What to do when mil slags if DH to me?

[Hobby2014]

Mil pops round in the week to see DS, whilst DH is at work, I'm on ML.
She always seems to bring up DH in conversation and usually negatively.
This week it was her calling him 'clingy' because he wants to spend time with his son at weekends and won't let pil have him for the weekends (he's 5 months and he doesn't see him for any longer than bath and last bottle in evenings mon-fri).
She was saying she expected him to be playing on his Xbox and want to get rid of him, but he's not, so she's annoyed.

I try to not get involved but I replied that she should be proud he wants to, but she's not, she's annoyed.

(Fil was never interested in his kids and mil worked hard during week so at weekends the kids were sent to their grandparents am for the entire weekend so she could have a rest. DH doesn't want this with our son)

She was going on for ages. And it's really tough because I want to scream at her that just coz she did that with her kids doesn't mean she should make us do it.
Both DH and I don't want this.
We want to do things as the three of us at weekends.
We still tend to pop round at weekends anyway and she pops round in week so they see him.

What should I do when she keeps slagging him off? It's every time she comes about different things.
When DH came home after the last one, I told him what she'd said and said what do you want to do? Should we start letting her have him, not that we want to.
And he said no, she can do one, she's being needy and clingy and can fuck off.
I didn't want to tell him, but felt I needed to so he could decide to do something if he wanted to.
But then after he got angry about it, not directed at me, it was at her, but to me, IYSWIM, I then thought shit I shouldn't have said anything as I don't want to cause a rift.
But I'd hope she's never say to him in years to come oh yeah I told her how I felt about it all but she did nothing.

Do I just let her slag him off and say nothing?

Do I tell her to shut up and be pleased her son didn't turn out like his dad?
Do I tell DH?
Do I not?

Help.

should be off in title not if

God she sounds awful.

Yes, you do tell your DH. She's his mother and he should deal with her. There is absolutely no reason for you to keep this a secret from him. She's the one trying to cause a rift.

Of course your DH wants to spend his weekends with his son. Even if she wasn't being thoroughly unpleasant about access, of course he wouldn't want to send him away every weekend. But given how she's going about it, I wouldn't do it even if you wanted a break one weekend - that's not behaviour that should be rewarded.

How can you prevent her from coming around when he's not there? Could you be out at a baby group which clashes with the time slot?

Assuming you can't avoid her, I would simply say "I'm not prepared to discuss this. You can think what you like about our parenting choices but they're our choices and we're happy with them". He needs to reinforce this message with her directly - stop coming around slagging me off, you aren't having the baby every weekend, wind your bloody neck in basically.

Don't, even for one second, contemplate giving in to her for the sake of an easy life.

No, I don't think you can let her slag him off. He's your husband, you need to stand by him.

there seem to be two issues here, that she slags off your husband and that she wants the baby all weekend.

It's fair enough to let them have some time with the grandchild every couple of weekends or whenever you feel ok with it but it's a bit OTT for them to want your son all weekend every weekend!

two ways of tackling it:

1. every time she starts slagging him off, say look, I'm happy with the way he deals with him and very firmly change the subject and keep on changing it whenever she tries to bring it back. If she carries on, find excuses for her to go. Then see her again at the normal time but again, if she starts putting your husband down, make excuses to leave.

2. Have it out with her. Say to her that she seems to often want her son to do things differently but it's coming over as negative and you'd like it if it could be more positive. He's your husband and you're standing by him. (she - has- to respect that!) Say outright that neither of you plan to be without your baby for the whole weekend and that that subject is closed and you don't want her to push for that again. Make it clear she can have the baby for some hours some weekends, as a sort of positiveness against having told her she can't have all that she wants.

I don't think you can not say anything because your primary loyalty is to your husband and it's not okay for her to be consistently negative (ok everyone has odd grumbles, but not consistent negativity).

I'd be steaming angry if someone was slagging off my DH for the mere reason of wanting to spend time with his son.

Tell her to shut up or leave because you dont wanna hear it.

I would stop being in

Why does she need him for the weekends if she can see him in the week anyway? Do either her or FIL work?

Does she know that you also want the time as a family?

You say you don't want to get involved but you are involved as she is talking about it to you.

How would she react to "no mil, I agree with DH, we want family time on weekends"."mil, I disagree with you" "mil, I'm not discussing it any further."

She's crafty because she is using the 'two birds, one stone approach'. By apparently targeting him she also leaves you in no doubt that they want to see more of DS.

You've raised it once with DH. I wouldn't repeat anything she says on this topic unless she ups the ante. As DH's grandparents played a big role MIL is accustomed to thinking that's how things go but it's getting boring now, you and DH get to make the decisions.

(If she's always critical of DH in other ways too then start cutting her off, "That's between you and him but I disagree and I don't want hear any more").

Next time she starts up about babysitting over the weekend first say good naturedly not this again, give it a rest/every generation's different, DH likes seeing our boy on his time off, etc. If she keeps on tell her this is how it's going on be, end of.

When your ML is over presumably you have arrangements lined up, she might be anticipating she's going to see less of her DGS.

Sometimes when someone like her has a bee on her bonnet about something, if you're not in a combative mood it pays to play a bit dumb. Just fob her off by a vague mmm it's a shame and change the subject.

At some later point you and DH might be glad of a night off. That'll be for you both to decide and if PILs are still keen on having DS to stay, great

Grrr just typed out a huge message and lost it

Well what type of relationship do you have with your mil? Would you feel comfortable enough to tell her that it's a decision BOTH you and your dh made? And that you are both happy with the arrangement you have now?
This divisive tactic of hers is pretty underhand (and not uncommon). My own mil does this and putting on a united front straight away is the only thing that works. You don't need to be confrontational but just matter of fact. For instance, my mil was ridiculing my dh to me for (justifiably) being annoyed at her tantrum behaviour. I said 'well to be fair, it actually upset both of us'. It caused her to backtrack as she then had to either confront the situation with me or back down.

Would you feel able to shut down the conversation every time she tries?
' You will have to talk to dh about that'
'Ah well we will have to agree to disagree'
'I'm really not feeling comfortable with this conversation'
And get up to make a cup of tea/pop to the loo, just remove yourself from the room to break the conversation. Or a breezy 'oh god, you two just sort it out, I don't want to hear it anymore!' Little laugh and head shake and go and busy yourself for a few minutes.

Obviously, like I said, it depends on your relationship with her. The more direct you can be the better. But sometimes just being able to dismiss her comments and not give her an audience can be enough to eventually make her stop bitching as she knows it's pointless.

Tell her please stop, I love X very much and it hurts me when you are so critical of him to me.

perhaps even add that it always hurts him as well.

Make her believe that you always tell him!

Just tell her to stop it. Tell her it is not acceptable to you to have her being so critical of him to you. Don't listen. Say I'm going to stop you right there, I don't want to hear your comments about my husband.

or depending what it is (like criticising him for actually wanting to be with his child!), say actually, I am very happy about that, I think it's a lovely quality and I am proud of him. I think it's strange that you think he should be a less loving father than he is.

There are times to smile and nod and there are times to stand up and be counted.

She cannot think she has a friend in you against your husband.

Thanks for replies.

Generally we have an OK relationship. We haven't ever fell out but she drives me crazy a lot of the time, and I assume she probably feels the same about me sometimes.

I'm happy for her to come round in the week, as to me, this means we don't have to spend forever round there at weekends, we can just pop in for an hour and leave, so I'm happy for the popping in in the week to continue, and like I say I have an OK relationship with her, we'll go shopping or whatever fine together. I'd feel if I started being difficult in the week then it would make their plea for weekend sessions more justified. If that makes sense?

Both work. MIL self employed so some days she finishes early and if she knows what day it will be she'll ask if she can pop round, that's fine. FIL works but is employed so gets home later, but still not as late as DH. She mentioned on her last visit that he was disappointed that he doesn't see DS very much and it was really getting to him. I just told her that he's welcome round after work if he's had an easy drive home and not been stuck in traffic, but again, we see them every weekend so I thought that would be enough.

She always asks to take DS for us. We always say we're OK, thanks. If we pop over she'll ask what we're up to for the rest of the day and we might say oh we're off for a walk over the woods. She'll then go on and on about how we can leave him there and have some alone time. We say no it's ok thanks, we're looking forward to taking him out. She'll then huff and get stroppy. Or if its nearly dinner time she'll say why don't you go out for a meal and we'll look after him. DH says no its ok, we've taken him out for meals loads of times and we enjoy it. She'll say no really go, have fun, it'll be nice just the two of you, honestly we don't mind, go. (our DS is a bloody angel, it really is lovely taking him out). This happens every time we see her, so it's getting to the point we're digging our heels in the more she goes on about taking him. That's why last weekend DH blew and said stop asking to have him, weekends are when I get to seem him, so sod off.
That then led to her in the week telling me he's changed so much since he's been born and he's clingy.

So DH and I are completely on the same page. And he is digging his heels in the more she nags. He told her to stop going on and when she said oh I was going to call on whatever day and ask if I could have him, but I didn't. He replied Good, coz I wouldn't have let you have him.

I just feel really awful telling DH what she has said because 1 it's not nice to hear your own mum is slagging you off but also 2 I don't want to be seen as shit stirring, trying to get them two to fall out etc, which I'm sure she'll think If he told her he knew what she'd been saying.

When I go back to work MIL wants to have him for a few hours, yet FIL is whinging that she has her own work to do and can't. So there I'm stuck between making him or her happy. She's begging. FIL is saying no she has her own commitments and job. So what to do there?

I don't have a problem standing up to her as have had to in the past as DH wasn't ready to. ie they kept having a go at us because we were buying things for our unborn baby, and they wanted to buy it all, literally all of it, and we wanted to buy things. They had already bought cotbed, jumperoo, clothes, toys etc and when we'd say oh we're off to do some baby shopping they'd whinge and in the end I said Look, we want to buy things for our child so we will. don't tell us that we can't. we have the money, you've bought loads, thank you, but stop. let us. the next time we visited they went on again and then DH had a go, they got to buy what they wanted for their kids now sod off and let us buy what we want for ours. we had literally only bought a vest on the day we had our scan and ordered pram. I wanted to look at sterilisers and wasn't being moaned at.

So I don't have a problem with standing up to her but it's finding the balance of telling her it's not on but without being rude or causing problems for DH. I am quite fiery and I do snap back if I feel she's being out of line but I need to know how to handle her the right way so it won't all come back on me.

Sorry for the essay!

was* being moaned at

'He is not being clingy, he is being a dad. If you are just going to come into our house and slag him off then you can leave right now.'

She isn't worried about being rude about your husband to you is she?

There is a theory I saw on here somewhere that make a lot of sense when it come to many of the MIL and DM problems, if they are around 65-80 years old. Funnily enough I was talking to DP about it last night with regards to his mother having a good stir about something not related to us directly.

They are a generation that got the shitty end of the stick. Women's lib, they got to work outside the home, but they also got to do all the housework and look after the kids by themselves as the men hadn't caught up that things needed to change. In some ways they had it tougher than the generation before, and the generation after. So now they see that things are different for us, they get a bit jealous. And they also hope that now the grandchildren are here, it's 'their turn' at last to just enjoy raising kids without all the stress of everything else.

So I am a wee bit sympathetic towards them. They got a crap deal out of life in many ways. and want to make up for it now, but things don't work out as they hoped as everything has changed again. There's a lot of resentment there. What time did she have to enjoy her own kids? If her DP did nothing, she worked and looked after the house and the kids all week, she was probably relieved to send them away at weekends. But now she sees that there's another way to do things, she's sad that she lost that time with her own children. Her anger is really at her lazy husband, but also her own compliance with how things were, so now she's lashing out at the two of you who have what I'm sure she wishes she had. Because it's easier for her to do that. She can't turn back the clock and change her own life.

I'm not saying give in to her at all. But I do feel a bit sorry for these women and try to understand where it all might be coming from.

It's completely unreasonable for her to want your small baby all weekend, and to criticise your DP for wanting to be a real Dad. But it's making her realise how much everything sucked when her kids were small, and now she was hoping at getting her turn at 'helping' you with childcare, she finds that you don't need it after all. Which means she's missing out completely on fun weekends with little kids, missed the boat on that one. which must be difficult.

Perhaps it would help to recognise this. When she asks to have him all weekend again, ask in a nice way about what it was like for her when her kids were small. Sympathise. 'You had to go to work and do all the housework and childcare? That must have been exhausting. So your parents had your children at the weekends to help you rest? That was kind of them. It's a shame, though, that you had to, isn't it. I'm so glad things have changed now and DP is a full-on Dad, life has changed so much hasn't it.' and 'thank you for offering to have baby at weekends but we don't need to rest at weekends, like you used to have to, you poor thing. We both want to spend time as a family. Of course, it would be lovely when baby is a bit older if you could babysit overnights when we are going out, would that be ok? And of course we'll keep visiting lots.'

Ok that's good! (I know it doesn't feel like it!). But you have dh onside and you don't feel too intimidated to stand up for yourself, the foundations are all there

In your position I would honestly just say to mil 'Look. This whole situation is stressing me out, I am being put in the middle and trying to please everyone. But I'm actually pleasing nobody. You are constantly putting demands onto us and it's really getting us down. We get that you love ds and want to spend time with him. But so do we. You have had your time with your own babies, please let us enjoy the time with our own. This is just too much'.

I would also ask mil and fil about the childminding when they are in the room together (if you are happy about her childminding when you go back to work of course). That way there are no crossed wires. 'We need to sort out childcare for when I return to work but we are getting mixed messages from you both. We are happy for ds to go to a childminder full time but we are equally happy for mil to have him once a week. You, mil, keep asking to do it but you, fil, keep telling us it won't be possible. What's the situation?'

Just calm, clear discussion. You can't control them but at least you know that you have done your best to be rational.

5 months is very young to leave your baby with someone else if you don't want to. I left pfb with my mum for 3 hours when he was 9 months. He was asleep in his own bed.

Next time he was 15 months. You'll eventually want to but shouldn't be railroaded into it, and not at the expense of family time either.

If you are fiery then so be it, I'd deal with it however you want to. And tell her you'll be telling him, that you don't kerp secrets from each other.

I do see kentishgirl's point actually. But I also believe it comes down to individual personalities. Where other mils take the view that life was hard for them, so they will help as much as possible to make sure their own dc don't have to go through it, there are others (like my own mil) who almost delight in not helping as 'well that's what I had to do in my day'.

What about gently pointing out to your MIL that you and your husband want to have your baby at weekends and that at the moment, pushing to have him is actually making your husband feel like he wants to dig his heels in? You've explained that rather well here, and it's not impolite. Can you do the same to her?

You both need to talk to his parents directly.

Not all women raised in her particular generation did this at all; she is basically wanting you to do as they did. Its more therefore to do with her own overall attitude. They've done their parenting and now its your turn so your ways of bringing up your child should now take precedence.

I presume FIL is still not interested; such people rarely change.

Raise your own boundaries here re his mother; keep all her visits short, do not let her in every time and when she starts on him you then ask her to leave. I presume she visits you because she knows that your DH is at work anyway (I doubt very much he would let her in at all) and that you are also a willing and polite audience. This is really about what his parents want rather than your own wishes as parents here. They are trying to undermine the two of you by imposing their will on you and when you say no they don't like it.

She wants you to continue what they did; I am wondering why they bothered to have children at all given their attitude but they did. I would tell her straight that you are not willing to listen to her slag off what is now your DH and you as a couple have no intention of doing what they did. Small wonder really that your DH's relationship with his parents is really one of antipathy.

Its simple.

Next time she says she wants ds at weekends say

No we like spending weekends doing things together with ds, we can pop in on our way back from (wherever it is youve been) if you want to see him

If she says "but dont you want a break" just say

Not not really i dont feel like we need one yet.And he is far too young to be staying away from us overnight yet anyway.

There you go,job done.

It's likely, however wrong it is, that she perceives your different approach to child-rearing as an attack on her approach raising her own kids. However tempting it is, I would resist telling her how badly you think she did. Instead, stick to "I" statements.

So, regarding yours and DH's parenting, when she criticises it:

• "Oh do you think so. Well, DH and I prefer to do x"
• "Doing x is what DH and I have chosen to do"
• "How interesting. Well, I personally want x for my children."

Regarding her slagging off DH, you must stand up for him, but here again, "I" statements might be the best approach (only tell her to STFU if she persists). So for example:

• "Oh do you think so. Because I am so proud and happy of DH as a dad."
• "Well personally I like the fact that DH does x"
• "DH does x and it works for me and for the DC."

Broken record: keep blithely stating your own choices and preferences. If you feel she is really crossing a line and insulting your DH, then do say so, for example: "I'm not happy to listen to you criticize DH. Knock it off with the negative comments."

Definitely do not use her for childcare when you return to work!!

Always tell dh what she says. Otherwise, when it gets ridiculous in a month or so and you have to tell him, he'll think it's just the odd time, then you'll have to say actually it's all the time, then you'll be in trouble for not telling him. Plus, his mother, his problem!

I feel for you, we had terrible trouble with dhs parents and now have nothing to do with them, totally NC! Largely down to us (me- against dhs better judgement) being too soft in the beginning and trying not to offend them by saying things too harshly. Looking back I think if we'd just told her straight from the start of the problems it might have stopped things getting so out of hand! Having said that, my mil was a little crazier and more controlling than yours perhaps is!!
Lastly, he's your baby, if you don't want to leave him you don't have to and you don't have to justify it, there doesn't have to be a reason why. Simply, we don't want to.

That then led to her in the week telling me he's changed so much since he's been born and he's clingy.

Well of course babies change as they develop and she has seen a lot of him . Note how MIL is changing her tune by saying DS is becoming clingy implying it's him she's thinking of and not her own wants she's thinking of.

FIL is taking a back seat but now you've described how intense they were about preparations even before DS was born it explains MIL's persistence.

Childcare costs are frightening so on the face of it a family member stepping up to offer help is a godsend. Probably only a good idea if everyone knows boundaries and the others respect your parenting choices.

It's really nice if they help out, but it's sensible to offer before buying the whole kit and caboodle. Most reasonable people would know that it's nice to be asked!

don't see her on your own, then she wont have a chance to say shit