obsessed mother-in-law

[ellaalana]

I am mum to a 7 year old daughter from a previous relationship. I have just had another daughter with my current partner of four years and she is almost 2 months old. I have a problem with his mother. To be perfectly honest we have never really clicked in the four years I have been with her son and have had a few minor incidents but have always resolved them. Since having my daughter (her first grandchild) she has become obsessed with her. The first few weeks are obviously hard when you first have a newborn but she just wouldn't leave us alone. She was always round our house and phoning. I got rather annoyed because I felt me, my partner (being a first time dad) and my 7 year old daughter needed time to adjust to a new addition. My partner had a little word and she cut down her visits. Then whenever she did come round or we went there she seems to take over: picking my daughter up all the time, not letting anyone else hold her etc. I feel like I am redundant everytime we see her. my other daughter feels left out something I tried my damn hardest to avoid and this is really starting to stress me out. I told my partner how I felt. He felt I was being stupid and put it down to his mum being on her own (she is divorced) and being lonely, but I said I wanted him to speak to her otherwise I would stop going round there. He spoke to her and of course she wasn't happy, in fact she broke down in tears. Now it's all my fault and his sister is now angry with me because his mum has gone running to her. Just for one conern and issue I had, down to MY feelings as a mother - this has all turned into a nightmare. I am now getting "you hate my mum" etc.. and now my partner and I are not on good terms. Why am I not allowed to have an opinion to do with my daughter? Is it ok for me to be upset but not his mum? If any of you have any advice for me please let me know.

TBH, she sounds like a proud first time Gran!

YANBU I had simelar MIL issues (know exactly how you feel) which went on for ages as DH took ages to stand up to her, was actually terrified. Sounds like he is more scared of hurting his mum that you. MIL is obviously excited which is great but there needs to be boundaries about visits tc. My DH used to take the baby off MIL after half an hour or so so she could play with other child (she ignored otherwise)`MIL used to snatch my baby and totally ignore me. Horrible feeling her being all over my precious baby yet she resented me and was very rude to me (simply for taking her son away). Its many years later now and only by being firm with boudaries etc (through DH confronting MIL) do we all get on (although it will never be normal it's loads better). Good luck!

Some MIL do see their grand child as their own child.

I can see how it must be suffocating.

It is odd that after the birth of your first child the big issue is you have upset his mum. Frankly, this should not be the first concern the family has with a new baby.

It sounds like you need time for your MIL to work out her new role, she probably is lonely but this does not give her the right to monopolise your baby.

My mil wouldn't stop phoning when DD was born DD was the sleeper from Hell and always when she finally got to sleep bloody mil would ring. It got too much and when she asked if she could help, I snapped and said you can stop bloody phoning all the time ! Things were strained for a good while afterwards.....

Fortunatley DH stands by me with these things as his Mum drives him nuts too.

YANBU, your OH should be sticking up for you, especially if your mil is leaving out your other DD.

ellaalana, sounds as though you ought to have some the talking-to yourself, as DH's sister and mother are now both angry. Do you think it was something DH said? Trying to soften the blow, he might have made you out to be a bit unreasonable, hormonal (we all know this schtick), but you know, humour her...

If you suspect this is the case, perhaps it would be best to talk to them directly to get it sorted out, starting with the sister, as she already heard things at second/third hand, so may be more willing to accept the message may have got lost.

Good luck!

"ought to have done some of the talking to", sorry. I'm having connection issues, so didn't preview my post.

Could you try stressing to your MIL the concerns you have over your 7 year old feeling left out? I find often people are more likely to reconsider their actions if they are told the impact they are having on a child rather than on the parent.

That way its not made out to be you being difficult because of your own feelings, but rather you just trying to protect your other child.

YANBU by the way - it sounds like a really stressful situation. I am very lucky with my MIL who was an absolute star when both by DDs were born. My PIL live miles away but when they came to visit they gave us tonnes of space - we pretty much had to say "here you have a go!" and hand my DD over!

YANBU but neither is she. She sounds like a proud first time grandmother and my friends had the same problems/issues. Mothers/MILs coming round and focusing all on baby, holding all the time, calling baby 'our baby' etc etc. I think you are hormonal and understandably upset as you have worked hard to fit in a new baby to your family dynamic, but you are also probably holding the reins a little tight here and may need to just breathe and let it go a little.

Congrats on new baby

She should of course be letting others have a cuddle.

But does it matter if she cuddles her grandchild a lot?

Is she waking her to do it, taking her from other activities or upsetting her to do it?

When I think of the hours I spent cuddling my own, I know that if I am ever fortunate enough to be a grandmother,I will have to be physically restrained from cuddling at every opportunity!

Does she tell you what to do or criticise?

Perhaps she could be persuaded to have just your oldest for a couple of hours a week.
I do agree that she must be told if her behaviour is upsetting your other daughter.

1. She is never going to feel the same about your older child as she does for her own grandchild (who presumably has her own othergrandparents anyway?)BUT do ask her to include your 7 year old in looking after the baby, teach her what to do etc so she doesn't feel left out.

1. She is a proud Granny. You can't reason with them. Make use of her and give her loads of things to do with the baby.

1. You probably are hormonal (not that this means you don't really feel it, quite the opposite!)so when the hormones wear off a bit it will get better (meaning this sort of stuff will bother you less)

welcome to the wonderful world of mils and newborn grandchildren..

my ils and bil with his gf were waiting on the pavement outside my house when we brought dd1 home. They had already seen her in hospital. Felt like telling dh to keep on driving!

irritating yet touching in equal measures. granny is clearly thrilled to bits and would happily cuddle your dd all day given the chance. a pain in the neck though!

YANBU, By behaving the way he is, your husband is not helping you. You, as his wife, must now come before his mother. But men can be so stupid sometimes that they do not realise this. He does not share a home with his mother, he shares it with you. He needs to grow a pair and put you first. Yes, even if he thinks you're wrong.
It seems that you've never got on with her. If possible- a hard ask, I know- I'd suggest moving as far away from her as possible. That way, you'd only have to see her a few times a year and it should not be too hard to keep up a polite distance from her if this were to happen.

She may not feel the same way about your older DD as she does her own grandchild, but she's an adult and should learn to disguise it. It's not exactly hard, is it?

ellaalana - I think you should go and see your MIL yourself and talk to her.

We are not in the exact same position, but we have the issue of step grandparents - ie my parents are divorced and with new partners - so now my kids have 6 grandparents. Each grandparents is treated as a grandparent and there is no differentiation between step or biological. This works well and my nearly 4 and nearly 2 year olds have no idea that some kids have 4 grandparents and they have 6. When I do explain it to them, I doubt it will bother them, I shall just tell them how lucky they are to have 6 grandparents.

If I was in your position, I would have the aim of MIL treating both DDs as grandchildren. I would say to DD1, isn't it great you've got another granny. I would try to get this over to your MIL that your DDs are sisters and you understand that whilst she is overjoyed to be a first time granny and is totally in love with your DD2, could she please try to form a loving relationship with DD1.

My DH's brother is actually his half brother, but the "step" grandparents always treated both boys equally. IMO, it works far better this way.

Watch out for Christmas, I would invite MIL over and ask her to consider letting DD1 call her granny and get her a nice present as well as getting your baby DD a present. Differentiation between siblings is terrible and can only lead to problems IMO.

So it is sort of giving her an olive branch and trying to include her in the family more with a view to the 2 of you getting on better in future.

Mil was the same after DD1 was born. Ringing us first thing in the morning, waking everybody up, grabbing the baby out of her crib without any consideration whether she was asleep or not, turning up at our house 5-6 times A DAY!!

After lots of rows with Dp, he finally had a word with her, she cried and paddied for a few days, then the situation went exactly back to what it was before.

When DD2 was born, I had a very firm word with her. I upset her big time, I upset myself as I hate confrontations, but at least she left us alone to recover and deal with the sleep deprivation. I made an effort by taking teh DDs to Mil's house a bit more often, and it's been working out ok-ish (I still can't stand the bloody woman, but make efforts for the sake of Peace).

She still wants the DDs for herself, calls herself "mummy" from time to time (eeek!), stuff like that. What makes me laugh though is that now our DDs are older, they don't want to be stuck with her, don't really want to be cuddled all the time etc, so firmly tell her.

I hate confrontations, but sometimes it's the only way forward.

YNBU by the way...

Hmm - I post as a MIL and a GM. Firstly I think it is wrong of your MIL not to consider the needs of your older child, even if she is not her GM. I would be upset by that. BUT she is I'm afraid in my view just acting like a new grandmother who is excited and thrilled with her new grand child. sometimes I think we MILs and GMs can't do right for doing wrong. I have seen so many posts about MILs who do not take enough notice and almost as many complaining about taking too much notice.

When you become a GM it does bring back so many memories of your own babies and you sort of want ti re-live it all again and I still remember my mil being like this over 40 years ago but I just accepted that she was excited. It all calms down in time as the GM gets used to the new arrival.

I worry about some mothers on here who don't get on with their MILs (and I fully accept that some of them sound horrendous) getting their H or P to "talk" to his mother as this OP has done. I think unless things are truly bad, this puts the bloke in a very difficult position. I'm NOT saying that men should not put their wives/partners and children first, of course they should, but it's still difficult for him to do as he does not want to upset his mother. some of you young mums need to realise that your DSs will one day grow up and you will be a MIL and how will you feel if your son has to "talk" to you about upsetting the DIL. Just a thought!

I just think if some of these situations can be "ridden out" it would all calm down given a few months, rather than exacerbating the situation by a "talk" from the bloke.

NanaNina I could have written the same post.

God forbid my 2 sons should marry and I become a MIL. Can't bloody wait!

everyone is responsible for their own lives. it's not your fault she is lonely. put you and your dds first.

Hmmmm. "put you and your dds first."

There's a brilliant lesson for life for your dc. Look after number one - devil take the hindmost.

Just remember you will be a mil and a grandmother one day, and whatever goes around ovmes around.

I think yab a bit u tbh, and I speak as someone whose mother was very much like your mil in terms of taking over etc and it wound me up in the extreme.

She is a new granny, this is her first grandchild and she is ve excited. And tbh I don't think that this behavior necessarily warrants dh having a word - you just need to be more assertive, take back your baby, arrange to be out whe she calls or even open the door and say "oh sorry, we were just about to go out to get her weighed/see the hv/visit a friend, maybe I could pop round later/tomorrow?"

I think that the problem with dh having a word after the event rather than voicing concern at the time, you are creating a situation where you are seen to be against them. You can't speak up for yourself and she really isn't deliberately setting out to upset you.

I also agree with NN that one day many women on here will be MILs and may be perfectly innocently excited about a new grandchild and would be devastated if the son started to have words over what is essentially harmless behavior.

Speak to your MIL face to face and explain that you appreciate how excited she is about being a grandmother but you need time to bond, feed, sleep and constant visitors are just too much. Also explain that her older sister is only 7 and is feeling left out in the cold - you don't want her to feel jealous and want the two girls to be close - and you know she'd never do this, but so many unthinking ppl are completely ignoring her and you can see from her face she's feeling hurt.

And think it's an excellent suggestion from a previous poster that this year's Christmas present to the MIL comes from both the girls to their grandmother.

But really she is only doing what loving grandparents do and they generally do settle down, with some management.

I had the same problems with my ex-MIL when I had my youngest. I already had a 5yo DD and an 18mo toddler DS, then when I had my DS2, she bought a single buggy, brought it into the hospital, while my DD and DS1 were there, and said 'this is for MY grandson'. His first christmas she bought nearly £100 of presents for him, and nothing for my other 2 DC's (one of whom has absolutely no contact with any of her paternal family), it's a long story, but I'd been with this bloke on and off since my DD was 9mo, and this dratted woman still refused to acknowledge her. I asked my Ex-H to have a word, he refused. 9 weeks later it was my DD's 6th birthday and ex-MIL didn't even send her a card. My DD was in tears so much so that I went out and bought a card and signed it 'from ex-MIL & PIL'. That for me was the last straw, having to lie to my 6yoDD to make up for the fact that my MIL refused to accept my other DC's. YAsooooNBU! It actually split me & my ex-H up because he wouldn't grow a set and stand up to her, even though my DD was devastated!