My in laws particularly my MIL have had 0 respect or boundaries since the beginning with my daughter. She’s 12 weeks old now and still has colic. I’ve been avoiding them quite successfully but after 3+ weeks of constant begging to see her plus guilt I caved. Big mistake.
My daughter was having a bad day from the beginning, she was extremely constipated and it delayed our arrival by several hours. I didn’t even want to go because she was struggling so much but my husband was giving me the guilt trip how their dog just died. And when my dog died it hit hard so I know how it feels and knew it would cheer them up to see her. See how thoughtful I am? I like to think I’m fair but nobody else seems to see it that way.
I no longer allow them to come to us because I can’t get them to leave when they come here so I can at least have some control if I go there and make an excuse to leave. She started crying as soon as we stopped the car. I immediately put her in the carrier to avoid any immediate grabbing from MIL. Unfortunately I had to take her out to feed her and the guilt again set in so I let MIL and FIL hold her for a little bit. They always walk away with her so I follow them around to make it obvious they are not getting alone time.
Keep in mind she’s still constipated and crying on/off. I was walking around with her in my arms to soothe her and my MIL comes over and says “here” and puts her hands on my daughter attempting to rip her out of my arms. I turned away immediately and stormed out the door, put her in the baby carrier and took a 40 minute walk.
I told my husband I do not want to see them again until he talks to them. He’s giving me the runaround again that he’ll talk to them in a week because the dog just died. This already happened before so the dog dying is just an excuse to not talk to them. He understands MIL is wrong but I cannot for the life of me understand why he refuses to talk to her still. I guess he’s guilt tripped too. Not to mention they keep asking for overnight stays which is never ever happening.
I cannot for the life of me understand why my MIL crosses every single boundary imaginable. I couldn’t stand this woman before and she’s always hated me, she was mad when she found out I was pregnant. Crazy for her to be possessive over the grandchild she didn’t even want.
Upon reflecting of me being empathetic about their dog dying, I realize my MIL would never extend the same empathy for me. It’s just my nature to be sympathetic but I can’t do it anymore.
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You have both a husband and MIL problem. Your husband will not address things with his mother. You should not have to follow your in laws around to make sure your baby is safe. Your husband should be your advocate and make sure the in laws aren’t snatching baby from your arms.
Your baby also should not be used as emotional support. That’s not fair to you or your child.
“I cannot for the life of me understand why my MIL crosses every single boundary imaginable”
She does this because your husband doesn’t give her consequences. It sounds like he is your #1 issue so I’d tell him that until he gets out of the FOG (fear obligation guilt) and starts acting like an actual husband and father that neither you nor your child will have anything to do with them.
Being told “here” by anyone trying to take my crying baby would send me over the line. Like, she could have some form of decorum and actually ASK or offer to help by taking the baby for a few seconds but “here” is an order like you give a dog. My goddddd.
Yeh, grieving a dog or not, she can be told at any time to be more conscious of how she acts and speaks to you. You made the effort to bring the baby to them. You could have cancelled and told her another time but you didn’t. You tried and she couldn’t put together a few kind words towards a mother dealing with a colicy baby.
Xoxo been there with a colic baby. It’s hard! Sometimes you’ve got to think of yourself first and leave extended family to wait for their visits.
Definitely need a good sit down talk with your husband about how he lets the inlaws guilt him into things. It’s not something he wants his own child to end up dealing with.
It’s easy for your husband to guilt trip you than to deal with his mom’s guilt trips. You set boundaries and consequences with him and you hold firm. He’s avoiding the hard conversations and just expecting you to keep the cycle of having them offend you, taking a break, “getting over it” and feeling guilty like they deserve access to your baby, repeat.
The cycle ends when someone ends it. Take your husband to therapy and until his mom is held accountable, she doesn’t see the baby.
So your DH avoiding making moves to protect you and your child(ren) has three-fold causes.
First, he’s used to his mom behaving that way and he grew up letting her get her way to avoid the stress that comes when she doesn’t get her way. So even though he gets where you’re coming from and he knows you are right, it doesn’t FEEL that bad for him because he grew up with it. Like, if someone grows up in the forest with wolf-people, they don’t think the forest is that dangerous nor the wolf-people at all scary.
Second, he avoids confrontation with his mother at all costs because of aforementioned stress and drama. Mom is who raised and disciplined him so it’s intimidating. So going against her is like going against Goliath. But mainly, it’s the drama that she creates when she gets upset- the guilt-tripping, hysterics, manipulation, gaslighting, crying, pretending to faint. It’s emotional warfare and these men can’t handle it.
Third, men (generalization here) just have this thing about going against their moms; I think they just want their moms to be happy all the time. Maybe they feel like they owe something to their moms because of all the sacrifice they made to birth and raise them. I know my husband is like this. Because they feel like they owe her something, they WANT her to have a relationship with the wife and kids. They WANT the Hallmark family bbq and Christmas where everyone piles into the car and heads to Grandma’s house for Christmas morning breakfast and presents. And they hold onto this dream even though their mom is bringing it down into shambles over their desperate little heads. I think they just have a hard time coming to terms with the disappointment than women do (again, generalization).
I personally think he (your DH) won’t GET it until she does something really bad, like tattoo the word “slut” on your forehead while you sleep AND get caught on camera with fingerprint identification that she did it. Something has to click for him.
My husband finally got it when we set a boundary and his family freaked out on him, until then he didn’t really realize just how enmeshed and dysfunctional they were. He finally realized that they’re not going to change and he needs to protect me. But it took me hounding his ass for him to finally blow up and text them out of anger. Asking politely and expecting him to just see that it’s necessary doesn’t often work.
I love that you didn’t let her have her way. Kudos to you. Hang tough.
It sounds like he was raised and conditioned to not rock the boat. Unfortunately that shouldn’t continue now that he has a family of his own.
Look, I love animals, my own dog died a few weeks ago and I’m still crushed. Your daughter isn’t an emotional support animal to cheer up the in-laws. She’s a living breathing human who needs to be treated with respect from her extended family.
Honestly if DH doesn’t talk to them great! You don’t have to see them again.
“DH your mother tried to rip my sick infant out of my arms while I was soothing her because she has no self control, decency, or common sense. Now either you get this under control or you can forget about that woman ever being able to breathe the same air as a child of mine unless said child is over 18 or there is a court order forcing me to allow it… Understand?”
It sounds like you have a husband problem and its gonna come down to either you speak up for yourself or keep allowing this behavior. It is beyond obvious your hubby only “agrees” with you to keep peace inside your house but as he’s been around his mother his entire life, he does not see her toxicity. Typically i would say he needs to talk to her but it really sounds like she still has his balls in her pocketbook so it will be up to you. Or allow this to continue and let your kids see this behavior is ok as they grow up.
He understands MIL is wrong but I cannot for the life of me understand why he refuses to talk to her still.
He won’t talk to her because that would displease her and the world would end.
Let me explain: He has been conditioned his whole life to avoid her displeasure at all costs. He was conditioned that managing her emotions for her was integral to his survival. And when he was as kid that was probably actually true. He probably had to side step her emotional landmines to survive his childhood. It was ingrained into him to do what ever is necessary to keep her happy. Now, he is even guilting you and gaslighting you (telling you that he can’t expect them to maintain basic human decency because they’re upset about their dog) so he can continue placating them. He is desperate to maintain the fragile status quo and he thinks it will be easier to guilt and gaslight you into doing what mommy wants than to deal with mommy’s wrath.
what he needs to learn is that he is an adult. He is no longer a child under her care. his survival is no longer dependent upon managing her emotions for her. He can be an adult instead of the child she trained him to be. He can make decisions for himself. She can manage her emotions and her reactions to her unmet expectations all by herself, which is what she should have been doing all along.
To start protecting the family he made instead of his mother’s feelings, he will probably need therapy from someone who specializes in the adult children of emotionally immature parents.
My DH and MIL is the same as yours, he doesn’t want to displease her and secretly fume inside when MIL does things with baby which make us uncomfortable. I dunno why these MILs think they can soothe baby better than their mums, and would label baby being difficult when they fail.
There was one time my MIL wanted my baby to sleep on her bed when we went over, cos she wants her to recognize her smell and when she refused, she got so upset and said baby didn’t recognize her (I still cringe over this)
Well married the same man and his mother. Out daughter is 2 now and it’s gotten a little better but it took a very real divorce threat.
I do not understand why adults will not stand up to their parents. It’s not like the parents have any power anymore like grounding them or taking away their cell phone. When you have a child you are now an adult and you can stand up to your parents, if they get upset that is their problem not your problem
When this happened to me, I talked to her. Ask your husband if he’ll back you up if you talk to her. And be firm with her, otherwise she’ll keep trying to push (which she’ll do anyway but she’ll be a little more scared to). You standing up might give him the confidence boost he needs. It shouldn’t be this way, but sometimes we need to establish our position. And never cave.. seriously, hold strong no matter how hard it gets.
Tell hubby your child is not their emotional support baby. Stay home when the baby needs to. It’s not about what they want. It’s about what baby NEEDS!!
You are the only people (you and hubby) who can mind the boundary. You can tell them xyz, but it’s your responsibility to hold the boundary and have consequences when what you’ve said isn’t followed. The boundary is for you. You and hubby need to be clear about your expectations in the future and WHEN the in laws do not meet those, the consequences need to follow.
It’s always a spouse issue.
Your daughter is no one’s emotional support substitution even for a deceased pet. That’s how your MIL is treating your daughter. That’s way too much burden to put on your infant.
There will never be a good time for your husband to confront his parents. This week, it’s because their dog just died. Next week, it may be that they just go a new puppy. Then, it’s too close to a holiday, etc. If he’s worried about a family business or inheritance, he’ll always be too timid. He’s got to get to the place where HIS wife and child are more important and HIS mommy and daddy.
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Sorry if this comes across cruel.. but what does their dog dying have to do with your daughter? She’s not an emotional support animal.
Amazing job keeping her when MiL tried taking her from you. I hope you are proud of yourself for that.
As for your husband. He is her son. He should be shielding you from her. Not enabling her desire to use your baby as a comfort toy.
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You have a husband problem.
Either he handles the problem or you do, and until it’s handled there will be no visit/effort from you. You’re on mini-NC til he decides how he wants to go forwards.
If you have to handle it, you and baby are done. You shouldn’t have to tell them not to leave the room with your child. You shouldn’t have to haul your baby and all her things to their house because they stay beyond their welcome. If you handle it, you don’t have to do that anymore.
Him handling the problem is the only way they see the baby. Make it clear what ‘handling’ it would look like for you – what do you need to change to feel better? Would today’s visit have been okay if she didn’t try to take baby? Is that the only thing you’d change?
It seems like your in-laws would benefit from having your boundaries clarified. A text from DH could include something like ‘if you try to take LO without being offered we will leave/if you try to leave the room with LO we will leave’ and that every time you have to end a visit you will take a week/fortnight/month break from contact.
Friend, she crosses every single boundary because she is allowed to do so with no consequences.
your husband will never speak to her. I know this from personal experience with my husband. It took us being married 27 years before he finally spoke up to his mother in regards to her overstepping our boundaries in regards to her interfering in our marriage and how we raise our daughter our daughter is 22 now and really the only reason he did that was because I was going no contact with her and he had to explain why I would not have anything to do with her and why. it’s highly likely you are going to have to be the one that sets the boundaries I had to set quite a few with mine. She hardly ever listened. It wasn’t until I went right off my head at her and cut right back on visits that she did pay any sort of attention to me but my husband always got annoyed with me for speaking up against his mother but as he wouldn’t do it someone had to.
You showed up to them, from a place with compassion, but they didn’t respect you. From the repeated events you’ve described, it’s hard to see if your MIL actually wants to respect and care for you. It’s incredibly confusing, because I know many DILs ask “Wouldn’t you want to respect your son’s wife?” And unfortunately given the level of legacy patterns family carry, they aren’t able to do this.
Moving forward, one of the most important pieces is for you and your husband to get on the same page. Your child needs you to both be solid on this. You aren’t wrong to have boundaries and your own needs, especially with how your MIL has treated you. But the boundaries and standing up for you (and your chosen family) has to come from him with his mother. As one client once said to me, “I wish I had done this work sooner.” I hope your husband can see how painful this is, and that by having conversations now and not avoiding things, he can sustain a relationship that is workable, vs. as many people describe, ending up having to create more distance and cutting off.
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A boundary without consequences is nothing more than a wish. You are wishing she will respect your request to respect your request of how you parent your child. Unless and until you instill a consequence for crossing the boundary she will never respect the boundary because she does not have to.
Sorry about their dog (really, I’m a huge animal lover), but what does that have to do with your daughter? She isn’t their emotional support baby. As for your husband giving you the runaround, let him know that you’re prepared to wait until your daughter’s college graduation.
I’m getting triggered just reading this! It’s too familiar. We’re no contact now. Also adding does baby have allergies? My daughter was allergic to soy dairy and egg. She certainly acted like she had colic.
DH is majorly in the FOG and will need professional help to get out. Therapy therapy therapy.
Bonus: This is one of my favorite resources – http://www.outofthefog.net.
Unfortunately when DH is being a chicken about mommy I find it best to be the squeakier wheel. Mine didn’t want to talk to his mom about issues with her crossing the line so I said fine, I’d do it, and that scared him into doing it himself because he knew the consequences would be worse if I talked to her. Then when more issues arose he tried to skirt responsibility again and kept delaying the conversation and I was about to make the same threat until I realized that he was actually avoiding visits with them to avoid both me or him talking to MIL and I liked that even better so I let it go. When things got particularly bad with DH trying to use LO as a meat shield to get his mom off his back, I said we would talk about it in therapy, which signaled how serious I was and he dropped the issue. It’s definitely not a perfect system but it’s been working okay.
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