Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, like the PP said, you cannot change the other person and only control yourself.

In my case, my MIL tends to be selfish. She does not like the baby stage and never helped us. She said she is "not into babies". When she came to visit during my pregnancy and I was on strict bed rest, she would go out for dinner and never offered to cook for me. When she left, she stripped the bed she was sleeping on and put the sheets on top of the washer for me to wash, etc. You get the idea.

I told my husband that I will NEVER forget that. She can forget about asking us for any help in the future. What goes around... Now my DD is older and she wants to come around more, but she has an older car and needs a new one. She does not have enough money to buy it. She knows better than to ask us for help. I sold our extra car at Carmax instead of giving it to her. Control what you can and don't worry about the MIL.

Never forget the sheets thing? Maybe she thought she was being helpful by stripping the bed at all. We have had may guests who just pull up the covers when they leave and don't remove their sheets. I always appreciate it when they take the sheets off for me.

Wow- your husband is never allowed to help his mother because she stripped the sheets? Were you going to have someone else sleep on them or were you going to...strip them from the bed? Like she did? And why couldn't your husband wash them? Wow.

Set a reasonable schedule of their-church visits that you and your husband can live with--what would that look like; once every month? Once every six weeks? Then let them know that's what you plan on.

Anonymous wrote:You come across as not being very invitiing, OP. I suspect that you bear the lion's share of the blame for this situation.

*snort* really. Op's post doesn't sound uninviting. Lots of projection with you unloved gramma.

Anonymous wrote:You come across as not being very invitiing, OP. I suspect that you bear the lion's share of the blame for this situation.

I'm really curious -- there seem to be several people like PP above who, when especially younger women post about ILs, argue that the OPs are not inviting, are standoffish, etc. (speaking about multiple OPs, not this particular case). Are the folks like PP who post these responses ILs themselves? I guess my question is-- are these comments based on experience? I've always felt like the person marrying into the family has the harder road in terms of gaining acceptance, etc., but I would be really interested (since I've only been on one side of that relationship) to understand if ILs are also struggling with the acceptance issue. I think it would just be an interesting perspective if, in fact, it is based on experience.

Anonymous wrote:The FIL request isn't unreasonable. Don't make the choice to view the request as criticism. It doesn't matter if you like them or not.

Agreed. This is not a big deal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, like the PP said, you cannot change the other person and only control yourself.

In my case, my MIL tends to be selfish. She does not like the baby stage and never helped us. She said she is "not into babies". When she came to visit during my pregnancy and I was on strict bed rest, she would go out for dinner and never offered to cook for me. When she left, she stripped the bed she was sleeping on and put the sheets on top of the washer for me to wash, etc. You get the idea.

I told my husband that I will NEVER forget that. She can forget about asking us for any help in the future. What goes around... Now my DD is older and she wants to come around more, but she has an older car and needs a new one. She does not have enough money to buy it. She knows better than to ask us for help. I sold our extra car at Carmax instead of giving it to her. Control what you can and don't worry about the MIL.

Never forget the sheets thing? Maybe she thought she was being helpful by stripping the bed at all. We have had may guests who just pull up the covers when they leave and don't remove their sheets. I always appreciate it when they take the sheets off for me.

Yeah I don't really see that as a big deal at all.

Anonymous wrote:OP, like the PP said, you cannot change the other person and only control yourself.

In my case, my MIL tends to be selfish. She does not like the baby stage and never helped us. She said she is "not into babies". When she came to visit during my pregnancy and I was on strict bed rest, she would go out for dinner and never offered to cook for me. When she left, she stripped the bed she was sleeping on and put the sheets on top of the washer for me to wash, etc. You get the idea.

I told my husband that I will NEVER forget that. She can forget about asking us for any help in the future. What goes around... Now my DD is older and she wants to come around more, but she has an older car and needs a new one. She does not have enough money to buy it. She knows better than to ask us for help. I sold our extra car at Carmax instead of giving it to her. Control what you can and don't worry about the MIL.

Never forget the sheets thing? Maybe she thought she was being helpful by stripping the bed at all. We have had may guests who just pull up the covers when they leave and don't remove their sheets. I always appreciate it when they take the sheets off for me.

The FIL request isn't unreasonable. Don't make the choice to view the request as criticism. It doesn't matter if you like them or not.

Anonymous wrote:OP, like the PP said, you cannot change the other person and only control yourself.

In my case, my MIL tends to be selfish. She does not like the baby stage and never helped us. She said she is "not into babies". When she came to visit during my pregnancy and I was on strict bed rest, she would go out for dinner and never offered to cook for me. When she left, she stripped the bed she was sleeping on and put the sheets on top of the washer for me to wash, etc. You get the idea.

I told my husband that I will NEVER forget that. She can forget about asking us for any help in the future. What goes around... Now my DD is older and she wants to come around more, but she has an older car and needs a new one. She does not have enough money to buy it. She knows better than to ask us for help. I sold our extra car at Carmax instead of giving it to her. Control what you can and don't worry about the MIL.

Being a selfish bitch is not exclusive to your MIL, PP. You sound MOST unpleasant and I predict you will be divorced in 5 years.

You come across as not being very invitiing, OP. I suspect that you bear the lion's share of the blame for this situation.

OP, like the PP said, you cannot change the other person and only control yourself.

In my case, my MIL tends to be selfish. She does not like the baby stage and never helped us. She said she is "not into babies". When she came to visit during my pregnancy and I was on strict bed rest, she would go out for dinner and never offered to cook for me. When she left, she stripped the bed she was sleeping on and put the sheets on top of the washer for me to wash, etc. You get the idea.

I told my husband that I will NEVER forget that. She can forget about asking us for any help in the future. What goes around... Now my DD is older and she wants to come around more, but she has an older car and needs a new one. She does not have enough money to buy it. She knows better than to ask us for help. I sold our extra car at Carmax instead of giving it to her. Control what you can and don't worry about the MIL.

I'm sorry, OP. That stinks.

Maybe try meeting them "halfway" for an outing, like an early dinner out at a restaurant they like? See how that goes, and maybe try building from there?

Anonymous wrote:How hard is it to add another number to your messages? It's unfortunate they don't visit but they are obviously interested in their grandchild. Also, tell your DH to stop telling you about complaining texts to him. How does that help? Sounds like a family where no one is willing to go out of their way, even in the smallest sense, to be accommodating.

I did add him. But you hit the nail on the head. It's a vicious circle of they didn't do this, so we won't do this. And i've become frustrated with them as well. My family is the exact opposite, so I still can't get understand why they have this dynamic.

How hard is it to add another number to your messages? It's unfortunate they don't visit but they are obviously interested in their grandchild. Also, tell your DH to stop telling you about complaining texts to him. How does that help? Sounds like a family where no one is willing to go out of their way, even in the smallest sense, to be accommodating.

This is just a vent. My in laws and and I had a great relationship until DH and I got engaged and then they slowly started getting weird about things. It seemed like they were possessive of DH and worried that they won't be his first priority anymore. Therefore, over the years little things have been adding up and DH and I have become very frustrated with them. We have a 7 month old son now and they never make an effort to come see him. They have been to the house only twice and they live 20min away. I have been sending MIL and SIL pics or videos of son at random times. The other day I received a text from MIL asking me to include FIL on the texts because "he is very disappointed he doesn't get any directly". This man has come to see his grandson exactly 2 times in 7 months but has audacity to complain he doesn't receive updates. In addition to that they text my DH almost every Sunday complaining that we don't take the baby to their church and trying to guilt him into doing it. im so tired of them. BTW they are both retired and do nothing all day and can travel anywhere to go to church events but complain that we live too far away to visit. They think the world revolves around them and cannot make any effort. It is not my battle to fight and Dh has had several conversation with them but they don't get it and nothing gets resolved. So we have given up and just stopped trying to accommodate their ridiculous requests all the time.