Grieving and pregnant—I feel crazy

TW: death, pregnancy

I am a billion weeks pregnant with my first child and about to pop. My dog that I’ve had for over a decade passed away last week. My MIL (who I’ve had a lot of tension with over the years) seems to have decided that my grieving while pregnant will be the newest headline in her newsletter of Other People’s Business, and keeps fishing for information/emotional vulnerability/drama.

I started grey rocking again when she started making comments on my body again when my baby bump started showing. She had previously stopped making comments about my body after I had lost 60 lbs. Husband sat down with me, MIL, and FIL to say that any comments about my body—pregnant or not, well-meaning or not—are not appreciated and need to stop. MIL started crying, talking about how she received the silent treatment from her mother growing up and how triggering it is for her, how we’re all on the same team and need to assume positive intent. I told Husband afterwards “I don’t expect much of anything to change after that, there was not much accountability from her”. He apologized and agreed, but I guess in his mind the crying signaled change of heart from her and everything was fixed or something???

Anyways, that conversation was months ago, and all communication from MIL has been fielded through either Husband directly or in a group chat with the three of us but Husband responding most of the time. You can see my previous posts in MildlyNoMIL for fleshing out more of the background/history and for more blatantly hurtful things she’s done, but she very much uses information obtained about other people to share with other people to get attention in a “poor me, look at me and how much I care” town crier way.

On the day I had announced that my dog passed away, she texted me directly for the first time in awhile to “check on me” and ask me about the thunderstorm we were experiencing. We live five miles apart, I’m not a meteorologist, and she has windows. I just said “yes, it’s storming here too, but hopefully that means it’ll be cooler tomorrow”. She replied “So all is well?? It already feels cooler here!” I didn’t have the bandwidth to respond, my dog had died 24 hours ago.

She followed up with another text the next day, saying “Good morning! I’m so glad it cooled off! I hope you feel like a new person, or at least a little more like yourself! It’ll be cooler all week and I’m so thankful for that for you!” I didn’t respond because the “I hope you feel like a new person” line seemed like a wild thing to say.

I told Husband about it, clearly saying “I don’t expect you to say or do anything about this, this is just what I’m getting from her, and I don’t trust it and it hurts”. He said I was reading too much into it and was irritated with me over it. I dropped the issue and didn’t respond to her text.

A few days later (today), I get a message from her asking if I need anything from the store. It had been a pretty okay day so far and I was feeling alright, so I decided to respond politely and say “I think we’re okay right now, but thank you for offering”. She responds to that with a short novel about this certain kind of food she likes from the store that she recommends, and then ends the message with how she just got a text from her neighbor about how they just had to put their dog down today, and how it “made [her] sad for them and thinking of [me] too. ❤️‍🩹😰”

Something snapped in me with that last line and I feel done. I was doing okay, I was productive, I hadn’t cried over my dog yet today and it feels like she hit a pressure point in the hopes of some response to use as entertainment/“prayer requests” to share with her friends. She’s done it before. I don’t feel safe being vulnerable around this woman. I didn’t share the screenshot with my husband because I was more concerned with him possibly telling me about how I’m “reading too much into it” again coming home irritated at me (despite a few my girlfriends verifying that last part of the message was weird and unnecessary). I just restricted her on social media so I don’t get any notifications about messages she sends me and any comments she makes are not visible to other people.

Maybe it’s small, maybe I’m overreacting, but this crap has been building and building for over 5 years, and I feel like I’m the only one who sees how mean this lady actually can be.

I miss my dog.