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).

Your husband is abusive. Everything you’ve written about him describes him being abusive.

Here’s the Women's Aid abuse checklist. Does any of it seem familiar to you? www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/the-survivors-handbook/am-i-in-an-abusive-relationship/

You absolutely have a choice and I’d be exercising mine and not going. This is very much a DH problem. He needs to stand up for you and you need to be able to trust that he will do that and you can’t. Put your line in the sand here. You aren’t going this time full stop and if there’s to be a next time HE is to sort it out with his mum to agree a plan that YOU and HE are happy with (I’d agree details with him of what will be happening before he tells his mum) or you don’t go. You don’t need to speak to his parents about any of this, just be pleasant when you see them. 14 years I was married and my ExH made all the arrangements with his parents and did all the calling to them, I sorted my side of the family out. Neither family would have been allowed to cause upset to the other partner…. It’s ridiculous!

Grown adults trying to sleep in a bunk bed? That wouldn't be for me and I'd be spending the whole 5 nights in the hotel. Also, my baby would be by my side every night, even when in the box room, if there's room for the cot. If you baby wakes in the night will they be happy being comforted by someone other than mum or dad?

OP, please make it clear to your DH that you're going on the understanding that his DM is civil to you. At the first sign of any rudeness, or being blanked, you'll be packing up and leaving with the baby. and you will expect his support.

Abusive husbandand a awful family.

You need to contact Women's aid.

Do not go.

Do you hae any family and friends to go to?

You have a truly miserable life ahead of you and your child if you stay.

These are NOT good people.

Protect yourself.

As an aside from the abuse your husband and his family are handing out to you, you need to protect your baby from this. You are your baby's advocate, advocate for your baby.

Quite honestly your husband should be advocating for you with having such a young baby and this abuse from your husband would absolutely be a deal breaker for me. And, this comes from someone who has taken a bit of grief in my time and doesn't easily give up.

Your MIL brought your DH up so she has passed on her batshit ideas to him. He will need a strong will and a lot of therapy to get over the toxicity rooted in his brain, but you saying "He says it's all fine and I'm overthinking things" suggests he is not anywhere near there yet, he is denying there is a problem and minimising your feelings.

I'm concerned that you haven't given more detail as to the "incident" with your husband. Is it that you know in your heart that it is a lot more serious than your MIL suggested to you? Of course she will "guarantee" to you that his behaviour is not abusive, he is behaving the way she brought him up to behave.

It is shocking to think your MIL apparently worked for Women's Aid. I'd suggest you call them and tell them about your situation. I suspect you might be surprised at how different their response to you is compared to what your MIL says.

You need to respect your own feelings and not dismiss them. Then you need to make sure your "DH" respects and doesn't dismiss your feelings either. Please do not allow you and your little baby to be bulldozed into a situation you are dreading. Is this what you want her to learn as she grows up? That she doesn't have the right to make decisions for herself?

You absolutely do have a choice in this matter.

One way to avoid all the drama is to simply not go on the trip.

The only way I'd be going would be to do things on my terms. I also wouldn't put myself in a situation where I would be stuck there if things went wrong.

I actually don't understand why you are still with your husband. He sounds like an absolute pathetic specimen.

How did it all go OP? Hope it went better than expected and you didn’t leave baby with them overnight!!!

If my MIL had been like this, I would have been really pleased that she didn't talk to me so I didn't have to answer. As usual tricky ground for your hubby but if he can't talk se se into her, nobody can. Grit your teeth, NO WAY baby sleeping with them, grin a lot!