Reply to Obligated to have visits with not nice in-laws when there is a new baby?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]NP here. [b]My MIL is wonderful[/b] and my FIL difficult but still generally a great person who I'm happy to spend some time with. We also have a big house and are happy to have the ILs stay with us, and in turn we stay with them when we visit. All this background to say that I'm probably the outlier of this particular thread.

However, I'm going to say that none of this stuff, from refusing to change diapers to silent treatment for a couple months, immature as it may be, sounds like a big deal to me. My ILs have their foibles, and my own family definitely does. My FIL and my aunt (who I'm very close with) have both announced in the past that they don't change diapers. Fine. They don't change diapers. Likewise, neither of them would be comfortable watching the baby for a few minutes. (FIL is disabled and doesn't move around well; aunt never had kids and just doesn't really like babies that much.) ILs got pissy with us one year when we missed a family reunion due to a prior commitment and it took a while before we stopped hearing about it. My own mother volunteered my house for a family get-together earlier this year and forgot to check with me first. None of this is a big deal. Everyone is different and they have their ways and I deal with them, and let them stay with me, because I love them and they are family. The important thing to me is that DD really loves them, and they her, and they all love spending time together.

So, OP, I have a different take on this one. Don't invite MIL on vacation, that's completely reasonable. But I would consider whether you and many of these PPs are engaged in subconscious turf wars that you might be able to cede some ground on in the interest of the grandma/son relationship. You're the wife. You already won. Be gracious in victory, let grandma spent time with grandson, and ignore her issues. Everyone has them. It's just a question of whether you let them get to you. [/quote]

First of all we are talking about MILs who are grandparents, not aunts.  I would not expect an aunt to necessarily want to help out particularly if they've never had kids.  You said your MIL is wonderful.  I assume she may help out or a least is a nice house guest.  I am the previous poster who mentioned my MIL refused to watch the baby so I could pump.

I also forgot to add that she never addresses me or asks me how things are going.  When we've gone to visit her, she served DH pancakes and then came back and gave him seconds, all why DD and I were left with empty plates.  I had to take DH's second pancake and feed some to our DD who was starving.

She refuses to turn up the heat in the winter even when their infant grand daughter visits.  It's literally 60 degrees in their bedrooms in the winter (New England).  I was furious when I found out that DH had not put our DD in the fleece sleep sack that I had brought up.  (She was sleeping in a different room.)

She also visited my SIL who had her first child 6 months before we did.  They did not lift a finger and SIL ended up having to take care of a new baby and her ILs just 5 weeks after her delivery.

OP--you don't owe them anything.  Let your DH deal with it.  It's not your responsibility to make things easy for them, particularly if they don't treat you very well.[/quote]

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