MIL giving me the silent treatment - AIBU?

[Swedenotturnip]

Hi all!

MIL is giving me the silent treatment. We live in different parts of the UK and are scheduled to go visit her, FIL and BILs next week so it's currently quite awkward. Plus, I'm pretty sure if she does speak to me prior to us coming, she will be very insistent we change our mind before coming and it's making me feel even more awkward. So before that happens, I'd just like to know if I'm being unreasonable.

Thank you x

My husband, our 5 month old baby and I will be going to visit my husband's family next week and stay for six days.
Whenever we stay at his grandparents, who live in a different part of the UK from MIL, we always stay in a room because theres is enough space for us.

But it's different at ILs' because there would be three of us and we would have to share a bunk bed in the box room. We have decided to book 3 nights in a hotel 20 mins away from where they live and compromise by staying 2 nights at ILs' for comfort and room.
However, MIL is very unhappy about that, asked us to cancel the hotel and sleep the whole 6 days at hers instead and stopped talking to me.

I believe she only accepted at the condition that we leave the baby overnight at theirs in that case and not take him with us to the hotel instead. She also wants the baby to sleep with them.
I'm not comfortable with that just yet but that I'd be happy for the baby to sleep with them on the two nights we are at theirs instead.

So I think it's going to make things even worse when she finds out.

To top things off, she's pissed at me because she expects my husband to spend his birthdays at theirs every year, because she has time off, which happens to be around Valentine's day. I don't get time off at that time of the year. I already missed Valentine's day and my husband's birthday for that reason last year but she expects it to be a yearly thing, but I would never get to spend these days, that I deem to be special, with my husband, so he suggested going the month before or the month after and she has just been ignoring me ever since.

AIBU?

I know I won't hear the end of this when we do go next week.
So that I don't drip feed, I used to live with them before my husband and I moved to our own place before I got pregnant.
She kept asking me to move out, and asking my husband when I would be moving out, and making it VERY clear I was unwelcome. (not for us to move out, just me. As otherwise it meant my husband wouldn't be financially contributing to the household anymore and she would have "reconsidered the whole marriage had she known how much of a financial burden it would be" - mind you we didn't have any ceremony, expensive rings or anything like this so I wasn't trying to take the piss either). And made up a story about how it distressed her husband so much that it made him leave the household. Story that she told my mother. (He had already left the household before I had even met my husband).

He says yes to both sides to keep things calm I believe.

I actually had to insist he tells her we are staying a hotel because I found out she still thought we would be staying at hers, long after we had booked our room. I didn't want her to find out when we were already there as I didn't want any drama.

He said yes to her keeping the baby overnight and yes to me taking the baby with us to the hotel.
He said yes to her saying not to do it next time and stay at hers.

He initially said yes to travelling to hers to spend his birthday and valentine's day at theirs and yes to staying with me.
I once again had to insist for him to tell us both what he actually plans on doing so that there was no confusion.

I'm guessing that she hasn't stopped talking to her son over this? That it's all your fault? I would not engage with her and would let DH handle it, and make sure that he's firm with her that this is a decision made by the both of you, not just you.

This and your DH needs to step up now - I speak as someone who had this - if he doesn’t do it now - he won’t do it ever and it will get worse.

dont Go - put thy foot down

And once again for those at the back.... we have a dp/oh/dh problem.

OP your MIL is a pain in the backside. Your oh needs to grow the hell up. He's a father now. He needs to stop acting like meek child

Your DH needs to grow a pair and stand up for you and your DC. Your MIL is bonkers!

I tried to rebel once before and it created unnecessarily big drama. Don't want to go into too many details but it ended with my husband telling me it was over while on vacation, asking me to wait somewhere for him to give me my stuff back before pretending I had ran off and he had no idea (when he did) where I was which resulted in a search party.

I know it would create stress and end up in tears for me and they would all tear me apart mentally.

I also know if I stay in a hotel, he WILL make me see his parents, and if he spends the day with the baby he could use him as a hook to come to their house and the whole family will call or text or forcefully come up to the hotel room to "talk". It's happened before sadly

Absolutely not.

My baby stays with me and I don't allow them unsupervised access with anyone who cannot behave decently or politely.

You've nipped it in the bud!
I just know if I don't engage with her she will take advantage of the time OH is not there to lecture me

She is likely to also say that because of me a huge row happened between her and FIL to guilt trip me. She used that excuse a bunch of times.

Tbh op, if my mil wasn't speaking to me, me and dc would be staying at home and not visiting, dh can visit alone if he wanted to. Oh and bugger the bunk beds, me dh and dd would be sleeping in a hotel for the full 6 nights!

And to add to my post, if my dh said it was over as a result, I'd tell him not to let the foot hit him on his way out. He's a spineless sod who won't stick up for his wife or child

Oh god it’s one of these posts where OP is being treated like shit and refuses to stand up for themselves because “drama” and “reasons”.

either don’t go at all or go and stay in a hotel WITH YOUR BABY - otherwise you are just pandering and making this problem worse for the future.

i have a 4m old and I can’t imagine letting him spend the night with anyone else, let alone someone who hates me so much. Madness.

Major dh problem. Why is he insisting on upsetting you rather than his frankly batshit mother? No way would I stay in a fucking bunkbed or allow her to have the baby overnight, that’s just stupid.

Who cares?!? Who cares what she says?! She’s a raging bitch and chatting shit and you know that

She is likely to also say that because of me a huge row happened between her and FIL to guilt trip me. She used that excuse a bunch of times

So what! Let her argue with your FIL, not your problem. Start sticking up for yourself, go no contact of she continues to bully you.

Your DH sounds abusive OP. Do you realise how awful his behaviour is?

Fook me. What a nasty cow.

If she blanks you, blank her back

I've got my own MIL thread on the go. Mine used to do this to me. Blank me when I was there or not speak to me for 6 months and then decide to speak to me when I had been punished enough. She also does this thing:

Me: Hello XXXXXXXX
Her: ........deadly silence, look around at everyone, give me a dirty look, 10 seconds has passed now...then..."hello" in a slow, deep tone.

I'm not sure if she still does it or not, because I don't give a fook. What I do is just be all friendly and cheery as if my life was never better.

Please don't let anyone take your baby away from you. You need to go nuclear with your DH over this.

Your DH needs to put his big boy pants on and tell his DM to stop creating drama with his wife otherwise you won’t see them at all.

We're just moving this thread to relationships for the OP.

No way. Do. Not leave your baby with a woman they barely know. Baby will be distressed and screaming - why would you put your DC through this ?!

I think I would book into the hotel for the whole time! Personally not keen on leaving babies to sleep over because, when that young, their parents are their world . But if you are happy with it, go for it if, however, you are just saying yes to that because otherwise there will be an adult tantrum, do not go there. There is plenty of time for children staying when they are a bit older. I have never ever found in life that capitulating to control and/or manipulation makes for healthy relationships.

So she expects to dictate what you do, when you spend time with her, where you stay, where your baby sleeps . . . ?

Where, please, is your husband in this shitshow?

We had our ups and downs but he has been trying to fix these issues. It's just these MIL problems that remain.

ps: after an incident with my husband, she had to make a point and said to me that she used to work at Women's Aid and had seen abusive relationships and could guarantee me his behaviour was not abusive.

He says it's all fine and I'm overthinking things

It's not all fine so you've got a husband problem AND a MIL problem.