I want to avoid a drip feed so I’m sorry if this is a long post. I have been with DH for 13 years. Have a DS who is 2 and another on the way. Always had a reasonable relationship with PIL before son was born, but perhaps very ‘child/parent’ in that I would be polite, grateful and meek and they held the upper hand with being the ones to host, make decisions about our time when we were with them etc. DH would often leave the room when we visited them, leaving me to sit listening to his mum talk about the psychology of her friends or psychoanalysing my family dynamics. I always found it uncomfortable but, due to the dynamic we had, was too polite to find strategies of ending these conversations.
When pregnant with DS things started changing. We told them I was pregnant and, after initial congratulations, his mum started on a lecture about how to avoid causing emotional trauma to children. This lasted for hours. Then in pregnancy she went really cold with me - no texts/conversation. If someone made conversation like ‘I wonder what colour baby’s eyes will be’ she would noticeably leave the table.
Baby born - all over him like a rash. Intensely wanting to hold him all the time (sad, longing looks until I or DH would hand him over), frantically ‘soothing’ him and taking him to different rooms in the house, constant comments about him being cold, surely he can’t need feeding again, subtle messages about how MIL unknowingly was over-feeding her babies and was ‘saved’ by her MIL pointing it out to her. I had photos printed of DH and DS and sent to them - ignored. Texts I would send to MIL updating on how we were doing - politely responded to but no relationship sought. I felt like an incubator.
They visited once and shared how ‘hurt’ they had been at his surname (way too long a story, but trust me they were being unreasonable on this). Heated argument between DH and his parents because of this, with me and a 2mo DS upstairs.
Asked them to book a B&B to stay in because we lived in a 2-up, 2-down and it was too stressful having them in our space. All fine but then on the night MIL ‘loses’ her reservation, cue lots of tears and ‘can’t we just stay at yours?’
MIL was becoming more demanding with coming to visit. Causing significant stress for DH when he was trying to explain to her that he’d have a chat with me about possible dates (she couldn’t accept any delay). Following this I got sent a long and condescending text about prioritising family and how it’s more important to them than friends. It then turned out that she had sent this text beforehand to my DH to check it was ok (he said yes...!) before sending it to me.
We tried to communicate with them how we were feeling. This was when DS was about 4mo. This only escalated to MIL shouting - while I was holding DS - and very condescending messages of ‘we’re full of admiration that at your age you felt able to have a conversation like that with us’.
ANYWAY - since all of this I have gone very very LC with them. I have seen them once in the past year. They see DS maybe 2-3 monthly (Covid allowing) but I’ve made excuses and not been in the house. They live 5 hours away so DH going for a day trip with DS isn’t an option. DH sees them for what they are most of the time, but after a few months the FOG rears its head and he starts talking about overnight stays etc. I just can’t bare the thought of it. My own parents seem to think I should be making more effort now, and very few of my friends understand why I’m so LC with them.
Do you think I’m overreacting by continuing on this? When we last saw them I couldn’t bring myself to pretend to be warm. I was civil but definitely cold and it makes me feel so awful. There’s been other stuff but it would be too long to write out. I’m also sure I haven’t been the perfect DIL and I could have done more to reassure an insecure MIL in the early days.