Hi all,
just wanted to start this with saying my MIL is very sweet. I find her needy and too much, but it all comes from a good place. I was hoping anyone has good advice on how to deal with someone who means well but drives you nuts 🙈
My son is now 15 months and is just such a bright light in our lives. He’s my in laws first grandchild and they’re over the moon. I’m not close to my own mother, he’s my parents third grandson as my brother has two of his own, and I didn’t get that same level of excitement from my side of the family. I’m not bothered about that, although stuff with my mum is very sensitive and private to me. I’ve never told the in-laws about my relationship to my mum and our history, and I’ve probably made it sound like we had a normal relationship. Im close with my day but he has a lot of struggles and is not your typical dad, and I never made this clear either.
I think therefore it came as a shock to my in laws my parents didn’t come for my birth. I’m not from the UK and tried making it sound like it was due to travel issues. My partner and myself also struggled a lot after birth. My husband would sometimes be great but other times selfish and distant. My close friends with kids all live back in my home country and I found myself utterly alone for a while and extremely homesick. I’ve lived in the UK for 14 years and have always loved it here so the feeling of wanting to go home was a shock to me, combined with everything else.
My in laws are very caring and have no sense of personal boundaries. They kept asking what was to me insensitive questions. Like “do we know when you’re mother is arriving” (the we part really annoyed me, my son was 4 weeks at this stage and they had been asking non stop, no doubt also excited to meet my mum). My son never slept well and although I told them I’d rather not have the question about how my sleep is every morning they saw it like fun to annoy me about it and kept at it.
my mil was great in my pregnancy, probably feeling for me I was in a different country than my family and mother, but she took things a bit too far in my introverted opinion. Invited herself to my baby shower, made herself a photo album of my pregnancy with just pictures of my body and bump. And when I told them I would appreciate my family booking their flight after I went into labour as I didn’t want people at the hospital they made a bit of a scene saying they planned to be at the hospital. They ended up trying to come but hospital still had covid rules so they waited at our flat instead.
here comes some of my main issues.. they’re excited and say they want to help but never actually help. When I got back from hospital (where I had to stay longer due to complications) they hadn’t even bothered cleaning up after them. I mean dirty dishes, and Even rubbish they left on the counter like a bag of old, Cooke’s pasta and soaked tea bags. So I had to clean that.
this has continued and they have wanted to visit way more than I would like but I have never said no. Me and my partner has had a really hard time during this period. I really think I had depression at one point, always angry, couldn’t sleep as I was just so angry, and then I had my in-laws who just wanted to be included and have a lovely time which I couldn’t give them
My mil used to text me all day every day without me replying. This was too much and I asked my partner to get her to stop. She’s taken offence and doesn’t text me at all anymore. They’re now coming again this weekend and now my husband is depressed due to work reasons, he’s really down at the moment and we didn’t really want them to come and stay here but we don’t feel like we can refuse them.
So I need advice, as I’m starting to feel the annoyance hours before they arrive. How do I deal with well meaning in laws who just want to spend time with their grandson, but seems to drive me mad in ways I never imagined before? 😂