MIL is too much

[OneBrightCrow]

I find my MIL quite overbearing, and where I want to see her expectations and enthusiasm to spend time with us as misguided love, the way she behaves does not make it easy, and instead I feel frustrated at her childishness or entitlement. Looking for some advice here on how to handle things in the moment so that I don’t come across as rude…

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There have been countless occasions in my 8 years as a parent, where she has gone ahead and done what SHE has wanted despite knowing that it spoilt our own plans as parents... for example when she bought our daughter a Fisher Price rocking horse for her first Christmas as it was on a good deal, despite knowing and having SEEN that we had already bought one for our daughter’s first birthday (that was after Christmas, so her gift would get given first).

She can also be incredibly rude at times – for example at a recent family party that my parents put on for our 40ths, we did birthday cake/candles etc and when everyone was watching she repeatedly shouted across to me “why are you pulling that silly face? You look like a hamster”

To my knowledge I wasn’t pulling a strange face at all, but she seemed to relish the opportunity to try and humiliate me when she had everyone’s attention.
Anyway, that’s not what this is about, but I want to give some context about why I feel how I do.

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A few months back, MIL announced that she wanted to do a cruise with us all (her 2 adult children, partners, grandkids). They would be paying – which is extremely generous – but I reminded my husband that as it is the year of our 40ths, we had our own plans that would need to be considered (in terms of dates and the amount of leave we could take from work). This was a fleeting conversation one Sunday lunchtime…. But 48hrs later we are told that the trip is booked. No further discussion.
Thankfully, dates etc worked out, so we just went with it. Given their generosity, it felt inappropriate to dig our heels in about not having any further conversations about it.
The cruise is fast approaching, and it’s evident that we will be expected to spend every waking minute together. Obviously we’re going as a family, so a decent amount of time together is expected, but when I talk to my husband about potential things we can enjoy on the ship, he reminds me that it may be awkward if his parents and sister’s family don’t want to do those things as “we are on a family trip”.

We will have a row of 3 rooms with MIL in the middle and she's already told my husband she'd like to open up the balconies so we have access to all rooms (WHY???)

My MIL has also started revealing outfits (only to my husband) that she has bought for my DD (nothing for my son, lol) so that she can match her other granddaughter when we dress up in the evening. She hasn’t given them to me to pack, but will pack them in her own suitcase and present them on the evening with the expectation they are put on. We have outfits already planned for the evenings, so I can see this being an awkward moment…

In situations like that, my MIL is likely to stick her bottom lip out and talk in a baby voice about how she’s brought it so the girls can match, and basically behave like a spoilt child so that everyone feels sorry for her, and I look like I’m just being difficult. Especially when my SIL will dutifully comply with whatever MIL wants.

I find those times quite difficult to manage – wanting to assert myself, but not create an atmosphere. But my tolerance can be very low, and I imagine will be even more so if we’re spending such an intense period of time together.

Help! AIBU to find this all too much??

This. Just take a laid back approach.

Just because their cousins don’t fancy the kids clubs, or any other activities for that matter, doesn’t mean your children should miss out on what they want to do.

If your children wanted to eat chicken one night and the cousins wanted pizza would you tell your kids to eat the pizza and be grateful? Of course you wouldn’t. Nor would you insist on the cousins joining yours in kids club if they didn’t want to. They are cousins, not conjoined twins so can decide for themselves, (within reason!) , what they want to do.

Have I misunderstood - your husband is insisting that his own children don’t go to the children’s club because it might upset his sister and that would make him feel bad???

So he’s putting his own feelings above your kids doing what they want on holiday?

Your post are all about how your feelings and the kids feelings don’t matter because the only important thing is what your husband wants . I feel like I’ve slipped through a hole in the space time continuum and landed in 1920.

Are you from a very conservative / traditional culture ?

Sorry but with the baby voice I’d have to reply slightly laughingly ‘awww is mummy wumsy feeling a teeny bit gwouchy wouchy today, does she need a bot bot of something?’ And then giggle and laugh it all off as just having a hilarious family joke.
she would soon get the hint!

She's a textbook narcissist and I'm going to bet my yearly salary that your husband is a fullblown enabler.

Definitely.

And when MIL does her
"stick her bottom lip out and talk in a baby voice about how she’s brought it so the girls can match"
act you can turn it back on her and say
"DD chose this dress especially, do you want her to be upset?"

As pp have said you will need to try and distance yourself from as much of the nonsense as you can ("grey rock" it) - just lose yourself somewhere on the (huge) ship when you need some space

And the balcony thing is a hard NO - and make sure DH is clear that it is not negotiable.

It's like the ship is her giant dolls house and you're all complying dolls for her to play with and control, I loathe this false gift giving when people hold the reciever to ransom because they've paid for soemthing noone asked for but themselves. I have an aunt like this, nothing is given without expectation.

he is adamant that we'll be doing stuff more independently when we're off the ship, so perhaps I should reserve judgement.

But he's not, is he? You said earlier that he won't let your kids go to the kids club without their cousins.

That's not acceptable, and I think you should put your foot down about it (maybe on board, not now) - just book them in and take them; it's not fair to restrict their fun.

It's your, and your kids, holiday too - they're not just pawns to be moved around in some family game!

MIL is likely to stick her bottom lip out and talk in a baby voice

I would walk away in disgust whenever this happened. 🤢

You definitely have a DH problem, and as he's been exposed to this abusive level of control all his life, it's deeply ingrained & hard to change.

Additionally, behaving differently towards your daughter is atrocious. Are you really going to teach her that her brother can have free rein but if grandmother says she has to wear something in particular, she has no choice in the matter?
Do you want her to grow up thinking she's not allowed to say No, and that it's her job to keep the peace? (What peace?!)

Awful.

This sounds like a complete nightmare, I guess if it was me I would suck it up for the sake of the cruise (cruising is amazing by the way so dont let this experience put you off). Then when you get back I think you need to have a serious talk with your DH. He needs to be told in no uncertain terms his allegiance needs to lie with you not his mother and I say that as a MIL myself.

In situations like that, my MIL is likely to stick her bottom lip out and talk in a baby voice

I'd laugh in her face if she did that in front of me and follow it up with a comment about how she is a grown woman not a child and acting like one at her age is rather concerning, perhaps she needs to see a doctor.

What is it with people who behave like this? and those who enable it? Is everyone frightened of them or afraid to be cut out of the Will or something? Why does anyone entertain this childish, manipulative tosh?

Ah see, that makes much more sense.
i thought the granny and granddaughter matching was unhinged 😂

My MIL was like this…. Her behaviour one Christmas of sulking and refusing to look at us because someone had bought DD something they had bought her was the final straw for me. I went very low contact, which also meant that DD’s went low contact as they didn’t want to go without me. It made a huge difference and her behaviour changed and I think she realised she’d pushed me too far. DH’s sis died during Covid (not Covid related) and it did change things, and things were hugely improved I was putting in a lot more effort for obvious reasons. However she became ill not long after and died a few weeks before our wedding. So I don’t know if things would have continued to have improved.

This sounds like something I could def try!

you missed out the "even more" before "unhinged"

That's absolutely not the case. I don't really want her wearing the MIL outfits but if she wants to, I'm not gonna fight it too much. If she doesn't want to wear them, I won't have any issue with that too.

I will always advocate for what my children want. They are a family of compulsory kisses on leaving places. And I've always told the kids they don't have to, but just to be polite, say goodbye, thank you etc. I will not raise them to feel pressured to do certain things.... and for them I can be a fierce advocate. Unfortunately I find it harder to be an assertive spokesperson for myself without coming across bolshy and abrupt when pushed too far.

Not really. He just doesn't want to stick his head above the parapet and rock the boat by being different in anyway when we're all expected to be together.

he feels that it would be "weird" to be sat with other kids but not our own. And he thinks that our kids will want to stay with their cousins anyway.

I've asked that he reserves judgement and allows them to go if they express a wish to, or if we can get some time just the two of us.

I've told the kids that if they want to go, and are happy to do so without their cousins then that's ok with me, so he can navigate them feeling disappointed if he maintains his stance. Have told him I won't bite my tongue on that, and I'm not stopping them from enjoying what's on offer to them

So your husband would rather disappoint his children ( who want to go to the club ) than disappoint his mother / SIL, who want them to be together 24/7.

And your way of dealing with this is to let your husband “ navigate your children feeling disappointed “. Why cant he navigate his SIL / mother being disappointed?

Why do your husband’s wishes always come before your own and your children's?

Why do your small children have to miss out to make your husband feel better?

On the kids club thing you can suggest an afternoon “nap” whilst your DC are entertained!

You are doing great op 👌

MIL sounds like an utter nightmare but as others have said, DH enables this far too easily. OP says in one post that she would fiercely advocate for her children yet in a later post says "he can navigate them feeling disappointed if he maintains his stance", this means that DH gets to overrule the OP's wishes despite him have no reasonable reason for his refusal to allow the children to go to a kids club. That's not advocating fiercely.
It would be a cold day in hell before DW or I would entertain this trip and would have put a stop to this at the time of booking. Neither of our parents get to make those decisions for us.

@OneBrightCrow sorry if someone else has suggested this.

When you board try and find your cabin steward asap. Hand him £20 and say you want the connecting balcony door to remain locked and that isn’t it a pity the lock will be broken for the entire trip.

Next go to guest services and quietly explain you really don’t want the door opened and why. Ask them to make sure the lock remains “broken” for the trip.

As people keep saying, I need to pick my battles. The anticipation of all of this is bad enough without arguments spoiling the actual trip. In reality, for 4 out of 7 days, we'll be off the boat doing excursions etc, so there is limited time on the boat to do everything. I'm not going to get too wound up about the kids club if it turns out the majority of the time on the ship is doing activities with the kids (together)... I will cross that bridge if and when we come to it.