To feel resentful at MIL visits?

[JuniorMumber]

My MIL stays with us often (about two or three times a month) because she takes care jobs in London at short notice and she lives outside of London, so likes to come to us the night before so she can get up at a leisurely time the next day for the job.

She is always imprecise about how long she's coming ('a couple of days' can be up to a week) and she turns up empty handed every time and expects to be fed and given wine. She will contribute money when pressed, but she isn't forthcoming about it and I find it hugely awkward.

I'm sick of it. I'm on mat leave at the moment with my 3mo and she's here AGAIN. She was meant to be staying just last night, but turns out she will be here until 2pm, so I now have to scurry around thinking what to feed her for breakfast and lunch. I am on a really tight budget at the moment and feel like I should have nice food in for her. If I was on my own I'd have cereal and fish fingers, but she doesn't eat wheat and is really fussy about food.

I've had countless arguments with my husband about her descending on us. He thinks I'm being unreasonable and doesn't see what the issue is. AIBU?

Itsfab - I'm not sure what the living situ was immediately after he broke up with the ex (they weren't married, cohabited for several years). When I met him he was house sharing with some other guys. I would love to contact her and ask about her experience with MIL. We have mutual friends in common on facebook, so I could. He says that he left her after she started a blazing row with MIL by sending her a long email telling her to back off. I think MIL tried to discipline the ex's little boy one day. He has special needs so the ex was understandably furious. DH says the fight was the straw that broke the camel's back because he wasn't that into her anyway so he left her. He says she was 'mental' (as they all do), and that she punched him in the head and burst his ear drum. I wonder if everything he says is true or whether she actually ran for the hills.

I'm reluctant to get my parents involved right now, for various reasons, but I do need to talk to someone in RL. I have a good friend who knows bits of this, but I have withheld most of what he's like from her because frankly, I didn't want to hear the words myself.

He has lived with MIL in the past though, and MIL has made suggestions about the three of us living together before (and I nearly vomited on the carpet).

I also desperately want to talk to my sister but she's in labour right this minute.

Oh i'm not sure that she wants her son back.

Not without a DIL to do everything for them both at any rate!

It does seem as though OPs husbands lack of respect comes from his mum, though.

She just turns up for her own convenience without a thought for Op or even her son.

Well it doesn't put her son out, does it, so what's it to him?

if he had to take time off & cook for her it might be different!

I would try to contact the ex - sounds like she's probably not the person she has been painted as

He's come in and said he's got lunch ready and bought me some magazines. He said 'it's time to end this silliness', and when I said we needed to discuss the insect comment he started shouting and said he only said it because I was 'in his face' and that he wasn't going to let me ruin his weekend. Then he called me a 'sour faced cunt', and went into the living room and threw something. I'm taking dd out for a walk.

Leave.

Oh God, please do not put up with this any more. You will never be happy with this man.

Ok, I think you need to think about logging this behaviour with the police.

Hear me out - no, it's not an extreme reaction.

Verbal abuse and threatening behaviour (the throwing).

This is not a reasonable man. This is not a normal man. This is not a good father, or even an adequate one.

Does this man refrain from shouting, using obscene language, throwing things, because his baby daughter is in the house? No.

I have been on many, many threads which document the end point of the process which it looks as if you may be starting - the divorce, the separating lives, and ultimately, the child access. So many of them are heartbreaking reads which focus on the last point - with concerned, often afraid mothers desperately trying to negotiate safe and positive contact for their children with men who have never beaten them black and blue, but nonetheless have no conscience about subjecting their children to shouting, throwing stuff, verbally abusing them, and trying to make their lives as unsettled and unhappy as possible, all in order to get at the other parent.

All of them say they wish with all their hearts that they could go back in time and REPORT, LOG all the small instances of abusive, threatening behaviour in the past.

If you log his behaviour with the police, it is proof - if you EVER need it - that he is unstable, abusive, threatening. It could be invaluable in giving your the leverage to get his access to your DD controlled, if that's what you need. Please please report this now.

And then I would leave to go to your parents.

You can now see what this horror of a man is really like. There is a distinct possibility that you are not safe. And that means that your baby is not safe.

Wouldn't do anything to hurt her? A man who screams obscene abuse at a baby's mother is already hurting her. How long is it going to be before he's throwing stuff with her in the room?

Please get away. You really can't be sure that you're safe. At all.

I totally agree with Castlemilk. Get his behaviour on record, and get out. I think the penny may be dropping with him that you are not going to forgive and forget this time. And his response to that may be to escalate in an effort to keep you in line. Protect yourself and DD.

Ring your parents sweetheart. You need to protect yourself and your child from such an environment. It isn't healthy, and the situation won't get by better staying there.

He sounds volatile blowing up at a request to talk about his regions behaviour is not a good sign.
I wouldn't bother with any sort of counciling or meditation with this guy he will twist everything to justify his behaviour.

Do you have any friends close by that you could stay the night with if things got bad?

I'm mean Worse, things are already bad.

I know you are on maternity leave but is it enough to live on at your parents?
That way you still get to have maternity leave but your living costs would be reduced.

Jeez, there is no way I would even go back to someone who called the mother of his child a sour faced cunt! That is just shocking!
Call your parents, you know they will do anything to help their daughter in this situation. Well done aswell in not backing down to that sad excuse for a 'man'.

I'm 100% confident he's not going to hurt either of us (physically), he's just got a foul mouth and is a deeply unpleasant man.

I've told him when the rental contract is up for renewal in Feb, we will go our separate ways, and he said fine. I will have to figure something out for me because my maternity pay will not be enough.

I'd be packing a bag and going to my parents. If you repeated that to them they would be furious for you and would want you back at theirs. Don't hang about, he's not going to change. Spend the last months of mat leave in a happy place so you are calm for your dd. Please give your mum a call. Honestly this is what mums are for regardless of what else is going on for them right now. You are important too.

I feel completely averse to contacting my parents about this. It's my mess and I will deal with it. I'm OK, I mean obviously I'm reeling and trying to come to terms with the fact my marriage is over, but I don't want to pluck dd from the flat and get on a train with all her stuff (near impossible) and lumber myself on my folks with a young baby. I know they wouldn't mind, but I mind. I am a big girl and a bit of name calling isn't going to break me - he's just getting nasty because he knows I'm done. Dd and I are the ones who spend the majority of our time here and we have friends and places to go and things to do in this area. I want to focus on her now while concurrently planning my escape. Once I've lined up new accommodation I will break the news of the separation to everyone. I don't have the strength to deal with their reactions now. I'm also physically exhausted as I was up all night worrying, feeding and on Zoopla looking for one bed flats.

The point about logging is important. I'm logging his behaviour on this thread.

OP if you understand how important logging is, then log with the police.

It's just that, logging. It's not starting police action or anything.

No, logging it on this thread isn't the same, it's not an official paper trail.

Don't be one of those women who bitterly regrets not having that proof of his unreasonable behaviour when they're a year down the line, he (and his mother) are going for 50/50 custody of your DD, and he regularly screams down the phone or at handover that you're a cunt, an insect to be crushed and he's going to make sure your baby hates you, and you have precisely NO PROOF to a court that he's anything but a loving lovely dad.

Stay cool, calm and start reporting. You WILL need it, I fear.

If not the police, then at least see your GP and health visitor and TELL THEM all this - all the abuse, the screaming, the throwing things, the control - that you are LEAVING him because of this, but that you want the situation recorded. Do that at least.

I make no bones about banging on about it - after the number of threads I've read in this section, if there's any advice I would give it would be this.

Hopefully others will say the same.

What Castlemilk wrote below and you need to take proper heed:-

"Don't be one of those women who bitterly regrets not having that proof of his unreasonable behaviour when they're a year down the line, he (and his mother) are going for 50/50 custody of your DD, and he regularly screams down the phone or at handover that you're a cunt, an insect to be crushed and he's going to make sure your baby hates you, and you have precisely NO PROOF to a court that he's anything but a loving lovely dad".

Precisely and there have been some women on here who have bitterly regretted the fact that they themselves left no paper trail with the authorities re proving abuse. DO not make the same mistakes they made, tell people in authority.

Also throwing things is a red flag for domestic violence.

Womens Aid can and will help you leave. 0808 2000 247.

Only logging it here is not enough at all.

Please promise me you will see a solicitor as soon as possible. The fact he is throwing things around and being so abusive is serious, you are just too involved to see it right now.

He will have to pay you 15% of his take home pay as a bare minimum. Depending on his income he may well have to pay you spousal maintenance as well.

If you work 16 hours a week you can claim tax credits which would also run into hundreds per month. Look at the calculator here but bear in mind it gives you a figure from now until the end of March 2015.

CSA calculator here

You may not have to go back to work full time, don't jump the gun.

Please stay safe.

I take what you are saying. It seems really drastic but I will do anything to protect my custody arrangement with dd.