The New Plan is to Starve the Mouse

Update to a previous post. As before stated, please do not use this post anywhere or share it for any reason beyond personal amusement.

Overall, good news. After an incident at LO first birthday we went VVLC and no holidays for Christmas and Thanksgiving 2024. There was some guilt tripping and rug-sweeping attempts and some definite gaslighting to attempt to get her GrandmaGramming (Instagram for Grannies is REAL guys) in over the holidays and we stood firm.

We had our family therapy in January this year and it was basically a wash as far as therapy goes (nothing really achieved/nobody had any epiphanies) but very helpful for us to feel like we really did try it all. Despite being all aggressive about wanting to be the ones to pay for the therapy the ILs then basically ignored the therapist’s attempts to get payment and I ended up paying for the August 2024 and January 2025 therapy sessions once I found out. Highlights of therapy include;

• Opening scene; MIL sits down and immediately says she very sorry for everything. Therapist asks her to tell us specifically what she is sorry for, and her reply is “Well, I don’t really know what I’m sorry for.” CLASSIC. I could see the therapist die a little inside, and we were 2 minutes into our 90 minutes. Please note, both sides met separately with the therapist prior to the group meeting and we had sent in group text messages VERY specifically what we were upset with her about.

• MIL said that she has all these photos she took of LO being amazing and beautiful and that my face in all of them looks unhappy or angry, “Like OP doesn’t like us!”… and “OP’s facial expression is ruining the picture”. Not ‘was postpartum hard, why were you unhappy’, no…. I’m ruining their pictures of LO.

• MIL “will walk again with LO” (due to her degenerative illness and associated cognitive losses… not her personality/lack of willingness to listen that has been an issue my entire DH’s life, of course) and it’s our job to prevent or stop it by “watching her when we are worried”. However, when we DO feel the need to stop MIL we “can’t make MIL feel like a toddler and need to be respectful and kind”. See below how I weaponized THAT bullshit.

• They don’t like the words ‘boundary’ or ‘trust’ and didn’t want us to use those terms during the session, because us saying that we don’t ‘trust’ them is cruel and makes them sound like monsters and ‘boundaries’ seem unfair and overly weaponized. I think the therapist about had a mini-stroke during this part, and later on the therapist literally said “I understand you don’t want to use the word trust, but this really is about trust so I have to use that term” (did I mention the therapist definitely deserves the MVP for this whole session?)

• MIL “now understands in retrospect why OP was worried about MIL walking with LO when she was very little and didn’t have head control, but LO is sturdy and bigger now so it shouldn’t be an issue”. Because dropping a toddler is totally safe??!

• “Being a grandparent is so much better than being a parent, it’s all the fun!”

• “I guess we are just never going to babysit LO? What, because you can’t trust us alone with LO?” (uh… yes? That is correct?)

Everything in quotations is a direct and factual statement as they said them, because I was petty and took notes copiously during (partially because I knew I would feel guilty and gaslight myself later if I didn’t have exact statements).

After therapy me and DH talked and decided that we aren’t ready to go full NC; DH has a very shiny spine that he has displayed so I felt comfortable doing LC with the understanding that boundaries would be firmly communicated and aggressively followed. Thus began the plan;

1. We see them approximately once a month for 2-3 hours at a location of our choosing.
2. They can only give LO a single gift per meeting, and it must be cleared through us prior to the meeting.
3. We emailed them a list with ALL potential holidays, including anniversaries/Mothers and Fathers Day/Hallmark holidays/birthdays with what we will be doing for those holidays and if we are willing to celebrate with them (and if so, in what way). If we see them for a holiday that counts as the monthly visit, no double dipping.
4. No visits with LO without BOTH parents present. This way there is always a parent within eyesight watching the ILs interacting with LO and prepared to intercede.
5. DH can go interact with IL by himself; however, this also counts as the monthly visit, so if they invite just him or invite us all to something I don’t want to do, they don’t get to see LO until the next month. This one we might be flexible on but DH has no real interest in increasing his visits so…
6. We do not arrange the next meeting until the currently planned meeting is over; this way if there is poor behavior and we need a break, there are no planned meetings to cancel, we just don’t make more plans for a few months.
7. If his mother picks up/boosts LO, talks passively aggressively about us/our decisions, or third person talks to LO about us, etc, we will give one polite warning. A second attempt or any argument and I will walk away with LO while DH explains why and then follows me immediately.
8. All texts involving MIL are group tests. No replying to texts to private chats, instead, screenshot and send to the group text and reply there.

This so far seems to be working; we have told the IL some of these rules but not all of them. The relationship sadly seems to work much better when they are constantly on edge about what is going to happen next. The moment you give them any sense of stability MIL takes that as far as she can push (We constantly use the phrase “If you give a mouse a cookie…” to describe this phenomenon with MIL).

Thus our go-to when she is being pushy, Starve the Mouse. Grey Rock (but respectful and not like she is a toddler LOL) and do NOT give the mouse a cookie, because before you know it you’re the bad guy and she is sitting in your kitchen drinking the cosmo you made her while she tells you you really just misunderstood everything.

There have definitely been some boundary pushing, most notable MIL still insisting on trying to pick up LO (What the hell? I really don’t get this?). I have discovered the best way to deal with it is to spring in and intercede and firmly and sweetly say “No THANK you MIL” and then walk away from LO and avoid eye contact (note that this is exactly how I handle LO doing inappropriate things, thus my vengeance for her ‘don’t treat me like a toddler’ statement). This prevents her from getting a chance to get a little sad cry face/pout in, and appears to be slightly embarrassing to her for other people to witness. Thus she now looks to see if I am watching and won’t pick up LO if I am clearly looking at her or we are in a group setting where I might embarrass her. DH is not unfortunately as quick at seeing things, but I’m willing to be the hawk.

Now that you’ve read the drama that we all love to hate, I would like opinions… second birthday is coming up. We were thinking of doing a party for LO (with other kids and such) and then a second ‘family party’, so as to prevent MIL drama/GrandmaGraming with an audience of our friends. However, I don’t want her at our house. The ILs haven’t been to our house since January 2025 (last family therapy) and honestly I want to keep it that way as much as possible because then when/if there are boundary issues I can just pack up LO and leave. Is it too far to basically ban them from our home?

Number 2… FIL. I really like him, but he is absolutely in MIL camp. Understandable, even if I don’t appreciate it, I would hope my DH would have my back in public too (and then give me shit in private). However he is retiring soon and has said a few times that he wants to come over and do things with me. I love FIL. I would love have him over and putter and tinker and build things. Sounds like I have always wanted the IL relationship to be. BUT MIL IS NOT WELCOME. Especially not to ‘babysit’ while I do things with FIL. Which I fear is the underlying plan. How do I say this… or do I just say it?

As always, thank you so much for this community. Couldn’t have done this without you guys.