New baby, huge row with my mum :( Sorry, longish.

[GreatBigRow]

Am a bit embarrassed asking this (so have NCed) but have any of you found that having a new baby has made relationships a bit more fraught with other family members? Background: I get on really well with my mum on the whole, we usually have a good laugh and she can be very supportive. She can also be selfish and a bit childish especially when she's tired but tbh we all can.

Basically I have had a row with my mum who was up staying with us last week to help out post-CS and it seems to be escalating. Parents were just leaving and apparently I had been 'snappy' with her (8 days of constant pain and sleep-deprivation will do that to a person - and tbh DH and I replayed whole episode afterwards and couldn't see what I was supposed to have said that set her off ). She just went mad and had a real go at me, said some really nasty things, including that I was 'horrible'. DH and I were both although he said she was probably just a bit tired and on edge about leaving us. I was angry but assumed she would be embarrassed and realise she was out of order, we would just let it go and move on.

Thing is - she hasn't. In fact, her and my dad have completely re-written the whole incident casting her as the victim and me as some kind of villain. They were supposed to come up over weekend to see baby and instead of being sheepish she started laying down conditions for her visit - e.g. that I was not 'allowed' to ask them to keep their voices down when baby is sleeping (they are shouty by habit, not in an angry way, just really LOUD. I did this twice in a 5 day visit to give you some perspective and they argued that it was better to be noisy). No mention of her having a go or the things she said or how she said them (with real venom :( ). I am so angry! Even DH who is always a peacemaker is pissed off and finding it really weird but he is telling me to be careful not to escalate things.

The trouble is she was so out of order that I can't possibly see a way of letting it go - because she might feel it's okay to do it again. If I confront her it might escalate things. At the minute they are angling to come and see us again and I just don't want to see them. I'm too angry and this is really out of character - I tend to be a 'get mad, have a 2 minute rant and rave to DH / trusted friend / on paper, forget the whole thing' person. This is days later and every message they send or phone call they make they send more self-justifying / self-pitying bullshit and I am getting madder and madder.

I know I probably need to talk to her but she has re-written things so much that it will just lead to a bigger row. It's like she has blocked the actual memory of what happened. I honestly don't know what to do. DH wants me to rise above it and normally I would try but I am genuinely too fucking angry. I couldn't sit in my home and look at her and know that she thought it was okay to talk to me like that - I felt like she kicked me when I was down after days of being in pretty much constant pain, breast-feeding and surviving on snatches of sleep. The house is genuinely calmer and quieter without them and DH's parents are coming up this week to help out. I don't want to keep them away from baby but just finding it really hard to stop being angry and I'm not normally a grudge-holder.

Sorry this is long Was actually quite cathartic writing it down. If anyone has been in this situation please tell me how you resolved it.

Morning OP. Just read your thread - I am the most non confrontational, "good daughter" person in the world, but don't you dare feel bad or back down over this!

I think mother/parent/inlaw relationships often get flipped and changed when you have your first baby.

Be polite, be diplomatic, but you are absolutely in the right here. You are allowed to be tired, snappy and hormonal. Your family should honestly be running around after you right now. And this is your family now, your house, your rules. If you want quiet for the baby, then your mother should respect this.

As for the emails, you did the right thing, IMO, but stick with it and don't back down.

GBR

Not really all that surprised to see that she sent your DH a 2000 word e-mail of self pity and self justification. This is truly par for the course for such toxic people. Do read Toxic Parents written by Susan Forward.

Unfortunately you are now seeing perhaps what they are really like as people. They are not the ideal parents you have thought they were.

I can only reiterate what I wrote earlier:

I would think about boundaries and what is and is not acceptable with regards to your mother's behaviour. It may be that you in time will have to raise those boundaries an awful lot higher than they are currently. Fortunately for you, your DH is supportive so it wilol be easier for the two of you to present a united front.

All sorts of feelings come to the fore when parents have their first child; sometimes either the mother or father think of their own parents and perhaps also go on to eventually realise how inadequate as parents they actually were or still are. I think you have been more than reasonable with regards to your mother. It is she who chose to rewrite history.

I also saw that you write that your mother can be selfish and childish especially when she is a bit tired. I would argue that she is selfish and a bit childish anyway regardless of being tired; rewriting history to her advantage is a timed honored tactic often used to gain the upper hand and to make you say sorry. You may well want to resolve things; she equally may not. This is really about power and control.

Hi OP, just caught up with your thread. I would have to agree with Attila, that this is about control.

She has not apologised. She has not said that she will respect your rules in your house. She is actively trying to cause a wedge between you and your husband. She won't even aknowledge that you're still in recovery from your CS! What sort of mother does that?!!!

I'd keep her away. You don't need this at the moment. If she comes, its more likely that she'll use the visit as an invitation to behave even more badly.

It's all about her. You cannot change her, but you can change the way you respond and let her know that you will not tolerate this behaviour.

Text her and say it's no longer convenient. Don't give a reason and do not engage further until you feel strong enough to challenge her.

And your father needs to locate his backbone.

Hope you're OK.

I really feel for you, she's been awful .

Just a quick message from me to say that in my experience, it does happen. My own perfectly nice mother turned into babyzilla when I was pregnant (both times). It suddenly became all about her, and she was insufferable for weeks after each of my DC were born. at 8 months pregnant with DC2 I had a blazing row with her and told her a few home truths and that seemed to help. She's gone back to normality now ...
Best of luck though. I think it's particularly mean to try to get your DH to take sides - er, he isn't likely to, is he? If it were me, I'd send her an email which says:

• your behaviour since DD was born has been unacceptable. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of what happened, she has criticised and been mean to her daughter within days of giving birth - what sort of mother does that?

• her attempts to try to involve DH are particularly hurtful and strange.

• You'd love her to be supportive and to be involved with DD but you're not sure she can manage it

• could you agree to disagree on the actual facts of the rows, but could she apologise for the fact that she's been so unsupportive?

I'm so sorry to read this and it rings so many bells. My poor DH's father turned on us when our DS was born. DH posted on MN about it - you can read what happened here if you're interested. But basically, similar MO - long horrible emails all about his hurt feelings which ruined a very special and joyful time for us.

The update not posted on that thread is that we tried to pretend nothing ever happened, let sleeping dogs lie etc etc, and have an arm's length, purely business-like relationship for DS's sake. That lasted about 4 weeks until my appendix burst and I nearly died. You would have thought from the text messages received from FIL on that occasion that I had done it just to spite him. DH cut contact entirely and eventually had some counselling to deal with it. The counselor said that it's unfortunately a very common occurrence and was in no way DH's fault.

He and DH have had some sporadic email contact since then, against my better judgement as I want to protect DH from getting hurt again, but it's his father and I won't ever stand in the way of his right to have contact. BUT I see no value in my seeing him again, unless there is an apology and an acknowledgement made of what a complete prick he was. I don't want DS to see him either - I don't think a relationship with such an emotionally abusive narcissist could possibly be of any value - but I anticipate a row about that in future when FIL has rewritten history completely and played poor DH like a harp Apparently in his most recent self-pitying email he has "asked to play some small part in DS's life". Well, ball's in his court to apologize - but I'm not holding my breath!

Sorry to hear how common this is :( The latest twist: got an email last night, very calm and measured, very nicey-nice - "We would love to come however your sister wants to come on Sunday so maybe another day would be better." I will be telling them they can come on Sunday as invited or the following weekend. I do not want them coming to the house when I am on my own - I really feel very wary of them at the minute and having more people around will help keep things civil. I will then be keeping their visits to once a week for the next few weeks and if they try to have a 'discussion' about what happened they will be told in uncertain terms to drop it or leave.

Mum is desperately happy to be back in touch, no doubt because she never actually apologised, texted last night to say how much she loved me - which I think she does, she just gets stuck behind her own selfishness. Please don't let me be like this with my DD ever! I think down the line it may be appropriate for some home truths but at the minute I just want to keep healing and enjoy time with DH and DD. PIL are here and in spite of very long drive they immediately made lunch, made cups of tea, washed dishes and took DD for a walk so I can nap - which I'm going to do now :)

Thank you all I will update if any further madness...!

Why not say that you´ll leave Sunday then, & let them know when they can come?

just go with, 'will let you know when we are next up to having visitors'.

make quietly clear that the decision is yours.

Yes will see what happens and how they respond. In some ways would rather get it over with but if they say no then I will wait another week.

Is she the type of person that can't take an constructive criticism, no matter how polite you put it? If yes, she'll never apologise but if you stand your ground and state what catkind and some others said earlier, "sorry, but if you can't cooperate with things like keeping your voice down when baby's asleep, this isn't a good time to visit" then allow her to visit when she promises to follow your rules.

My Mum came to stay with us after I had DS1, it was a long horrible labour that ended in a c-section and my DP and I were insane with sleep deprivation before baby even arrived. Anyway my Mum's behaviour was, frankly, crazy. She was the voice of doom to DP when I developed an infection (told him I'd probably never be able to have more children). She loves a bit of drama and kept trying to stir it up, snapped at me to stop crying when I broke down exhausted and upset at being re-admitted to hospital and sulked at being asked to do me simple favours when she was with me in the ward.
To be fair I was snappy, teary and paranoid about anyone but me looking after my baby and DP was dazed and exhausted too. We had several blazing rows and Mum and DP had a 'moment' when he asked her to stop stressing me and she withdrew dramatically with pursed lips and wide eyes.
She told me later she was sick with worry about me, tired herself from being with us through the labour and that seeing me with DS made her oddly sad as she thought back to when I was a baby and how quickly that time had gone.
None of us managed our stress and exhaustion particularly well and the situation was just ripe for stupid lashing out which is obvious to me now but wasn't at the time. Two years on we all genuinely laugh about the week we all went mad.

But I'm due DC2 in four weeks and Mum isn't invited this time!

Roses they are insistent that they are 'right' about the noise thing - actually wrote in one of the emails, "Hope GBR has now realised that it is better to make noise around the baby." We have the bloody TV on beside her ffs, we just don't want people bellowing across the room when she is going to sleep. Once she's asleep she can doze through anything! But you are right about the can't take criticism thing. E.g. day before CS I just wanted to spend some time getting mentally prepared and hanging out with DH. Mum wanted to come up and when I said no initially took it well. Then hours later she phoned back to say they wanted to come up. I said (nicely) no and she started emotionally blackmailing me, saying, "I just want to see you" etc. I actually said nicely, "Mum you are making this all about you and if ever there is a time for things to be all about me this is that day!" Explained I didn't want to have to put a brave face on, wanted to be able to be sad or happy or bonkers and just spend time with DH. Anyway the 'making it all about her' obviously smarted because a few times when they were up staying I would say something like, "God I'm tired / hungry / sore" etc and she said immediately "You're very me, me, me!"

Osterly really glad things worked out and can understand your mum not being invited! :) What frustrates me is if we ever have another DC I will need a CS again and now know that mum can't be trusted to come up and help.

She is very childlike.