AIBU to feel hurt and pushed aside by DIL?

[confusedgranny]

I’m genuinely not sure anymore whether I’m being reasonable or “one of THOSE MILs”.

My DIL is pregnant with their 2nd child. Her first birth was very traumatic, and I’ve honestly tried to be sensitive and supportive this time. Despite this I appear to have got it wrong. One small example: I recently found out (through my other child) that during the first birth, DIL didn’t want me updated when labour started and would have preferred to tell me only once the baby had arrived (I didn’t message or try to contact her once during the labour). She also found it offensive when I asked my son how HE was following the traumatic birth. I genuinely thought he might need checking on too, given how shaken he said he felt, but it seems that was taken as ignoring her experience. This time they have a planned C section “for late November”, they know a date but didn’t specify so I didn’t ask. (Should I? Don’t want to be called intrusive).

There’s also the issue of how often they see DIL’s parents. My son can work from home, so they go to her mum and dad’s for days at a time. Meanwhile I get one day visit per month. I travel to them, and I don’t stay overnight because it’s never been offered or suggested. I’ve tried not to take it personally and have never said anything, but it’s hard not to notice the difference.

And when it comes to childcare, it feels even more lopsided. My granddaughter is often left with their nanny or with DIL’s mum but never with me. I’ve been told by DIL because with a nanny “it feels easier” in that it’s a paid service — you pay the nanny and no one owes each other anything at the end. I can understand the logic, but it’s painful to feel that a hired professional is seen as less complicated and more trustworthy than the child’s own grandmother.

And I know (again, through my other child) that DIL is uncomfortable with my son ever taking GD to stay with me overnight because she’s never been away from the child overnight and “it would upset both her and the child.” So I’m left feeling like I’m some sort of risk or stranger, even though I’m her grandmother. My son isn’t allowed to go without her (or he risks upsetting his wife which understandably he doesn’t want to do, esp I ally pregnant) and she doesn’t want to come. They’ve been here 3 times total.

Communication is becoming another minefield. I want to keep the group chat warm and friendly, but I’m increasingly aware that asking for a photo of GD or sending a picture of my garden or something I’m doing seems to irritate her. If I message, I feel annoying; if I don’t, I feel distant. I can’t seem to get it right.

And is there anything I can do to rebuild things when I seem to get everything wrong no matter how careful I try to be?

As others have said it is on your son, not your DIL to facilitate the relationship with you. You keep making excuses for your son, and say he's conflict avoidant, whilst blaming your daughter in law. I'm sure she can sense that you blame her and make excuses for him. Are you sure he just isn't as close to you as you think and it isn't a priority to him? I often find mums want to think it's the DIL who is stopping the relationship when it's actually the son who can't be bothered.

Is your relationship with your son close? You seem to be second guessing everyone’s motives and views rather than making assumptions based on facts. Why not just tell your son how you feel and ask him if you are right? Then you and your son both know where you stand with each other and can move forward. But as pps have said the onus is on your son not DIL.

Exactly. I had a traumatic birth and thankfully know VERY little about it. My husband had to watch every second of it and was clearly very distressed by it. Whenever anyone asked me how I was, I also directed their attention to his experience of it.

Jesus! Makes me glad my son isn’t married. I hate the way these MIL threads go. So fucking nasty!

You seem to hold her responsible for what you perceived as 'lopsidedness' but from her perspective it's normal that she makes effort with her own family and them with her. If there are communication issues it's really for you to take up with your son and just make sure you communicate directly with him. It'll soon become clear whether he's just doing that man thing of leaving everything to his partner, or if there are deeper issues within his relationship.

Christ, there's some really cunty responses on this thread.

OP, I do understand the thing about letting people know when she's in labour, especially if her first birth experience was so difficult, but it does sound she's a bit shitty with you in many other respects.

It is perfectly normal, kind and nice to ask the father if he is OK after a traumatic situation in which he would have been desperately concerned about his wife and baby.

I’m a DIL and I have a great relationship with my MIL. It’s tricky and we have both been very sensitive to the other to get to this point.

what my MIL has done (hoping to provide useful advice).

• She tells me upfront that she thinks I’m a great mum. I think new motherhood is hard and it never hurts to provide validation. She specifically says this to me outside of conversation including her son/my DH and I appreciate that.
• She offers to come and stay but she’s very gentle about it. She has offered to stay in a hotel before in the early days to make it easier on us. She has also offered (and followed through) to be helpful when she comes and I find this really great. She comes to stay when we are working and kids are in childcare and she cooks dinner, bakes cakes, does random jobs like cleaning the windows. However what makes this a winner is she asks first and she’s so nice about it with no criticism. There’s no “your windows are dirty” judgement; she just says “I’ve got a bit of time do you mind if I clean the windows”. It may sound silly but the lack of judgement (or perceived judgement) counts for a lot with me
• she’s willing to learn about my boundaries and be respectful. She cuts grapes because I ask her to. She learn how to use the car seat. This all makes me feel respected and trusted.
• She sees and appreciates the mental load that falls on women, she knows I do more for the grandchildren than my DH does and she verbalises this and provides empathy, again backing me up.

Essentially when I write that all down, I feel like my MIL shows she is on my side and sees me as an person, and doesn’t just see me as a facilitator for access to her grandchildren.

I think she would agree with me that we have a good relationship, I really respect her and I ask her opinion on lots of things now because she has shown herself to be a kind and engaged grandparent. I do appreciate what you are saying that you feel you haven’t been given the time or capacity to do this. My honest suggestion is to focus on your relationship with DIL not with your grandchild right now. When you visit, asking how she is and offering to make her a cup of tea and have a sit down, that kind of thing goes a long way.

Good advice here.
Hang on in there and things may change for the better.

I think digging into the minutiae of the wording of what's app messages ect is a massive sign that the big picture is being ignored or not seen at all.

From what you've said OP the first thing that jumps out is that your son just isn't doing any of the work to keep a relationship going.

The fact that you can come up with umpteen excuses for him (with DIL at the root of it) is not a good sign of how you view the whole situation.

It's such a tired old story. Man leaves home and gets married. Man can't be arsed to keep up a decent relationship with his parents. Man's mother blames the wife. Man must be downtrodden/under control/scared to rock the boat/ ect ect ect.

No. I'm afraid in my experience (twice) and in friends of mine experiences, and in a thousand on here it's a very simple case of: wife just gets on with living her life and interacting with her parents. She does lions share of day to day baby care so kid is usually with her, he can't be arsed to do much wrt keeping his mother in the loop to make up for it. MIL is left scrambling for reasons which DONT involve her son being a typical bloke.

So the birth issue (as in updates etc) I’m with DIL as it’s her private medical info so it’s fine she doesn’t want to share details at all.

With everything else your son and your shit-stirring other child are the problem.

No she doesn’t, she sounds sad that there’s not much of a relationship there.

I have a nanny. As much as my mum tries, she is incomparable to the nanny. There is no negotiation with the nanny, she does what I tell her. In fact, I NEVER have to tell her what to do, she has known my child since he was 5 months old. My son loves her, knows her, she knows what to do.

I recently had to have my mum look after my son for 3 days while I worked and it was a fucking nightmare. My mum is lovely and tries really hard but she doesn't know the routine and he doesn't know her. I barely got any work done.

And I have never been away for a full night from my son in 16 months. You can be offended all you like but I just don't want to.

And taking him to places fucks up his sleep. He ALWAYS wakes every 2 hours if we sleep anywhere other than home. We've had 2 big holidays and one weekend away and they were horrific, the sleep deprivation didn't make it worth it.

As for you not being invited over more, that's on your son. You need to deal with him.

Please let the labour bit go. From a DIL POV, at the time of my first birth, I had no issue with my MIL. I would however, have been livid if my partner had been texting his Mum whilst I was in labour. He didn’t tell my Mum either. We got through the awful bits, had a couple of hours with our baby and resting, and then we composed a message and sent it to all grandparents / aunties at the same time. No one knew the due date in advance either. I don’t really care if that upset any of them, it’s my body and I’ll decide who gets to know my medical information.

In the real world, yes. On MN men are not important. If I almost died on an operating table, I would like to hope that my husband might be a bit upset by that. Upset enough to think about it in the aftermath, and not shrug it off.
Watching a stranger knocked off a motorbike and killed would be upsetting. Doesn't take away the fact the biker had it worse! If it involves someone you love, even worse.
OP make sure your will leaves anything you have to give to your grandchildren, so she won't get her mitts on it if you die and it passes to your son.

It's such a tired old story. Man leaves home and gets married. Man can't be arsed to keep up a decent relationship with his parents. Man's mother blames the wife. Man must be downtrodden/under control/scared to rock the boat/ ect ect ect.

@Laiste you have hit the nail on the head with this!

Wow, she can care about both of them. Asking about her son and acknowledging that it might be hard for him to watch his wife go through trauma makes her a good person not a bad one. I was so grateful to my sil coming without being asked and supporting my DH when I was in hospital abroad. Of course he would have managed but it’s great he has people who care about him and made sure to look out for him whilst he was looking out for me.

I do think it's understandable why you are upset about the paid nanny and the imbalance in time with your DGC. However on the below , you are missing a massive sensitivity chip:

I just can’t understand why my son texting me “my wife is in labour, you’ll be a granny soon” was such a big deal

How can you not understand this? Giving birth is a deeply personal, overwhelming and often quite precarious experience. It's not a show for bystanders to be kept updated on.

This says it perfectly.
Apart from i got on with my mil. We visited both sets of parents every other week when ours were little. But that was years ago before life somehow got to busy for families to bother with each other.

This sounds very similar to my situation. I get on very well with my MIL but when it comes to my health and pregnancies/ labours etc she asks too many invasive questions. Do you ask too many questions? Are you nosey?

Your DIL could be like me, needing her space. Being pregnant is quite a vulnerable time, you are not her mum so you don’t need to know all the ins and outs of it all. I think it’s reasonable for you to find out once the baby is born rather than knowing when she starts labour. Have you considered her pov, she may want less questions less people worrying about her and just have the space to do her own thing.

As for you helping with childminding, maybe it is true she doesn’t want you to it? Like my MIL, I’m happy for her to visit but I wouldn’t trust her childminding, nor does she have the energy levels to run after toddlers and keep up.

Tbh my mother in law irritates me rightly or wrongly. But I don’t think finding someone irritating is a reason to stop grandchildren staying the night etc. I think yanbu OP but I’d forget about DIL and go through your son re the children. My MIL is a wonderful GM 🤷🏻‍♀️

A quick text saying things have started is hardly distracting the man from the birth. And it's so vague that it's really not an invasion of privacy. I can't understand what's wrong with it either.

I don’t think you’ve done anything awful OP but I do think your issue is with your son not your DIL. I also think your DD is shit stirring and you need to stop discussing this with her. Asking your DS in a private conversation if he is ok is absolutely fine. You need to tell your son you want to see them more and see what he says.

I never told anyone when I went into labour. I told my parents the second time but that was because they were more local and were first line childcare.

I wonder whether she might become more comfortable with you having your DGD overnight once her baby is born? I’m guessing that your granddaughter is a toddler and it can be a lot coping with a newborn and a toddler!

In your shoes, I’d casually say to your son that he and DGD are welcome to come over anytime -it’s unlikely to happen when they’ve got a newborn, but it might be different in a few months time.

It really is on your son to facilitate your relationship with his children. I sometimes felt abit grumpy about my DH sharing things when our children were young, but then I realize that he has a perfect right to, they’re his children too. Now it doesn’t bother me at all- tbh, I enjoy the break when he takes them off to visit his parents. 😂 I do the same with my Dad, we don’t want to use up all of our A/L visiting family so we often divide and conquer.

YABU. Obviously she will be closer to her own mum. Don't push it or you will see even less of them. Also, I completely get where she is coming from about you asking your son how he was, he wasn't the one who had just given birth.