A little vent about irritating in-laws.

MamaMoo_2

DCFC79 wrote: »

Yousay the MIL is a pain but what about her OH or is there not 1, im always amazed how MIL can act like this and not see that they're son has a good relationship with someone and have a son and are happy.

Her OH is a nice enough guy. I haven't really spoken to him much, but he's always seemed nice.
Her ex (my hubby's dad) is lovely too. Lives miles away, but always finds the time to drop me an email to find out how we're all doing.
It just seems to be the women in my husband's family that are absolute tw*ts

MamaMoo_2

marywooyeah wrote: »

agreed, she sounds like a right b word! at least you only have to see her once a year and she's not popping in everyday criticising you. have a you got call id? I'd be inclined to just ignore it if its her!

Oh, she'd never call my phone or the house phone.
Mostly because they're both numbers that she doesn't have...
She's stored in my hubby's phone as "The Evil One".

MamaMoo_2

Oh, just remembered, when my son was born, she asked my husband what pain relief I'd had. He told her (pethidine and entonox)
She then proceeded to rant about how I should have done it au naturel (f*ck right off) before admitting when she had her first she had the same pain relief as I did!

Driver8

How many mother in law's does it take to wreck a marriage?























Just one !

hollydays

Did you originally have a disagreement?What was the first time she treated you in this way?

fluffnutter

MamaMoo wrote: »

... my husband seems to respect her....

That's your biggest problem. If he's not going to defend you or support you in this, that's a very lonely and frustrating place to be.

You'll never change your MIL's mind. Perhaps her opinion will soften over time but for some reason she's decided to dislike you and to try to alienate you from 'her family' which of course, includes your husband and now your son. DO NOT allow her to push you to the sideline. At some point, when we marry, we gradually but necessarily switch our ultimate allegiance from our parents to our spouse. This has to happen - it's right and proper that a husband or wife takes priority.

Forget your MIL - any efforts you make with her will fall on deaf ears. You need to be working on your husband. He MUST support you, you must make this categorically clear to him that you expect to come first. That's easily said but more difficultly done, unfortunately. I really feel for you

MamaMoo_2

hollydays wrote: »

Did you originally have a disagreement?What was the first time she treated you in this way?

Her attitude has always been the same. The first time I met her, she was horrible to me. She walked into my husbands room, having rocked up from wherever she lived, saw we had beer, stole half the crate, got blind drunk and started effing and blinding at me later that day.

MamaMoo_2

fluffnutter wrote: »

That's your biggest problem. If he's not going to defend you or support you in this, that's a very lonely and frustrating place to be.

You'll never change your MIL's mind. Perhaps her opinion will soften over time but for some reason she's decided to dislike you and to try to alienate you from 'her family' which of course, includes your husband and now your son. DO NOT allow her to push you to the sideline. At some point, when we marry, we gradually but necessarily switch our ultimate allegiance from our parents to our spouse. This has to happen - it's right and proper that a husband or wife takes priority.

Forget your MIL - any efforts you make with her will fall on deaf ears. You need to be working on your husband. He MUST support you, you must make this categorically clear to him that you expect to come first. That's easily said but more difficultly done, unfortunately. I really feel for you

Unfortunately, every time the subject comes up with him, we end up in a huge fight.
He always hides away when he phones her so I can't hear anything. The one time I did hear a conversation, a few months back, he had hung up on her because she had said something about me. He wouldn't tell me what she said, and still won't. It irritates me, because I'm fed up of the way she talks to him.
I've made it perfectly clear to my husband that he will not be taking my son anywhere without me (and nor would I ever take my son away from him overnight if he didn't want me to)
I've also told him that he can't really go stay with her on his own at the moment (I'm 23 weeks pregnant, have got carpal tunnel, and sometimes need a lot of help from him)
If his mother gave two shiny sh*ts about seeing him, she'd pop in when she visits his brother (lives a 3 minute drive away) or his sister (about 15 minutes away)
She frequently has my husband's brother to stay, and she picks him up and drops him home. When we offered to meet her either at his house, or at a nearby pub or cafe, she makes plans, then never calls us to say she's on her way. Then she calls us when she arrives, says she's too tired to travel anywhere but home, and goes home.
My son has met her about twice, and it will stay that way. She won't be seeing him again as I have no intention to allow my son into a situation where she treats me like crap, or tries to poison him against me.

aliasojo

I think your husband has a very warped sense of relationships. Yes, it's his Mum but he's an adult now and he should act/react to her behaviour acordingly, and he's not. (Imo)

Don't envy your position. It must be very frustrating to say the least.

fluffnutter

You're in the nasty battle with her (deliberately or not, and I'm not suggesting it's of your own making one little bit) but you've ended up - for your husband at least - on the 'other side' to his mother. I should imagine this is awful for him. You're the two most important women in his life and he wants to please you both. The reason why his mother seems to be 'winning' at the moment (and from what you say, she is) is probably for a number of reasons; some of which are obvious, some of which I'm merely speculating about.

1. Simply put, he's known her longer. She was the driving force in his life from day one until the day he met you. That's probably a fair few decades of influence and old habits die hard.
2. She's probably got a more domineering nature. She gets him to behave in certain ways simply because she demands that he does, whether she does this in an up-front manner or whether she's passive-aggressive and emotionally manipulative is fairly irrelevant; the fact is, she controls him.
3. And now I'm speculating a bit... he sees you as his partner (not someone who must be 'obeyed') hence he's fairly comfortable with ignoring your needs. You have a small child, you're pregnant and you can't use your hand(s) properly! Of course, you need his support - you're very vulnerable indeed! Is he seeing that? Are you usually a very strong capable person who just gets on with things, so he's not too worried about being there for you? All of this might be reasons why he goes trotting off to mummy whilst ignoring that you need him.

Basically your fella's got to man up a bit and realise that his obligations are to his wife, not mummy. He's very much needed at the moment (and in the future) and it's time he re-prioritised. However, this can't be achieved by arguments, sulks and rows. Nor is it helpful to attack his mother (verbally!) or criticise her. That will just make him feel worse as you're exposing the one thing that he finds difficult - his divided loyalties. YOU don't love his mother, but HE does (and so he should, it just needs to be a more appropriate relationship now that he has a wife and child).

You can't change his behaviour easily but you can change your own responses to his behaviour. Be very clear and calm and tell him that each time he puts his mother first that you're hurt and upset (not angry). Make it very clear to him that he's CHOOSING to go to see his mother. Part of the problem might be that he feels that he's got to - that she needs him or she'll be cross if he doesn't make an effort for her. That's bull, frankly. He's in control of what he does - not his mother, and it's about time he behaved like the adult with responsibilities he is. Explain calmly that you won't tolerate being sidelined by his mother, and that you expect to come first. Keep saying it.