Anyone dealing with a MIL you can't stand?
I am so stressed out. My husbands biological mother is coming up from Texas to spend a week with us after the baby is here. I am 38 weeks pregnant and getting induced in 6 days and im so tired of her calling three times a day checking in on me when i don't even know her. I have only met her three times and each time she was rude towards me, but now that i'm going to have her first grandchild she suddenly cares. Kinda creepy and reminds me of Rosemary's Baby or something. My husband doesn't even like her. She shoved him off to his grandma to be raised, treated him like crap, etc. She has only wanted to be part of his life in the last year and has "found god", but i still don't like the idea of her coming here.
My hubby would totally agree with me, but she has been so pushy. She even sent us 200 dollars to buy a stroller and she has bought tons of things... so its hard to just turn her down after she has done those things. There is no way to just tell her not to show her face here because my hubby is too nice and forgives too easily and wants to avoid drama. I want advice on how to deal with her while she is here. My hubby says he will deal with everything and for me to just enjoy baby, but I'm still not happy.
Thankfully my mother lives next door and said if there was any trouble she would storm over and tell her to get the h*** out lol.
Oh, and she wants to be in the delivery room when he is born... like heck she is! I told my DH to keep his family out lol and the nurses will keep people out too. I honestly don't care about his family much because they were so distant from us untill they found out about baby. My mother and my hubby are the only support I need.
I just wonder if anyone is dealing with in-laws that only seem to have an interest when you are going to bear their grandchildren. To me it seems creepy and i'm sick of them telling me I need to walk more, drink more milk, and questioning me on everything I do. Baby is fine! Its 105 degrees outside and my feet are the size of balloons so I don't really want to go on a walk! I could go on and on lol. Share stories so I don't feel alone in this!
Re: Anyone dealing with a MIL you can't stand?
Wow! Sounds crazy...at least dh is in agreement with you about setting boundaries. It will be best, if you havent already to all have a discussion about house rules and boundaries so if DH is out and his mother is being overbearing, you arent trying to deal with her and tend to your LO.
My MIL is a piece of work as well...very similar with one exception. She basically acts as though she wants nothing to do with the pregnancy. She brags to her friends about the quality time she spends with DS and how excited she is abotu having a girl to fuss over this time....but then anytime I talk about it, DH talks about it, or FIL talks about it, she changes the subject. She wants nothing to do with it. I would give just about anything for MIL to ask, just once, how I'm feeling, have we thought of names...almost anything. When we redecorated the nursery and DS's big boy room, she came by 3 times and refused to go up to see either one when DS asked and begged...said she was busy or tired....and when she eventually went up to see them, she spent 2 seconds in each room and glanced over at DH and said "it's nice".
I hope your delivery goes well. I wish you all the luck in the world when it comes to this situation. Everyone's given great advice -- I echo the "take a break to your bedroom whenever you need to."
My mother is similarly pushy. I've been trying to think of non-combative ways to tell her to go away. So far, my favorite is "I know that you want to help, and you want to be here with us and the baby, and we appreciate all you've done and are doing -- but we want to be able to enjoy some of this special time alone, too. I'm sure you understand."
Actually, I'm sure she won't understand, but maybe telling her she ought to will mitigate things.
And one piece of practical advice for right now -- it's too hot for me to walk outside here, either -- so now I go to the local Wal-mart and walk the aisles. It's air-conditioned, at least.
This! Make up any reason you can think of to leave the room if you need to. Or have your mom come over on the pretext of getting to spend time with the baby too or to meet his mom or something. People tend to be less rude the more people that are around, and she might back off if your own mom is there.
Some life experience you might want to take away from this situation is to no longer accept money or gifts from people you don't want to feel obligated toward in the future. Later on down the road if she offers you money or gifts don't accept them, and that way you don't have to feel bad about telling her no when she wants to come around.
Well, DH family was just plain awful to me for a long time. I could go on and on and ON about the things that they did to me and to us, but I'm trying to move on, so I won't. What I will say is that things ended with us not speaking to them, and moving across the country to get away from them because they were harassing us. We didn't speak to them for about 2 years, and then when I was about 8 months PG we decided we'd send them a note just to let them know. After DS was born, we sent a birth annoucement with photos, and from then on they treated us much better. They are like totally different people in terms of how they treat us, and while I'm still not 100% comfortable with them, we are all making an effort to put the past behind us. They've visited us once, and we visited them last year and are going to visit again at Christmas. They skype with us once a week so they can see DS, they send gifts for special occasions and even helped DH out with tuition for this coming fall semester.
I don't really care if they're just doing this so they can know their grandson. This isn't about me. I want DS to have a relationship with anyone who loves him. The more support people he has in his life, the better.