Is there any expectation on a family member who stays “postpartum”?

[Anonymous]

I think for my in laws especially my MIL, she never dealt with her own MIL in this sense so she had no clue about how fraught the relationship could be and how in the end, the DIL holds all the cards. Her own MIL lived far away and was unwell.

She had only sons and my experience was mirrored with her second son’s wife’s experience having her own first baby. Thanks to my husband (and probably his brother too, for his brothers wife) she has shaped up. But the stuff she pulled at first- it was insane. She’s the one who came and refused to clean/ said she’d only hold the baby, and had us come visit her for a baby shower and put us up on the couch. She was like that for 2-3 years. Like- we’d show up and she’d just reach over and try to take my daughter out of my arms, without asking and without preamble, as if she were her own. I remember once she tried to do that in front of a bunch of people and I just held on. She tried for a full 5-6 seconds! And I just held on. And my daughter started crying. Everyone was looking at my MIL like she was insane and she got so embarassed and irritated. Her own sister even came up later and was like “we all see you just so you know”. She once told my daughter when she was like 18 months- so, not understanding anything MIL was saying- “one day you’ll be a teenager who hates her mother and you can come live with grandma!” And laughed. In front of me and many others. She announced to us when my daughter was 2 or 3 that it was time for us to drop the baby off with her for a month in the summer because “you can’t say she isn’t old enough anymore and this is what I’ve always planned- to have my grandchildren with me all summer”. I mean I could go on and on and on. Waking her up from naps early as soon as I wasn’t looking so that she could play with her, giving her an iPad when she was 3 despite me specifically saying no, and crying when I took it and gave it away. The final straw was when my oldest was maybe 5 years old and I overheard my daughter telling MIL she wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons before bed and my MIL goes “it doesn’t matter what your mother says, you’re with grandma now and you don’t need to listen to your mothers rules, only to grandmas rules. And it will just be a secret.” After that we went no contact for a couple years and it was liberating. She still doesn’t get it either.

We barely see her anymore and she calls and yells at us that we are keeping her grandkids away from her. But my husband is amazing and he tells her very plainly that they are not “her grandkids” they are “wife’s (my) children” and that she has burned that bridge long ago.

[Anonymous]

Required? No. Not help, incredibly rude and a burden. However, you should have made it clear that you were not hosting her and she’s in her own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing. And this is really hard for some people, particularly women, but it's so important, and it's particularly important once you have children:

You have to advocate for what you (and your family) need.

Without apology, equivocation, or being open to interpretation.

If someone wants to stay with you the week after your baby is born, you think about what you want and if that's reasonable/doable. Okay, you only want someone who will be helpful (duh). Given who your MIL is and your history with her, if you tell her, "we would love to have you, but only if you can help with cooking, cleaning, and household tasks" will she do it? If no or maybe or if you're unwilling to ask and state your needs freely, then the answer is, "No, MIL, you cannot stay with us that week."

We told everyone (three sets of grandparents plus aunts and uncles) they were welcome to come when the baby was born but they needed to stay in hotels. And most of them did! (Some opted not to travel.) We invited only my mother and stepfather to come back and stay with us for week three, because we knew they'd be helpful if we asked. No one else was allowed to stay with us during the newborn stage.

Was my mother disappointed not to be able to stay with us that first week? Yup. But I knew what I needed that first week was some space and my husband. Was my dad disappointed to be staying in hotels the first six months after each of my kids were born? Yup. But he is not helpful (I'd call him neutral - makes about as much work as he saves) and that's not what I need postpartum.

For what it's worth, I have a great relationship with my parents, all three of them, and they visit frequently and we visit them and they're all close with the grandkids. But YOU need to advocate for YOUR family. No one else (except your husband, hopefully) is going to do that.

So stop focusing on what they did ("was it rude that they didn't help?") and start focusing on what you did ("You know what? I expected them to just jump in and help and I never said that. I need to remember next time to ask for help or not invite them")

The casual dismissal of reality here is really something.

This comment is basically saying women are not only responsible for everything, they’re also responsible for coaching men and relatives through acceptable behavior, even if those people are perfectly able-bodied adults with an equal amount of intelligence and much better functioning bodies. And it ignores how pregnant women are affected by the patriarchy and misogyny.

I have always been a very strong, capable, outspoken person. But from the second I got pregnant I was surprised by how many people attempted to or did bully me: medical professionals, relatives, and even friends. It was shocking to be as physically vulnerable as I’ve ever been and have people respond to it the way they did. I liked being pregnant and love my DC but in some ways was treated like an incubator for those 9 months and the 1-2 years after.

We don’t talk about how our society decides that pregnant women are their property and also somehow no longer capable of thinking for themselves.

As someone who advocated for myself and was branded controlling by my spineless DH who was afraid of everything postpartum, and a b-tch by my MIL, I am pretty sure that most women here already advocated for themselves or considered it and realized how ineffective it truly is.

+1

I just posted about being pressured/guilt tripped into traveling with my newborn way before I was ready so my ILs could meet the baby, and being treated really poorly on that trip and really resenting it.

Should I have said "no, I will not travel until I feel physically ready and the baby is older"? Yes. Was I actually capable of doing that while sleep deprived, stressed, dealing with massive hormone shifts, and just generally feeling overwhelmed and isolated, as many new moms do? No, I wasn't. In the first conversation about when we would visit them, I said "I'm not ready" (this was days after the baby was born). The second conversation was a week later and I still stated I wasn't ready but started getting heavy guilt trips, including from my DH. The thing was, he was also getting heavy guilt trips, and he didn't feel he could push back because his dad was sick. He was in a really challenging headspace as a new dad and, like me, struggled to push back. It was brought up again and again and eventually I just gave in and said okay. It was a horrible trip and remains an awful memory.

I did find my voice eventually, when my hormones had settled, I got treatment for PPD, and we settled into life as new parents. It took almost a year.

I believe the obligation in those first weeks and months is NOT on the new parents, who are just trying to figure it out. And especially not on the new mom who is undergoing a massive physical, mental, and emotional ordeal and should not be expected to be some superwoman who can self advocate at every moment or have to suffer the consequences. The obligation is on the people around the new parents to not be selfish jerks, to practice a smidge of empathy, and to have some patience and forbearance instead of thinking exclusively about how important it is that they get physical access to the baby.

Stop blaming the woman you just got out of the hospital, has raging hormones, and has gotten a max of 2-3 hours of consecutive sleep since the baby was born. That person is the only one who is blameless here.

I'm the PP of the first message in this thread, recommending standing up for yourself and your family. I'm so sorry for what both of you two previous posters (and several others on this chain!) have gone through.

I want to point out a critical difference between my situation and yours: The husband factor

My husband had my back. With my family, with his family, with whatever. There is absolutely no substitute for that, and probably the time I needed it most was postpartum. A spineless husband afraid of everything? A husband who not only doesn't back you up against his parents when they're asking for unreasonable things, but actually piles on additional guilt? That is completely unacceptable, and would absolutely have made it about a thousand times harder for me to stand up for what I needed. If there is one person who should always be actively look after and backing up a woman postpartum, it's her husband.

But my DH isn't spineless. At that time, he was a first time dad with an infant whose own father had recently fallen ill and he was struggling, just like I was. He didn't want to say no to them and he was sleep deprived and worried about living up to expectations as a dad and he screwed up. He has had my back plenty of other times but that was a vulnerable time for us both, and it feels like his family exploited our vulnerability to get what they wanted.

I also think his mom was resentful that her husband was sick which made it impossible for them to travel, and took it out on us since she couldn't take it out on him.

[Anonymous]

Reading this thread has been so cathartic for me--I've realized that I'm not the only one who had this experience with my MIL. It really sucked, but it helps to know I'm not alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing. And this is really hard for some people, particularly women, but it's so important, and it's particularly important once you have children:

You have to advocate for what you (and your family) need.

Without apology, equivocation, or being open to interpretation.

If someone wants to stay with you the week after your baby is born, you think about what you want and if that's reasonable/doable. Okay, you only want someone who will be helpful (duh). Given who your MIL is and your history with her, if you tell her, "we would love to have you, but only if you can help with cooking, cleaning, and household tasks" will she do it? If no or maybe or if you're unwilling to ask and state your needs freely, then the answer is, "No, MIL, you cannot stay with us that week."

We told everyone (three sets of grandparents plus aunts and uncles) they were welcome to come when the baby was born but they needed to stay in hotels. And most of them did! (Some opted not to travel.) We invited only my mother and stepfather to come back and stay with us for week three, because we knew they'd be helpful if we asked. No one else was allowed to stay with us during the newborn stage.

Was my mother disappointed not to be able to stay with us that first week? Yup. But I knew what I needed that first week was some space and my husband. Was my dad disappointed to be staying in hotels the first six months after each of my kids were born? Yup. But he is not helpful (I'd call him neutral - makes about as much work as he saves) and that's not what I need postpartum.

For what it's worth, I have a great relationship with my parents, all three of them, and they visit frequently and we visit them and they're all close with the grandkids. But YOU need to advocate for YOUR family. No one else (except your husband, hopefully) is going to do that.

So stop focusing on what they did ("was it rude that they didn't help?") and start focusing on what you did ("You know what? I expected them to just jump in and help and I never said that. I need to remember next time to ask for help or not invite them")

The casual dismissal of reality here is really something.

This comment is basically saying women are not only responsible for everything, they’re also responsible for coaching men and relatives through acceptable behavior, even if those people are perfectly able-bodied adults with an equal amount of intelligence and much better functioning bodies. And it ignores how pregnant women are affected by the patriarchy and misogyny.

I have always been a very strong, capable, outspoken person. But from the second I got pregnant I was surprised by how many people attempted to or did bully me: medical professionals, relatives, and even friends. It was shocking to be as physically vulnerable as I’ve ever been and have people respond to it the way they did. I liked being pregnant and love my DC but in some ways was treated like an incubator for those 9 months and the 1-2 years after.

We don’t talk about how our society decides that pregnant women are their property and also somehow no longer capable of thinking for themselves.

As someone who advocated for myself and was branded controlling by my spineless DH who was afraid of everything postpartum, and a b-tch by my MIL, I am pretty sure that most women here already advocated for themselves or considered it and realized how ineffective it truly is.

+1

I just posted about being pressured/guilt tripped into traveling with my newborn way before I was ready so my ILs could meet the baby, and being treated really poorly on that trip and really resenting it.

Should I have said "no, I will not travel until I feel physically ready and the baby is older"? Yes. Was I actually capable of doing that while sleep deprived, stressed, dealing with massive hormone shifts, and just generally feeling overwhelmed and isolated, as many new moms do? No, I wasn't. In the first conversation about when we would visit them, I said "I'm not ready" (this was days after the baby was born). The second conversation was a week later and I still stated I wasn't ready but started getting heavy guilt trips, including from my DH. The thing was, he was also getting heavy guilt trips, and he didn't feel he could push back because his dad was sick. He was in a really challenging headspace as a new dad and, like me, struggled to push back. It was brought up again and again and eventually I just gave in and said okay. It was a horrible trip and remains an awful memory.

I did find my voice eventually, when my hormones had settled, I got treatment for PPD, and we settled into life as new parents. It took almost a year.

I believe the obligation in those first weeks and months is NOT on the new parents, who are just trying to figure it out. And especially not on the new mom who is undergoing a massive physical, mental, and emotional ordeal and should not be expected to be some superwoman who can self advocate at every moment or have to suffer the consequences. The obligation is on the people around the new parents to not be selfish jerks, to practice a smidge of empathy, and to have some patience and forbearance instead of thinking exclusively about how important it is that they get physical access to the baby.

Stop blaming the woman you just got out of the hospital, has raging hormones, and has gotten a max of 2-3 hours of consecutive sleep since the baby was born. That person is the only one who is blameless here.

I'm the PP of the first message in this thread, recommending standing up for yourself and your family. I'm so sorry for what both of you two previous posters (and several others on this chain!) have gone through.

I want to point out a critical difference between my situation and yours: The husband factor

My husband had my back. With my family, with his family, with whatever. There is absolutely no substitute for that, and probably the time I needed it most was postpartum. A spineless husband afraid of everything? A husband who not only doesn't back you up against his parents when they're asking for unreasonable things, but actually piles on additional guilt? That is completely unacceptable, and would absolutely have made it about a thousand times harder for me to stand up for what I needed. If there is one person who should always be actively look after and backing up a woman postpartum, it's her husband.

But my DH isn't spineless. At that time, he was a first time dad with an infant whose own father had recently fallen ill and he was struggling, just like I was. He didn't want to say no to them and he was sleep deprived and worried about living up to expectations as a dad and he screwed up. He has had my back plenty of other times but that was a vulnerable time for us both, and it feels like his family exploited our vulnerability to get what they wanted.

I also think his mom was resentful that her husband was sick which made it impossible for them to travel, and took it out on us since she couldn't take it out on him.

It was not spineless of DH. If my dad had been sick, I would have done the same thing and traveled with the baby. And it would have sucked. But I would have felt it was worth it. Maybe it was just a crappy situation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think for my in laws especially my MIL, she never dealt with her own MIL in this sense so she had no clue about how fraught the relationship could be and how in the end, the DIL holds all the cards. Her own MIL lived far away and was unwell.

She had only sons and my experience was mirrored with her second son’s wife’s experience having her own first baby. Thanks to my husband (and probably his brother too, for his brothers wife) she has shaped up. But the stuff she pulled at first- it was insane. She’s the one who came and refused to clean/ said she’d only hold the baby, and had us come visit her for a baby shower and put us up on the couch. She was like that for 2-3 years. Like- we’d show up and she’d just reach over and try to take my daughter out of my arms, without asking and without preamble, as if she were her own. I remember once she tried to do that in front of a bunch of people and I just held on. She tried for a full 5-6 seconds! And I just held on. And my daughter started crying. Everyone was looking at my MIL like she was insane and she got so embarassed and irritated. Her own sister even came up later and was like “we all see you just so you know”. She once told my daughter when she was like 18 months- so, not understanding anything MIL was saying- “one day you’ll be a teenager who hates her mother and you can come live with grandma!” And laughed. In front of me and many others. She announced to us when my daughter was 2 or 3 that it was time for us to drop the baby off with her for a month in the summer because “you can’t say she isn’t old enough anymore and this is what I’ve always planned- to have my grandchildren with me all summer”. I mean I could go on and on and on. Waking her up from naps early as soon as I wasn’t looking so that she could play with her, giving her an iPad when she was 3 despite me specifically saying no, and crying when I took it and gave it away. The final straw was when my oldest was maybe 5 years old and I overheard my daughter telling MIL she wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons before bed and my MIL goes “it doesn’t matter what your mother says, you’re with grandma now and you don’t need to listen to your mothers rules, only to grandmas rules. And it will just be a secret.” After that we went no contact for a couple years and it was liberating. She still doesn’t get it either.

We barely see her anymore and she calls and yells at us that we are keeping her grandkids away from her. But my husband is amazing and he tells her very plainly that they are not “her grandkids” they are “wife’s (my) children” and that she has burned that bridge long ago.

This is a full-on battle for control. Everyone loses.

[Anonymous]

Ugh I just lost a whole post!!!! Ugh. Well I basically realized that my MIL was not focused on my as a person at all. She was purely focused on her experience of becoming a grandmother and had a lot she really specifically wanted from that. So I became the person who might interfere with her wishes, rather than a woman who was really, really struggling. I am also feeling super triggered by this thread because I have tried to push it all down but it’s important to make sure I never do this to my kids or my spouses. I WANT to remember how much it sucked so I can do better.

And yes husband’s need to stand up for their wives. But MILs and mothers need to treat a woman who has just given birth with decency.

[Anonymous]

My ILs came for lunch when I was PP and my MIL yelled at me for following medical advice to feed my sleepy baby in just a diaper. Never once asked me how I was doing. They acted like my baby was a trophy that belonged to them. I was livid. She kept acting like this for a few years and I lost my cool with her a few times.

Maybe it is because I got mad at her or maybe it is just time, but she doesn't do this anymore now that DC is in elementary school. She is actually incredibly sweet with me and I feel spoiled when we visit them. Babies are hard and new grandparents don't always know what to do (they think they remember but they don't).

It totally makes sense to feel angry and is justified. Of course a postpartum mother should be cared for and if she isn't, that's wrong and gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for my in laws especially my MIL, she never dealt with her own MIL in this sense so she had no clue about how fraught the relationship could be and how in the end, the DIL holds all the cards. Her own MIL lived far away and was unwell.

She had only sons and my experience was mirrored with her second son’s wife’s experience having her own first baby. Thanks to my husband (and probably his brother too, for his brothers wife) she has shaped up. But the stuff she pulled at first- it was insane. She’s the one who came and refused to clean/ said she’d only hold the baby, and had us come visit her for a baby shower and put us up on the couch. She was like that for 2-3 years. Like- we’d show up and she’d just reach over and try to take my daughter out of my arms, without asking and without preamble, as if she were her own. I remember once she tried to do that in front of a bunch of people and I just held on. She tried for a full 5-6 seconds! And I just held on. And my daughter started crying. Everyone was looking at my MIL like she was insane and she got so embarassed and irritated. Her own sister even came up later and was like “we all see you just so you know”. She once told my daughter when she was like 18 months- so, not understanding anything MIL was saying- “one day you’ll be a teenager who hates her mother and you can come live with grandma!” And laughed. In front of me and many others. She announced to us when my daughter was 2 or 3 that it was time for us to drop the baby off with her for a month in the summer because “you can’t say she isn’t old enough anymore and this is what I’ve always planned- to have my grandchildren with me all summer”. I mean I could go on and on and on. Waking her up from naps early as soon as I wasn’t looking so that she could play with her, giving her an iPad when she was 3 despite me specifically saying no, and crying when I took it and gave it away. The final straw was when my oldest was maybe 5 years old and I overheard my daughter telling MIL she wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons before bed and my MIL goes “it doesn’t matter what your mother says, you’re with grandma now and you don’t need to listen to your mothers rules, only to grandmas rules. And it will just be a secret.” After that we went no contact for a couple years and it was liberating. She still doesn’t get it either.

We barely see her anymore and she calls and yells at us that we are keeping her grandkids away from her. But my husband is amazing and he tells her very plainly that they are not “her grandkids” they are “wife’s (my) children” and that she has burned that bridge long ago.

This is a full-on battle for control. Everyone loses.

Keep telling yourself that but we actually have a very happy family life and good relationships with the other grandparents (my parents and my husbands father and stepmom!). And aunts, uncles, great aunts including my MILs own sister. No one lost here except for my MIL, and she was given like a thousand chances to shape up and stop being nasty to me, the mother of her grandkids. She really, really didn’t realize that I held all the cards until it was too late.

We see her once a year or so now and like I said, she has shaped up in her outward behavior towards me and our kids. She only complains now to my husband, who tells her again and again that she needs to take what she can get at this point. He is fully on my side.

Again- I don’t feel like we have lost a thing at all. I know my husband doesn’t. Maybe MIL does but I do not care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh I just lost a whole post!!!! Ugh. Well I basically realized that my MIL was not focused on my as a person at all. She was purely focused on her experience of becoming a grandmother and had a lot she really specifically wanted from that. So I became the person who might interfere with her wishes, rather than a woman who was really, really struggling. I am also feeling super triggered by this thread because I have tried to push it all down but it’s important to make sure I never do this to my kids or my spouses. I WANT to remember how much it sucked so I can do better.

And yes husband’s need to stand up for their wives. But MILs and mothers need to treat a woman who has just given birth with decency.

I’m posting a lot on this thread (I have a lot of thoughts clearly hahaha) and you summed it up very nicely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ugh I just lost a whole post!!!! Ugh. Well I basically realized that my MIL was not focused on my as a person at all. She was purely focused on her experience of becoming a grandmother and had a lot she really specifically wanted from that. So I became the person who might interfere with her wishes, rather than a woman who was really, really struggling. I am also feeling super triggered by this thread because I have tried to push it all down but it’s important to make sure I never do this to my kids or my spouses. I WANT to remember how much it sucked so I can do better.

And yes husband’s need to stand up for their wives. But MILs and mothers need to treat a woman who has just given birth with decency.

I think the bolded is the common thread through a lot of these experiences.

I remember a friend phrasing it as "they just see you as a vessel." And that nails it. It's very dehumanizing in the postpartum period, when your body is quite literally still knitting itself back together.

I wound up getting full blown PPD when my "baby blues" didn't go away. I sometimes think it wouldn't have happened if I'd just felt a bit more supported and nurtured during that time. When I read about people whose family or culture really dotes on the new mother and supports her until she's truly recovered from childbirth (not after a few days but after like 6 weeks), I just think "that is how to do it." And it's also how you build close family bonds between the baby and the extended family, because instead of viewing the baby as a resources to be fought over and to demand access to, seeing the baby as what they are: a child who needs his or her mother, who needs the family to rally around and create a welcoming environment to grow up within.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for my in laws especially my MIL, she never dealt with her own MIL in this sense so she had no clue about how fraught the relationship could be and how in the end, the DIL holds all the cards. Her own MIL lived far away and was unwell.

She had only sons and my experience was mirrored with her second son’s wife’s experience having her own first baby. Thanks to my husband (and probably his brother too, for his brothers wife) she has shaped up. But the stuff she pulled at first- it was insane. She’s the one who came and refused to clean/ said she’d only hold the baby, and had us come visit her for a baby shower and put us up on the couch. She was like that for 2-3 years. Like- we’d show up and she’d just reach over and try to take my daughter out of my arms, without asking and without preamble, as if she were her own. I remember once she tried to do that in front of a bunch of people and I just held on. She tried for a full 5-6 seconds! And I just held on. And my daughter started crying. Everyone was looking at my MIL like she was insane and she got so embarassed and irritated. Her own sister even came up later and was like “we all see you just so you know”. She once told my daughter when she was like 18 months- so, not understanding anything MIL was saying- “one day you’ll be a teenager who hates her mother and you can come live with grandma!” And laughed. In front of me and many others. She announced to us when my daughter was 2 or 3 that it was time for us to drop the baby off with her for a month in the summer because “you can’t say she isn’t old enough anymore and this is what I’ve always planned- to have my grandchildren with me all summer”. I mean I could go on and on and on. Waking her up from naps early as soon as I wasn’t looking so that she could play with her, giving her an iPad when she was 3 despite me specifically saying no, and crying when I took it and gave it away. The final straw was when my oldest was maybe 5 years old and I overheard my daughter telling MIL she wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons before bed and my MIL goes “it doesn’t matter what your mother says, you’re with grandma now and you don’t need to listen to your mothers rules, only to grandmas rules. And it will just be a secret.” After that we went no contact for a couple years and it was liberating. She still doesn’t get it either.

We barely see her anymore and she calls and yells at us that we are keeping her grandkids away from her. But my husband is amazing and he tells her very plainly that they are not “her grandkids” they are “wife’s (my) children” and that she has burned that bridge long ago.

This is a full-on battle for control. Everyone loses.

I agree, this is exactly what op should not spiral into.

It is definitely super weird if the husband is saying something like “these are my wife’s children” and not something to aspire to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for my in laws especially my MIL, she never dealt with her own MIL in this sense so she had no clue about how fraught the relationship could be and how in the end, the DIL holds all the cards. Her own MIL lived far away and was unwell.

She had only sons and my experience was mirrored with her second son’s wife’s experience having her own first baby. Thanks to my husband (and probably his brother too, for his brothers wife) she has shaped up. But the stuff she pulled at first- it was insane. She’s the one who came and refused to clean/ said she’d only hold the baby, and had us come visit her for a baby shower and put us up on the couch. She was like that for 2-3 years. Like- we’d show up and she’d just reach over and try to take my daughter out of my arms, without asking and without preamble, as if she were her own. I remember once she tried to do that in front of a bunch of people and I just held on. She tried for a full 5-6 seconds! And I just held on. And my daughter started crying. Everyone was looking at my MIL like she was insane and she got so embarassed and irritated. Her own sister even came up later and was like “we all see you just so you know”. She once told my daughter when she was like 18 months- so, not understanding anything MIL was saying- “one day you’ll be a teenager who hates her mother and you can come live with grandma!” And laughed. In front of me and many others. She announced to us when my daughter was 2 or 3 that it was time for us to drop the baby off with her for a month in the summer because “you can’t say she isn’t old enough anymore and this is what I’ve always planned- to have my grandchildren with me all summer”. I mean I could go on and on and on. Waking her up from naps early as soon as I wasn’t looking so that she could play with her, giving her an iPad when she was 3 despite me specifically saying no, and crying when I took it and gave it away. The final straw was when my oldest was maybe 5 years old and I overheard my daughter telling MIL she wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons before bed and my MIL goes “it doesn’t matter what your mother says, you’re with grandma now and you don’t need to listen to your mothers rules, only to grandmas rules. And it will just be a secret.” After that we went no contact for a couple years and it was liberating. She still doesn’t get it either.

We barely see her anymore and she calls and yells at us that we are keeping her grandkids away from her. But my husband is amazing and he tells her very plainly that they are not “her grandkids” they are “wife’s (my) children” and that she has burned that bridge long ago.

This is a full-on battle for control. Everyone loses.

I agree, this is exactly what op should not spiral into.

It is definitely super weird if the husband is saying something like “these are my wife’s children” and not something to aspire to.

He said it in response to my MIL demanding that she be allowed to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, with our kids because “these are MY grandkids”. She would say it with such righteousness. It was completely appropriate to say, “they’re your grandkids but they’re her KIDS and you can’t take them from her all summer just because you want to.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for my in laws especially my MIL, she never dealt with her own MIL in this sense so she had no clue about how fraught the relationship could be and how in the end, the DIL holds all the cards. Her own MIL lived far away and was unwell.

She had only sons and my experience was mirrored with her second son’s wife’s experience having her own first baby. Thanks to my husband (and probably his brother too, for his brothers wife) she has shaped up. But the stuff she pulled at first- it was insane. She’s the one who came and refused to clean/ said she’d only hold the baby, and had us come visit her for a baby shower and put us up on the couch. She was like that for 2-3 years. Like- we’d show up and she’d just reach over and try to take my daughter out of my arms, without asking and without preamble, as if she were her own. I remember once she tried to do that in front of a bunch of people and I just held on. She tried for a full 5-6 seconds! And I just held on. And my daughter started crying. Everyone was looking at my MIL like she was insane and she got so embarassed and irritated. Her own sister even came up later and was like “we all see you just so you know”. She once told my daughter when she was like 18 months- so, not understanding anything MIL was saying- “one day you’ll be a teenager who hates her mother and you can come live with grandma!” And laughed. In front of me and many others. She announced to us when my daughter was 2 or 3 that it was time for us to drop the baby off with her for a month in the summer because “you can’t say she isn’t old enough anymore and this is what I’ve always planned- to have my grandchildren with me all summer”. I mean I could go on and on and on. Waking her up from naps early as soon as I wasn’t looking so that she could play with her, giving her an iPad when she was 3 despite me specifically saying no, and crying when I took it and gave it away. The final straw was when my oldest was maybe 5 years old and I overheard my daughter telling MIL she wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons before bed and my MIL goes “it doesn’t matter what your mother says, you’re with grandma now and you don’t need to listen to your mothers rules, only to grandmas rules. And it will just be a secret.” After that we went no contact for a couple years and it was liberating. She still doesn’t get it either.

We barely see her anymore and she calls and yells at us that we are keeping her grandkids away from her. But my husband is amazing and he tells her very plainly that they are not “her grandkids” they are “wife’s (my) children” and that she has burned that bridge long ago.

This is a full-on battle for control. Everyone loses.

I agree, this is exactly what op should not spiral into.

It is definitely super weird if the husband is saying something like “these are my wife’s children” and not something to aspire to.

He said it in response to my MIL demanding that she be allowed to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, with our kids because “these are MY grandkids”. She would say it with such righteousness. It was completely appropriate to say, “they’re your grandkids but they’re her KIDS and you can’t take them from her all summer just because you want to.”

Everyone knows she can’t just take them, though, so why are you threatened by her behavior?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think for my in laws especially my MIL, she never dealt with her own MIL in this sense so she had no clue about how fraught the relationship could be and how in the end, the DIL holds all the cards. Her own MIL lived far away and was unwell.

She had only sons and my experience was mirrored with her second son’s wife’s experience having her own first baby. Thanks to my husband (and probably his brother too, for his brothers wife) she has shaped up. But the stuff she pulled at first- it was insane. She’s the one who came and refused to clean/ said she’d only hold the baby, and had us come visit her for a baby shower and put us up on the couch. She was like that for 2-3 years. Like- we’d show up and she’d just reach over and try to take my daughter out of my arms, without asking and without preamble, as if she were her own. I remember once she tried to do that in front of a bunch of people and I just held on. She tried for a full 5-6 seconds! And I just held on. And my daughter started crying. Everyone was looking at my MIL like she was insane and she got so embarassed and irritated. Her own sister even came up later and was like “we all see you just so you know”. She once told my daughter when she was like 18 months- so, not understanding anything MIL was saying- “one day you’ll be a teenager who hates her mother and you can come live with grandma!” And laughed. In front of me and many others. She announced to us when my daughter was 2 or 3 that it was time for us to drop the baby off with her for a month in the summer because “you can’t say she isn’t old enough anymore and this is what I’ve always planned- to have my grandchildren with me all summer”. I mean I could go on and on and on. Waking her up from naps early as soon as I wasn’t looking so that she could play with her, giving her an iPad when she was 3 despite me specifically saying no, and crying when I took it and gave it away. The final straw was when my oldest was maybe 5 years old and I overheard my daughter telling MIL she wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons before bed and my MIL goes “it doesn’t matter what your mother says, you’re with grandma now and you don’t need to listen to your mothers rules, only to grandmas rules. And it will just be a secret.” After that we went no contact for a couple years and it was liberating. She still doesn’t get it either.

We barely see her anymore and she calls and yells at us that we are keeping her grandkids away from her. But my husband is amazing and he tells her very plainly that they are not “her grandkids” they are “wife’s (my) children” and that she has burned that bridge long ago.

This is a full-on battle for control. Everyone loses.

I agree, this is exactly what op should not spiral into.

It is definitely super weird if the husband is saying something like “these are my wife’s children” and not something to aspire to.

He said it in response to my MIL demanding that she be allowed to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, with our kids because “these are MY grandkids”. She would say it with such righteousness. It was completely appropriate to say, “they’re your grandkids but they’re her KIDS and you can’t take them from her all summer just because you want to.”

Everyone knows she can’t just take them, though, so why are you threatened by her behavior?

Holy cr@p

These women just gave birth with enough hormones in them to cause contractions enough to push the equivalent of cantaloupe out of their vaginas.

Yes, these hormones are going to make them protective and maybe a little irrational at times. What did you think?