Wwyd Mil distraught by my behaviour

[Ginnytonic82]

Sorry this is very long, but I'm in a bit of a difficult situation and could really use some objective advice to help me move forward.

Mil and I have always got on ok, not best buddies and she's said/done somethings I don't agree with. However, she is my DH's mum and I respect that. I am very close to my mum, Dh isn't as close to mil but all families have their own dynamic.

When we had our first Dc 4 months ago, both my mum and mil were over the moon as it is their first gc. I suffer from pnd and both my mum and mil offered great support and helped so much with dc. We tried to make sure my mum and mil saw dc equally (mil is very concerned that she is equal to my mum in dc's eyes). My mum is retired and mil still works, so we made sure that every weekend she saw dc.

Three weeks ago my sister very kindly treated me to a spa day. It was on a Saturday and meant I'd be gone between 10am and 4pm. Dh was happy to look after dc, bit we have a very bouncy labrador that would need a walk during that time. I suggested we ask mil to come over and look after dc while Dh walked the dog, as she would usually see dc at weekend anyway. She was really happy we had asked her.

On the Saturday she turned up at our house at 11am. Dh took the dog out at 12 and said he'd be about 2 hours. When he came back mil and dc had gone. He text and rang but she didn't answer for over an hour, when she sent him a message saying she had dc and would be back soon.

When I arrived home at 4, she still hadn't arrived. Dh had tried to contact her again, and had she had replied saying she had gone to a nearby town with dc shopping and would be half an hour. Two hours later she still hadn't arrived. I told Dh she was taking the piss and I was getting annoyed as she had taken him without our consent. Dh said that he could see where I was coming from, but felt mil had just got over excited and carried away and that as long as dc was safe we should just enjoy the extra time together. I explained that I missed dc and as it was 6pm I really felt he should be home as we start his bedtime routine at 6.30.

By 6.45 she still hadn't brought dc back, so I text this, "Hi Mil, thanks for taking care of baby tonic today. I was just wondering if you were on your way with him as I have missed him so much. Hope he's been good for you x" I didn't tell my husband I sent the text as it didn't seem important. Finally mil brought dc back at 7. All was pleasant and I thanked her.

The next day she saw my Dh whilst he was walking the dog, stopped him in the street and told him I had really upset her yesterday by texting her. She showed him the message and said I would never have sent that to my mum. Dh came home and spoke to me about it and I'm afraid I got my back up and was annoyed as I had done my best to be polite, and would have text anyone - even Dh if I felt dc should have been at home. I said if she was upset I would call her and explain as we are both adults. Mil would not answer the phone to me.

Now mil will not speak to me at all. She has not seen dc, or even called or text Dh to see how he is for 3 weeks. She says she is distraught by my selfish behaviour. I don't feel I have been selfish. I know I went to the spa but that was my first day out since having dc. Was I selfish to go? I am quite stubborn and really feel she needs to grow up, but should I make the first move? Dh thinks I should ask her to take care of dc at weekend but I really don't want too as I've lost some trust in her.

Please help me move forward with this and do be honest if you feel I'm being selfish or have acted unfairly. Thank you for reading this enormous post.

Why can't DH take the baby for the walk with the dog (maybe not 2 hours) ?

In our household DH would have taken the baby and the dog for a walk, and MIL would have joined them - then they would have come home and the baby would have had an afternoon nap, in time for you to come back happy from your day of pampering. Everyone would have been happy.

Your MIL sounds like a loon and I would be very wary of her in future - anyone who can unplanned take out a 4 month old without the parents knowing is not someone I would want round my kids.

Your text was very polite in my opinion. She was totally in the wrong. I would have been worried too if she wasn't answering her phone and didn't return when she said she would.

I think if your child were 3 or 4 years then I would be saying you are unreasonable - its good for them to get out independantly of us. As this is your first child and your DC is literally only months old then this is quite odd behaviour.

Do you think she is over compensating for how she treated her son? Personally, as she allowed her partner to mis-treat your husband, I would have reservations about her having free access - I just wouldnt trust her. If she had been a brilliant mother then I would say you should try to treat both grandparents equally (and lets face it if we are totally honest most of us probably lean towards our mother) this woman though is in a position where, due to past actions, she needs to earn trust and respect as she certainly didnt earn it during the parenting of her child.

Your DH needs to man up and support you - best you have that conversation now rather than years down the road like I did.

I think that if you want to make it clear who the parents are, you need to take a stand with MIL now. She's already pushing your boundaries and the baby is only a few months old.

However you need to realise that it's very difficult to get lots of free babysitting from relatives -there is usually a cost in terms of control and power over the child. I've seen this happen over and over again -young parents want granny to babysit for whole days at a time, overnight at weekends, perhaps full time while they both go back to work. Then get annoyed when grandparents assert their views, right and opinions and start to act like the main carers. Which they probably are!

I'm not saying that's the case here -MIL was only asked to babysit for 2 hours. How err she was doing Her son a favour -lots of parents manage to have a dog and a child at the same time!

I'm not saying it's right -in an ideal world , relatives would give up years of their free time to care for their families children without wanting anything in return except the joy of spending time together.

But you don't have to read many threads on MN to realise this rarely happens . Usually there's no such thing as a free lunch

OPs MIL has likely never apologised to her son for all the abuse when he was younger either. She has likely never taken any responsibility for her own role here and has continued to act in her own interests. Taking the baby out for hours on end was done as punishment to both OP and her H and also was done out of a desire for power and control.

She will never apologise for this latest stunt she has pulled. All OP and her H can do is reinforce and maintain boundaries re her that were likely way too low to begin with.

OP you are so so much calmer than I would have been. If ANYONE (other than DH) took our dd out without telling us I would have flipped the fuck out! I'd have been calling constantly until they got back & no way would I allow them to look after her alone again. Your MIL has demonstrated you cannot trust her with your baby & that trust won't come back overnight. I'd make sure both your DH & MiL understand that & that MiL will have to work pretty hard if she ever wants to be asked to babysit again.
How you react to this will set a precedent as to how she behaves from now on, so make sure she understands what you need to happen with her behaviour.

Attila thank you so much for your reply. I definitely believe Dh feels obligated to mil. It's as if he lost out to her ex Dh all those years ago and has ever since been trying to win her back.

Cats I did wonder if he did know but he swears he didn't and was trying to call her when I got in. He had been saying how much he was looking forward to the day with baby tonic as he misses out when he's at work. But then to be so relaxed when mil took Ds makes no sense to me.

OP

YANBU and you know it. You acted like a saint compared to the hell I would have unleashed on the woman.

She has acted like a fucking basket case. Personally I would not try and placate her because she has caused the entire situation with her lack of thought and ridiculous histrionics. But I am a stubborn mare.

If she came to me and apologised then I might start tolerating her again. Either way she would not be left alone with my baby for a very long time if at all.

And Rousette your post was perfectly clear and I agree completely. I live in a different country than my mother so we can't be really close but my relationship with her is fundamentally different and inherently better than that with my MIL. Because she's my mother. That's just life as much as it may not suit MILs-to-be.

She's being utterly unreasonable and so is your DH in expecting you to ask her to babysit again after she's completely blanked your efforts to follow up with her.

If she wants to cut her nose off to spite her face, her choice.

When I had kids, I didn't suddenly become their pa, whose job it was to ensure equal visits with both sets of GPS. I carried on with my usual life, with a kid in tow...so saw my mum a whole load more than my mil. Its not my job to deal out time shares in my kids, and I dont tolerate extra visits just because I've had kids. I am not public property.

Your setting yourself up as a martyr with this equal visits nonsense.

Ignore horse. He/she is on another thread arguing that a man whose wife is threatening to move to Ireland with their 2-year-old in two weeks time is being unreasonable and should do more to make her happy.

It is utterly outrageous that your MIL disappeared with your tiny baby for so long. She knew exactly what she was doing and your text was beyond polite. She is telling you that you have no right to challenge her over the whereabouts of your baby.

It is clear there is more going on here, given she chucked out her 16-year-old son who was being beaten by her H. Personally, I would chuck HER out of our lives.

my mil loves my DC. Has them weekly, and has for the last five years. Last year we were picking them up at ten- earlier then usual, but pre arranged. They weren't there, nor were they answering phones, the house was locked, with no note. By the time they got back an hour later I was phoning hospitals. They knew we were coming, their phone was off, I thought it could only be the worst. I went mad when they got back after swimming- shouting, screaming 'who the hell did they think they were? How dare they? I was worried sick , and my trust and respect for them was shattered' mil tried to offer that I was being ridiculous, over reacting- to which I replied I don't care whether she thinks I'm over reacting, what I care about is that she crossed my line and I wanted to make damn sure she'd not be doing it again whatever her opinion is. Dh backed me up (though he thought I over reacted too) mil apologised and never did again. We actually get on very well and I trust her, but she'd assumed the rules I enforced as babies (contactable, tell us where they are etc.) Were relaxed now DC are older. If she'd done it when DC 1 was my little 4 month pfb ? I don't think we'd be friends now.
You're text was restrained and your mil an inconsiderate selfish bitch.

I'm curious to how she fed him whilst she was out - she was gone what 6 hours? Surely a 4 month old would need one or two milk feeds in that time? Had she taken bottles etc?

she already said colleysmill, that the mil took one bottle with her and then bought those ready made cartons and topped up the old bottle with those. very hygienic.

Your MIL sounds like a loon. You will also go insane if she expects to see the DCs every weekend - you will find yourselves making arrangements to fit round her, never having time for yourselves as a family, moans when the kids are bigger and have parties etc to go to.

It was never going to work but MIL has showed her true colours by it failing quite so fast.

Why would you want your DCs to have a relationship with someone who was happy for their own son to beaten up?

Dont you dare apologise or pander to her manipulation. She is trying to rule the roost. Fuck that.

I would suspect it does go deeper than this one incident.

She must be a very special sort of egocentric woman to put the safety of her son (where would a 16 year old go of turfed out?) below some bloke. To allow someone to raise their hand to your child and not stop them? Ok, maybe he was abusive to her, she was in fear of him, etc, and its easy to say 'kick the bugger out or grab the kids and run' but either way, the 16 year old would feel guilty and abandoned.

He still has that hurt 16 year old inside him - trying to please his child-mother, which incidentally he never will, whilst feeling that she is weak/uncaring etc for not putting him first when he needed her. I wonder if he has ever told her how he felt back then?

He needs to draw himself up to his full height, puff out his chest and go Captain Caveman on her, I'm afraid, or she will be calling the tune for years to come. Also remember that she is young now - wait until she gets to her 70/80s and beyond, and the onus will be on you (not DH) to care for her, because in her mind, she is the most important person in the universe.

I assume she is on her own now? Her behaviour smacks of someone used to doong their own thing (so either alone, orwho has a severely henpecked hubby).

God, this whole thing makes me seethe. I would have gone batshit if someone had done this and DH would have too.

MIL once took 3-year-old DS1 (he is now 9) out of our holiday cottage while I was putting his baby brother to bed, so I thought DS1 had run out by himself. I ran out and caught up with them and shouted at MIL. DH and BIL and SIL all backed me up. MIL has never done similar again.

That was for all of three minutes. Seven hours??? Christ on a bike.

Oh sorry missed that nigella trying to mn whilst feeding 3 week old!!

Sorry colleys I explained earlier in the thread that she made a bottle then bought pre mixed cartons and rinsed the bottle.

Those who feel Dh should have walked dog & baby, our dog is very playful and whilst we have done out best, she does not walk well with the pram as yet. We live in the countryside and there aren't many pavements. We don't feel it's safe to try to push Ds and hold on to the dog so close to traffic. We have a dog walker during the week and walk as a family at weekends. Our dog walker was unavailable that weekend.

It is my birthday today and FIL (mils current husband) has just text to wish me happy birthday, and he will see me later. I have no idea if mil will be in tow!

Gosh, the problem here is DH not MIL, really. She has ignored you all for 3 weeks and DH thinks the way to solve that is to let her have the baby .....

I just wanted to say, though, that your text was very very reasonable under the circumstances and you sound like you had tried really hard to facilitate the MIL's relationship with your DC before all this kicked off- far harder than most people would have. I think this is perhaps the MIL/Dh's relationship dynamic was always going to kick off at some point, and you couldn't have done more to prevent it.

You asked her to look after your baby so that she would have the honour of having sole charge of him for a few hours.

She has totally abused that trust and put you through hours of needless anxiety and stress. And when you (gently) called her on it, she's turned it all back on you. I'd be absolutely furious if I were you.

I agree with pp that she's toxic and that your DH is in the FOG. He's so desperate for a crumb of her love and respect, he won't rock the boat. She's the one who should be begging forgiveness; not you.

You need to present a united front and be very firm with her that you can't trust her to look after your baby any more because of the appalling way she behaved last time. Don't listen to her protestations and just keep repeating yourself.

I honestly think if you want to have any hope of building a decent relationship with her in years to come, you need to draw the boundaries very firmly right now. And do get yourself over to the Stately Homes thread.

No one takes my baby away from me for hours and gets away with it. No one. I'd be livid. I still get anxious when mil takes ds (4) out and isn't back when she says she will be. I dont say anything obviously cos I'd sound like a loon but it does wind me up.
No one would attempt it with my baby and if they did I would do what a previous poter said and call, text, shout until they were back and then they'd get a large piee of my mind. Yes even if it was my mum that had done it. She's completrlely out of order and your dh should back you up and tell her to get a grip.

Sorry for typos!

MIL to FIL 'its tonics birthday... you conbtact her if you want...' Pourses lips and hoiks bosom a la les dawson.