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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=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. [/quote]

This is a full-on battle for control. Everyone loses. [/quote]

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.[/quote]
 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.” [/quote]

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

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?[/quote]

Dramatic much?  [/quote]

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