To be annoyed at MIL

[lefdlx]

My MIL and her partner have been together for a couple of years. During that time we have only met her partner a handful of times and our DD ( 21 months old ) has spent only a little more time with him than us.

There has being a couple times where we have asked if she can watch our DD, a few times she has suggested us leaving her with her partner until she is home from work. We declined on each occasion and just said we’ll drop her when she is home.

We asked if she could have her overnight for the first time a couple of weeks ago. She agreed and was looking forward to it. We dropped her and all was fine.

I was then woke to a message at 5am saying “ just to let you know childsname was fine when I left for work at 4, she hadn’t woke up once “ we was obviously shocked because there was no mention to us at all about her having to go to work early hours. We’d of picked our child up after our meal if we’d of known.

AIBU to be upset by this , and I am in the wrong for calling her out ? Our daughter still has nights where she wakes and is unsettled. MIL is completely adamant that she has done no wrong, and that we are in the wrong.

3 weeks later and my partner has only just heard from MIL again, starting off with “ I’m not apologising because I’ve done anything wrong but I think we need to clear the air “

Tell her to eff off

Absolutely...wtf!!

I just wish you could read. That’s also basic English. I said must have, not would have x

I feel like you need to take some responsibility here. You know she has a partner so leaving your child with your MIL at her house will mean he has access to your child. It is just common sense. If you are not comfortable with him (understandable) then you shouldn't have left your child with MIL in the first place.

Also, there was no clear communication from your part that the partner should never be home alone with the baby. That part is also on you if it's now a big surprise she had to leave early for work.

You went out for a meal and left your baby overnight in that situation. MIL is doing you a favour. She probably wasn't aware of how uncomfortable you were with her partner. I just don't feel it's fair to complain what your MIL did is unsafe when you prioritised a date night with your DH over your child being left behind with MIL who has a partner and naturally will have access to your child.

Your DH should be really finding out if it's coming from him or her. Just like single parents are targeted by child abusers, so are grandparents. It's really odd that he is so up for babysitting, overnight, a child still in nappies. I'd be going supervised contact with both of them until your child is verbal and has understanding.

I’ve voted Yabu because you know her partner is in the house and you agreed MIL could have the baby overnight. Unless she was going to stay awake all the time she wasn’t supervising all the time and there would be other events - cooking tea etc. when baby might be left with her partner. However your MIL was completely unreasonable as she failed to mention she was going to work early. Lesson learned don’t let MIL babysit like this with her partner as you are uncomfortable with the situation.

Id be fuming wouldn't trust her.

You forgot to point out "We wasn't" instead of we were.

Anyway I'm sure we are not the only one noticing grammatical errors on threads but one really doesn't have to point them out because it derails the thread. Pedant corner is the place for nitpicking.

@lefdlx I think your Mil ought to have told you that she would be going to work. But I also think that your daughter shouldn't be spending the night at Mil's at all since she has a partner there.

Worst case scenario the partner is manipulating the MIL to have alone time with your child and she isn't streetwise enough to see it. She should be more protective of her grandchild. A normal adult unrelated male would want to protect himself anyway and not be left alone with a baby he doesn't know.

she would not be having my child again

That's really weird behaviour. There's red flags all over this from start to finish.

She doesn't need to take responsibility. Her grandchild stayed the night, and she knew that her partner would have sole care from 4am. The OP did not know this!

No contact. No contact!! Relationships take work. Yes she betrayed your trust - yes he sounds like an arsehole. Would i leave my child with her and him, no!
You can be civil and see her high days and holidays. They maybe thought they were helping. Yoy never know. All you need to say is, its over lets be civil - obviously if she pushes for sleepovers things may get complicated. But a few supervised visits a year to let let your daughter have a grandparent isnt the end of the world. All the best!!

Noether her nor her husband understand your concerns, and I don’t think they ever will.

Your MIL was in the wrong - but the red flags were already there with them pushing g for him to babysit when you don’t really know him. That is odd.

Do they live together? Did you know he would be in the house? If so I wouldn’t have risked it when your don’t really know him and he clearly is already showing some signs of being too pushy with regard to your child.

Your MIl, at best, has poor judgement and low emotional intelligence. She can’t be trusted to babysit. So no unsupervised access to your child.

First and last time! It’s unbelievable that the first time mil has your dd overnight she arranges to work at 4am the next morning. I wouldn’t trust her going forward

I've trained as a safeguarding lead and this is making me very uncomfortable. Why does this man want to be alone with your child? Why is mil enabling that and lying to do to make it happen? Why is he so angry that you have said you aren't happy with it?

These are massive red flags. I would not allow any unsupervised contact and I would also take your child to a doctor to be checked and asked questions to try and establish whether any abuse has taken place. I'm sorry to say that but it's possible he has already done something to her.

Yanbu at all.

Strange comment!
MIL is a grown woman who goes to work. There is nothing in OP to suggest that she has cognitive issues. Nothing to suggest she is senile!

I understand your concern but surely the solution all along would have been to make an effort to get to know your MILs partner? Surely your husband wants to know the man in his mother's life?

So what?
Every post is not discussing a person's behaviour and giving a one-sided account of it.

Everyone knows a rape victim but nobody knows a rapist. 🙄

The concern is a man seems overly motivated to spend time alone with an unrelated child. Then he became abusive when the child’s parent creases concern that he was left alone with the child without their permission.

People are incredibly naive about child abuse - children are put in vulnerable positions all the time by people who assume this is incredibly rare when it is heartbreakingly common.

The issue isn’t that it needs to spend more time with this man - it’s that there are clear warnings about this man’s intentions and she needs to protect her child.

Yes big red flag

If you point out grammar/spelling errors you get deleted. It breaks talk guidelines because there are posters with different levels of ability, and also disability taking part.

Do not leave your DD with your MIL again. She is trying to orchestrate opportunities for her partner to be alone with your DD.
If you ever want her to babysit, that should be in your home not hers. Her only. Spell it out loud and clear that he is not to come and if she breaks your trust again, you'll be no contact permanently.

Or just use a local teenager girl to babysit for date nights.