Cancelling visits with in laws

[Hedgehogdetective]

I have repeatedly expressed to my in laws that I’m struggling with my baby. I went about ten months with no break, not even 5 mins to myself. No one babysat or came over and helped with housework etc. I have lost several stone and have problems with my teeth because some days I didn’t get to clean them. I am totally exhausted and mentally broken from lack of sleep and rest.

My MIL is the type to not ask to visit or make the effort to reach out and ask to meet up. She waits for me to do all the initiating. I was annoyed by this because in my mind if you want to see your grandchild you’d make the effort. I had to tell her straight up if she wants to visit just ask! Don’t wait to be asked.

So she started making more effort. She cancelled some times due to her health which was fine, no big deal. I cancelled a few times because my baby was having a bad day or I was feeling low or not up for visitors.

I then had other in laws criticising me saying I am stopping her from seeing her grandchild and excluding her. This baffled me because she has seen baby the most out of everyone and I kept inviting her over.

i felt hurt hearing this as I felt I was being portrayed wrongly. I asked my MIL what the issue was and she said that me cancelling on her is “devastating” and she can’t handle it. She said if I make plans with her in the future I’m not allowed to cancel. I said that’s impossible and I can cancel if I want to. I felt she was being unreasonable but she said she wasn’t.

now I feel I have to 1. Force myself to spend time with someone even if it’s a bad day or I’m exhausted from lack of support and 2. If I don’t make plans with her or I do cancel that she’ll bad mouth me to the rest of the family

this is causing me a lot of stress and arguments with my husband.

so am I being unreasonable to think it’s ok to cancel?

I know, im a pathetic failure

Your husband and his family won’t support you, clearly. So reach out to your health visitor, GP, friends and your own family for support. You need positive people who care about you to get you through this, and that’s not your MIL.

You have a major DH issue that he’s seen you become this unwell trying to cope whilst leaving you each night for hobbies, so first task is to actually make him accountable for the child he also created.
Then, if you want a relationship with his family you move forward ONCE you’ve actually got your husband to support you at home. Don’t keep inviting drama and negativity into your life by engaging with his Mother, she obviously isn’t any practical help and is further upsetting you.

I'm sorry you're having a hard time. Having a baby is hard, but especially if you have a particularly needy baby.

Your MIL sounds very odd but you're focusing on the wrong thing. Your issue is 100% your husband. He should be parenting too.

I would have said if she had like a 2 hour journey planned in advance, you shouldn't cancel unless you have a really good reason. If she lives 10 minutes away, why does it even need planning in advance?? You could just call her on the day and ask if she wants to come over, and vice versa?

Have you really not had a break in 10 months or was that a huge exaggeration?

Nobody babysat or took my baby even for ten mins. At the weekends I still did everything whilst my husband would get a lie in and complain about being exhausted. I asked my friends who had babies around the same time what they do at weekends and they said the dads would take the baby so they’d get a break, I said that never happens for me and they were shocked.

I think you're focussing your displeasure on the wrong person. WTAF is your "D"H playing at, giving you so little support you have developed dental problems from self-neglect? Or would his version be rather different and you've absolutely insisted that you do everything and not allowed him a look in, but now complain as to how you've martyred yourself?

Either way, MIL is not your issue. Your DH needs to step up...

I don’t do hobbies or see friends no. I don’t do anything outside work without my baby.

OP you sound so low please reach out to someone professional. And with everything you've said here, I'd seriously consider what exactly your husband brings to the relationship & whether you'd be better off apart - he might then at least parent his own child occasionally and you get a break! He sounds like a selfish prick tbh

If you are working, baby at nursery, take a days holiday, don't take baby out of nursery. Take a day of self care, if your twat of a dh won't help you, do it yourself. Clean your teeth when you get to work.
Your Mil is disabled and not able to help so don't focus on that.
In your day of self care visit GP and check no underlying illness, you can't care for your child if you are ill.

Do you work full time? Is there any time that the baby can go to nursery when you aren't working so that you get some free time to yourself? You are not a pathetic failure, sounds like you've single handedly raised a 15 month old and gone back to work 👏 but I do think you need some support so speak to your health visitor or GP please 💐 it gets better x

I would ask him for help or to do things and he would forget or just wouldn’t do it. He would sleep in until lunch time most days. He sits on his phone 24/7. He tells his family that me being depressed stresses him out so I think they all feel sorry for him.

What would happen if you just plonk baby on your DH at the weekend and tell him you're going out for the day? Not asking but telling him you have plans & just going (like he clearly does all the time without issue!)

You poor thing. No wonder you are so exhausted!!

Why does your husband do nothing?? Do you love this man? Please don't have other kids with him as things just get harder.

Agree with others, your MIL is very strange and wrong to badmouth you, but your husband is the real problem here.

There’s your problem right there. She’s his baby too (believe me, I completely get lazy husbands) and it sounds like on top of him not pulling his weight at all you most probably have post partum depression or at least depression brought about by not having enough help post partum!
Step 1: see the GP. Tell your husband you are doing this.
Step 2: Tell husband he gets 2 nights a week for sports. Make sure you get set days. Explain to him you will not take no for an answer, that he needs to start helping out (I hate that term, she’s his child too but in reality that’s what it often is) and that you are not coping. If he kicks up a stink, tell him that in that case he needs to start paying for 1 day nursery a week.
Step 3: join a mother group of some sort and make an effort to go to it, regardless of how you feel. This can just be a half hour rhyme time at the library, a fb appeal for other local mums to go for coffee, baby splash, playgroup- whatever, but it will get you out with company and at the very least a sympathetic ear and possibly more practical help. It will also help to socialise baby.
Step 4: accept that you can leave baby to cry while you shower and clean your teeth!
Step 5: if you have them, reach out to your own family and explain you could really use some help!

Im sorry you’re feeling so down, OP, but I think you’re going to have to help yourself a bit with this one. The issue isn’t really mil either, it’s husband.

I have had to resort to that nowadays. Then my husband complains about how exhausted he is from watching her for like one hour. Plus all the negativity and drama from his family makes me feel too low to even want to do anything

Could you wake up DH tomorrow at 8am, and say I'm leaving for 2 hours. Just leave the baby with him and go out for a nice breakfast on your own.

What happens if you do that? Can you try it?

The baby might cry but will be fine. I have a Velcro baby too and once a month I go on a night out. She cries a lot while I'm gone and often she's still up with my husband when I get home, but it's good for her to spend some one on one time with her dad and she's slowly getting better at going to sleep with him instead of me.

Unless you have lived with someone like this I don't think you can understand how worn down it can make you. You can tell them until the end of time you are struggling and they won't help, what can you actually do but step up and parent. I am lucky I had an amazing support system around me but I was still exhausted and depressed.

OP please see a GP and think about leaving your DP, it won't get better and he'll continue to behave like this. I don't have to deal with my in laws shit anymore and it's bliss.

You need to care more about you and less about the complaints of your husband and MIL. She complains about something...not your problem, learn not to be upset by it. She wants to see her grandchild and you will get the treatment you accept from her by being so affected by her moaning. Stop arranging visits and leave it to your husband to do.

Any complaints from him or her, 'I tried, it didn't work out, I'm too busy with work now", and start to get him to take more responsibility. Tell him e.g. Sat morning is his, Sunday is yours to look after baby until 11am so you can get a break. You are both working it's not unfair. You might have to head out of the house and just lie down in the car in a car park but you need to create the habit.

Start advocating for yourself - sounds as though no one else will. And care less about MIL moaniing to others. Complaints from other in-laws - say little maybe just 'there are two sides to every storey and MIL has seen baby more than anyone else so far'.

Yes I am definitely not as he’s shown how useless and selfish he is. I have considered divorce. His mum has depression herself so it’s baffling that she isn’t able to emphathise with how I’m feeling and what I’m going through. Like I think me cancelling has made her sit at home crying and be in hysterics …

You need to speak to your GP about your physical and mental health.

And you need to stop blaming your MIL for what is obviously (to everyone else) a DH problem.

You would have more freedom if you divorced as one less person to cook for. And presumably he would take the child some weekends, which would mean you get a break!

Seriously OP, what's keeping you together? The more you post the less appealing he sounds. You'll probably find a dark cloud lifts without him in your life.