DM redecorated my lounge

[Blubstering]

I KNOW I’m not BU but need to know how to handle this. NC because I’ve spoken to a few people IRL.

I’ve recently had a baby and was in hospital for just over a week. DH was with me most of that time including the first 4 days where he was in with me overnight due to some complications (I had sepsis) and him needing to look after the baby while I wasn’t able to.

Anyway, during those first 4 days, my usually lovely mum decided to completely redecorate my living room. It did not need decorating, it was done fairly recently and we’d just painted it a soft taupy off white, which complimented our existing oak furniture nicely. It was simple but warm.

Mum has painted it a mid grey on 2 walls and royal purple on the other 2 walls. It looks absolutely awful.

DH came home and saw it but didn’t tell me what had happened until the day I came home. He warned me, and when we got home mum was there all smiles and proud of herself thinking she had done a nice thing for us. I felt like one of those people on Changing Rooms the mid 2000’s when they had to stand next to Carol Smiley and pretend to love their new rooms when absolutely everyone in the room knew it looked absolutely dire. She’s not even done a neat job, the purples smudged into the grey walls in the corners and there’s purple on the window frames too.

I said something about feeling very tired and mum took the hint and left but did seem quite off, then I just cried and then went to bed. Mum then texted me and said ‘what do you think??’ So I took the opportunity and replied ‘I really appreciate the thought mum but it’s not our taste, I wish you’d asked us first xx’ which I think was fairly balanced.

I then got a phone call from my dad to say mum was in bits and very offended I’m not more grateful for her efforts and she was only trying to do something nice for us. So I said that I appreciated that but reiterated the colour isn’t to our taste and we hadn’t long since decorated the living room the way we wanted it. He said ‘yes but it was far too plain’… I’m not sure what happened but I’m so tired I physically felt like I couldn’t talk anymore so I just put the phone down.

Anyway the upshot is my parents are now no longer speaking to me and I’ve got a new baby so could really use their support. How do I fix this??

Maybe just send your mum and dad some photos of the baby and see if they respond. If they do ask for the help you need but also say how lovely it would be to see them and how you're keen for them to get to know the baby. As you said, your mum is normally lovely! Your job at the moment is to get well and look after the baby with no energy for anything else. I wouldn't mention the decorating at the moment. If they do you will obviously need to respond, but you've all said your piece, and you all have a lot to lose if you can't get back on an even keel. It's a really difficult time for you and I certainly understand why you feel so bad about it but it doesnt sound as if it's part of a pattern of behaviour. I think you're right when you say that the decorating might have been part of the all's well and welcome home to smiling mother and gurgling baby picture she desperately wished for, though she probably wasn't conscious of that, and she must have been desperately anxious about you. As someone else says, it will be good to get to the place where you can tease her about Cadbury purple! Ignore MIL until you have some energy to spare.

You don’t need to ‘fix’ anything. They overstepped, and instead of recognizing that, they’ve chosen to make your reaction the problem. It isn’t. Your mother’s upset is a consequence of her own actions, and not something you need to pander to.

And no, you don’t have to suck it up in the name of ‘keeping the peace’ - doing so only invites more of the same behavior.

Tbh your reaction was very restrained. I would have erupted (as my own mother would do, if anyone did this to her!).

Dear lord. Im a mum of boys. If I were your mil I’d stay in a hotel and I’d be bringing food. Doing all your laundry and cleaning and fucking off as soon as you told me to. It’s like these women forget what it was like to have a baby. Even after a straight forward birth, mum needs rest and mum and baby need bonding time. That time is not for everyone else, that time is for mum and baby.

Im so sorry for how you’ve been treated. I’m glad dh is supportive. Rest now, no more worrying. ❤️

I've encountered some families who believe relatives should always stay in the home, regardless of how crowded, uncomfortable and inconvenient it is. Even when the hosts pay for a nice hotel, it's considered to be an insult. Personally, I much prefer to stay in a hotel so I have my own space to decompress after a few hours with relatives.

I agree with you. We much prefer to stay in an hotel. It is far more relaxing on both sides.

That would really, really piss me off, post-natal hormones aside… Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot? And now you have the hassle & cost of having to repaint it 🫤

actually the OP doesn't say that......

You're definitely not being unreasonable and I would be very pissed off but I agree with @Wellretired's post. Drop your mum a message and some photos and see how she replies.

Aah OP you have had a huge shock both mentally and physically, you do need time to recover.
I wonder if your Mum did that thing of going a bit crazy with the stress and worry about you and so went wild decorating as a stress outlet, maybe even mot being aware of why, as thinking that your daughter might have died is a very hard thing to process.
I would think that while she has dealt with this badly, over time she will realise she went a bit mad . Keep saying that you understand why she did it but it’s not your (or your DH’s) preferred colour and so it would have been better to ask. The message will get there eventually. Maybe ask for some help and that might shift the narrative a bit ?

Not yet, its too soon.....she (and her husband) need to really think about what they did

This is such a fucked up thing to do for someone coming back from giving birth. Maybe if you can have a conversation and talk it out with her then this might be the only way to move forward. Over text the tone can be misinterpreted. You are absolutely right that this is bloody awful but for the sake of your relationship if you can laugh off the mistake maybe you can both see the funny side. I thought it was hilarious but also infuriating!

Your mum’s actions and her and your dad’s reactions afterwards are quite obviously batshit, and godawful victim blaming, but @Blubstering i just wanted to say that i was the position you are after my first’s birth and utterly done in, so you have my full sympathy. If it is at all encouraging, a few years later it had all settled in my head enough to decide to have dd2 and that was a lovely calm elective csection (and yes, i absolutely did say “are you completely sure you’ve got all the placenta?” 😁)

Honestly, @Blubstering you've got such a lot going on right now that this seems huge, but it isn't. Not really. It's just paint. It can be fixed. In a month from now it won't feel so overwhelming.

I am not for a second saying that your mother was right, that she meant well, that she was trying to be nice. No. She saw an opportunity to fix something in your house that wasn't done the way she thought it should be, and she took it. Your wants and needs had nothing to do with it. I've got one of these parents. Trust me. I get it.

Your mother's feelings are not your problem to solve. It's not your job to have your house the way she wants it, or to grovel now to get her to play nicely. You just had a baby, FFS.

Lots of women go a bit weird when the first grandchild arrives. Many simply cannot cope with not being in charge or important. I've never forgotten my own mother screaming at me that I had to hand my my 1st child to her immediately because I didn't know what I was doing and only she knew how to care for the baby properly. (Fwiw she barely sees that child now, has no interest in her).

Your relationship with your mother is undergoing a seismic shift. It will take a while to see where it ends up. It will be different. That's unavoidable. Because you're different now.

But the room is just paint, and it will be okay. X.

I think you should write your mum a letter - handwritten - and post it through her door.

"Mum and Dad, Baby is my first child. She/he is your first grandchild. As you know, I had a terrible time after the birth and almost died from sepsis. I was so glad to be home and so scared to take care of a new baby when I still felt so ill. You know that my hormones were raging - I want to breastfeed but still feel very weak. I really needed your support.

I came home to find you'd redecorated my living room without a word to me, even though it's not long since Husband and I painted it. You painted it a colour I really dislike, which you wouldn't have in your own house, and which you could tell if you'd looked at my house that I would hate. I have no idea why you think that's a reasonable thing to do. And yes, Husband and I were both really angry that you would do this. I think everyone would feel the same way - you certainly would hate it if I painted your home in a colour you disliked while you were away.

You then blamed me for being angry and have punished me for this by refusing to speak to me, see the baby or help me when I'm at a very low point in my life. You are the ones missing out on this chance to spend time with your daughter and your grandchild. This is something you will regret - you know that.

I want us to get past this. I want my grandchild to know her grandparents. I don't want Husband's parents to be the only grandparents our child has.

Let's put this behind us and start again. Let me know if you're free for a visit."

I think mum will message me in a day or two and ask after the baby like nothing has happened and honestly, I’ll probably allow that water to pass under the bridge because like a PP said, I’ll regret looking back on this time now and not remembering her being around to help.

She’s not an awful person, she’s just a very mumsy mum and was probably a bit over protective of me and despite the fact I’m 38, I think still thinks I’m a child in lots of ways. I was a late bloomer, didn’t marry until my mid 30’s and so I think she just got used to riding roughshod over my preferences because I lived with them for such a long time. We’ve probably been guilty of a bit of codependency over the years and as a result now I’m married and a mother, she’s struggled with that adjustment.

She was definitely terrified when I was in hospital, she didn’t say anything direct to me or DH but the cuddle she gave me when she saw me said a lot and now I’ve got DS I can imagine seeing your child hurt is one of the hardest things.

The theories about attention seeking don’t make sense for mum, that’s not who she is or how she operates. It’s possible she wanted to assert some sort of control, but again it’s unlikely because she would usually do that by offering us money (which we never accept but the fact she’s offered she then uses as a ‘remember we’ve offered you £XXX to help you because we are such good parents and you can’t cope on your own two feet’ type thing). This would be the perfect time for those shenanigans if she was trying to achieve control.

I genuinely think it was just completely misplaced kindness and totally misjudged, combined with them both thinking taste is finite and not individual preference. It’s hard to explain, but mum and dad both think they have the best of everything because they always make the right choices, when in reality they just have the things THEY think are best, but you can’t disagree with them because they’re never wrong. If you buy (for example) a car that’s a different model to theirs, they’ll tell you what a waste of money it was and how much of a better choice their car was because of course it was the best etc etc. It’s one thing I really struggled with about my parents all my life, it was very difficult to live with particularly as my life took a different path to theirs. I think the colour walls thing comes from the same place - I’m right you’re wrong attitude so that why she’ll have painted it to her tastes, she won’t have contemplated that I wouldn’t like it. It won’t have occurred to her.

Im very willing to hopefully laugh about it one day (when my walls no longer remind me of Willy Wonka’s trousers) and hopefully mum will too.

@Blubstering just a heads up, but if there's codependency, this is unlikely to be the end of the bumps in the road. You might benefit from some therapy to unpick it if that's doable (and to help with birth trauma once you feel ready to go there).

You will need to put v clear boundaries in regarding your baby and that may not be easy.

Oh Op you sound far too kind & far to desperate to have her with you "helping".

After your most recent update, OP: gently, I think this might be the first in a series of incidents which will slowly show you that the dynamics that you thought were normal for most of your life are in fact pretty toxic and damaging. It is good that you will be increasingly alert to this because it will help you to ensure that you protect your own child from your mum's desire to control. It's not for now - now is for healing and recovery - but I think you will come back to this moment in the future and realise that it was a watershed. All the best to you.

once again fuck that.

My MIL did something similar as we came our honeymoon. It was very odd and very strange thing to do.

with respect,now you have got a child, its time to MAKE it occur to her!

person, she’s just a very mumsy mum and was probably a bit over protective of me and despite the fact I’m 38

over protective?

you almost died and just got home and she’s not talking to you. Correct?

I'd be round her house the minute she went out with a bag of glitter and a leafblower. That'd keep her occupied with her own house for a bit.

I think she just got used to riding roughshod over my preferences because I lived with them for such a long time.

That's no excuse.

So she doesn't respect you or see you as a person in their own right & always knows better?

And treats your husband with the same contempt?

Blimey and I thought my DM was bad when she rearranged my cutlery drawer!