Living with in laws and a baby

[Tokyo5]

I’m getting straight into it. Last year, I left my amazing job overseas to move here, get married — and then, a month later, I unexpectedly found out I was pregnant. The pregnancy itself was fairly easy, but the labour was awful, and the baby blues hit hard afterward. All of this happened while I was living with my in-laws, where I still am now, with a newborn and a 41-year-old husband whose mother still washes and folds his laundry for him.

My mother-in-law is extremely overbearing. The turning point for me was coming home to find she had washed my underwear and put it away in my room — the only space in that house that feels like mine. That’s when I realized just how involved she is in her son’s daily life, from doing his laundry to putting away his clothes. She’s even said, jokingly but not really joking, that her son will always be a “mummy’s boy.” After a few moments like that, I started distancing myself. I don’t even bother anymore with being formal when her family/guests come over and just do my own thing. Anyways, she’s just naturally anxious and overthinks everything, often trying to have long emotional heart-to-heart talks, which is just not my personality.

Then, when the baby arrived, she became even more involved. Near the end of my pregnancy she showed me a huge bag of clothes she had bought for the baby, saying things like “tell me if I’ve done too much.” She even bought things like baby wash and cotton pads, and then started doing his laundry and fussing about whether our (mine and my husbands) clothes should be washed separately. I can’t explain it — I just get an icky feeling around her, and I hate leaving my baby alone with her. So I end up doing everything myself throughout the day (exhausting) and keeping mine and baby’s bubble separate. I don’t even go out because I just don’t want to leave the baby with her. Some people would say that’s not very nice, but to me it’s just maintaining boundaries. She also use to say things like “my baby” when she greeted the baby , so now I always make a point to respond with “I’m mummy.” She’s not aggressive or confrontational, but she really doesn’t understand when she’s overstepping. She can feels I’ve become very cold (tbh she does also give the same energy back) but I’ve just stopped caring about formalities.

All of this has taken a toll on my marriage. I’m at home caring for the baby 24/7 and still feel watched or monitored by his parents, even though I keep my distance. I can’t relax, I can’t even dress how I want because they might walk through the house. I’ve emotionally and physically pulled away from my husband because everything has built up so much. I just feel this deep silent resentment towards him which is sad because just last year we were inseparable. I told him that next year we are moving out, no matter what — and he agreed.

…Long read lol! Any thoughts?

Don't bank on him moving out with you when push comes to shove - he is used to his mother doing everything for him and will expect you to do the same. If he does move out with you, I suspect it won't be long before he's running back to his mummy!

Sometimes I can't believe what I read on here

Poor woman. She made a mistake when she put away your underwear, but she was just treating you like one of her family. Your reactions are extreme. Why can't they spend time with your baby - are they dangerous? You sound pretty awful. Most people would not like living with their in-laws long term, so there is nothing special there. She probably did everything she could to make you feel comfortable and looked after. She probably tried to help a new mother out. And in return you withhold her grandchild from her, and make her home frosty even for guests. Just leave already. But dont blame this poor woman for this situation. Which sounds semi-manufactured by you.

In the space of 12 months of knowing him, you married and had a baby with a 41 year old man who has never lived independently or has even left home!!
Dear God woman what do you expect?
Your problem isn't your poor MIL here.
The pair of you need to get off your lazy arses and make and provide a home for yourselves and your child.
I cannot believe your concerns are about your MIL and not your ridiculous Husband who between you both have been freeloading of your in laws!!. He's 41 for goodness sake🤯

👏👍

@LifeSurvior That’s something you need to tell DH. This isn’t the life I chose. I was perfectly happy living on my own and providing for myself, expecting to do the same eventually after marriage. I come from a working-class background, with parents who never had anything handed to them, so I understand the value of money. DH, on the other hand, grew up with every comfort and even had a family business given to him. Now I’m not kicking the privileged position I’m in but I also don’t want to suffer in this privileged position by being forced to put up in such a closed off environment. Honestly DH is the one creating the problem here. Everyone else’s relationships with each other and my morale gets fractured due to his failures and laziness.

he is 41 and never moved out!?
oh dear OP you married a fully grown toddler!! you need to move out asap if you have any chance of your marriage working!

your MIL isnt actually in the wrong, as its all she has ever known, YOU both are or not moving out, starting a life and setting boundaries

@Ejvd Did I ask my MIL to do that? I’m an adult and fully capable of taking care of myself, so I don’t see why I should be expected to appreciate actions that cross my personal boundaries. For context, I used to do her laundry, and she once told me not to wash her intimate clothing—this was long before this incident. So it felt obvious that the same boundary would apply in reverse. I didn’t think I needed to explicitly tell her not to wash mine.

Since we’re talking about laundry : Now I handle all of my clothes, as well as my husband’s and baby’s, which isn’t something I should be criticized for—if anything, it means I’m not leaving her to clean up after me. Yet she still makes comments like, ‘You know how much I love doing laundry, I love washing clothes,’ which makes it clear she doesn’t want me managing things my way in her house.

Given all this, would you really want to be in a mental battle with your MIL over who gets to wash your dirty clothes first?

How did you end up marrying him and moving into his parents' house under these circumstances?

Especially considering the fact that you are 28 and he's 41... and grew up in and lived until a year ago in different countries?

Was this an online dating scenario? A whirlwind holiday romance that went too far? Or an arranged marriage? Very different to one another but surely the only ways this scenario could have somehow come about...

You are deflecting your annoyance and dissatisfaction away from your Husband onto your MIL
Forget about bloody laundry! You do realise you have bigger problems to sort out than bloody laundry don't you?
You haven't made a home together.
You haven't even begun to realise what a massive man child you have probably landed yourself with.
You are both abdicating ALL adult responsibility for day to day life yet you choose to focus on laundry.
I'm not sure you are getting it... You have a Husband problem as well as a very strange presumption of what married life would look like if you agreed to live with his parents. I mean WhyOp?
Why didn't you sort out as you were planning on getting married about buying or renting your own married couples home? It's mind boggling you haven't got in touch with an estate agent, viewed a rental and started living as married adults with your own child!!!

You didn't ask her, but she obviously didn't realise that trying to help you would actually cause offense. Yeah, you still sound awful. Worst mother in law ever wanting to do your laundry. Again it sounds like you're manufacturing problems. You're creating the battleground. Maybe try putting your feet up and letting her cook and do your laundry and look after your baby, stop moaning about being stretched, and get out and have a spa day and chill out or something. There are many who would kill for so much help with a new baby. Maybe if you had been living in your own house you would have a completely different take on such offers for help!

The rest of us with new babies live in a pigsty and nobody does the laundry because you cant get around to it because there's so much else to do! But you've been taken care of, so never got the reality check.

U need to get ur own place and fast. Get back to work as soon as u can and start living ur own life away from his family so u can actually appreciate what u have. U are going to ruin the early months with ur baby with all the pent up emotions u have. U need to get out the house every single day. Take baby out for a long walk every day when u possibly can.

As an independent woman with a good job and her own home, can ypu please explain to me how you managed to marry a man who did not have his own home, separate from his parents. And then without actually having your own home, as an independent married couple, why on earth did you stop usong contraception and allow yourself to become pregnant.

@Tokyo5 please share the parts of the story you have left out. Also, if you are exhausted looking after a baby with your MIL doing the lion's share.of the domestic load, how do you think you will cope when you are running your own home on your own. All the cleaning, all the cooking, all the childcare, all the laundry.

Sounds like a big culture clash (& - kindly- you should have been aware of this stuff before) and need to love out asap.

You made a bad decision. There won’t be a pain-free solution I’m afraid.

Don’t hate me for saying this but she sounds fine I think it’s just dh that’s the issue.
she’s just looking after you and the baby the way she’s looked after him for 41 years. It’s kindof nice in a way. I would fucking hate it, but I wouldn’t live with my in laws
I can’t stand mil either so I do really get where you’re coming from and I’d hate someone to tell me mil was fine, or they wish they had a mil like mine or whatever but yours actually does sound ok, even asking you and checking with you if things are ok or not rather than just bulldozing in.
dh though is a total failure to launch.
it’s very telling he’s married a much younger woman, and it’s a huge huge red flag that he had never moved out before. If you had your sown home and just visited her, and he looked after himself and you and the baby I don’t think she’d piss you off
regardless you need to move out.

@Ejvd I understand it’s hard, and I truly admire all the mothers who do everything on their own—I really do. Just because I’m not happy with my own situation doesn’t mean I’m dismissing yours or assuming the grass is greener elsewhere. Also, I will never knock another woman down regardless of her circumstances.

For context, we have a maid who comes once a week to clean and cook, and she’ll be helping at my own home in the future as well. I know I’m fortunate to have that support—something not everyone has—so thankfully no pigsty for me. I’m genuinely grateful for that.

@Endofyear I’m glad you understand where I’m coming from. Honestly, if he wants to run back to his mum, that’s on him—but at least I’ll be in my own home. I genuinely wouldn’t care if he still took his dirty laundry back there, as long as no one is putting my underwear away in my personal drawers.

He’s going to have to learn the hard way, especially once he’s out in the real world without his parents constantly behind him. They handed him a career, and yet he still can’t provide a home for his own new family, even with all the support and foundation he’s had since he was young.

Non UK? "A maid" isn't the UK term for someone who comes once per week to clean - that is a cleaner (a housekeeper if they cook perhaps - but not a maid if it's only once per week)...
Very few private individuals in the UK have maids because that's a full time employee - a cleaner is self employed not an employee and paid by the hour for two/ four / six hours a week or whatever and isn't unusual.

She’s an employee who has been with our family for over ten years, so out of respect I didn’t refer to her as “the cleaner.” Whether you call her a maid or a cleaner isn’t the point, and I don’t need to go into the terminology or the nitty-gritty details. You understood that there’s help in the house, and that support will continue when I’m in my own home. So again no, I won’t be living in a pigsty.

I wasn’t trying to get into all these small details, but since you implied the grass isn’t greener on the other side, well, maybe in my case I’m fortunate enough that it might be. I’m ready for that challenge, especially because I know I’ll have help …when DH grows up out of his laziness himself.

If I met a 41 year old man still living with his parents I'd run . That's a recipe for a disaster.

I can't understand how this situation came about?
I wouldn't go for a coffee date with a 40yo man who still lived at home with his mum, let alone have a baby with him.

Annnddd here we have it🙄
Princess Prissy Pants wants the best of everything. Married into a family where golden son rules the roost, she hasn't got her own yet but still thinks slaves( ahem help) will sort it.
Think this thread is a piss take tbh.