOP admits that her own mother doesn't annoy her because she is her mother. Another poster suggests that the OP sends her husband round to see his mother but sets a time limit on him of 20 minutes.
@Ihearyousingingdownthewire Be honest, how many posts on here do you see from women who spend a lot of time with her parents and who want to live near them. Do you describe these women as having an enmeshed relationship with their mothers?
So many MN posters complain about cold emotionally detached partners but do not allow them to have a relationship with their mothers.
How many women with older parents expect their husbands to help with care for them but won't allow him to care for his elderly parents?
There was a thread about a woman caring for her very elderly mother and she was not only part time but expected her husband to also work part time to care for her mother to give her a break. No one said she had an enmeshed relationship. However, we all know that on MN no woman would allow her husband to go part time to care for his parents.
So many double standards on MN. So much hatred directed to MILS on here. It just reinforces the stereotype that women hate other women just because they are women and seen as competitors to them for a man's affections. It is so unfair.

I don't think your mil sounds terrible at all but it sounds like you're having a really difficult time and this will be coloring your outlook massively. Being isolated with a baby is so so so hard, regardless of how much we love them.

If I were you I'd move to somewhere less isolating, near friends or neighborhood with lots of young families.

Peanut is a great app for meeting other isolated parents.

Wishing you all the best

There is absolutely no way I would live next door to MIL. I don't think I could even live in the same town as her. I'll never forgive how she acted in the first 6 months after DC was born.

She tries to give us things/money all the time but we have to ask what strings are attached and what the expectations are because there are always strings attached. More often than not we don't accept what she wants to give us.

She ruined her own daughter's wedding by offering to pay for part of it and then being a nightmare when she couldn't choose things like her daughter's dress.

I have no advice, only solidarity. And it will get easier around a year when your husband can take baby round to see her and you can have your own time. If he wants to spend time with her that is!

In all honesty I think you are being unreasonable. Your MIL sounds a bit annoying and insensitive but you honestly don't appreciate how lucky you are to have family close by who are willing to look after baby and wants to have a relationship with her grandkid. Try having zero support and kids wondering why both sets of grandparents don't care about seeing them.

Op never asked or expected her mil to clean at all.

It was a mysogenistic comment thrown at op only by mil...

And don't you think I'm going to iron and clean oh no I'll be holding the baby..

Op never suggested or wanted her to clean.

Unfortunately the inference and comprehsion skills on the thread are very low. This is what totally derails a thread and makes it about op wanting her mil to clean.

She never said anything of the sort.

YANBU, you feel how you feel, and hormones amplify everything.

to me, it reads as though the main issue is the house. It’s in an area you don’t like, and where the only person you know or see is your MIL. That’s bound to get you down, and then make everything else seem worse.

If moving isn’t an option, are you able to get out and about? Are there baby groups nearby? Or can you drive? It sounds like you need a wider support network than just a roast from your mil once a week.

She sounds lovely and generous.

You are barmy and ungrateful.

I don't think this is entirely a MIL issue as you say you also feel suffocated by your mum wanting to see the baby every week. Pre baby were you a person who enjoyed time alone? Pre baby how often did you see your Mum and MIL? The transition to then having a baby around and dependent on you plus people who suddenly want to see you more to get access to the baby is hard.

Is the plan that you will live in the house forever and eventually inherit it? Or is this a stepping stone to saving to buy your own place in an area you prefer? I suspect the first which means the usual choice of where to live as a family has been taken out of your hands. Are there play groups locally you could go to to start to meet people? Are you going to go back to work?

As summer approaches I would knock some of the Sunday lunches on the head. MIL doesn't want to be tied to making them every week and you then can't have a family day out. As someone else said DH can take DD over for breakfast while you lie in and then the three of you can go to town, the park etc. Or you could see MIL another day of the week.