Should my MIL grow up or am I insensitive?

[birthdayboyy]

NC for this. My DS is going to be 1 in July and we’re planning a little party for him. DP’s parents are divorced and his father re-married his ‘other woman.’ They have been married for 15 years and together for 20.
My MIL refuses to be around her ex husband’s new wife (understandably, it was all quite acrimonious at the time). For example if my FIL wants to visit to see our DS he will not come on a day he knows my MIL will be here as the two women being in the same room together, and this has never happened.
It’s been like this for years but now we have a child it’s all a bit awkward. I want to invite my DP’s stepmother to our child’s little birthday party. It seems unkind not to as she is a presence in his life.
I don’t want to upset my MIL or make her feel uncomfortable, but since having a child my outlook on various things has changed/I’m willing to stand up for myself a bit more and part of my thinks - this isn’t about you, suck it up. However I don’t want any bad atmosphere to ruin my little boy’s day.
MIL isn’t one to bite her tongue which won’t help things.
DP says he’d rather his step mother didn’t come so I think I should respect his feelings on this and choose my battles, but it all seems unfair to me.
I understand that he doesn’t want to upset his mum and I don’t either, we have a good relationship and I wouldn’t want her to feel upset.
For context it would be a small party as my entire family live on the other side of the country, so we’re planning on doing something separate with them.

Am I being unfair?

Put yourself in MIL's shoes imagine this was you in the future and you had to miss your Grandchild's party so your DH's new wife could attend.

They just don't see it - you're supposed to just accept that you lost, they won, it was 20 years ago and doesn't matter amy more (to them) so get over it. But then, if they had any bloody decency or empathy at all, they wouldn't have been shagging a married man with kids in the first place.

Typical MN excuse to hate the monster MIL I guess 🤷‍♀️ Some posters have a lot of growing up to do… It’ll come to bite them on the bum. Only then will they realise life isn’t all about them

If your FIL (or whatever) was Jimmy Saville or Harold Shipman and your MIL said I won't be in the same room, nobody would be saying they should get over it.

So clearly there is a line. You just draw it in different places.

It's not fair to draw someone else's line of what they should or shouldn't just get over within their lifetime. It's up to them.

A few people have replied similarly to me so apologies that I have only quoted you as in essence this is a response to all of them.

I have read them and I totally understand what people are saying, however I have never once forced my parents to come together on my behalf. My Dads affair was 25 years ago - after that, they didn’t see much of each other before grandchildren came along, but since then they have been amicable with eachother. They have both said to me separately that it’s important to them to both be there for special occasions and I really appreciate that. Its a little unfair for people to imply I am selfish or causing trauma to be happy that my divorced parents are able to be in the same room together. I appreciate it may not be the case for everyone and everyone’s trauma is different - all I was saying is that I understand the OP’s perspective.

MIL wants to be there and doesn'tbwant OW to be there. Baby's dad wants his mum there.
Simples, really.

I didn’t say she needs to do anything for the FIL and wife though. I was thinking more for the sake OP, her own son and grandchild

Tricky one, is step MIL like a Granny to the baby? Can you maybe invite them by time slot and tell MIL Step Granny will a big part of their life and the baby is the important person in all of this?

I appreciate your replying.

I think your dad has some helluva brass neck, and your mum a huge amount of grace.

She doesn't " need" to do anything for anyone but herself, actually. She can set her own boundaries.

🥱

You are right, my Mum is amazing. My Dad is no longer with OW and has admitted what a mistake he made: too late as Mum is happy with an amazing man I love like a second Dad.

I know. I think unless you've been through something like this personally you can't understand it. My mum's best friend turned out to be the OW. My SIL (brother's wife) treats her better than my Mum and even seems to get off on upsetting my Mum by talking about OW whenever she's in Mum's company.

SIL's parents are still together and she's never been through what me and my brothers have so doesn't get it. My nephew treats her like a Grandma as he has been brought up to, and obviously he is too young to be able to explain the back story to. I only tolerated her to see my Father. I've just had my first child recently and I will not put my poor Mum through this, my Son will grow up knowing how important his Grandma is. My Dad passed away a couple of years ago so I have nothing to do with his GF anymore. Neither do my brothers, but my SIL still regularly visits her.

It’s your DP’s decision not yours and always will be as it’s he or she that will feel uncomfortable. These things can be very hard to deal with especially as your own child gets older and it remind you of how strained your childhood was. I’d say the longer you are a parent the harder it gets.

I have divorced parents and over the years father with the OW, father with my half siblings and their mother, father with half siblings, father single and then father with a new wife my SM. Mother single throughout after her exh destroyed her life.

Apart from dreadful family weddings when my parents were forced to be in the same room as one another I’ve always seen everyone separately.

So if it was my childs birthday I’d arrange one thing in the morning for example with one grandparent then something else later on. So one year say I’d see some family in the morning ,then a kids party which my mum might attend. Then as she and the children leave my dad would come round in the evening for a cup of tea etc.

If it ever happens to you, or to your child in the future you will realise families are destroyed for generations by this stuff. My dads OW was over 30years ago, the pain has never left as our lives were utterly destroyed forever. Won’t bore you with the details but it was truly horrendous.

To potentially shed some light on the MIL's different attitudes towards ex and his new wife... we can learn to live with some wounds, but they will flare up when salt is rubbed in them. Having a polite sit down with a woman who had a prolonged affair with your husband and is now his wife = salt in the wound.

I was thinking this. Do people inagine there's a matrix here; and that, unless there is rape or serious DV involved, you should get over it in 20 or less?

Weird that, on the one hand on MN you have people highlighting the ways in which dad breaking up the family was traumatic for them; but the left-behind mum is expected to suffer no trauma at all, and just "grow up".

As if you could survive being an abandoned single parent without also being properly grown up.

I am glad you got to post again @Lowin2024 because I thought the responses to you were really unfair. I agree that parents should put their feelings aside for their children unless there has been ongoing or sustained abuse - just having an affair, while bad and painful and traumatic is not abusive. It is really a shame that so many people feel their feelings should dictate their childrens actions for perpetuity.

When you become an adult you should realise that your parents are individuals too.

I have very much been guilty of seeing my parents as ‘parents’ but actually seeing dh’s divorced parents made me think about it a bit more. I try really hard now to treat them as people - not parents. And that certainly includes respecting their feelings and not always expecting them to put my feelings first just because I am their child.

Its not a question of ALWAYS putting your childrens feelings first, @Bruisername which would not be reasonable. But surely as adults, we all have to learn that our feelings do not run the world and there are times and places where we have to put others first, and not just our own children. Where we draw that line is different depending on circumstances. But there are people on here who seem to feel that their feelings trump everything.

I feel you have misread people

the event the op refers to was small. Just the in laws. That would be extremely difficult and a horrible position to put the mil in and I would expect the op and her dp to consider that

if it were a wedding or a birthday party with 30 people, say, then I would agree that mil should be encouraged to make an effort and just avoid the other two

i I think most of the aghast responses are replying to the first scenario

i also think there’s a lot of info missing around the DPs relationship with smil. For eg, my DH views his parents spouses as just that - not step parents but the partners of his parents. He doesn’t want them to have a grandparent relationship with our kids particularly.

Thank you, it was nice to get a supportive message as I was a bit shocked at the vitriol I received also! I think not everyone has been there and understands. I grew up in a house where my parents shouted at each other day and night. Then there was the affair and my mum was devastated and depressed, I was left doing a lot of care for my younger siblings, then my Dad went awol for years and both of them spoke badly about the other in front of me. It wasn’t exactly easy growing up. So yes, I am now very happy and grateful that they are fine to be in the room together to celebrate things like my children’s birthdays (unforced!!). My 9 year old told me he loves having Grandma AND Grandpa at our house together. If some holier than thou people think that makes me selfish I can live with that.

Relationship breakdowns do not ruin your life. Being left with small children does not ruin your life. It changes it, shapes it, presents challenges, puts you in a situation you didn't expect, forces to make decisions you might not have had to, go in directions you might not have wanted to or anticipated you now have to, but it doesn't ruin your life.
It's insulting and demeaning to say it does. Yes, after 25 years you do have to move on and deal with it so you can be at a family gathering.
You know what actually does ruin your life. An accident that puts in you a persistent vegetative state this afternoon. That's your life ruined.

Unless there was abuse, which has not been indicated, the an adult can be in the same room and be civilised for the sake of their children and grand children for a couple of hours without being so triggered by events 20 years ago.

"But surely as adults, we all have to learn that our feelings do not run the world"

Does this apply to all those adult OW and their partners who feel that bygones should be bygones, and the adult children who feel that their mums should suck it up so that they get the perfect day? Or just those bitter, miserable old mums who won't grow up and behave?