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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

How to handle MIL taking over... Advice needed

11 replies

vix1980 · 11/03/2012 09:28

Ive posted numerous times about her, shes lovely and does everything (i think) out of the goodness of her heart. But... on telling her i was 3 months pregnant at christmas, her first response was to say... "so what are you doing for xmas dinner, oh i dont care im getting a baby".

For some reason the way she said it stuck with me, then a month later she kindly offered to buy the cot for us and immediately wanted to go and get one she had picked for us. I didnt accept this pregnancy very well in the beginning and my dp had to tell her to back off a bit, my own mum understood completely and let me take things at my own pace, but MIL wouldn't have this and continued to phone me constantly wanting to do this and that when all i wanted was to be alone.

The really annoying thing came a few weeks ago when me and dp went round to visit her, she has decorated her eldest daughters room into a nursery, which i found strange. (daughter is only at uni and will prob be back at some point) then last week i went round and she has placed in it a moses basket and a car seat, i stupidly said oh that's nice of you but ive already bought a moses basket and car seat comes with the pram, she laughed and said ha ha dont be soft they're for when i have the baby. they don't even have a car! she also has a baby walker, bath seat, and a car seat from age 5 upwards which she had all bought 2nd hand from a neighbour.

I found this really disturbing to be honest,maybe being over sensitive but i feel like im expected to give birth and hand over the baby to her, what i havent mentioned is that shes a very heavy smoker and an alcoholic she gets through easily 2 bottles of cider a night and always has a bottle of whisky in, i actually wouldn't dream of leaving a baby with her overnight, i couldnt trust her to not drink once the baby had gone to sleep .She told me at xmas she would have the baby 1 day a week, i said thanks but no thanks i couldnt let you do that, im planning on breastfeeding so i know she wont just take it away from me, its the fact she thinks that she can that gets to me, so sorry this is really long i just dont know what to do, i dont like going to see visit her right now, i told my dp last week how i felt and he said he would have a word as he had noticed it too but just thought it was excitment on her part, maybe it is but i see it more as shes the last one in her family to be a grandparent and wants to join in with everything they do, the thing is though all the others dont drink, she once told me when dp was born at about 2 months he stopped breathing in his cot, her response was to leave him and run to a neighbour's house as she was still drunk, then sent in the neighbour, i just couldnt trust her right now, she wont stop drinking shes been like this since she was 15 and drunk through all 3 pregnancies. i just dont know what to do with her, let alone say to her, shes just changed my opinion of her since i got pregnant all she wants to do is baby stuff and if i say no im not ready yet or well do it another time she goes and does it anyway. i dont want to fall out with her though, should i say something or just let dp have a word, i dont think anything we said would actually be taken in though...

OP posts:
mummytime · 11/03/2012 09:53

You need to be very firm right now. This is your baby not hers, and it's better to have the rows now, before the baby is here.
She sounds very creepy to me too.

ImperialBlether · 11/03/2012 10:57

She sounds creepy to me, too, and I wouldn't let her have a child overnight if she drinks to that extent. I wouldn't even want the child in her home at all if she's smoking heavily.

She has no right to tell you when she's having the baby. Take no notice of her at all. She's had her children; this is your baby.

You don't need to fall out with her, but you do have to be very, very firm with her.

tallwivglasses · 11/03/2012 11:00

Put your foot down over the smoking issue. Go round with all the information about 2nd and 3rd hand smoke and insist that your baby will not be allowed in any smoking household. In fact, it's not good for you to spend too much time round there now.

DD did this to me and I gave up. Somehow I think your MIL won't be able to...problem solved!

YouChangeWithTheWeather · 11/03/2012 11:22

Have you posted about this before?

I'd keep saying/hinting how unlikely it would be that you would ever give your precious baby to the overnight care of a drunk alcoholic could bear to be parted from your bf first born etc etc

I expect she won't take a blind bit of notice but then you just say No.

JustHecate · 11/03/2012 17:26

I understand that she is just really really excited. It's nice that she's excited. I am sure she's going to love this baby so much. However, loving and wanting to be involved is one thing. Riding roughshod over you is quite another. I think you are going to have to do something that can come quite difficult to many women, since we are conditioned to be 'nice'...

You're going to have to tell her and you're going to have to tell her straight. Not sugar coat, not pussy foot. You are going to have to tell her how this is going to work. And tell her that she either respects your decision, or she won't be involved at all.

But before you do that, you need to be talking to your partner. There's 2 of you in this. This baby has 2 parents and you need to be singing from the same hymn sheet or it's just not going to work.

WipsGlitter · 11/03/2012 17:32

Have you posted about this before? She's excited. She's not going to be able to make you do anything you don't want to. She not going to kidnap the baby. Chill.

RabidEchidna · 11/03/2012 17:55

Just tell her I am really sorry you are a drunk and I will not trust you with a plant let alone my baby

amothersplaceisinthewrong · 11/03/2012 18:03

Agree with others, that you will not let any child into the house of a smoker as instructed by teh Doctor. In fact I would say that the doctor has told you not to be around smokers whilst pregnant.

YOu need your OH on side - he needs to make her understand that any decisions about YOUR baby's welfare are yours and his

vix1980 · 11/03/2012 18:38

Hi,
yes as i said i have posted about her before, since then i took everyone's advice got dp on side (he was already on the same wavelength as me anyway) and we sat and had a chat to her, it obviously went in 1 ear and straight out the other.

Obviously im not so stupid to think she will just take the baby off me, that's not my point at all, its all the things shes doing which make me feel like i have no say in anything to do with my baby, today we went shopping for a cot, id seen the 1 i wanted in mamas and papas but she insisted we had to look around further in case there was a better one, there wasn't and we ended up getting the original one i had liked, it wasn't so bad today shopping just me and her, i could tell she was excited to start looking at baby stuff too and felt like she was involved, me thinking this would calm her down a bit shes got a little release getting it out of her system, but no its made her worse, now shes on a mission to buy the bedding for the cot.

i dont know, maybe its me being super sensitive at the moment, i just feel very vulnerable which is so not like me and just don't want to cause a fuss, im usually the 1st person to jump down someones throat, i suppose ill feel totally different when the baby is here i wont have a problem saying no i wont be leaving it with you, i noticed today she is very overbearing with dp and my fil too so i guess this is just the way she is and i hadn't noticed it before, when we bought the house i stood up for myself and said i don't want her to hang wallpaper for me, she got upset and didn't talk to me for 3 weeks, just over wallpaper. I dont want to be the evil daughter in law who stops her seeing her grandchild i just know itll be better when the babys here and i have something to actually protect, if that makes any sense at all!

OP posts:
2rebecca · 11/03/2012 19:48

I would stop going shopping with her. You can't stop her buying stuff, you can make it clear she won't have the baby staying with her whilst she still smokes and drinks. I would stop visiting her and talking to her as much. You aren't her therapist, you don't have to calm her down. She isn't even your MIL yet.
I would see her occasionally and get on with your life.
You will have to learn to be more assertive and realise that if she chooses to get upset when you don't do as she wants then that is her choice. Alcoholics are often self centred and overmelodratic anyway.
Do what you and your partner want and don't let her bully you.
Being nice to a possible future MIL doesn't mean giving way to her. Cut back seeing her to every couple of weeks, you sound overenmeshed with your boyfriend's family.

exoticfruits · 11/03/2012 20:11

I would just ignore her. Nod and smile and leave it to DP. She can make whatever plans she likes-you don't have to fit in with them and she can't make you.

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