My Mother In Law Said What?!

Anonymous because my husband’s family may recognise this.

I’m 30 weeks pregnant and have been married for 6 years. My husband’s family are extremely close. His mum lives abroad, but when she visits the UK, there can be plans with the family at least 5 times a week. Her visits are also very long (minimum 2-3 months and have repeatedly been extended without our knowledge and sometimes even upto 5.5 months

There has always been this underlying feeling that my husband is “different since getting married” and that the family don’t have the same access to him anymore. Anyway this time MIL and FIL came when I was 18 weeks pregnant and stayed til I was 30 weeks.

A few weeks ago, I had a genuinely terrifying accident on the motorway.

At around 3pm, I was driving in heavy rain when my tyre suddenly split. I had to cross 3 lanes to get onto the hard shoulder with lorries around me, then wait for the AA. I ended up dealing with a temporary tyre, then discovering the mechanic had fitted the wrong tyre, then getting the correct one fitted before finally getting home around 6:30pm.

I was 7 months pregnant, completely shaken, exhausted and crying.

My MIL and BIL both knew what had happened.

Neither of them asked if I was okay.

My husband initially said he’d come home after briefly seeing his family (he figured they’d be able to drop him home since we’re 20mins from each other.), but he ended up being kept there for hours because a huge argument developed about the wider issue of him being less available to his family since getting married, and what that meant for his mum’s access to him. His brother screamed at my husband for 45mins backing his mum’s points and my mil just said “calm down” uselessly

At one point his brother was shouting:

“Mum can come to this country whenever she wants. You don’t have a right to stop her.”

And “That child is also her grandchild. She can see it whenever she wants.”

So this wasn’t just about November. It was this much bigger argument about his family feeling that marriage has changed how much access they have to him, with his mum coming back around the time I give birth becoming part of that conversation.

My husband did defend me and said he had a pregnant wife at home who had just had an accident, and that things couldn’t simply work like that.

Eventually, after hours, he came home around 10pm

Then later that night, his mum wanted to say goodbye before leaving (she was finally leaving after a 3 month stay. I’d already gone to say goodbye a few days ago when she was originally supposed to leave and she failed to tell us she had changed her plans.

Anyway, My husband came upstairs and asked:

“Can you come downstairs?”

I said no.

Then:

“Can you at least come to the window and wave, mum wants to say bye?”

So several hours after a motorway accident, while 7 months pregnant and completely exhausted, I was being asked to come downstairs three flights or stand at the window so my MIL could have a goodbye.

Again, she still hadn’t actually asked me if I was okay. A few days later she sent me a weird cryptic message saying she came to see me but I didn’t come down and still no mention of my car accident and whether I’m actually okay.

And this is why I’m struggling to see this as just one bad evening.

There is a long history behind it.

Years ago, my MIL had a huge reaction when my husband wanted us to have our own home rather than live with his brother. She wanted my husband to buy a house with his brother so that they have a family asset. She called him selfish and guilt-tripped him that he was only thinking about his wife and himself when making a decision about buying a home with his wife. When we first married and lived with his family, his brother repeatedly shouted at me, including once when I made a dish incorrectly few days after getting married and he became angry enough that my husband had to intervene. On a seperate occasion he also screamed at me and told me I had “no rights” in the house because it belonged to his father.

My husband’s family still expect a huge amount of his time and availability. And my husband has recently admitted that there have been times when he knew their demands were unreasonable, but asked me to compromise because dealing with their reaction was exhausting for him.

He’s now recognising how much this has damaged me and our marriage and is trying to change things.

But after 6 years, I’m honestly exhausted by the feeling that my husband’s family can want something from him, and somehow it becomes something our marriage has to accommodate.

I don’t want him to cut off his family. I don’t want him to stop loving his mum.

I just want our marriage, our home and our baby to stop being treated as if they’re part of a family-wide negotiation.

Would this bother you, or am I completely overreacting?

My mother in-law and I had an argument just as baby was a few days old. The argument was about boundaries, personal space etc. which she kept interfering with.

My husband went round to theirs yesterday to make amends. She was defensive about why she said what she said. Regardless, hubby asked if we could start afresh after a month of not speaking or visiting.

Today we went over for the first time with baby. She held baby and was playing with him. She was making comments such as don't get angry (a comment she made to me and about me to my husband). I didn't react. My hubby heard but didn't say anything to her. We went home and I had a go at hubby as to why he's not standing up for us...

Was I overreacting?

Want to know if I’m overreacting or if I’m right to be angry! So I’m due around Christmas time and my partners family are VERY involved in his life. He has 2 sisters, one older and one younger and he is very close to his parents.

Anyway all through my pregnancy all I’ve heard from his mom and sister is that the baby ‘has to be a girl’ as there are currently 3 grandsons/nephews and only 1 granddaughter/niece. We have since found out it is a girl, but these comments really pissed me off because we would love our baby regardless.

Another issue being bought up is Christmas. Obviously Christmas we are both his family and mine. My dad and stepmom understand this year will be different. I’m fully committed to the fact that we will not be going to anyone this year, I’ll either have a newborn baby or be 40 weeks pregnant and not want to go out anywhere. I’ve made this clear since I found out my due date.

But yesterday my MIL said ‘well if she’s not here you can still come round’ and I said no, and she CONTINUED to say ‘don’t you want Christmas dinner?’ and as ungrateful as this seems I just went ‘no I don’t, I’ll be 40+ weeks and uncomfortable’. The woman jist can’t accept boundaries because her children never set any. I’ve been with my partner for 6 years, we are engaged and she still refers to me as his ‘girlfriend’ despite being engaged for almost 3 years.

I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve been super independent my whole life or if I do have a right to be upset that she just disregards everything I say.

Hi all.

I am with my husband for 8 years now and his family knows no boundaries. We are about to have our first child now, and I said I would be happy to receive them after a few weeks so I can recovet but also we can get to know our baby. Of course they are not accepting it and yesterday on the phone they said if we cannot go now, we will only go next year.

I am letting my husband dealing with this, but about to explode with their lack of common sense!

Am I the one wrong here?

So Im done with my MIL. If I could describe her to someone without being judged, Id describe her as a mean old witch. She is extremely negative, disrespectful, rude, constantly crosses boundaries when it comes to our parenting, has been teaching my daughter mean/horrible things (e.g that its funny to hit people, swear, pull mean faces), tries to be emotionally manipulative towards her only son (my partner), smokes around my daughter, can be generally quite unhygienic and all the rest…

My partner has told me from the beginning, to tolerate her, let things go in one ear and out the other. But in social settings, I have friends and family members confiding in me the things theyve witnessed her do, like teaching our daughter to swear or throw stones at me. My daughter is 2 now… my patience has lasted for longer than it should have, and Im done.

I want to cut ties with her completely, but understandably, my partner is in a difficult situation. He agrees, that she is unbearable, that shes emotionally chaotic and extremely negative (all his words) and that if it were anyone else, he would have cut her from his life… how do I deal with this situation? And how do I console him or compromise with him?