AIBU to ask my partners mum to stay elsewhere after Christmas? More context inside..

[Marygirlllll90]

Hi everyone,

Would love some thoughts or opinions on a situation I faced and I still really feel uneasy about, but am I being unreasonable?

I'll start here, on Oct 17th last year I lost my mum (65) to cancer, I was 34 at the time and also 6 months pregnant with my first baby.

When Christmas came around I really struggled, I found it harder than anticipated and fell into a pit of grief, it was really difficult to navigate whilst pregnant.

I live with my partner and his Mum lives in Spain, she was coming to spend Christmas with us and arrived on December 23rd, as I said I started to go into a really uneasy place over Christmas and found each day really difficult, it was really overwhelmed having other people in the house etc and found myself upstairs alone a lot to try get some space or process my grief, by December 28th I'd hit a really low point and suggested could my partners Mum go to his Brothers so that I could have space etc but my partner refused. (his brothers house was vacant as they were up north visiting other family), my partner just said he would never ask his mum to go to a house and be alone over Christmas, so I was kind of just left alone upstairs.

We did have a bit of an argument about this and he said he would never choose me over his family and also that me being miserable was ruining time he was spending with his Mum. He did backtrack on those comments in the end but when we have discussed it he still stands by that he would never ask his Mum to leave, even in that situation.

So ultimately, was I being unreasonable for suggesting his Mum go to his Brothers? It was December 28th so in my opinion it wasn't actually Christmas and it was a unique situation where I needed my partner and needed space. I would love some opinions as I am really conflicted and still really hurt and I think I see my partner different over it now.

Yes, and make sure you keep any receipts from the home renovations on your partner’s house.

I totally agree. OP would have been about 8 months pregnant while grieving her mum with a partner who is so callous and insensitive that he thought it was OK to tell her that he would never choose OP over his family and that OP being miserable was ruining the time he was spending with his Mum.

I would never ever forgive him for saying that. To scold OP for 'being miserable' when she had just lost her own mum is something that only someone totally devoid of empathy and kindness would do.

Thanks for your opinion, his mother lives abroad but visits regularly, last visit was the start of December for a week & then returned for Christmas.

it’s a lot more complex than just sending someones Mum away, seems this thread has two very different types of people on it & a real divide of opinions

Do you really think that was an OK thing to say to OP?

Are you actually saying that OP asking her MIL to spend two days after Christmas in her other son's house was just as upsetting for her partner and his mum as OP's mum actually dying was for OP? Your post takes callousness to a new level.

OP's mum will never see her baby and OP has lost her most valuable source of love and support as she sure isn't getting this from her total prick of a partner.

Should you be expending your energies on addressing this as opposed to something that annoyed you months ago?

You are not married to an unsupportive man who seems to hold all the financial cards

I’m with you on this op. He didn’t have to send his mother away, but he could have made this much easier for you. He should have been much more sensitive that it was your first Xmas without your mum. Not to mention being pregnant and expecting to host someone. Well now you know his genuine and true side, what would you like to do. I couldn’t stay with someone after knowing this. I’m sorry op, it was just one Xmas that he really needed to show up for you.
As a woman herself, she also let you down

Honestly, this thread is a cesspit with posters lining up to be deliberately cruel to you. My mum died when I was 25 and my first baby was 3 months old. My MIL, who had seemed OK before my mum died, obviously thought that she had no competition as she was now my baby's only grandmother and she was horrible to me from then on.

I'm so sorry that you are going through this and that your partner prioritised his mum over you in such an unkind way.

That's not what she said - way to twist a post you've actually quoted to introduce a different meaning!

This is a really, really strange thread to me - it's really interesting how the tone is so often set early and everyone piles on even when it's fairly obvious that actually the OP is not objectively unreasonable.

Are people perhaps missing that a heavily pregnant woman's mother had been dead matter of weeks, and she'd nevertheless hosted her mother in law for all of Christmas through to 28th December and given downstairs over to her husband and his mother and gone upstairs in her own house to cry - because her mother had only very recently died (prematurely presumably, unless both op and her mother had their babies as late as a woman can)?

This would have been responded to very differently on the bereavement topic.

Have you read the full thread? OP has acknowledged that it is her partner's (not husband's) house, that his mother helped him financially to purchase. The owner of the house invited his mother and wanted her to stay.

There is of course sympathy for OP, but you are twisting the facts to a different narrative.

OP never said he was her husband, but use of the term MIL has obviously led to some confusion for many posters.

That people seem to think you don’t have any right to say what goes on in this house is completely insane but I’m glad at least you still have your own assets. It’s fairly normal for one partner to move into the other’s house and when you have a baby with that person surely morally you should have a right to call it your home and treat it like that even if legally you don’t - and if that is not how it is, and not how you’re made to feel that says everything about the relationship.

It is very interesting though to see all the different dynamics coming through. People always bring their own experiences and realities to AIBU and very much project what they would feel into the situation - sometimes that helps and sometimes it doesn’t. And usually out helps a lot less the less context is given upfront as people will be inclined to create their own. Not blaming you for that as you couldn’t have foreseen how this particular subject would resonate and sometimes you just want to see how people react. But ultimately I think no matter what people say in your shoes and with your reality, they’d have felt and done the same. How they’d feel with their own partner’s parents (sorry I called him husband earlier, my bad!) isn’t relevant really.

To me it seems that maybe this thread and the opportunity to re-hash the conversation via Mumsnet might have been helpful as it has brought clarity and made you realise that not only were you being very reasonable while they were not, you are in a very unreasonable and not ideal situation that you want to be out of.

Op, I am horrified and utterly baffled by some of the cruel people and posts on here. You sound lovely, totally reasonable and you have put up with way more than I would.

I cannot imagine my mil just turning up whenever she likes, for weeks at a time, I don't give a shit if she gave her son some money for a deposit towards the house several years ago. When you sold your house and moved in to start a family it became your house and space too.

You are absolutely not unreasonable to expect your partner to support you in a time of devastating grief and late pregnancy. I just cannot believe she didn't read the room and fuck off to her other sons house 7 minutes away.

You are absolutely not unreasonable to need space and time in your own house, regardless of who put the deposit down, you moved in, in agreement with your fiance to make a family home.

Please don't spend anymore money on it.

Your mil sounds like a selfish, entitled, incompassionate nightmare.

I'm horrified about what your fiance said to you. No wonder it's still playing on your mind. He sounds like a right mummy's boy.

Please think carefully before binding yourself to this family through marriage.

I really hope you're coping ok without your mum and being a new mum.

None of that matters. It is OP's home. Otherwise, she is nothing more than a lodger. Her 'MIL' having contributed does not give her rights to the place.

Most reasonable people know that having anyone to stay as often and as long as this woman does is suffocating. Let alone while grieving and pregnant.

A month every year is a long time to stay. Maybe that’s what annoys you?

She needs to get a bloody Airbnb.

I bet your family don’t stay that long?

The problem is it will happen again, MIL staying for weeks at a time is not sustainable.

You should have been treated with much more care and kindness by both your DH and his mother. They sound like a couple of selfish pricks.

It’s anyone’s not anyones.

Touché!

🤣

I'm so sorry for your loss. But I don't think this is really about your MIL and where she did or didn't stay. What comes across most strongly - and sadly - from your original post is how uncaring and insensitive your partner was at the time you needed him most, and how justifiably hard it is for to get over that.

Had he been more sensitive he would have taken her out during the day or had a gentle word with her and you wouldn't have felt the need to ask about her going somewhere else. Or at the very least he would have let you have your space upstairs but made you cups of tea and come up lots to give you hugs and see if you were ok. Instead he made you feel bad for grieving and said he wouldn't pick you over his family. But you are his partner, you were going to have his baby, you ARE his family.

How have things been now the baby is here? Do you still feel like he doesn't put you first? I suspect this is much less about what happened at Christmas and more about you not feeling as loved or cared for as you deserve to be. You would have put it behind you by now if it was just a blip at a stressful time and he had apologised and made it right.

Sorry but yes you were unreasonable if you wanted space you should have stayed and let your partner and his mum go to the house. She was invited for Christmas it’s rude to tell her to leave.

Yes I've read it. Big woop - she's (was in the situation described) heavily pregnant with his child, and her mother died a matter of weeks ago. For some reason the oh but she's at this moment not a special home owner apparently means her fresh grief is less important (although she sold her house to move in with the father of her child and throw her lot fully in with him out of consideration for the fact he was tied into his mortgage for another five years).
It's a good example of reasons for not having a baby with a man enmeshed with his mother (and yes, I have sons - and daughters). It's also a good example of parents using financial help to infantilise their adult kids and keep them in a child role with parent as primary relationship and ensuring they can't afford to develop into a true independent adult role and fledge fully and form their own adult level family relationships.

Definitely go and stay with your dad this year for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, take your child with you. Lack of MIL boundaries and lack of respect is one of the main reasons I split with my DD’s dad when she was 2.

What a completely self-satisfied and callous post. You obviously lack any kindness or empathy if you think it's OK to pile onto an obviously vulnerable and grieving OP and the correction of OP's spelling/grammar is utterly misplaced and pathetic.

Oh and it's anyone's, not anyones!