Reply to What would you do if you were the DIL?

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "What would you do if you were the DIL? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Whatever you do, this has to be a joint decision between you and your husband and you have to put on a consistent front.  It's all about setting boundaries. Your MIL may not like it, and may ignore your attempts to set boundaries, but if the two of you set the boundaries/parameters, then at least you'll have a plan, and I find things are always better with a plan.  I personally think it is important for children to have grandparents, as long as those grandparents are destriuctive or if the relationship is so toxic so as to be counterproductive.  If you see any good in the MIL/FIL, then perhaps you could agree that every other fourth Sunday, you'll visit her for an afternoon of SUPERVISED play time, and on the other fourth Sunday, she'll come to you at a mutually agreeable time.  I also would tell her that you turn off your phone so that the baby can sleep (you still have the nap excuse/going to bed early excuse at 1 yrs old), and that you are certainly thinking about them.  and then, your husband needs to be the communicator. If he isn't going to do it, then either make a piont of accepting that you'll be the communicator and set the limits or be done with it and don't let it bother you.

What about your own parents?  If your parents are around, then it might be worth a few supervised visits with the MIL.

I feel for you, I really do.  I have a very strained relationship with my father, and I don't pick up the phone when he calls.  He lives in a different time zone, and always manages to call me either when I'm putting the kids to bed (drives me crazy when the phone rings between 7:30-8:00 pm) or when I'm getting ready to go to bed.  He knows that I work late, but if I'm up working then I don't have time to talk to him, and if I"m not working, then I want to be in bed.  In my experience, he wants to be that great grandfather and makes grand promises, but the reality is that he doesn't carry through with them.  It didn't matter when my kids are younger, but now it matters -- like you can't promise a kid a bike and then not buy one.  My point is that if your MIL hasn't been involved much to date, you may find that after a few weeks/months of seeing her more regularly, that she isn't all that interested.

And why oh why do grandparents expect us to travel to them.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics