Had a long discussion with dh tonight and...

[chicagomum]

he has pretty much said that if I don't put up with the behaviour etc from his family and stay in London then we will "have to rethink things". I don't know what to as I would love to get the children into an area where we can get them into a decent state school plus would love to distance myself from the all involving "clutches" of his mother. In addition I miss being able to see my parents without having to do a 2-3 hour drive.But as he has the "bread earning job" I seem to take back seat. And with the pressure of his entire extended family I seem to be nothing more than a sucessful breeding mare for 2 beautiful and healthy children.

HM 14 years? My god, I thought you only looked about 26!! Either you met you DH very young or you look fantastic.

CM, when we were trying to find a flat to rent at one point I came up with a few ideas of places to live. He'd refused every one of them, had his own ideas. So I sat down, looked at the map, worked out where looked a convinient place , worked out lots of reasons why we should move there, and talked him into it. Unfortunately, I got it a bit wrong somewhere along the line and we ended up in Barking. Sometimes these things need you to take a step back, think things through and for you to set out a well thought out, planned, unemotional argument/ list of reasons.

(Bless you, Floss - I'm 30 )

Aww, sweet sixteens! Bless you .

This is an interesting thread about Surrey , in case you didn't see it, CM. SW London blurs into Surrey, and transport links are ace. So are the schools, especially in some LEAs, eg Sutton.

IMO, he needs to learn to stand up for his wife and children, not just do what his mum says.

Agree Fauve - seems like he needs to cut the apron strings.

(Floss, DH was nearly 20 - quite the cradlesnatcher wink])

I agree about the apron strings (fwiw my sil still lives at home at the age of 30). He originally seemed so vivacious and excitng (we went to south africa/the victoria falls /weekends
to ireland etc) but in the last few years it has fallen flat. Not just because we don't do the exotic trips before anyone says anything, but because it is all about him/his work/family/life etc here in london.

sorry you are having a hard time CM we should get together for coffee and a moan

ed that hunker is older than me

Any way... I must head off to bed now as I have to meet a "potential" childminder in the morning to take care of the children next monday (god I hate that it will be such a short introductory period for them).

[evny] that she is younger than me

that she is younger than me

Hi chigagomum, sorry to hear that you are having these problems. Some of the problems seem to resemble what I have had to learn to get used to here in Greece!! Not any more - have agreat relationship with my mil now but did have to put my foot down a bit in the early years!

I think you need to tackle each problem separately ie mil and family interferance/moving out of London for schools & your family. I don't know how old your children are but why don't you make a permanent arrangement with mil that she has the children, say, Friday after school every week and that you will all go for sunday lunch every other week? The rest of the time you are too busy. Full stop.This of course will only work if dh backs you up. It may be that he always goes along with what his mum wants, for an easy life.Can you get him to at least always back you up in public even if you have to thrash it out between yourselves behind closed doors?

If you can slowly engineer some changes in the family dynamics you may find that you are less inclined to move away from where you are now, butif you do still want to leave at a later date it will be easier when you are all less tied up together.

The only other alternative is to marry off your sister in law then her mum will probably focus all her attention there!!!!!

As you are back to work soon it seems that you have to stay where you are for now. You will have to put your foot down with mil.

Hi cm - Ealing is good for midway SW / N London and convenient for access into town, ITH.

Message withdrawn

Hi Chicagomum, I too think you have several things going on here and they should be dealt with separately. First, the meddling MIL. Why don't you signyourself up for loads of activities and make yourself genuinely too busy but reserve say one morning a week for MIL. In fact, this migh serve to save you some childcare cost when you are back at work. Perhaps you could use her one day a week for free???

Secondly, DH taking her side. Well, just stand up and say your busy but you could be around on x. If she stops by unannounced just make like your on your waqqy out the door, smile, and say "ta ta".

Are you going back to work full time? I wonder if some of this might sort itself out when you are busy at work.

As for where you live, the quality of schools, etc. I completely agree with you. These things should be considered long before the children are actually oldenough to sign up for school. I think you have 2 and they are quite young?

However (I have to be honest here), didn't you just move back from Chicago? If so, are you in a new house? If I were your DH I might be a bit irritated with having this conversation after we had just moved backk ffrom Chicago. I would think the time for this conversation was before we moved back. Now if you just returned to the house you already had before going to Chicago, then I retract this paragraph.

One more point, is it possible that your DH is looking for YOU to stand up to his mother? Possibly if you lead the way, he might be more willing to support you.

Was off last night in the hope that we would have a chat about things but he was busy with paprework from the office. Didn't want to say anything tonight as assumed he would be home for dinner and we could discuss things. However heve just had an SMN message from his mobile (the first time ever) to say that he is busy and may not be home this evening. Have no idea what a smn message is tbh.

How about suggesting moving to another part of London rather than ot of London. One step at a time. Did you have these problems before the children arrived?

Thinks it's SMS, cm: "SMS stands for Short Message Service and is used for sending short messages to your cell phone. Almost every cell phone today supports SMS, check with your provider for more details on your particular phone. You may have also heard this referred to as "texting" or "text messaging."

Or Maybe MSN ?

Microsoft Network - chat thingy, like MN message boards but in 'real time'.

Now have tried his mobile and office and no answer. Have considered the chance of moving to S/S.E london, and finding more arangements to keep me and the kids occupied. But am now feeling he is avoiding me by staying at work to avoid discussing the issue.

I'ma m probably getting over anxious about it all, but thought that tonight he would be home to discuss it. Usually if he isn't he phones but I've never hed a message like this.

Chicagomum, have you got hold of him yet? When do you go back to work?

I go back to work on monday. Actually that in it's self is scaring me but the fact that in the last couple of days he is obviously distancing himself is worrying me more.

erm... cm, this message that you're talking about, was it on your mobile phone ?

No it was on our land line (but from his mobile number).