Hi all, I have been married to my husband for coming up 10 years in October this year but we've been together for 11. We have a six and a half year old daughter with another on the way, a boy, I'm almost 15 weeks.
At the beginning of our relationship I had no problems with my mother-in-law. However I have found her very hard to tolerate ever since having our daughter. She seems to have no boundaries or respect when it comes to how my husband and I look after our daughter. And my husband of course, stands up for his mum.
For example when our daughter was around 8 months old we were at a family birthday party and she fed her a bit of cake without asking me or my husband (husband wasn't bothered by it) and when we got home she threw the cake up. Another is when our daughter had a hole in the knee of her leggings, instead of sewing it up or even not doing anything at all, she cut the leggings off at the knees and made them 'shorts'. She also 'tidies' up her hair after I have cut it (it's curly so I trim it at home) but she has also trimmed her hair without asking and even gave her her first hair cut! My daughter came home the other day and said that "daddy and granny think you don't like it when granny cuts my hair." And the other thing that I've never forgotten is while I was still in hospital after I had our daughter she made the comment "I think you need to wash your hair love", pointing out my hair was a bit messy. I had just had a baby! I couldn't care less about my hair!
I'm concerned about what will happen when we have our second child. I'm sure I'll get advice about raising a boy etc and she'll try to 'help'.
It's gotten to the point where I really can't stand my mother-in-law. And if I try to talk to my husband about it I always end up feeling like I'm the bad guy. I do vent to my mum about all this but she also lives a couple of hours away so she can't be fully involved in our daughter's life and I can't go around to her place for any respite.
Am I right to be annoyed by all this? What can I do?
3 Replies
The hair I do understand but if she does a good job and you daughter doesn't mind is it really that big of a deal? The rest seems fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. So she chopped a holey pair of leggings into shorts, sure that's a bit absurd but who's that hurting? The cake incident and hair comment happened 6 years ago, it's probably not doing you any good fixating on it still.
It does sound like she's a devoted, hands on grandmother and is just genuinely trying to help (even if it's a bit misguided) and she has raised a boy, you never know she may have some helpful advice but the advice you don't find helpful just take it with a grain of salt, don't take it as a personal attack.
To be honest Hun, if these are the worst examples you can think of out of 6 years I do think you're being a little unreasonable. I think you'd save yourself a lot of stress if you learned to let it go.
I mostly agree with the above comment (except the hair cutting, I don't think that should be tolerated without your approval) but everything else I'd just let go. I once told my mother in law her floor was dirty and said it looks like the kids must have just been over. I also told her that her shortbread needed more nuts...well boy did she really take those comments to heart! But I wasn't trying to be rude, she says similar things to me all the time. Just learn to ignore her comments and advice, I now laugh about them and my friends and I compare silly things our mother in laws have said.
While these might sound like small things to some I understand where this poster is coming from. It's the small things that build up to make a big problem. Having your parenting constantly undermined is a big deal. And having your partner not back you up and crawl back up into his mums vagina is a big deal. If it's not sorted it can turn into a hatred foe your Mil that cannot be undone. My suggestion would be to pull her up straight away on any instances where she crosses the boundary. Practice some one liners for likely scenarios so that you are prepared. But you need to get your husband to support you. He chose to marry you not his mother. He chose to have a baby with you not his mother. If he wants to parent with his mum tell him to get her pregnant instead of using your kids. You both need to be a team. Tell him that of he constantly backs his mother you will become resentful towards her and you will say somethibg and not say it nicely. Tell him he can either pull her into line now and have a small awkward discussion or you can explode later on and pull her up making it a very awkward discussion.
Secondly, how often do you see her? Halve that amount now, then quarter it.