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?

@Hedgehogdetective so really, your husband is a lazy bastard and does nothing in the house or help with the baby??? you dont have time to brush your teeth? where is your family? he and his family are all obviously a waste of space!!

Oh you poor thing. Fuck the lot of them. No planning to see mil, fuck her. It does not matter what bullshit anyone says, you are doing everything for your baby, and you and baby are the only people in the universe who count here.
as for your husband, fuck his hobbies, fuck his sleepins, fuck him the fucking fuck off. When he walks in the door you should hand him baby, a list of things to do with baby, and leave. Park in the car and nap for an hour if that’s all you’re up for. As you go out say if this doesn’t work and you won’t even look after her for an hour or two I want the fastest fucking divorce on the planet and you can just fuck off out of our lives, you are barely in our lives anyway.

things will get better op. None of those people matter. Your husband is shit, not you.

The issue here isn’t your In laws it’s your husband. Your post sounds like a struggling single mother yet you’re married. Your husband isn’t stepping up as an equal parent and isn’t being a good partner to you.

Dont put yourself down op. You sound like a great mum except you dont have support. First thing you need to change is babys dads help in all this. General household tasks for a start. Stop cooking for him/washing his clothes etc. if all else fails, get rid. He can run back to mummy!

i had a clingy second child and it drove me insane. It does get better though.

mil well, id stop communicating with her and let partner do it including all visits. Dont feel guilty. What does it matter if shes slagging you off? If shes that sort of person, she will find anything to slag you off to other people so let it wash over you. All that matters is you and baby atm

Ask your husband to go and live with his mother so you have time to think and tell him he can facilitate contact while he’s there so his mum doesn’t have anything to be upset about. You won’t be any worse off as he does nothing now anyway. Also book a gp appointment in your working hours to talk about how you’ve been feeling, and self refer yourself to iapt. Tell your friends and family exactly what has been happening so you have as much support as possible.

Read and understand before you rant. op isn't complaining about mil not helping she's saying they are bad mouthing her at a time she is struggling. The back info was just to give you a heads-up on how ops life has been.

Whenever I see the term Velcro baby I always find it interesting psychologically, because it's often used to insinuate that the baby needs to be physically tethered to the parent but in reality Velcro has two sides and both need to be in place to make it adhere. And in many cases as you read more and more about the parent you see that they too are a Velcro parent. And I don't say this to bash, or make parents, especially women, feel horrific about having what could be perceived as a high needs child or employing attachment parenting methods. I just find it interesting that the baby is the one perceived as needy when actually the parent also plays a role.

What I think is probably going on here OP is that you seem to have absolutely no support in the home (big big DH problem, but focus on you first) and nobody to ask advice or talk through parenting issues, and your baby has no other adults to form attachments with, so naturally looks to you. You feel like you can't brush your teeth because if you do your baby will protest and cry, because you've never just put them down and done it. So yes, the first few times they will cry because they'll be thinking 'wtf, she's never done this before' but they're very adaptable and will get used to it incredibly quickly.

The issue is, I think, that you cannot stand the sound of your baby crying and find it triggering. And you have nobody to talk to about that either. But that's all your child has for communication right now, so they're going to use it. In a few years they will be able to use words to tell you what's up, but right now they know that loud crying gets them seen to asap. It really really doesn't hurt a baby to cry/whinge for a minute or two while you brush your teeth or take a dump.

Your child doesn't need to be on your body 24/7. Your child needs a healthy, happy mother who is there for them when they need it but also has boundaries in place. Letting your teeth literally rot in your mouth because you feel like you can't leave your baby to attend to them twice a day is dysfunctional and the opposite of what your baby actually needs.

A functional parent recognises issues, which you have done here, so you e already made the first step to getting things a bit more sorted. The next step I'd suggest would be a GP visit, as you sound incredibly depressed and are probably in need of antidepressants and counselling.

Just realised I didn't mention the MiL once in my reply earlier, but that's because she isn't relevant really. You have bigger issues here.

@Gazelda nailed it.
OP you need to see someone because you are drowning here and thinking everything is your fault.
It is not all your fault. None of it is your fault. You are doing a great job and trying your very best. Everyone else is letting you down.
Get to the GP and have a chat with them. Make use of your employer benefits if they have employee assistance programmes or similar. And start being very much more demanding of your DP and do not listen to the moans of him or any of his family. He is a parent just as much as you but he does not appear to be doing anything much

She is being ridiculous. I was envisaging she’s left the house, bought tickets, travelling then you cancel.
Your husband needs to arrange the visits and ensure he is there.

I would text my MIL or DM and take baby to them for a few hours, would that be an option? My DM is also disabled, but could cope. I know you say you have a Velcro baby but baby WILL cope without you. My DD was the same with me, then I had to go to hospital and stay there for 5 nights. Perhaps you need to consider nursery a couple of mornings or afternoons per day.

You need rest.

In fairness to the MIL, it sounds like she's pretty seriously physically disabled and has depression too - cancelling on her probably is devastating because there's probably not much else in her week. That doesn't mean you shouldn't cancel when you mean to, but I think her upset is understandable. She's clearly not in a position to provide support of any kind unfortunately.

Your DH really does sound awful though OP. As you know, that's the problem to fix.

Also - your baby has 2 parents, so when your DH is around, you let him look after the baby and you go take that shower and if your baby cries, he attends to baby, not you. He has to step up here and up to now, you've been doing over and above what you need to, and he has let you do this.

Now the situation changes.

You hand baby over to DH and he looks after baby while you shower/go for a hair do/take a walk, solo/brush your teeth/whatever.

You have to make a conscious decision that this is what is going to happen now. Your velcro baby is going to attach to someone else for a while. They have to learn what to do.

In all honesty I would stop making any effort with your MIL. Let her whinging and gossiping to other family members be true.
Shes not able to help you, can’t even be bothered to speak to you when she visits and she is dragging your mental health down. Don’t enable her visits, leave it to your DH.
Get rid of any expectations of her, she is never going to meet them. She also sounds like the sort of woman where nothing you do will be good enough anyway. His family will gossip about you whatever you do. You need to focus on yourself and carve time out for you. Your husband need to step up, but he sounds as useless as the rest of his family.

You have been describing yourself as ‘pathetic’ on this thread. First step in self-care for you is to stop thinking of yourself that way. You are not pathetic. You have a lot on your plate because you have useless inlaws and a husband who are not supporting you when you need it the most.

As your baby gets older and more independent things will get easier.

You have a shit husband and allowed yourself to fall into the trap of feeling that allowing your child to cry was the same as making her cry.

I'm sorry your MIL has upset you but I think this is really something you need to hand over to aforementioned useless husband. If she can't/won't engage and then bitches behind your back, then draw a line under it and he can deal with her.

Also start leaving the baby with him and going out on your own.

I agree with pp that you sound like you're drowning and blaming yourself for everything when it's your husband who isn't helping you.

I know what it's like to be completely alone with babies and zero breaks and how easy it is to feel overwhelmed. It's easier to do it alone though than be part of a marriage where the expectation is all on you to cope while he lives his life as he did before baby arrived.

You’re not pathetic OP. Far from it. You are holding down the (parenting) fort solo 24/7. That is a tough role. Your DH however, is a shit bag. I’d just divorce him as he clearly does fuck all and you’ll then have one less baby to deal with and get rid of MIL at the same time. No point bitching about your H to your MIL though, men like this don’t change so it’s a complete waste of your energy. Focus on yourself and baby and cut that dead weight from your life.

You’re not a failure OP! Far from it, you’ve survived a tough time with very little support.

Some babies are just Velcro babies and it’s tough, you do what you need to do to get by and they eventually grow into the next stage.

You’ve been badly let down by your DH in so many ways. Leave your MIL to him 100% and focus on doing what you need to do to feel better.

Sending love and strength!

I've figured out the issue, your husband is a massive prat, and doesn't want to be a dad.
LTB
And i mean that literally. If the only concern you have is bills and how a divorce will effect your child.
Your relationship is over, start preparing.

And I hope it gets better.

You might have started this thread about your MIL, but your husband is the real problem here - and I think you know that. In the event that you can bring yourself to have sex with him, given how deeply unattractively he is behaving, PLEASE for the love of GOD use every form of contraception known to humanity.

And you know, I would think about leaving. You're back at work, baby is at nursery, and even if he is a high earner, it feels like your standard of living would be considerably improved by NOT having him in the picture. It's vanishingly unlikely he will look for shared custody, except to be a bastard about it, but even if he does, at least you get some proper PROPER time off to rest. He does nothing, so you wouldn't have more to do as a single parent than you do now.

Your MIL isn't really doing anything wrong. But my goodness, your husband is doing EVERYTHING wrong. I can't imagine he'd be particularly surprised or bothered if you just left.

OP, if you're struggling with your mood, self care and relationships, can I suggest approaching your local Home Start for some support from one of their volunteers?

I used to volunteer there myself and found it's the simple things that make the difference - someone to hold the baby for a bit, someone to chat to about what's going on right now and what you want for the future, go for a walk with now the weather's nicer, perhaps take care of things while you shower and brush teeth. Basically, someone for 1-2 hours a week to help you with the small steps towards things getting better. The volunteers are really carefully screened and trained. Sometimes there are groups you can join too.

She has cancelled on me in the past and I’ve just accepted it. She said she is allowed to cancel but I’m not

I'm not for one second saying she's reasonable in the way she treats you, I'm just saying that she probably is genuinely devastated when you cancel.

Clearly your lack of support is the biggest issue here though, regardless of his mother.

Your husband is a knob, your MIL is a secondary issue that would be resolved by sorting the husband.
But you can lie the baby on a mat for five minutes to clean your teeth....bit of a stretch blaming MIL for that one!

She just sounds like a batshit child-woman!
Does she come from a culture where daughter-in-laws are expected to unquestioningly obey the MIL?