Am I being harsh with MIL?

[Eva6437]

Hi there,

Does anyone else have issues with their MIL?
My MIL is so annoying and pessimistic, I hate being around her! She has this self importance personality and always plays the victim.

MIL is divorced and lives alone 1.5 hr away. Divorce has been over 20 years and she still harps on about it and bad mouths her ex husband.
She depends on my DH emotionally and almost expects him to care for her like a husband cares for his wife? She thinks the sun shines from my DH ass and expects him to call her every week or to visit her regularly even though he works full time.
I thought things would change when we had our LO but it’s gotten worse, she expects to stay over regularly - this was the case even 2- 3 weeks postpartum with our first child and when we explained that she couldn’t stay when the baby arrived , she threw in the waterworks. We have suggested maybe staying in a hotel nearby but she doesn’t want to. I hate the assumption that she thinks she can stay whenever she likes to.

Whenever she visits she travels via public transport despite being able to drive, so she expects to stay over / being chauffeured/ to be waited on- as if she deserves it all. She’s rude with no manners as she often forgets to say please and thank you- no coincidence that this is only with me. I’ve already told my DH about this but he also finds her annoying so his solution is to ignore everything to avoid upsetting her, otherwise he will never hear the end of it. He often ignores her in person as he has very little patience with her and makes excuses to leave the house so that I’m stuck with her. This is also to avoid him from lashing out on her.

i used to hold my tongue and just let things slide out of respect for my husband, but now that LO is here, that’s my priority.
LO still wakes up for feedings in the middle of the night and going through separation anxiety, so I’m getting up multiple times to attend to LOs needs and naturally I want minimal distraction so that LO can get back to sleep.
I should mention here that the MIL stays up until early hours of the morning watching TV in her own house, but she also thinks it’s ok to do that at my house, even with my LO around- I find this is extremely selfish and inconsiderate.
As a result, she wakes up late in the morning, so I feel like we are hanging around waiting for her before we can do stuff in the day. This is obviously difficult with LO, so a few times I’ve just taken my LO out while she sleeps in til 10-11 because I’m not waiting for her / wasting my time.

She uses my LO as a topic to engage with my DH more even though she has my number and has messaged me previously about other things. Yet when she’s here, She doesn’t post E has never once offered to help with the baby- not even one nappy change!

I have bluntly told her that it no longer suitable for us to have guests in the house while LO is so young and sleep regression etc.she has ignored my message and complained to my husband.

I don’t need this negativity in my own house and I don’t want my LO to be brought up with grandma bad mouthing granddad. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t have her around at all- Is this harsh ?

As with most cases with MILs it is your DH that is the problem

well good for you that you did that 1 week after a baby, unfortunately, I had postnatal depression after having my LO, I did not feel ready for guests to stay over in the house- not even my own family- visits in the day time was always welcome.

With regards to the messaging- I’m always sending her photos of LO, but she doesn’t acknowledge them when I do, then I don’t understand what the difference is for them to come from me or her son? She ignores my messages even when I ask how she is.

OK I'm sorry you had PND. I didn't know that from your original post. I hope you're feeling better now. And it's not nice if she's ignoring your messages. Is it that she senses you don't like her? It sounds like a difficult situation for all involved.

Why do you message her? I don’t message my MIL that often because we don’t really get on that we’ll.

It’s your DH’s job to deal with her not yours. If she’s visiting then he needs to look after her, not leave it all to you.

You did kind of gloss over the fact that he’s pretty useless too. You need to deal with that. I’m guessing you’re on maternity leave? So while he’s at work, you look after the baby. Evenings and weekends everything should be split equally. One person looks after the baby, one person does the housework. And you have equal amounts of leisure time.

You need to step back and stop trying to smooth things over.
Its not ok for your DH to Bugger iff when his mum is there because he us annoyed at her when it leaves YOU dealing with her.

Have a chat with your DH and tell him that from now on, he is dealing with his mum. Let him organise the visits, send photos etc…
Remove yourself when she is here if you can. Certainly do not wait for her to wake up etc… - at that age, 10.00am waking up would have meant the day was lost.

And have a word with your DH re his responsibilities as a father. I suspect how you feel about your DH attitude compounds how you feel about her attitude too.

I would make your DH set boundaries now. If not, things will escalate and you’ll always have issues.
My mil (and sil) never message me and would ignore my messages. This is after 30 years! I’ve even recently said to them that DH ignores them so just tell me. Nope!
Say if she takes public transport, then you cannot be driving her around everywhere. That’s her choice.
I would also be juvenile and when she doesn’t say please or thank you, I would say in a (daft) baby voice, and to the baby, I hope you have manners when you’re old enough to talk! But then I can be petty.

I am now thank you.

I dont think so, whenever she’s around, I’m always virtuous and offer to make her tea/ coffee/ food.

maybe she thinks that I’m influencing the way my DH is with her?

Which is not the case as in encourage him to call and visit her

I feel sorry for her. I think your dh needs to treat her better, and also, she's elderly expecting her to do a 3hr round journey is a bit shit of you both. She is your family, you married and had a child with her son. You should be able to suck it up once every 6 weeks or so.

I find it a bit strange you think she should offer to help with nappies? I don't get that?

On a purely selfish pov, if I were you I'd encourage her 6 weekly visits and start using that as a night out with your friends night. Leave dh and his mum to it and go and enjoy yourself.

Or maybe their relationship isn’t that affected by you.
And any issues are something that they need to sort out between each other.

If she is looking for a close relationship and he is running away because he finds her annoying, it’s going to create problems.
People do don’t always react in the ‘right’ way. She might well use your dc as a way to talk to him because she doesn’t have anything else to talk about with him. See the sitting in silence in the evening. So it’s as much that she doesn’t acknowledge your messages/photos but the fact that’s it’s the only ‘starter’ of a conversation she has.
And maybe the same is true with needing to be chauffeured around etc…

It's seems quite a self indulgent post to be honest and it's all about what you want

What does your husband want ?
How about a little kindness and tolerance

Ghastly

You clearly haven’t read the messages where I’ve stated my husband leaves her with me, doesn’t want to chat to her, he doesn’t want her to stay.
he doesn’t like to call/ go to visit her despite me encouraging him to

I think there’s a lot of projection on this thread, from future MILs who don’t know how to behave as guests or supportive grandparents.

It is absolutely not acceptable that she is bad mouthing your DC grandfather.

It is not acceptable that keeps the house awake at night with the TV.

It is not acceptable that she has an enmeshed relationship with her own son, your DH.

It is not okay that your DH allows any of this, nor is it okay that he treats you like the family housemaid, nanny and housekeeper.

Look up emotional incest, does that apply here? If so there may be a reason your DH leaves and he may need your help keeping away from MIL.

I 100% agree with this. Whatever has gone on in the family the one thing that's abundantly clear is that you really don't like this woman and you're looking for reasons to maintain that stance. Whether you're conscious of this I can't tell, I would hope not.

You need to get your DH to step up and set some boundaries and expectations for your MIL when she visits. Some of what she's done sounds annoying of course, but she's clearly not a monster.

OP, lots of issues mixed up.

Your husband is lazy and selfish.

He doesn't share the load and leaves the house to avoid his mother.

His mother annoys you.

You need to separate the issues.

Your husband being a lazy selfish man is the core of this problem.

He needs to go and visit his mother as you are no longer tolerating her many visits as he leaves the house to avoid her.

Allow her to visit occasionally but insist he visits her alone.

Perhaps if he shares the load with the baby he could bring them with him.

I hope you are returning to work and have family and friends nearby for support.

Your husband is a selfish lazy man and you need to protect yourself.

Totally this.

your husband sounds disengaged from everything - from you and the baby and from his mother.

look at the lengths she is trying to go to to get something from him. Then look at your emotions tied to that - perhaps the root of your annoyance is you can see like you how desperate for attention from him.

your issue is definitely your dh

Your mil expects her son to call her weekly and see her regularly? What a horrible cow. What kind of parent expects their child to stay in touch once they are an adult.

Joking obvs. Wtf is wrong with you. My mil annoys the life out of me but i would be really fucking disappointed in my husband if he didn't keep in touch with her regularly off his own back. A call once a week is literally nothing. Imagine how you are going to feel when your child is grown up and has a family of their own - do you imagine yourself being part of that?

Your husband needs to pill his finger out his ass though. Its normal to work full time and make time for your family.

What jumps out at me and is perhaps part of what's getting under your skin is her entitlement .... she seems to regard your home and your lives as being at her disposal and that she can treat it as hers without consideration or respect for you or your time. Coming when she wants, not following the hours and routine of the house, expecting to be driven around and entertained etc without fitting in or making herself a pleasant guest. That is rude and you definately need to set those boundaries! Its not her house. Its not even her sons house - its your and her sons house. This would seriously wind me up too and all the people saying its you whos being unreasonable are really being idiots because it would enrage them too!

Its your husband's job entirely to host her. Stop accepting it as your role. That's a shame you picked a deadbeat loser to have a kid with, how will you manage to parent and do the drudgery of housework alone while this bloke swans about doing nothing? You think this is sustainable and attractive?

How often does she visit?

You sound like a not a nice person , a son ringing his mum weekly is the bare minimum.. now your a mum surely you can see that ..karma has a way of coming back at you .. out of interest what is your relationship like with your parents?

My mum comes to stay pretty frequently atm as she doesn't live local and needs to be here on a monthly basis. Hers would be a 4.5hr round trip if she didn't stay with me.

She falls asleep with my telly on in the living room on the bed I make up for her. I don't care. If it is ever too loud I ask her to turn it down 🤷‍♀️

Sometimes when I go to stay with her I take the train. It's a nice train journey, her or my step dad pick me and my dc up and chauffeur us round whilst we're there! They chauffeur us round whether I drive or not as they don't like my driving 😂 but still, I really don't think the points OP has raised are horrible monster in law points. They are the normal rub of family/in law relations.

You're being harsh.

My MIL is round daily, expects dinner daily then sometimes throws it in the bin uneaten, expects DH to go running if she has a problem and gets arsey for stupid reasons.... and I still don't treat her like that.

A once a week phone call and visiting really isn't that bad, it's like the bare minimum!
Give her another chance, maybe she could do with some encouragement joining some local groups where she could meet some friends her own age?

Eva

re your comments in quote marks:

"Whenever she visits she travels via public transport despite being able to drive, so she expects to stay over / being chauffeured/ to be waited on- as if she deserves it all. She’s rude with no manners as she often forgets to say please and thank you- no coincidence that this is only with me. I’ve already told my DH about this but he also finds her annoying so his solution is to ignore everything to avoid upsetting her, otherwise he will never hear the end of it".

She is too bloody important in her mind to use public transport; that's for less important and or superior people than she. I would think she's always been this difficult and has actually behaved worse with age.

This whole toxic dynamic between his mother and your H certainly predates you and your now H meeting and goes back years, if not generations. Your H's solution is not working and will not work either because you will continue to get the backwash of all this. He really has been conditioned to think that yes the sky will fall in on him if he does not fall into line with his mother's demands. He in turn is mired in fear, obligation and guilt re his mother; three buttons that she installed in him. His boundaries re his mother are all over the place and far too low because she's never really encouraged him to have any.

"He often ignores her in person as he has very little patience with her and makes excuses to leave the house so that I’m stuck with her. This is also to avoid him from lashing out on her"

Have you ever considered why this relationship breakdown happened in the first place?. Their relationship as a whole is dysfunctional and you're also copping it from the two of them as a result. I am wondering what if anything you yourself know about his childhood because with someone like his mother being who she is it was likely to be most difficult. It does not excuse his inertia now but goes some way as to explaining it.

He using you as some sort of buffer between he and she is completely unacceptable. That has to stop and stop now. His own inertia when it comes to his mother hurts him as well as you and will continue to do so. You need firm and consistently applied boundaries both for his mother and him.

The two of you need to present a united front when it comes to his mother; the two very differing approaches you each have will only divide you. She will likely continue to be difficult when it comes to your child also criticising your parenting approaches. I also think that the people who state you are being unreasonable have emotionally healthy inlaws along with boundaries that are not trampled on or over.