We have a 2 year old and long story short MIL doesn’t really take much to do with her. She sees her if we go to visit them but due to some worrying behaviour from MIL’s partner when she was a newborn, we’ve never allowed them to babysit (not that they’ve ever asked). She had a job and life before meeting him, as soon as she met him she didn’t work, didn’t have any friends anymore and can only seem to leave the house if they both go. I’ve literally never seen her alone. Neither of them have any hobbies or interests and they just sit at home all day.
We started to think he might be controlling her and then when DD was born it became more apparent. MIL would come a walk with me at first and he would basically follow us in the car for the entire walk but in a really sneaky way. He’d be round every corner and the second we arrived back at the house he would pull in so had obviously been following us the whole way. It happened every time we went a walk when she was a newborn. Then one day she was taking her a walk on her own (with him following in the car of course). We stood chatting at my house for a while before she went and we live in a cul-de-sac. About 10/15 minutes after dropping her off, he drove past my house while we were still standing there but MIL didn’t see. I looked up really confused like why would he be here again? but he was obviously looking for her. I expected him to wave or acknowledge he’d seen us but he drove past staring straight ahead in the most stalker-ish way. I didn’t even know what to say so I didn’t say anything. I told my husband that night and he agreed he’s definitely controlling but they’ve been together 10 years so he felt he couldn’t say anything. I already got really creepy vibes from him before this but from that day onwards we said we’d never leave our child alone with them as we have no idea what he’s like when he’s just with her.
She’s made no effort for the last year and I’ve barely heard from her at all. She has randomly messaged this week to ask to watch her once a week for an afternoon. Our daughter doesn’t know her and is really strange with people she doesn’t know now. I said I was more than happy for her to pop in on my day off or to arrange us to do something at weekends. She basically said no though and that she wanted to take her to their house. I’m not comfortable with this at all so didn’t say yes but haven’t really said anything.
What do I say? I really didn’t want to have to explain my feelings on her partner and feel if anything it should be my husband who tells her. Either that or we just have to make up excuses. I think the notion will probably disappear very shortly again anyway or she wouldn’t turn up (has done this before). Does anyone have a polite way of saying no? X