Thanks beatenby it's a long story but the short version is that our Childminder let us down drastically last year. We couldn't get another decent local cm at such short notice so my cousin agreed to have DD while I worked. To minimise the impact (cousin lives near mum which is 20 miles from our house) I agreed to stay at mums when DH worked away. I don't drive so would never get DD there when DH was away. I work from home mostly so used my mums study. I had 3 teleconferences booked but had to cancel them all because she just carried on and on lecturing me in her house.
I couldn't leave because I don't drive and I was hoping to get some work done when she left for work but she didn't leave until 11:30am.
We have never been back since. I started mat leave at 35 ish weeks and DH cancelled his trips away until I'd finished.
She hounded me once she realised I had no reason to come back.
The thing that changed everything this time was her trying to play the abandonment trump card again "if our husbands can't get on then I don't see how you and I can be friends anymore". I pointed out that I predicted her saying that, its how she always tried to win an argument (win = having me cry, hug her, ask for forgiveness etc). When I was a child she always threatened abandonment of some kind when we upset her - she'd leave the house and tell us she was going to jump in the river/under a bus because we'd hurt her so much, she'd drop us off outside the local "childrens home" (it was actually a GP surgery I think) and once took an "overdose" in front of us, collapsing on the floor (it was a handful of uncooked rice). We thought she was dead.
Now that I'm a mother I realise how intensely cruel it was to behave like that.
Except this time her threats didn't work and I could see how lost she was when her fail-safe tactic didn't work. She was genuinely upset - no control over me. I just said "well thats your decision" and she said she was just trying to make my life easier. I said she wasn't she was manipulating me and she asked if that was so terrible when it was the only way she could get me to show her love. I said nothing and she accused me of being cold and hard and cruel. I told her I was pregnant and didn't need the stress right now and she told me she was having chest pains and thought she was having a heart attack. See, even when I'm pregnant she has to top trump me for sympathy.
As she left for work she gave me the following melodramatic speech: "i know you'll do well in life and so will (DD). Can I just ask that you send me a text when the baby is born and let me know what you have?".
Anyway, an hour later she text me a photo of DD playing at my cousins house which freaked me out a bit because she said she'd gone to work.
She kept texting, calling, asking if I felt loving toward her, close to her again. Her messages swung from nasty to overly nice. She kept trying to buy me things. Eventually l couldn't cope anymore and told her I was over it and have been playing the game ever since. She doesn't text me daily now because she thinks it fine and I'm using my sciatica as an excuse not to visit.
Step dad still not talking to DH.