(Sorry, this has become an epic. But it’s all stuff that I needed to say. Obviously nobody needs to read it!)
It hasn’t always been this way.
DH is the only child of a single parent, so the relationship between them has been pretty intense. I was the first woman he properly set up home with, and he came with a heady list of preferences based on what his mum liked. He wanted blinds because he had always had blinds. No family pictures on the walls – they should all be on shelves. He likes paper lampshades such as the ones in Mum’s flat.
Amazingly, I managed not to throttle him, and things settled down. There were occasional bits of advice from her ‘this is how we organise a kitchen…’ but these were irritants that were over in minutes.
When I became pregnant, I almost drowned under her enthusiasm. Every time I saw her I’d hear tales of what DH was like as a baby and his amazing hands, and the curl of hair he had that was just so, and how my baby was bound to be exactly the same. DH was prem, and she got this fixed notion in her head that the average baby size was about 5lb, and told me all the newborn clothes I’d bought would be far too big. She set to knitting newborn outfits that I resented. I was hormonal and stressed, and a little bit terrified, and it felt as though she was trying to write my DNA out of the baby entirely.
We disagreed on the name. It’s usual in my family to name long, and shorten, and that’s what I intended to do with my son. She told me that you should only use the name you legally give them, so she would always use Fullname, regardless of what I said. I snapped and told her that he’d be a bit baffled then, as he’d know himself as Short.
She wanted to be in the delivery room, though thankfully conceded without a row when I snapped at her about this too.
So we started pretty damned rocky.
Fast forward eight years, and she’s now one of the most influential, the most fun, the most funny and generous and wonderful people in my life.
I think the main thing that changed is that we both got older. I’m now middle aged, confident in my ability to parent my children and laid back about what influences they pick up from where. Basically, I have so much less to prove. She too has recognised that they are who they are, and don’t have to conform to either of our expectations to be brilliant.
She has also got older. She’s no longer the only grandparent in her group, and she’s come to reaslise that she has far more access to the grandchildren (she’s with us two weekends a month) than her friends do. She’s also realised that I’m not the extra person wheedling her way into her family. I’m not getting in the way; I’m opening the door.
We talk to each other now. If there are certain rules with the children, I tell her and listen to her comments, and she has opinions, but she doesn't overrule me. If she’s struggling with some aspect of their behaviour, I work with her to sort that out rather than crow that I can manage better. I’ve started backing her to the hilt and discussing solutions with her.
She, in response, doesn’t wade in instantly and tell me what I must do based on what she always did.
She’s been brilliant with DS’s reading. He’s severely dyslexic, and when this was all unfolding, I told her and DH that for continuity’s sake, I needed to do ALL the reading with him. As things progressed, I was able to ask her to help to. I went to her first, not to DH. She asked me the precise method we were using to teach him, watched carefully how I did it, and has never strayed from that once. Unlike my family, she hasn’t given me any ‘helpful advice!’ like ‘make reading fun!’ (No, really? I thought he’d learn better if it was torture for him!)
It hasn’t been a completely straight path. When I was diagnosed with depression and tried, tentatively, to tell her how it felt, she nixed all of my feelings and responded in the typical ‘well just don’t feel that way! It’s silly!’ way. It hurt a lot.
But, and this is really important, within 24 hours, she’d accepted that she knew bog all about depression and started researching, entirely off her own bat, but asking me for advice on what resources are good. Since that first, hideous conversation, every time we’ve discussed it, it’s been in terms of what it feels like for me. What helps me and what causes problems.
That’s when I realised that this brash, bold ‘I know best! I must say my immediate thoughts!’ thing was entirely habit. It’s deeply seated in her character, and it comes out particularly if she senses a threat to her son and GC. I was giving her a piece of bad news, so she reacted using the shield she always uses. What’s key, and the reason I’m so grateful, is that she overrode that emotion. She chose to react in a different way, and I know how hard that is.
When I told her I was bipolar just weeks ago, she didn’t react with fear at all. Not a single part of her responded with; ‘Someone connected to my family has a psychotic illness! I must protect my child/grandchildren!’ She responded entirely as ‘how awful for my daughter, Fog. How can we best support her?’ When I said I was scared because this is all unknown to me, she said; ‘What books do you need? I will get them for you.’ I have no doubt that she’ll read them too.
I’ve stopped being a hanger on. She no longer has a family of four and an extra. She has a family of five, and she seems to like that.
She is kind. She is astonishingly generous with her time and energy, and has pulled us out of a financial fix on a number of occasions.
She adores my children, and they love her back.
She’s not without her faults, and I’ve learned that there are a couple of topics I must not raise, or we’ll end up fighting. The niggly habits that caused me stress once are now just a part of who she is, and hell, I’m far from perfect myself. She doesn’t comment on my slatternly habits or the fact that the paint is peeling off the skirting boards. There is no impossible standard that I have to reach.
She talks so much, and it’s great, and I talk right back (while DH sits by longing for quiet and tidy peace and his house just so). We’ll laugh together and compare notes on who we fancy. (I mean Celebs, obviously; not like Colin from accounts.) We have the same taste in films and nonsense TV, and it’s nice to sit and watch something other than the depressing, loud, action films that my husband likes.
There was a time, when I was first married, when I used to dread the point when she’d be dumped on us, elderly and infirm.
I don’t feel that now. I’m embarrassed that I ever did. It’s wrong for me to look forward to that time because I don’t want her restricted at all, but if and when that time comes, I’m ready and willing to open my house and my care to her.
She is a wonderful woman. She deserves it.
Sorry, TL;DR, but like I say, I wanted to share. MILs. They're not all bad. Have hope.