How to Handle Controlling MIL without Wine and Ciggies!

[Joyce180]

Hello!

I, like many others have a very controlling, passive-aggressive and downright rude MIL.
I have come to accept that to have an all-round easier life for me, DH and baby, it's better to keep quiet/play ignorant as long as nothing bad or damaging is going on! Don't get me wrong, if something bad was going on, i'd be the first to stop this immediately and how she acts is incredibly annoying but she will never change and I don't want to destroy relationships if I can keep a handle on things!

What I do want advice on is how to handle her while pregnant/as soon as baby comes since I can't have any wine or a cheeky ciggie!! Alternative coping mechanisms would be greatly appreciated :)

Thanks!

Avoidance?

I wish! She is quite needy! We see her every few weeks for a night or 2 as she lives about an hour away

A small glass of wine isn’t terrible if you’re 12 weeks+.
Why on earth is she staying with you if she’s only an hour away?

That's very true! I'm 30 weeks so I might just do that. The irritation is getting worse and I guess that's a mix of hormones and fear of childbirth!

We go through and stay with her. We see my parents quite a lot as they aren't far away but it's easier to see them if they are near us for work meetings or such like... we have to keep things even of course rolls eyes

We like going through, it keeps her happy but it's just becoming more difficult now. Oh, and she doesn't drink and frowns upon those who do while pregnant. Her reaction to my small glass of wine will be interesting. She happily smoked throughout her 2 pregnancies though LOL

Mine had told me she's visiting when the baby is born! No f*ing way!

If she lives an hour away, as a PP pointed out, she doesn't need to stay with you. So you should arrange her visits so they start earlier in the day so she can go home in the evening. Plus if you can have your own mother and/or another female relative you actually like stay over for sometime when the baby is born then there will definitely be no room for her to stay over.

And no you don't have to keep things even and it's impossible to do so simply as one set of parents live nearer than the others.

I hate the whole must be even thing. If you’re going to stay with her can you not just send your husband on his own to dearest mumsy and you stay home and relax?

Do you have morning sickness? Can you just vomit on her?

For starters, I wouldn’t be telling her what I do with my side of the family. I don’t tell my MIL anything as she tends to get jealous. Be as boring as possible around her and learn to say no to staying over.

Thanks everyone!

Yeh shorter visits would be ideal! I think the overnighters have become a bit overwhelming.
My family are quite good at short visits and DH sees that and I've said that that's all I want when baby arrives!

No morning sickness that did make me giggle though!

I'll give you a laugh though, a few months ago, I disagreed with one of her many 'expert' views resulting in her getting annoyed. When things calmed down, she commented that the backache I was suffering from (quite badly i must add) was baby punishing me for upsetting his gran...!! According to DH, this was her trying to be funny but he wasn't there when she said it and it was said was a stone cold straight face and the voice to match!!

I told a little white lie that i wasn’t immune to the chicken pox cause she was babysitting both my brother in laws kids who both have chicken pox. Bye bye mother in law til I give birth atleast