Hello everyone. I’m a mum to a little 15 month old boy and have been having problems with MIL since he was born. I’m posting here instead of Mumsnet as I don’t want this to turn into a bashing MIL thread but desperately need advice. Before ds was born me and my mil had a lovely relationship. But I started noticing a few things when I was about to give birth that I didn’t feel comfortable with.
Just before I gave birth she asked me if I wouldn’t use a dummy on ds as she never did with her two boys and doesn’t agree with them. She asked me this as her “one wish as a granmother “. I also had a friend who gave birth but didn’t breastfeed for longer than 2 weeks which she was very opinionated about in front of me which made me feel like I had to or I would be judged as a bad mother from the get go. Thankfully both me and ds enjoyed bf so it didn’t cause any issues however I did feel pressure on her behalf.
Anyway the real issues began when my little boy was born. I had told her that she could come once ds was born as I wanted my mum and dear partner with me in the room. Sadly this was not respected she made her way to hospital as soon as she found out and also brought her friend. They were both nurses so managed to convince staff to let them into the room. I found out I was having an emergency Csection and mil was taking pictures etc no even giving me space to process the situation. A few days later she visits and I’m talking to my midwife on the phone about ds bellybutton as I was a bit concerned she took the phone out of my hand to speak herself. It made me feel like I wasn’t doing a good job. She even suggests holding ds in the backseat instead of putting him in a his car seat to not upset him. She would come by daily and wouldn’t ask to hold my son but instead would just take him of my arms. Place him back when he was hungry and take him away as soon as he had finished feeding. She would even check to see if he was latched on if he was taking a bit longer. And as soon as he wasn’t she would take him from me. Throughout that whole time I would be so tense as I just wanted to hold my newborn especially because I had to wait a while to hold him after he was born due to the csection ( it’s silly but I just loved holding him).
One time she asked to pop by randomly I was in my rob and underwear but said okay as she is family but when I opened the door there was also a random women who I had never met standing there. I felt so uncomfortable and judged by the random person.
It’s also caused some issues in my relationship and my dp. He has a strong relationship with his mum. She posted pictures of my son on her social media as soon as he was born without asking. Which was an issue as I didn’t want pictures of him on the internet just yet and when other members of the family asked I did say to hold of until I was ready. Anyway I understand she didn’t know and simply asked if she wouldn’t post anymore and to ask about these types of things in the future. A few days passed and my partner got a call from her saying that she got a message on Facebook saying “ stop it” and thinks i had asked someone to send it. This was very untrue and made me feel as though she never really saw me as the daughter she said she did. I was shocked and upset but the fact she went to my partner bothered me even more. Which caused us to argue. Although he did believe I had nothing to do with it.
We also had different opinions of ds foreskin which I won’t go into as it’s a very private matter but it’s one of the biggest issues I have with her. One I will never forgive but never got an apology for anyway.
Fast forward a couple of months and we told her to not visit so often as we needed our family space she was hurt but that was that. Until she started constantly mentioning that she wanted us to always show ds a picture of her or something that smelt of her... which is weird to me as my parents live 2 hours away and see him less often and she was still visiting him every week. She then once said at her house surrounded by her friends she only held my son for 15 minutes which wasn’t true. She constantly tells me that “ I know you love him but you’ll never understand how much I love him it’s different “ . Which I don’t appreciate to be honest. She wanted to set up my sons bank account herself. When I complained about how painfull csection recovery was she mentioned how she had made full course meal for her extended family days after hers. She’s had an input on all our decisions like our house being close to her place of work. Our car. Etc .
She’s getting married and is well off so is doing a wedding abroad. We said that was great but we would book our own flights / hotel so we can find prices that match our budget but she spoke to my partner on how she would rather we did like them... even if it wa out of our budgets to start paying it of now. But I just don’t think that’s fair to be honest as we have a lot we want to do and accomplish within the this next year. Now that we are in quarantine she’s been doing window visits everyday and I just need to do something about it. Because I feel so unhappy with this situation and frankly don’t want her around my son.
Please could I have some advice is this normal? Thank you in advance.
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