Hi
My mother and I have had a difficult relationship I guess ever since I started seeing dh, and this difficulty seems to have intensified since ds was born almost a year ago now.
I know some people live close to their parents and see them very regularly and indeed want to, but I don't come into that category. We live in London and my parents live in Brussels. For various reasons they are renting a flat close to us and therefore come to London as often as they like now (since my Dad retired last year)which seems to be roughly every 4 or 5 weeks staying for about a week to 10 days. During that time we might see them every two days and I just find it TOO MUCH! The first 2 or 3 times we see each other are fine but after that the difficulties start springing up. I find them intrusive. Eg: if I go upstairs with ds to either feed him (I am still breastfeeding) or change his nappy, they want to know why I went upstairs. Mum used to ask me constantly what ds was eating but has kind of stopped doing that. If ds spends a long time with either myself or dh they call him "mummy's" or "daddy's" boy which really annoys me because it is completely normal for him to be like this at the moment. Once when he wouldn't go to them (though he does get on very well with my Dad) my Mum said "are we not good enough" - which is mad behaviour. They are desperate to help and though it was great at first I now feel slightly humiliated by my Mum going round the house tidying laundry and seeing the state it's in. I think she sees the grandmother role in a certain way and is disappointed it is not quite like that at the moment. Basically they are overbearing and though there are the usual irritations with my in-laws (like when BIL said about ds "he looks like you" (me) and then turned to ds and said "snap out of it" but they are MUCH more relaxing to be with and seem to just accept that dh and I are in charge and that's that really. They LOVE babies and all the grandchildren but they are quite zen about it in a way (I may live to regret saying this!).
In an ideal world we would either see my parents every 4 or 5 weeks for 2 or 3 days only, or roughly every 3 months for a bit longer. I just find that since having ds I have been pinned to the ground as far as seeing family is concerned. I thought I had kind of "graduated" from them but they seem to be back in full force to see THEIR grandchild. Though my mother tries with me, I know she has a lot of gripes about the way I behave and to have a confrontation with her about anything would open the floodgates. My father basically backs my mother whatever and is a rather sarcastic type... I just feel that they don't respect my autonomous status enough and also that they (well my mother anyway) are in some way envious of the relationship dh and I have with ds. It's difficult to define all of this properly because basically there is a lot more baggage than just that and it would take months to work everything out in my head. Basically they were over-protective parents. I always feels my mother wants something different to what I am offering and it creates a lot of tension between us. I basically don't want to be that close because I think we are very different and they don't just let you be the person you want to be.... Anyway, if anybody has made it to the end of this garbled message, I am impressed.