Pregnant and Mother and MIL driving me nuts

[jmrpinkie]

This is a weird one but I’m so curious if this is other people not just me. To be clear, I have a great relationship with my mother and my MIL generally! Yes MIL can be overbearing but she means well and 99% of the time we get on amazing. But since I’ve become pregnant again (son is 5) I cannot tolerate MIL and even my own mum, stuff she says I’m snapping and I’m short with her. My MIL in particular when we see them it’s for long periods as we don’t live close and I just find myself so irritable. It’s not happening with anyone else! And I honestly feel awful. I am trying to hide it and push through but im sure im not doing a great job and it must be hard especially for my mum to see me my usual self with others! I’m fully certain it’s pregnancy but why??? Has this happened anyone else?

Irritability is a common pregnancy symptom that can affect your relationships.

It helps to rationalise your feelings, interrogate your thoughts and really assess if your reaction is rational or proportionate. Sometimes you test your feelings against others. For example, I'll subtly express a feeling to my DH, and he'll quickly but gently let me know I'm being unreasonable.

If it's not rational, you need to act against those feelings, and that might mean being extra nice to someone you feel like you loathe in a moment.

Because the feeling and moment will pass. If people receive that negative output however, it will last a lot longer than you intend.

Are you able to give us an example?

My biggest issue was going 2 weeks overdue and putting up with daily messages from people asking if i had given birth yet. Really irritated me to the point i stopped talking to people or gave them sarcastic responses.

It’s tricky because my examples for sure are ridiculous. Like my mom commenting on my son’s cough continuously, have I had it checked out. Or she’ll comment about how tired he is and I’ll say yeah it’s normal and she’ll say no no you don’t see it like I do. And then just generally commenting on the most minute things that don’t have any relevance to anything. MIL kind of the same but worse. I know I just need to push through my frustration and discomfort because it’s coming across like I’m not being kind.

Currently pregnant and alot of my conversations with mu husband start off like this

"I am aware I am being irrational but I have a rage." The smallest of things are annoying me and this didn't happen with my first pregnancy. But honestly I blame him for the most stupid things like the clock ticking too loud 😂

I think the rage comes easier with people we are close with.

I could’ve wrote this myself last year OP.

I love my MIL so much! She’s amazing, an amazing Grandmother, a model MIL! During my pregnancy and PP I couldn’t bare any kind of comments, suggestions, I was so snappy. But, I know it wasn’t all me, I think in the end we both started to push back which ultimately led to a falling out, thankfully we have been able to move past it. My hormones and anxiety during pregnancy were so bad, I felt dreadful emotionally for around 9 months after he was born. As I said, it wasn’t all me, but my tolerance dropped significantly and the comments got worse.

I just want to say you’re not alone. You sound as though you have a great relationship, I’m sure they understand❤️

I was exactly the same, I was very short with nearest and dearest including older DS. It passed

You’re doing well for it being just 2 people, with my second I had to preface every catch up / visit with I’ve got a bit of attitude with this pregnancy.
The only person I didnt get cross with was our existing 4 year old. The last month I saw no one as I wasn’t safe to hold my tongue.

We all returned to normal when DS arrived!