mil - help

[feta]

Am i justified in feeling very upset that my dh has visited his mother today with the dcs for a family celebration ( i am not welcome) and she downloaded our entire photograph collection from our camera? It feels like an invasion of our/my privacy and i really do not want her having images of me with my family without my consent.Am i crazy or is it obvious that these photographs are very precious and private and should not be just downloaded unless my blessing is given? I'm afraid i blew my top and my husband has gone off to drive the 100 miles to retrieve the memory stick. Am i ok to feel like this? Advice please i am anticipating a fallout.

I can understand why you would be pissed off given that you are not welcome at her house. Depends very much on the reasons why you got to this point with your in-laws?

I thik your DH should be supporting you if the reasons for excluding you are unreasonable.

Did she get your husband's consent?

I agree, its not healthy for your DC to feel this fracture with your in laws and you're DH should be more supportive towards you, you're the mother of his children for goodness sake.

Hope you don't suffer too badly from the fall out.

Why are you not welcome at the MILs house?.

How did your absense get explained to the children, they must wonder why their Mum did not attend?.

Is your H afraid of his mother and cannot/will not stand up to her?. His primary loyalty should be to you and not this person.

Are you not welcome because you've already fallen out? Is there,, overt hostility now. No pretence of civility/cordiality..

Or do you just FEEEL that you weren't welcome because she gushes over her son and grandsons and you're like chopped liver standing there, purely incidental.??

Need to get to the bottom of it here!!

I don't think she asked him he is so passive. my ds just told me that he has gone back to get them because he wants to get away from me. My mil clashed over pbhotos when the dcs were babies. She was obsessive and wanted total control over the kids and photos. She bullied me over a few years by undermining me as a mum (refusing to pass back screaming baby that wanted a breastfeed) accused me of having an affair infoming me that my job was to look after my family and that i should just get on with it. Anyway after many incidents i stopped putting myself in that situation and my husband was powerless to stand up to her and basically aid I was the problem and imagined everything that was going on....and now this. \Dh knows i hate conflict and making me feel like i have forced him to retrieve the pictures and they will akk be saying what a bitch i am.

Can you maybe send her more pictures of you, your DH and the kids so that she is getting regular updates on how they are changing?

maybe she feels completely excluded now?

I think your husband should be more supportive but there may be ways to limit her behaviour, like sending regular photos...

Wow, she sounds hard work.

I think that you have to shrug if your husband lets her download photos, it doesn't really make any difference does it?? I mean, it would show a serene cool calm collected exterior if you didn't care if she had copies of the photos you took, wouldn't it?? I would actually let the pictures thing go and stick up for yourself in other ways. eg, you are a family unit and should be invited/not invited to family events as a unit. That kind of thing.

But I don't blame you for not wanting to see her! What did your husband say when she accused you of having an affair!?

well she sees them at least once a month for the whole day and i know that she takes copious amounts of photos then. Yes dh should sort out some pics for her but she does everything for him and i suppose thats what she did today too.

Hun if he blames you then he's a mummys boy and in all seriousness should grow a pair.
Sorry if that doesn't sound constuctive but why would you let him say things like that to you if things got that bad.
You are his wife he chose to be with you and therefore should be supporting you and should stop putting his mothers feelings first.As for having to go get the photos back he should have made it clear that he would send her some once you had seen and helped choose some.
No offense but from what you have said I would supervise all contact between dc's and mil so that she can't say or do anymore to undermine you as a mother because if she'll do so much in front of you then what will she do without you there.Put your foot down and tell her that she can see dc's but on your terms and that if she oversteps the firmly laid out(explain them to her)boundaries then she doesn't see them

I do not blame you either for not wanting to see her. Why can't your DH stand up to this woman?. I guess that a lifetime of such conditioning has made him putty in her hands.
Scant consolation really but I think she would have acted exactly the same regardless of whom he married.

Where is your FIL in all this, is he still around?.

the affair thing was quite interesting because when i stopped enduring the little family soirees she got suspicious about what i was doing when he went to see her. My dh said he had talked to her and she really wanted to see me and would i stay for a coffee when she visited. My dh pressurised me and i relented against my better judgement. So she turned up was rather hostile towards me when dh left the room. I eventually said i'm going out now and she started making innuendos about 'goodness knows what i get up to when i go off on my own'. I ignored it and made some joke because i felt uncomfortable and she started again when her dd came into the room and said come on mum and led her away! I left the house being glared at by my inlaws and husband and felt sick all day. later that night when i described what had happened and how i felt my husband said she hadn't meant it like that and that i had imagined it. nice eh?

Hi feta,

re this comment:-

"So she turned up was rather hostile towards me when dh left the room. I eventually said i'm going out now and she started making innuendos about 'goodness knows what i get up to when i go off on my own'. I ignored it and made some joke because i felt uncomfortable and she started again when her dd came into the room and said come on mum and led her away!"

Presumably at this point MIL went quietly. The DD who led her away I take it was your husband's sister.

Where was your H whilst all this was taking place?.

Downplaying or minimising incidents like your H does also to me smacks of denial on his part; he does not want to face the issues staring him in the face.

So he didn't even say anything such as
"I know you're not and her opinion doesn't matter"
No! Then in all seriousness it's not just dc's she wanted/has control over.You need desperatly to take control or you'll end up feeling so down especially as dc's grow up with any poison she feeds them.If I was in your place (and I was close but took back control and get on extremely well with mil now) I would start working out how to make the situation work better for yourself and dc's.As for your Dh my original comment fits even more so after what you have just said

Attila, my husband was chatting in another room even though i had asked him to stay with me at all times when she came. He just does not want to support me or challenge her. Denial it is i feel. It's interesting that he has gone off now. It might be make or break time because he is surely going to have to discuss why i want them back and my feeling is that he may turn up there looking for sympathy after his self inflicted long journey and being apologetic. Oh dear he might want to call it a day.