Why is MIL like this?

[Chunkychips23]

Advice/rant

I’ve posted before about my MIL, who seemed to be replaced with a crueler, meaner version of herself when I had my first baby.

Things somewhat improved and I forgave her and moved forward. I didn’t hold a grudge although I knew I’d never get an acknowledgment or an apology from her. DH finally admitted that she was vile towards me and apologised on her behalf.

I’ve recently had my 2nd baby and things started off a lot better. She’d pretty much stopped with her weird behaviour and criticisms. She came over 24hrs postpartum even though I did ask just for that first day at home to recover, decompress and spend some time with both my children. I’d had a long labour which ended up in a Cat 1 due to haemorrhaging, narrowly avoiding a transfusion. I felt a bit pressured into having her over, but she said she’d come for 2hrs and go. She stayed the whole day and insisted on going for lunch, wanting to take my toddler and newborn, whilst I stayed home to recover. I said a firm no to my brand new baby going for a pub lunch, who I was exclusively breastfeeding. She took it well - previously that would have caused a meltdown about how she’s being left out and I’m blocking her from bonding.

Anyway, that was a tad annoying, but she was at least pleasant to me. She’d been over weekly to spend time with the kids, often without DH present and we’ve been getting along. It’s almost been like pre kids where she and I would happily spend time together DH. She’s not been helping with the kids which is fine, I don’t expect other people to, but she does post on social media saying how helpful she’s been and that I couldn’t do it without her, which was a bit annoying, but ok.

As time has gone by though, she’s started getting weird again. She’s become fixated on the fact I’m breastfeeding again. Little comments have started about how she thinks I should wean early and she desperately wants to give my baby solids. I caught her trying to give me 12wk old ice cream because “baby was staring and wanted it” She denied it, but there was chocolate ice cream on my babies romper. Then there’s the comments about how baby is really hungry as breastfeeding doesn’t fill them up enough and I nearly starved my 1st born because he was so small. I didn’t. He just small. Even now several months after being weaned, he’s still little. She’s still blaming breastfeeding.

MIL is now claiming she’s being left out again. I’m not sure how she is, as she’s coming over twice a week, gets to spend time with the kids with and without me (less so with baby though due to breastfeeding and I don’t trust her now) We’ve taken the kids to her house, been on day trips and meals out etc. I don’t know what she’s complaining about.

We had our wedding anniversary on Friday and my mum looked after the kids for a few hours. MIL has made it very clear she doesn’t like babysitting anyway, so we didn’t ask her. On our way back, my mum text to say my PIL’s had turned up. DH knew nothing about this. MIL said she didn’t want to feel left out on our anniversary. It’s our bloody wedding anniversary, I don’t see why she’d need to be included in that?! My baby had refused the bottles of expressed milk I’d left, so my mum had to cup feed him. No biggie, infant feeding was part of her long medical career, so she managed it fine. MIL sat there with a smug look on her face and said “well that’s why you should formula feed” I just ignored her. Despite cup feeding, he hadn’t had enough milk, so I went to feed him. She refused to hand him to me saying she was having cuddles as he’s her grandson too. I asked again politely to pass my baby back so I could feed him and she held on tighter and said no. I just said “I’m not asking” and had to snatch him back. He was screaming for me at this point.

Later on, DH posted some old pics on social media and of our wedding. His mum shared it with the caption “my son is the best husband” and then commented under his “I love our crazy life. Love you so much” It was literally a post about our marriage, not about her. I asked DH about this and he again said “yeah it’s weird, but she’s so scared about being left out” She has a tendency to invite herself to things anyway. DH arranged for dinner with friends we’d not seen in ages, she invited herself along. My birthday lunch, she tried to invite herself to. His birthday dinner with his friends (he’d already gone for dinner with her on his actual birthday) she turned up too. Even years ago now, when we arranged to go meet the celebrant for our wedding, she invited herself to that. It’s not like she’s never included unless she invites herself. She spends more time with and has way more access than most mothers of adult children do. She even tried coming to the hospital 45mins after I was out of surgery, with a cannula in and several drips. I told DH I’d get him kicked off the ward too if she came in. PIL’s in that situation whilst I’m naked and recovering is highly inappropriate, no matter how excited they are to see a new grandchild.

I could maybe understand the intensity if DH was her only child and these were her only Grandchildren, or even his only children, they’re not! She has other kids and lots of grandchildren, but for some reason it’s me that bares the brunt of it. She’s actively involved in all of their lives, so it’s not like she’s missing out on anything. DH is her favourite child and favourite son though, so I don’t know if that’s part of it?

I just want everyone to get along, but I don’t like feeling like MIL sees herself as integral to my marriage and motherhood. I’ve never blocked her from coming over, even when she was being a bitch with my 1st baby. DH gets just as annoyed, but really struggles to enforce boundaries.

It got better last time, but she’s gradually getting worse again. I don’t know what to do or say. I’m prepared to kick her out of my house if she starts getting nasty again, but it’s starting to make me feel anxious when we’re due to see her.

AIBU to feel the way I do and she’s just trying to be involved, just too pushy?

Bloody hell op, I felt exhausted about half way through your post. Your mil is absolutely nuts and has no boundaries whatsoever. If it was me I couldn’t be bothered with it and would go completely no contact. I just wouldn’t have the mental or emotional energy to deal with it. I mean this is stalker level of disturbed personality. Your priority is to yourself, your children and your husband. Please stay safe.

What @Lafufufusaid 💯
Also, stop giving her information and I wouldn’t ever set foot in her house again. She can eff off. Your husband can take your kids to her house and make sure that is something reasonable like once a week for the afternoon, not every bloody day to keep his idiot of a mother appeased.

I would say for op's mh keeping mil at arm's length is a necessity.. Yes life is long. Too long to pander to a grown woman's tears and tantrums.

To give DH a little bit of credit, he got them out of the house very quickly on our anniversary. PIL were expecting to be entertained and hosted, but DH made it clear it wasn’t a good time. FIL looked absolutely relieved and desperate to go home, as always, but MIL looked hurt. I think that’s what prompted her odd social media posts.

He wasn’t on the room when she was baby snatching, nor was my mum, as she was changing the toddlers nappy - MIL says she hates doing nappies, so won’t do them. My mum did offer to ‘make it awkward, very quickly’ if I wanted her too.

I think her jealousy is with my mum too, as she feels my mum has had more access than she has. Yes, my mum was there on the day of both births, because she’s my mother. She’s seen my vagina and I came out of hers. Her career also meant she’s seen thousands of vaginas. Her experience with babies isn’t just “I raised kids” it’s medical. MIL has made comments before that make me think she’s insecure about that. My mum said she doesn’t have the time or energy for it. They’re both grandmothers and it’s not a competition.

She refused to hand him to me saying she was having cuddles as he’s her grandson too. I asked again politely to pass my baby back so I could feed him and she held on tighter and said no. I just said “I’m not asking” and had to snatch him back.
Never mind all the other batshit behaviour, if this had happened to me I'd have ordered her out of my house and she would not have been back since, nor would she be welcome again.

Yes this. You take control. If she doesn’t like you, which it already sounds like then disliking you more shouldn’t even matter. Start putting her in her place and she will act crazy and then you can easily go No contact. Do you really want someone like this around your kids, someone who actively dislikes you and has no respect for your family?
Your dh is useless so I can’t imagine he would say anything to you if he isn’t going to say anything to her.

I think you have the patience of a Saint to have forgiven her past behaviour and putting up with her current behaviour. Not many mothers with a newborn would let someone hold their baby again who had previously refused to hand them back for feeding.
If your husband is going to be such a wet lettuce around her you really only have two options - put up with it or be blunt. 'Mil, we said you could come round for two hours even though I really didn't feel like it. It's now been 2.5 and we need rest and time to bond as a new family. It's time for you to go now'.. if she moans about being left out you tell her that you make lots of effort to include her and if she continues to moan you will see less of her, and stick to it

Why should a post partum mother allow her nasty mil to walk all over her and consider her feelings over her own?

The mil behaviour will get worse and worse with this bad advice. Sorry but a mother and newborn baby are the priority here and their feelings and needs come first, not a grown woman with no boundaries who manipulates people with tears.and tantrums to get her way.

She comments on Facebook about how helpful she is and how you couldn’t do it without her!

How on earth does she phrase that??

I don’t imagine how she could phrase that without it being immediately apparent to anybody who sees it how annoying and overbearing she is.

It was a picture of my kids and her with the caption “love these two so much. Family is everything! Love that I can help my son and his wife every week, as child rearing is hard. Glad I can be of help” Even DH was laughing at that.

Because she's a narcissist...quite an extreme one too. My mum only became this bad when she started to develop dementia. I felt stressed just reading your post.

Block her on fb.
Send any messages to dh to deal with.. My ils never had my mobile number. It made for a much less stressful life.. We had an agreed day they visited.. Monday at 8.20am I kid you not...
Apparently to miss the traffic.. Which they absolutely did not....
If they turned up at other times (just passing from an hour down the A1 I don't think so) I simply carried on with my routine.. If that meant taking dc to playgroups or meet friends I left them for dh to amuse...

This is not in any way your problem. This is your DH's problem. He has to deal with it and stop being so bloody useless.

You need a frank chat with DH and start saying no. He's not doing enough to protect you and he should be. Cut down those visits!!! There is no duty here, do what suits you. Look up the grey rock method for both you and DH to use. And use it.

This!!

Oh my God, she is a HORROR. I have nothing but sympathy and admiration for your seemingly endless patience but I am not surprised it's now wearing thin.

You have to have it out with DH. He has to man up and start saying no, and not sharing information. There's no point him saying how batshit her FB is when he's facilitating her attendance at birthday dinners, even inadvertently by giving her details!

I also think this MIL sounds like she has a really low IQ, so keep that in mind OP and be very careful about letting her have any unsupervised access to your DC.

I don't know whether this would work - it did for mine, but she wasn't as bad!

Try working out which of her behaviours are the least tolerable, and ask (tell) your OH to help you resolve those.

i.e. if turning up un-announced is particularly a problem, work with your OH at saying no you can't come in we're busy, and closing the door. If not handing baby back is a particular ongoing issue, work with DH about kicking her out every time it happens.

And work out which behaviours you can let slide for the sake of your sanity and future relationships.

I think it helped my DH, as it was then just one or 2 aspects of his mothers character I was criticizing rather than her as a whole. Almost saying look, she's your mum, you love her, and she is not all bad - but can we work together to just eliminate this one behaviour?

But as I say, she wasn't quite in the same league as yours! And we did have a good relationship overall - she just went absolutely batshit for a while at new grandchildren...

You seem like a kind person and MIL has serious issues. She needs therapy, not to dominate you and your husband's life! I feel for you because it's so hard when nobody in her own side of the family seems to be enforcing boundaries with her, so it would make you seem harsh. You aren't in the wrong though, she sounds really inappropriate and disrespectful.

How old is this woman ffs? You need to have a proper sit down conversation with your husband that this is it. He has to tell her No and end this crazy carry on. So what if she cries, let her cry, she won't drop dead from a few pantomime tears.

@Chunkychips23 you need to take his phone, tell him to get ready to go out and not tell him where you are going. he wont have the opportunity to tell him mother if his phone is switched off. just reject her calls and go. I wouldnt tolerate that behaviour from anyone!

She seems to have a staggering lack of self awareness and the hide of a rhino. The constant intrusion would make me feel sick with anger.

@Chunkychips23

You're making it too easy for him. You need to make him feel that upsetting you is much much worse than upsetting MIL.

The next time she steps out of line and he goes along with it, you should go absolutely ape shit at him crying and shouting and screaming etc etc . Do this every time until eventually he comes to realise that upsetting MIL is the easier option...

“She refused to hand him to me saying she was having cuddles as he’s her grandson too. I asked again politely to pass my baby back so I could feed him and she held on tighter and said no. I just said “I’m not asking” and had to snatch him back. He was screaming for me at this point.”

And that would be the last time she set foot in my house….. possibly my life. Is she insane? Or is there a medical explanation for this behaviour?

Your DH enables her to act like a brat. From now on you plan anniversaries, birthdays etc don’t tell him until the last minute.

My MIL was like this, I called it emotional incest. DH was her favourite and she resented him having anyone in his life that would 'rival' her. She was constantly vying to be the centre of attention and number one at every important moment in his life. She was constantly demanding he prove he loved her more and when our kids came along, she was the same with them. I would be hours listing her outrageous behaviour bu like @Lafufufu I decided I had enough when someone in a bakery we went to every Saturday morning repeated something really nasty she had said about me, out of the blue. I lost my shit, rang her and had a blisteringly honest conversation. Up until then, we had been rolling our eyes at her behaviour as she lived quite a distance and we only saw her and FIL about eight days a year but like your MIL, she had started taking over my children. I honestly think she would have celebrated with champagne if I had died in childbirth! Dh had been on my side but like I said, we had both been letting a lot of stuff go for the sake of peace and he also didn't really want to see some of the more batshit behaviour. But I made it clear to him that day that he wasn't going to keep the both of us happy and my unhappiness would mean the end of our marriage so he needed to make a decision and stick to it. Thankfully, he did. We went very low contact with her, if she came to visit, I made sure I was elsewhere and DH took the kids to see her on his own. All these people saying life is too short for family rifts, trust me, its too short to have someone like this making your life hell and causing trouble in your marriage. My MIL did have mental health problems we never got to the bottom of as she refused to see she had a problem but she drove all her kids and grandchildren away with her behaviour. It was very sad but DH and his siblings all had very honest but respectful conversations with her and tried to put boundaries in for healthy relationships but she would not change. Don't let her poison things and watch her very carefully around your children when they are older. It turns out my MIL was vile to my eldest while doting on my youngest and I now regret sending them off with DH to see her but at the time I wanted them to have a relationship with her. I never dreamed she would be so toxic to children she initially doted on. But my eldest looks just like me and it seems this enraged her. Like I said, not mentally well.