Mother in law issues

[OneRoseMaker]

Hey, looking some advice, please.

My Husband and I work full time, we are very lucky to have my MIL close by to pick up my oldest children from school Monday- Thursday and keep them until 5pm. She enjoys doing this and we are always grateful and show her this in many ways by cooking meals, hosting dinners at weekends, small gifts and I bake for her, as she won’t take money. We have had a good relationship for 15years.
She and my FIL are deeply religious and we always respect this. mil has found out recently that we drink alcohol on occasion she heard it from the children playing ( it is normalised at home for the kids and only ever wine with dinner)
she arrived to our unannounced one evening that she was heartbroken by this and that the distress of knowing what we could be leading her grandchildren to in future years is breaking her heart. There is no reassuring her that we are not abusing alcohol. One sip and we have a problem. She hinted at having a mental breakdown about it, not eating or sleeping. Also said that if FIL found out it would cause another heart attack and kill him.
we let things settle and then had a polite conversation saying that we felt her reaction was catastrophic to the concern, expressed concern for her mental health and reassured her that we are by know means over indulging in alcohol. We apologised that she felt so hurt but that we wouldn’t be changing our behaviours and that we want our children to be taught how to drink responsibly and be comfortable discussing their nights out or if they get in trouble, we want them to always know they can call us for help in future rather than try and hide it from us.

a few days have past she’s has had the kids after school and it’s been very stiff and unpleasant on pick-up. She has since told FIL who is very angry with us and wants to have it out with us (yet to happen)

I have told my husband I want to take a step back from them, let him deal with it and I am in a position to bring girls home from school for next few days to allow everyone to calm down.

I don’t want this to affect their relationship with their grandchildren and they are old enough to pick up on an atmosphere. Hence the cooling down period.

advice on how to handle this? I don’t want to use my children as bait- they love their grandparents. They have already isolated themselves from their daughter and her family over similar behaviour and have moved to live near us as we support their health issues with taking them to appointments. They are elderly and will have no one but they have really hurt my feelings.

could anyone give advice on how to proceed?

Is this religious reasons?

Your husband needs to take control of the situation and just put a blunt stop to it. Getting into a big long-winded debate or discussion with them is only going to give them the impression that they have some kind of input into your personal choices or that they have the right to attempt to police your behaviour. They don't. Really it just needs to be a calm, very short conversation. Not even a conversation, because that again implies they have a voice when it comes to your lifestyle. He needs to just tell them that neither of you are going to discuss it further with them, you don't need their permission or approval to do anything and that you won't accept judgement from them. It would be a shame for them to sour the relationship when it's such a source of love and joy for all of you (guilt trip her right back!). And then just "we won't discuss it further" on repeat. And if they really keep on going, you're going to have to physically leave and cut the visits short. They will hopefully eventually get the message.

Oh come on, you know you can do whatever you wish as adults! She is testing what she can get away with controlling. Thats why she's being overly dramatic. You need to nip this in the bud right now

I also would stop her from being around these children unsupervised (including pick ups) for at least the time being. She is going to try dropping poison in their ear about mummy & daddy's evil ways.

Time to sort out alternate childcare arrangements.

Remind her what jesus did to the water when they ran out of wine!

the bit I'm struggling with is why on earth didn't she already know that you drink alcohol? DH has family members who don't drink for religious reasons. I think secretly they don't really understand why we DO drink but it's not like it's some big secret?

@JonVoightBaddyWhoGrowls

it’s strange, she has known for ages(years) we never spoke openly about it but it was never a secret either. She has been in our fridge when there’s been an open bottle and never said anything. She’s been with us at Christmas for years and we’ve had mulled wine for family (she says she assumed it was non alcoholic). She’s been out in our shed helping with paddling pools and I’m sure has seen empty bottles. So we really don’t know why it’s become such a big issue overnight. She’s says it’s been playing on her mind for a long time.
I did ask her multiple times was her anxiety or mental health deteriorating? That we wanted to help if that is the case because we felt this was an over reaction. She now says we have labelled her.
I dont think she would say anything to the kids, she is a very good grandmother very protective but it’s the atmosphere change when we go to pick them up that I don’t want them to become aware of. The kids are 12 and 8.
when we had the polite conversation we said to her that this issue is not something we want to fester and rot away at our relationship we drink alcohol unfortunately you will have to accept that.
Since I have been to pick-up kids and left off traybakes and rice pudding because that’s what I normally do and trying to see if it’ll blow over.
ive started looking into after school clubs but it’s just so sad that she has caused this. She says I’m using the kids against her. I’m protecting them and myself.
Husband disagrees with me taking kids away and says we should carry on as normal
now that we’ve told her where we stand and hope it all blows over.

im hotheaded and i don’t want to make a mistake as he’s the calm one.

thanks for all advice so far 😀

@MumHereAgain2023 yes and because she has family with alcohol issues

Is it "just" for religious reasons that they abstain from alcohol or is their view also compounded by a family member who has alcohol problems? It seems a little odd that this has just flared up now, but why does she expect the same religious abstinence from you and DH? Time for a calm chat and they need to understand and respect your views too.

Well taking their taxi rides off the table may make them change their opinion.. After all piss heads should not be driving.. Use after school clubs.. She has no respect for either of you. Can't you see why her other dc don't see her now?

@Stopwiththedamnrain

its a combination of both we think. She has siblings who have had some issues and she doesn’t speak to them either.

Could 12 year old go home on their own? Then it’s just 8 year old to look after? Sounds very strange like going back a century. Maybe continue as before and see if she calms down?