My MIL isn’t malicious. She’s actually nice to me and loves us, but she has zero self-awareness and constantly oversteps. It’s exhausting, and no matter how many times she’s corrected, she either brushes it off or laughs like people are joking.
She’s honestly always been like this, but I was really anxious about it while I was pregnant because I knew it would get worse once we had the baby. I’m 10 weeks postpartum now and fully at my limit.
- While I was pregnant, she said if our baby had red hair, we’d need to “fix” it.
- After I gave birth, she blew up my husband’s phone trying to come visit us in the hospital, even though we explicitly said no visitors. Seriously would not leave him alone and was texting and calling multiple times an hour.
- When we wouldn’t let her come to the hospital, she actually tried to stay the night the day we brought our newborn home.
- Our daughter had latching issues at the hospital, and my MIL freaked out and told the entire family she “wasn’t eating.” My parents came to visit first the day after we got out of the hospital, and my MIL begged my mom to “please make sure the baby is eating,” like my husband and I couldn’t be trusted to handle it ourselves. She literally texted us every day multiple times a day to ask if the baby was eating. Like damn lady, let us be parents.
- She has, on multiple occasions, compared my newborn to her now almost 40-year-old daughter, saying her daughter was the “prettier baby.” Who even says weird shit like that?
- When the baby was 3 weeks old, she lied about possibly being sick because she knew we wouldn’t let her come over if we knew. She ended up not being sick, but I hate that she was OK with lying to us to get her way, even when it wasn’t in the best interest of the child. Who knows what else she would lie about? I don’t want her teaching my kid it’s OK to hide things from me.
- We have told her multiple times not to kiss the baby, so has her husband, and she still does it anyway.
- She insists every one of my baby’s features comes from someone in her family, including her daughter (my SIL). With the way she acts, you’d think my baby didn’t get any of my features and is merely a vessel to continue on her family‘s DNA.
- She crowds me and anyone else who’s holding the baby, standing right over our shoulders like a hawk. She’s even tried to take the baby out of my arms once when I was holding her, like I was just in the way.
- She’s been pushing us hard to baptize the baby (I’m not religious, but my husband was raised Catholic). Her mom (my husband’s grandma) even went to tour churches and bring us pamphlets. They’ve both been pushy about it, and my husband had to tell them to stop.
- She constantly buys junk for the baby that we didn’t ask for or need. We’ve had to ask her multiple times to stop buying stuff. It’s just clutter and makes extra work for us because we have to take it to be donated.
- She has made my husband‘s old room in their house into a baby room, which is honestly kind of insane, especially because I don’t trust her enough to babysit. And I don’t think I ever will.
I feel bad because I know she’s just excited. She treats me well, and I know she loves me. She comes by it honestly because her entire side of the family lacks boundaries. She has zero self-awareness and says things that are honestly just dumb and disrespectful. My husband and I have had many conversations about it. He and my FIL have both tried saying things to her (as have I), but she laughs it off like it’s a joke, and just continues on. She doesn’t take anything seriously, and I’m so tired of feeling like I’m just the incubator who delivered her grandchild.
While I’ve been on maternity leave, I’ve had my mom, my sister, and my best friend all come and spend the days with me. I know my MIL is hurt that I never asked her, but it’s because she literally can’t have a single visit without saying or doing something stupid.
Just needed to vent. I’m at my wits end with her.
Comments
Your husband needs to do way more than just “talk to her”. That strategy is clearly not working. You have to make a boundary and enforce it.
Once you’ve told her “no” to something, you have to enact consequences when she does it anyways, otherwise you are effectively telling her that “no” doesn’t matter.
In the hospital, for example, MIL should have been told only once that she wasn’t allowed in. Phones on silent after that. Blocked if she continued. Every time he answered her call was a set back for you both.
She sounds like a nightmare. But she is a nightmare your husband has to be firm with. “Correcting her” doesn’t work unless there are punishments and rewards. You sort of have to treat her like a child in that way. She stomps on a boundary? No visits for a month. She is pleasant and respectful during the next visit? You plan another.
Honestly though, with your examples I’d encourage some immediate distance with her. She sounds extremely overwhelming. The whole thing with telling you the baby both looks like her side only, but also not as pretty as her daughter is very weird behavior.
She seems like my FMIL, who thinks that we are actually still little kids and she gets to tell us what to do.
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What consequences does she recieve for overstepping stated boundaries?
She’s not just excited and she’s not treating you well. She’s completely out of line and obnoxious. It sounds like you need some serious distance from her.
Next time she laughs it off, ask her why she is laughing.
“What are you laughing at mil? Overstepping boundaries and making us feel bad about our parenting when we just finding our feet isn’t funny. It’s even less funny when you’ve been told multiple times over that we don’t want you doing it. Even your own husband has told you to stop, but you just can’t help yourself, can you? Well, you have already raised your kids and now it is our turn to raise our child. If you can’t wind your neck in and stay in your own lane, then we will be limiting the time we spend with you. Your choice.”
I would be so infuriated if I was you. This is not behavior from someone who “loves” you. She sees you and your husband as incapable of being parents. She laughs things off because it works from making her being held accountable. Next time she laughs it off you need to say “mil we are being serious and I need you to tell me you understand what I’m saying” I would have blown up by now.
Your MIL is manipulating you, she’s not nice at all.
She’s not malicious, just boundary-blind and that’s exhausting. Meaning well doesn’t give her a free pass. You don’t owe her access. Let your husband handle her, you focus on your baby.