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.

No, not mad, just willing to see the wider picture, through experience.
Not deleted yet as maybe seen as just that by admin.
No one should expect to post and have everyone sympathetic to their case.

I'm very sorry for your loss, and understand how hard that first Christmas is after the loss of a parent - been there myself - but I dont think dealing with the loss of a close family member by asking your partner to lose time with his is the right way to go. Have you had support with your bereavement? Might be helpful.

I knew she visited but had no idea how regularly or for the length of time. I have spoke to my partner about this and asked why he wasn’t more honest with me before I sold my home & moved in & he said because I probably wouldn’t have chosen to move in then.

The only saving grace here is that you can now talk to her directly and communicate your needs, which seems to be where it went wrong at Christmas. You've already said that you cut the visit short post partum, so we know she is amenable to it when you discuss your needs directly with her.

I think if you had spoken to her about how you were feeling at Christmas you may have had a different outcome, you hid your grief from her, put on a show of hosting but secretly wished she would leave.. you can't blame her for 'not reading the room' when she didn't have all the information (and you don't know what bullshit partner was feeding her).

I don't think you should have asked hi to send his mum away, but you have a massive partner problem, the fact that he misled you before moving in only to categorically tell you that you don't get a say after moving in is irredeemable. You aren't a partnership like this and probably never will be.

She was coming from another country - she stayed 5 days with OP and 5 days with BIL. Sounds reasonable.

The MIL can’t win - she didn’t ‘say much’ (enough?) at Xmas - didn’t step up / help out enough when OP wanted to leave MIL with a 3 week old ….. at the same time MIL was ‘unable to read the room’ and give OP ‘space’ - which one is it - what does the OP want? Space or involvement?

Also the OP said twice she was ‘heavily pregnant’ at Xmas when she was 6 months pregnant. Most people wouldn’t consider this ‘heavily pregnant’ - it’s almost attention seeking.

I think the OP has her emotions and needs calibrated a bit off the scale and with her rigid, ruminative thinking could do with some professional intervention at this point if she is considering the drastic action of taking her newborn away from their father and sibling and going it alone. Maybe the DP is abusive and they are incompatible in which case get out quick - but if there is grief, PND etc colouring everything off-kilter / disproportionately intense then it would be terribly sad for OP to break up her precious little family due to perceived slights.

What precious little family?

Who said she was widowed or ‘elderly’?

she is single yes but by choice of divorcing her second husband.

who said the house was cold?

I quite clearly meant that any post I made which include the words I would like to use when posts like yours are made would be deleted.

through experience? You didn’t mention you’d also struggled through the first Christmas without your mum, just a few weeks after their death, whilst being heavily pregnant.

could it possibly be that we all experience things very differently, and that the OP needed support and space that she did not get?

Also the OP said twice she was ‘heavily pregnant’ at Xmas when she was 6 months pregnant. Most people wouldn’t consider this ‘heavily pregnant’ - it’s almost attention seeking.

She said she was 6 months pregnant when her mum died mid October, so by Christmas she would have been 8 months +

I agree with everything else.

She only split 5 & 5 because I asked her too, originally it was 10 with us without letting me know until she arrived.

I was 6 months pregnant when my Mum died on October 17th, making me 8 months on Xmas, apologies if that’s not heavily pregnant enough for you & makes me an attention seeker?

you don’t seem like a very compassionate person one bit.

Lost my mum and dad over the last 5 years. I know what its like to lose a parent and be effected by it. It made me make some rather dubious choices and i regret some of the things i did.

At no point, regardless of my own pain would i consider asking my partners parent to leave because of my own grief. Did you say his brothers house was empty. So you wanted his mum, who was visiting from Spain to see her son and stay with him. To go and stay in a empty house by herself?

I am sorry for your loss but, no you were unreasonable to ask that of your DH and it probably made it difficult for him to offer the correct support you needed at the time.

I feel for you but I don’t think sending MIL away would have been right.

Apologies @Marygirlllll90I misunderstood the timeline. I still think that the rest of my post stands. I am not sure what you wanted from your MIL - all of her actions / inactions were ‘wrong’. I can totally see how you are hurting and how you could well benefit from professional help for your understandable emotional state which IMHO has nothing to do with your MIL but a ‘stuck’ grief / PND which if not treated will spiral and bring your family life to a place it doesn’t need to go. If you are ‘stuck’ on blaming others (externalising) rather than seeking professional support to work through your own current emotional dysregulation and accompanying disproportionate behaviours (internalising) then you will direct all your lives into an unnecessarily difficult path. I hope that you can look to resolve the issue with your DH - which might look like you ‘accepting’ that he had a different opinion than you rather than ‘insisting’ he sees it your way. It would be sad to blow up all your lives and have the early days of your motherhood blighted by a family breakdown.

Yabu i would never let anyone treat my mum like that partner or not.

I don’t think you’ve fully understood the situation if im honest & in turn have went after my personality in an insulting manner & insinuated I’m attention seeking at one of the most difficult times in my life.

the baby & Xmas are two different situations & just to add more context, it isn’t that she can’t win as clearly she did nothing to help at Xmas & nothing to help with a two week old baby, it isn’t conflicting in any way.

I made this thread for opinions over a situation that hurt me, clearly there are other things going on that haven’t been mentioned as this thread wasn’t about them primarily.

it’s very interesting to me how people can be so cruel online.

They're projecting. The cruel ones.

I wasn’t getting the correct support prior to me asking this which is what led me to ask this?

yes she is visiting from Spain & she had just spent a week with us two weeks prior & then was back with us for Christmas & had spent a lovely 5 days with us already. She has a car & has other family within an hour away, she wasn’t being tossed out in the cold like people are implying.

Not commenting on the interactions with that poster, OP, but wondering what you wanted from that thread? It seems as if, unless people are 100% backing you up, you are angry at them? Its not cruel to disagree with you, and it sounds like there is more going on in this relationship than just this situation, which may be influencing how you feel.

You are not unreasonable to have your feelings. It is unreasonable if neither MIL or DP helped with anything. And it is totally unreasonable for DP to leave you crying without checking on you. But its not nice to suggest MIL goes to an empty house over Christmas. I am sorry that is not what you want to hear, but its true.

It’s cruel to suggest I am attention seeking?

Numerous threads have attacked my personality.

told me to grow up?

are these not things you consider cruel?

She’s a Spanish resident officially so I assume pays taxes there but she is retired.

If she pays her taxes there but she, I think, still has to fill in a UK tax return which asks how many night she has stayed in the UK because the pension tax to be paid in either one or the other country. There is a cap in the UK, as to how many nights she can stay.

Speaking from experience as a British living in the EU.

Yes, it is cruel. I cannot believe some of the awful responses you have received. Losing your mum at any time is devastating ( obviously based on a normal relationship), but to lose your mum just before you became a mum is doubly so.

I can only assume these posters have no lived experience of your situation, and I expect a fair few are MILs .

Have a look at Hope Edelman's Motherless Daughters. As a midwife of many years, I have seen firsthand how hard it is.
The only reason I am in a long marriage is that my husband respected my boundaries with my own ( entitled ) MIL. Lots of love x

OP maybe consider not responding to the cruel ones. Don’t give them the oxygen they want. Many of us have posted kind and supportive comments. Maybe focus on those.x

Thank you xx

Thank you xx

There are not nice, you are quite right. Cruel even. But it also seems that you are angry if anyone does not agree with what you wanted, even when that is not said in a disrespectful way? I am sorry for your loss. Its a horrible time. Your DP and MIL did not help the situation. I agree with all of that. But unfortunately, I still dont think what you asked for was ok.