DH and MIL lied to me about knowing about our pregnancy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am always going to be someone who is not willing to share a pregnancy until after the first trimester. DH knew this before we got pregnant and as we struggled through various infertility issues. It is part of my culture and also just part of how I best deal with difficult situations. Next time I may have to keep the pregnancy entirely to myself, but if that is what I have to do, that is what I have to do. I can't compromise on this one.

So if your DH is always someone who wants to share such exciting news with his parents, especially after the time most people share, then...what?

As someone who has, in fact, struggled (permanently, in fact) with infertility issues I am amazed that you are focusing on this in light of the fact that you have a healthy child. Really, this is just nonsense. You are looking for a reason to cause a problem. And your DH's poor mom! Tasked with an exciting secret she wasn't supposed to know, she didn't lie well and you are mad at HER? Poor woman obviously was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Well, I'm certainly not focusing on that aspect of it - and in fact if they had just told me at the time it wouldn't be as big of an issue. The problem is that the way she acted and the lie hanging over everything I believe to be a source of my fraught relationship with her, so I am largely upset about what could have been, had they not done that. Now I feel like there's no way to have anything more than civility with her, plus I have some trust issues with my DH.

All I'm saying is that if I am lucky enough to ever be pregnant again, I will still not be willing to tell anyone until after the first trimester. Even though I have a healthy child, I would still be devastated if I had the early loss of another, and would ask my DH to respect the way I deal with those things.

[Anonymous]

OP, how about just saying to yourself -- My pregnancy did not get announced in the special way that I wanted. I'm disappointed about that, but c'est la vie.

And start fresh with your MIL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, how about just saying to yourself -- My pregnancy did not get announced in the special way that I wanted. I'm disappointed about that, but c'est la vie.

And start fresh with your MIL.

I promise you I could care less about that. I'm a little upset that I had to care for my mother for a week when she had a broken ankle, sneaking off to throw up, etc., to avoid telling her, when DH already broke that promise... but that's about it.

I can't start fresh with MIL, I'm upset. If she apologized, maybe. But I don't really love soliciting apologies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am always going to be someone who is not willing to share a pregnancy until after the first trimester. DH knew this before we got pregnant and as we struggled through various infertility issues. It is part of my culture and also just part of how I best deal with difficult situations. Next time I may have to keep the pregnancy entirely to myself, but if that is what I have to do, that is what I have to do. I can't compromise on this one.

So if your DH is always someone who wants to share such exciting news with his parents, especially after the time most people share, then...what?

As someone who has, in fact, struggled (permanently, in fact) with infertility issues I am amazed that you are focusing on this in light of the fact that you have a healthy child. Really, this is just nonsense. You are looking for a reason to cause a problem. And your DH's poor mom! Tasked with an exciting secret she wasn't supposed to know, she didn't lie well and you are mad at HER? Poor woman obviously was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Well, I'm certainly not focusing on that aspect of it - and in fact if they had just told me at the time it wouldn't be as big of an issue. The problem is that the way she acted and the lie hanging over everything I believe to be a source of my fraught relationship with her, so I am largely upset about what could have been, had they not done that. Now I feel like there's no way to have anything more than civility with her, plus I have some trust issues with my DH.

All I'm saying is that if I am lucky enough to ever be pregnant again, I will still not be willing to tell anyone until after the first trimester. Even though I have a healthy child, I would still be devastated if I had the early loss of another, and would ask my DH to respect the way I deal with those things.

But they couldn't tell you! Your reaction now is indicative of how unreasonable you would have been then. The source of the friction with your MIL is not this lie, it is that you are someone who requires such a lie for peaceful coexistence. Think of it this way...if your grown son is having infertility issues and then there's a pregnancy and he's so excited he tells you even when his wife asked him not to, would you really expect your DIL to be angry with you? You haven't done anything wrong! Of course you didn't out your son to his wife, your loyalty is to your son and how could that help him? And yes, of course, the loss of a pregnancy is devastating, but perhaps your DH could use the comfort of his family and that's the way he deals with it. It's just not all about you, is my point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how about just saying to yourself -- My pregnancy did not get announced in the special way that I wanted. I'm disappointed about that, but c'est la vie.

And start fresh with your MIL.

I promise you I could care less about that. I'm a little upset that I had to care for my mother for a week when she had a broken ankle, sneaking off to throw up, etc., to avoid telling her, when DH already broke that promise... but that's about it.

I can't start fresh with MIL, I'm upset. If she apologized, maybe. But I don't really love soliciting apologies.

What do you want her to apologise for? It may be helpful for you to articulate what you would like her to say to you. Write it down and then take a good look at it to see if it is reasonable or if you are overreacting.
Note that most people here think you are overreacting....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how about just saying to yourself -- My pregnancy did not get announced in the special way that I wanted. I'm disappointed about that, but c'est la vie.

And start fresh with your MIL.

I promise you I could care less about that. I'm a little upset that I had to care for my mother for a week when she had a broken ankle, sneaking off to throw up, etc., to avoid telling her, when DH already broke that promise... but that's about it.

I can't start fresh with MIL, I'm upset. If she apologized, maybe. But I don't really love soliciting apologies.

Apologize for something that happened 1.5 years ago?!? Even if that happened, you would not get closure. Closure comes from within. The posters of DCUM are collectively saying that you are holding on to this unreasonably. You need to look in the mirror and repeat until you believe it too.

[Anonymous]

I am someone who needs to address something directly to heal from it, and if this need can't be met, I will never have a relationship of substance with her.

But here is where I think you are off track. You are assuming that there is something you can do that will make you have a relationship of substance with her. Just accept that this isn't necessarily going to happen. You can be nice and civil to her, and ensure that you don't have a relationship fraught with constant conflict. You can't make the two of you be close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am someone who needs to address something directly to heal from it, and if this need can't be met, I will never have a relationship of substance with her.

But here is where I think you are off track. You are assuming that there is something you can do that will make you have a relationship of substance with her. Just accept that this isn't necessarily going to happen. You can be nice and civil to her, and ensure that you don't have a relationship fraught with constant conflict. You can't make the two of you be close.

This is right. I am accepting this, just sad about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how about just saying to yourself -- My pregnancy did not get announced in the special way that I wanted. I'm disappointed about that, but c'est la vie.

And start fresh with your MIL.

I promise you I could care less about that. I'm a little upset that I had to care for my mother for a week when she had a broken ankle, sneaking off to throw up, etc., to avoid telling her, when DH already broke that promise... but that's about it.

I can't start fresh with MIL, I'm upset. If she apologized, maybe. But I don't really love soliciting apologies.

Apologize for something that happened 1.5 years ago?!? Even if that happened, you would not get closure. Closure comes from within. The posters of DCUM are collectively saying that you are holding on to this unreasonably. You need to look in the mirror and repeat until you believe it too.

Well, I haven't "held on" to anything, I learned about it 2 weeks ago and am processing it.

That said, integrity and honesty are extremely important to me. I don't think it's wrong for me to feel a lack of trust over this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I am always going to be someone who is not willing to share a pregnancy until after the first trimester. DH knew this before we got pregnant and as we struggled through various infertility issues. It is part of my culture and also just part of how I best deal with difficult situations. Next time I may have to keep the pregnancy entirely to myself, but if that is what I have to do, that is what I have to do. I can't compromise on this one.

So if your DH is always someone who wants to share such exciting news with his parents, especially after the time most people share, then...what?

As someone who has, in fact, struggled (permanently, in fact) with infertility issues I am amazed that you are focusing on this in light of the fact that you have a healthy child. Really, this is just nonsense. You are looking for a reason to cause a problem. And your DH's poor mom! Tasked with an exciting secret she wasn't supposed to know, she didn't lie well and you are mad at HER? Poor woman obviously was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Well, I'm certainly not focusing on that aspect of it - and in fact if they had just told me at the time it wouldn't be as big of an issue. The problem is that the way she acted and the lie hanging over everything I believe to be a source of my fraught relationship with her, so I am largely upset about what could have been, had they not done that. Now I feel like there's no way to have anything more than civility with her, plus I have some trust issues with my DH.

All I'm saying is that if I am lucky enough to ever be pregnant again, I will still not be willing to tell anyone until after the first trimester. Even though I have a healthy child, I would still be devastated if I had the early loss of another, and would ask my DH to respect the way I deal with those things.

But they couldn't tell you! Your reaction now is indicative of how unreasonable you would have been then. The source of the friction with your MIL is not this lie, it is that you are someone who requires such a lie for peaceful coexistence. Think of it this way...if your grown son is having infertility issues and then there's a pregnancy and he's so excited he tells you even when his wife asked him not to, would you really expect your DIL to be angry with you? You haven't done anything wrong! Of course you didn't out your son to his wife, your loyalty is to your son and how could that help him? And yes, of course, the loss of a pregnancy is devastating, but perhaps your DH could use the comfort of his family and that's the way he deals with it. It's just not all about you, is my point.

Eh, I see why you're saying this and there's some truth to it, but relationships are about conflicting needs. DH and I communicate a lot about this, and are getting better at it. At the time, we ended up discussing this at length and deciding that in this particular case, since this was going on in my body, we would err on the side of letting me have the space I needed to grow the pregnancy as stress-free as possible. We discussed how to meet his need to tell people, and I basically said, tell anyone out of town who I don't have to see or interact with on a regular basis, and even tell your dad (because his dad wasn't going to be on the trip in question). So we did compromise over this and communicate about it, and I acknowledged the validity of his need and we tried to figure out ways to address it and for my needs to also get addressed. We both thought what we came up with was fair. And you'll just have to take my word for it that I wouldn't have been that mad if he had told me right after it happened (or a reasonable time thereafter).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how about just saying to yourself -- My pregnancy did not get announced in the special way that I wanted. I'm disappointed about that, but c'est la vie.

And start fresh with your MIL.

I promise you I could care less about that. I'm a little upset that I had to care for my mother for a week when she had a broken ankle, sneaking off to throw up, etc., to avoid telling her, when DH already broke that promise... but that's about it.

I can't start fresh with MIL, I'm upset. If she apologized, maybe. But I don't really love soliciting apologies.

Apologize for something that happened 1.5 years ago?!? Even if that happened, you would not get closure. Closure comes from within. The posters of DCUM are collectively saying that you are holding on to this unreasonably. You need to look in the mirror and repeat until you believe it too.

Well, I haven't "held on" to anything, I learned about it 2 weeks ago and am processing it.

That said, integrity and honesty are extremely important to me. I don't think it's wrong for me to feel a lack of trust over this.

OP, I don't think it's wrong either, but as others have said the lack of trust should be with your DH. I'm not really sure what you want your MIL to apologize for. What did she do wrong (other than, it sounds like, behave in a somewhat annoying fashion)? I'm also confused how this marked the beginning of a rift with her. It seems that that is really what's troubling you, but it's hard for me to understand how what happened (you thought you were announcing your pregnancy; she already knew about it) would create a rift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how about just saying to yourself -- My pregnancy did not get announced in the special way that I wanted. I'm disappointed about that, but c'est la vie.

And start fresh with your MIL.

I promise you I could care less about that. I'm a little upset that I had to care for my mother for a week when she had a broken ankle, sneaking off to throw up, etc., to avoid telling her, when DH already broke that promise... but that's about it.

I can't start fresh with MIL, I'm upset. If she apologized, maybe. But I don't really love soliciting apologies.

Apologize for something that happened 1.5 years ago?!? Even if that happened, you would not get closure. Closure comes from within. The posters of DCUM are collectively saying that you are holding on to this unreasonably. You need to look in the mirror and repeat until you believe it too.

Well, I haven't "held on" to anything, I learned about it 2 weeks ago and am processing it.

That said, integrity and honesty are extremely important to me. I don't think it's wrong for me to feel a lack of trust over this.

NP chiming in here - OP, I think you're absolutely correct. Some people have a higher barrier for trust than others, and people need to be sensitive to that.

If you haven't already, please tell DH you feel betrayed. And as far as addressing the MIL issue--DH needs to apologize to HER for betraying your trust, and tell her that what he did was wrong (if he hasn't already acknowledged that to her). And Hopefully that will cause MIL to want to apologize to you, but he can't force her to do it and you shouldn't expect it.

Bottom line: you were hurt, it's justified, and DH needs to make amends regardless of how long it's been since he messed up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, how about just saying to yourself -- My pregnancy did not get announced in the special way that I wanted. I'm disappointed about that, but c'est la vie.

And start fresh with your MIL.

I promise you I could care less about that. I'm a little upset that I had to care for my mother for a week when she had a broken ankle, sneaking off to throw up, etc., to avoid telling her, when DH already broke that promise... but that's about it.

I can't start fresh with MIL, I'm upset. If she apologized, maybe. But I don't really love soliciting apologies.

What is she supposed to apologize for? The fact that your husband told her?

Good grief, you're a piece of work.

[Anonymous]

"Betrayed!" oh, good grief the drama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You ARE overreacting. It sounds like you need to take a deep breath and just let go already. This woman is your child's grandmother. Work to forgive little issues like passive-aggressive comments (so not a big deal) and build a good relationship.

+1

She's easily offended and very insecure. You may be able to help that and reduce the passive aggressive behavior by trying to establish a positive and healthy relationship in which you show her you want her as part of your life and value her. If that doesn't work, just ignore her silly behavior. It's not worth holding on to in this manner.

Dude, if letting things go were that simple, everyone would let everything go, wouldn't they?? I'm asking how. Right now I don't want a positive relationship with her. Is there anything that someone can say to help me get there? Calling me an awful person isn't really going to help, just going to push me farther in the other direction.

I realize that most DCUMers don't ACTUALLY want to help btw, but every now and then someone comes out and tries

Most people who post here don't ACTUALLY want to hear the truth or want help, they want to have their feelings validated. You ARE overreacting, in addition to being just plain silly. It was 2 yrs ago, you're making a big deal of NOTHING, and you are blaming the wrong person. Good grief.

I don't think that characterization of me is fair - I am just letting you all know that without the "how," "just move on" isn't helpful. Some people have come through with the how, which is helpful.

Thanks for proving the point. Pages of people telling you that, and you're still arguing and not really listening because you want your MIL to apologize for having done nothing wrong.
Jeez, what a high maintenance drama queen.