A particularly juicy MiL rant

[MakesCakesWhenStressed]

Before I get slated for being unoriginal can I just say that I have not one, but two mils and get on like a house on fire with one of them (the step mil). I really need a rant about the other one though... And my sils, too for that matter. The situation is complex, long ruining and i'm not great a2 typing on my phone, do excuse me if it looks like i'm drop feeding, it's not intentional.

B ackground: dh went through the courts aged 12 to ask to be moved yip his dad and step mums' custody as he was being physically, mentally and emotionally abused by his mother. For his sisters' sakes he maintained contact with his mother so they would still see his dad.

As an adult his relationship with her has been cool, but he's continued to maintain it partly for his sisters zbd partly because his mother is a classic narcissist (thank you mn for helping us realise this) and he was - still is-well brain washed by her.

Since I got pregnanthis mother started showing more interest in us, with the amount of contact increasing ad the sure date approached until dh had to tell her ti give us more space. Once baby git here it git worse, ti the point where she insisted on muscling her way in the day we came home from the hospital (with me in a very fragile state after a traumatic birth and a stay in scbu)

During another visit wer over heard her making a very cruel and inappropriate remark to our nephew in connection with our son. This, combined with the emotions brought up by new fatherhood finally gave dh the impetus to act and he wrote a long, brutally honest letter to his mother starting all the issues he wanted to sort out before he was happy for her to have a relationship with our son. Since the letter arrived he had been fielding a shit storm of vitriolic texts and calls from his sisters, probably engineered by his mother who has been uncharacteristically silent.

Oh gps, i'm not even scratching the surface here, but 1 sil is threatening to deny fil access to her children, they're both calling dh all sortts of vile names and he is struggling and terrified that the extended family will wade in (like an episode of jk - apparently that's what happened when he was a kid) and things will get violent and ugly.

Most of all he's scared MiL aroll go through the courts to get unsupervised access - she doesn't have a hope... right?

Not sure what i'm posting this here for. I just needed to unload. Supporting dh through this whilst bf an incredibly hungry 6 week old and recovering from the horrible birth has been...an experience.

I don't think your MIL has a hope in hell of getting court-ordered unsupervised access!

I hope I'm not talking absolute bollocks there.

She would not get any sort of unsupervised access. As far as I am aware, grandparents rights are about mainting existing relationships.. and as she will have no relationship with a 6 week old.. she doesnt have a chance.

I don't think you're talking bollocks, Jessie, grandparents have no "rights" to a relationship with dgc, dgc have no "rights" to a relationship with dgp. And it's bams like this one that make that the situation.

"maintaining"

found it..

Court proceedings
?If none of the above are practical or possible you may make an application to the court. Unlike parents, a grandparent does not have an automatic right to apply for a contact order and will have to apply for leave to make that application. In order to be successful the grandparent must show that they have a meaningful and important connection with the child

as far as i understand, under British law grandparents have no legal right to access to grandchildren.

your H needs to stick to his guns. if he doesn't do it now, he'll end up putting his children through the same hell he faces right now.

with these sorts of narcissistic terror campaigns, you'll usually find that the attackers run out of energy eventually. particularly if you don't respond to them - they need responses in order to keep things going. keep silent, keep the police informed if any threats are made, batten down the hatches and just wait it out. no need to respond. when you see a croc in the river, don't climb in and all that...

congratulations on your new arrival, things sound stressful but they will improve in time x

Best thing to do then, is to just never let the woman get her foot in the door to initiate a relationship.

oh you poor things. please dont let them all spoil these first weeks of being a new family with your first baby. you need some firm boundaries and you need to make sure you and dh remain a team, looking after each other. you dont have to explain and argue, you dont have to respond to their aggression and threats. decide what you both want to say and repeat repeat repeat, ie "you are not welcome to visit at the moment". is your family supportive? if this goes on i would suggest some sort of couple's counselling to deal with this together....
am a family lawyer... the going to court sounds like noisy threats. ignore her. keep evidence of her behaviour towards you both, it will speak volumes!
my (late) mil RUINED our first year with ds1 with her appalling behaviour. i wish i'd been clearer and tougher from the get go.
good luck!

So far it's the sils who are contacting dh, though almost certainly under the instruction of the witch mil. Dh is keeping alltexts from them, though.

Apparently the sils have also been attempting to brow beat fil, too. Coming from a (mostly) functional family I am finding this all rather shocking, but not as shocking as the things dh has been telling me about his childhood :-(

None of those women is ever coming near my son again.

Thank you all for replying. I feel like we've been thrust into a soap opera...

A knownyone how much Jez Kyle pays? Maybe we could finally get that house deposit together with material like this... ;-)

ah poor you op! the only thing you can do is stick to your resolve and protect your son from such a bunch of harpies. its their loss not yours. make sure your dp is strong with you in this as well.

Sounds like you've got a good DH who's able to see through it and stand up to them. Keep at it- give them an inch they'll take a mile

what does your dh think about all this? has he ever had the chance to process what happened in his childhood? in dysfunctional families things like the birth of a dgc can really really stir things up (as you have found!) but it's also bringing up a lot of stuff for your dh too now he is a parent....

sorry, a word got lost there.... wasnt presuming to pronounce on how your dh felt... meant to say that maybe this is bring up stuff for him...

I have no advice but I just wanted to say that you and your DH both sound like lovely, strong people.

I'm sorry you're going through this at this time. Also, re the birth trauma, the birth trauma association is a great organisation to help, although it may feel too raw for you right now to go over things.

My only advice to you is to keep remembering (as you already clearly both know) that you, DH and your DS are all on the same team. Keep that in mind and keep strong xx

Bloody hell cakes - not what you need! Glad to 'see' you back on here though, was wondering about you the other day!

As others have said, she doesn't stand a cat in hell's chance, but to be extra-safe, I'd get DH to log any texts, calls or contact from the ILs with details of what was said and when (including what they're saying to FIL) so that if they do try to (pointlessly) get access, he has recent evidence of their crappy behaviour :)

Someone who 'physically, mentally and emotionally' abused their 12 year old child wouldn't be anywhere near my DCs. And because of what she did, your DH needs protecting from her even as an adult.

I would block your SIL's numbers and write a polite, succinct email (from you to them) saying that you will not be entering into discussions about the woman.

As people have said, grandparents have no rights when it comes to a tiny baby - the law is there to protect established relationships - and they did I doubt they would look kindly on someone who abused their own child.

Dh was wavering slightly yesterday, think he fely ge didn't have the strength ti maintain his current position. I'm ashamed to say that I dealt with it by busting into tears instead if being supportive, told him how much they had hurt and upset me over the last 6 weeks and that I didn't want then anywhere near our son.

Funnily this seemed ti actually give him the strength to stock with it, perhaps because it reminded him he was doing this to protect his family and not because e was the ' selfish' individual they're accusing him of being. It helped that baby cakes was during on his lap being unbelievably cute, too :-)

Sigh. His mother is classic narcissist. She finally got in touch by text and is still trying to blame what she can on everyone else, claim 'depression' and ignore the things she can't deny. Even if she really is depressed, which I doubt, she can't use my son as a sticking plaster for her mental health.

A friend went to court last year to stop her mum gaining access to her children (she has a similar character to your MIL). As some of the posters have already said, she did not have an immediate right to see the children (like a parent) but she could apply to the courts to ask them to consider her application. She had a relationship with the kids but because of her history, her application was denied. So whilst she was unable to apply for access, my friend still had to go to court to get this first stage rejected (I hope this makes sense!).

It was a really difficult time for them and I hope you don't have to go down that path. But if you do, she won't get access.

Good luck! And hope you manage to enjoy these early days with your new baby

An extra thought - I'd be tempted tho to start saving any correspondence between yourselves and your MIL/SILs just to back up your case should the worst happen.

He's logged it all already, don't worry!