Anxious for MIL visit after holiday disaster

[TheQuaintTealSeal]

As in the title really.

I am really anxious and not looking forward to MIL visit this weekend but somewhat being made to attend, more of a how should i navigate this than AIBU.

A bit of back story (sorry this is a long one), MIL organised a holiday for us all (myself, DH, DD 14 months at the time and MIL and MIL new husband and grandparents from Ireland) back in February. it would have been our first time aboard together since being married for 4 years. We only had a month to get passports for myself and DD due to when we were told about the last minute holiday, which I must admit I didnt really want to go with a 14 month old and undealt with mental health issues but was convinced to go by DH. Flight was around 4am so as you can imagine not a lot of sleep for anyone and with a tired 14 month old, the start of the flight was horrendous and I was starting to get frustrated and overwhelmed with anxiety being on a busy plane with lots of people looking at me with the screaming of DD, DH moaning in my ear about her screaming and already not wanting to go anyway, so I raised my voice to my DD and husband to both stop in the panic of everyone looking.
FF to when we get there all started okay until we check in and the whole overwhelming situation I get a bit upset and really not wanting to be there and just wanted to fly back home, this was lack of sleep talking. Spoke with my mum as we are close ish hoping it would help (which i massively regret) and it somehow ended up with my aunt at our hotel door the very next morning, which i definitely did not ask for or want in the slightest.
MIL finds out about this and seemed okay about it, but barely spent any time with us or her DGC the whole week! We had 1 evening meal and 1 drink the entire week! Fair enough they also wanted to do their own thing but our daughter got sick and being first time parents the situation at the time and her state and being in another country, we were worried and tried to get hold of MIL. (Wasn't even in the same hotel, was a 10 minute taxi ride away but she's a pediatric childrens nurse), DH called many times but she didn't pick up so ended up with my aunt helping with what to do.

FF to flying home, we never went to the air port with MIL despite previous arrangements and they changed their seats to the front of the plane away from us, we were all booked together at the back before, didn't know of the change until we got on the plane.
When we arrived home at the airport we saw MIL walking briskly to the front of the terminal to get the bus to the car park, without even saying goodbye to her DGC.
We thought this was odd but carried on to the carpark on another bus.

This is where it gets nasty. MIL texts DH to say "sorry for not saying goodbye to DGC I was just pissed off with myself for her aunt turning up and I fully blame her for it and for ruining the holiday and I dont appreciate how she talks to my DGC and style of parenting". Now I dont think my DH really defended me and in effect said "we are the ones that deal with her 24/7 and we will parent how we see fit". I actually didn't know any of this for months until DH slipped up in an argument and said his mum didn't like me and sent me the screenshot of her message out of spite.

I'm so angry and upset over her comment and the fact that she acted nice to my face whenever we did see her for the whole week.

Now she hasn't visited in 6 months where usually it would be every month or so and NOW she wants to drop everything and let it be, and forget everything and wants to visit, and im expected just to forgive and forget, but I cant. I honestly saw this woman as a 3rd motherly figure and now im questioning everything.

How would you navigate this visit without causing confrontation or arguments as I cant handle it but dont want to be 2nd guessing if im being slagged off behind my back or be somewhere where im not wanted because im still being blamed and seen as a bad parent.
And yes I am aware my DH was also wrong in this.

Shall I just forget everything as I was in the wrong with raising my voice and not trying harder for my aunt not to rock up or am I right to still be annoyed and hurt by all this.

A "just get on with it" attitude (i.e. not causing a scene) is horrible behaviour
Making a drama of everything and sulking in your room is great

Not inflaming the situation or confronting the OP is horrible behaviour
Not confronting the MIL is fine

Talking about the OP behind her back is horrible behaviour
Talking about the MIL behind her back is fine

Are you a sockpuppet of the OP's? Your posts make no sense.

I think you are the one projecting. OP wasn't the one avoiding MIL it was the other way around. OP didn't invite the aunt.which MIL would have known if she had bothered to speak to OP rather than avoiding her. There was no mention of a "scene" involving the aunt. The MIL has completely avoided OP for 6 months so perhaps it is her you should be preaching forgiveness to.

They were staying in separate hotels, so how did aunty turning up at op's hotel impact mil? How did mil even know?

I think we have a few sockpuppets here.

What is wrong with your reading comprehension ? OP’s mother had her aunt check on her because she was worried about her mental health - and there’s no suggestion that auntie flew anywhere, more likely she lived locally to where OP was staying. Otherwise, logically, mum would have gone herself.

OP wasn’t ‘shunning meals’ - they were in a different hotel and mil didn’t manage to have more than one evening meal or drink with them during the holiday.

And the reason OP was shouting on the plane was because she was at breaking point trying to comfort a screaming child while listening to her DH complaining about the child crying instead of stepping up and actually being a parent. It had nothing to do with MiL.

How so ?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that OP should not address her mental health issues. Clearly she needs some professional help there. But there's a huge range of behaviour between "pandering" to anxiety and pushing someone with poor mental health into a very stressful situation and then adding to the stress by moaning at them about the baby crying and cutting them off for 6 months.

as i said: MILs can't do anything right. If she had carried on as though nothing happened?

From her pov she tried to do something nice that went tits-up. She is probably patiently waiting for her son and his wife to work out what it is they want, how they want things to go etc. We don't know that she hasn't been in contact weekly, daily, hourly, whatever with her son in all this time.

Of course we only have one "side" of this. And far from attacking the OP, most posters are exasperated that a grown woman is being so dramatic, and also most also aghast that the DH was useless.

Again, I keep feeling that I must be reading a different OP post to other people to warrant this kind of backlash.
I can’t see evidence of the OP thinking her actions are reasonable because of her anxiety? Nor where it says the flight was only 1 hour?

I think MIL still has some growing up to do herself if she thinks cutting family off for 6 months is a normal or healthy way of dealing with anything!

Travelling on a short flight with a 14 month old is not extremely stressful . Momentarily stressful when the child kicks off yes . Can we stop making a meal out of a short flight

Well they seem to be making sense to those liking and giving thumbs up, so you seem to be in the minority. Not a sock puppet. Just applying a bit of common sense and support for an OP who is clearly young and overwhelmed, and who, let’s remember, didn’t want to be on the holiday in the first place.

it is, of course, (and i am not MIL here!) perfectly probably that MIL is in contact as usual with her son.

tbh if i were MIL i'd be treading very carefully around someone who flies off the handle so quickly. Just in case i set her off unwittingly.

Ah, supporting dickwad husband then ?

Nor where it says the child was only kicking off momentarily - it was long enough for useless dad to complain about. Or indeed, where it says that MiL paid for the holiday.

For me I find that being in a difficult situation with an unsupportive person nearby actually makes it worse. I can well imagine being able to just about cope with a noisy baby on a plane but my DH having a go at me for it being the straw that breaks the camels back.

Where does it say she was shunning meals? And she explicitly said she did not invite her aunty.

So why don't you think that he is shit? When the baby was crying on the plane, he moaned to OP about it, instead of helping. As the baby's parents, they have equal responsibilty to look after their child, so why are you saying that it's just OP that couldn't cope with anything? What has he done to help?

Where does it say the flight was 1 hour?

Can you explain why it was okay for the OP not to bring this up for six months, but not okay for the MIL?

Why it was okay for the OP to complain behind MIL's back but not okay for MIL to complain about OP?

Why you have zero criticism of the OP but loads for MIL, based on one biased post?

I’m also not understanding why everyone is assuming aunty flew in. Surely it’s more logical that she lives locally to OP’s holiday destination, otherwise mum would have gone herself.

While I agree there will be different POV of what happened, the only information we have is from OP. Anything else is pure fabrication.

People can't name change on the same thread any more. It's probably just people with a different opinion to you.

Namechanging isn't the only way to sockpuppet.

Different opinions are one thing, but there are a couple of posters who seem utterly obsessed with this thread and defending the OP and vilifying the MIL based on nothing.

Why do you think that? Do you think that the (few) posters supporting the OP are sock puppets but that the many posters putting the boot in are genuine?