I would Love this. That way I don't have to sit at her house with no cable or Internet entertaining 2 kids for hours while they talk about people I have never met and will never know while we are all starving.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is seriously messed up, OP. Your MIL sounds certifiable. And just plain rude. I have three boys and two girls. My oldest two are married. In a million years I would never ask to have "alone time" with my son when they visit. When they are here, I want to spend time with ALL of them. Of course I love my son. I also love my DIL and my grandbaby. If anything, I offer to keep the baby so that my son and DIL can get out and do something fun as a couple.

And not letting you stay at her house? That is beyond weird. Your DH needs stand up to his batshit crazy mama. I am both a DIL and a MIL. Your MIL is exactly why there are so many jokes about horrid MILs. I simply would not put up with that.

Pp I think you are the 'crazy' one. There is nothing wrong with mil wanting to spend 4 hours with her son. So many dil complain about not having your own space and forced to stay with in laws!

Good grief

She’s not going to have “her own space” stuck in a hotel room for four whole hours on a random day with young kids. Minus a car to boot!

Anonymous wrote:"Alone time"? It's giving incest vibes.

You revived an 8 yo thread to make this comment? Mil is probably dead by now.

Some alone time is fine but I’d only allow it at a day/time when I take the kids to something else anyway that’s appropriate for kids. With the car of course.

Honestly, this is very weird. Can't she just call him more regularly or something? Also weird she cannot handle her grandchild

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see anything wrong with wanting to spend alone time with him but if she lives there why does he need the car.

Can't she pick him up?

I am not a MIL but they can't win on DCUM.

We complain if she wants to spend time with the DIL we complain if she doesn't want to spend time with the DIL.
Craziness.

OP is questioning why MIL doesn't want to spend time with her own grandchild, not with OP (DIL). Big difference...

Wanting to spend time with her son doesn't mean she doesn't want to spend time with grandchild. How old is the child?

Anonymous wrote:This is seriously messed up, OP. Your MIL sounds certifiable. And just plain rude. I have three boys and two girls. My oldest two are married. In a million years I would never ask to have "alone time" with my son when they visit. When they are here, I want to spend time with ALL of them. Of course I love my son. I also love my DIL and my grandbaby. If anything, I offer to keep the baby so that my son and DIL can get out and do something fun as a couple.

And not letting you stay at her house? That is beyond weird. Your DH needs stand up to his batshit crazy mama. I am both a DIL and a MIL. Your MIL is exactly why there are so many jokes about horrid MILs. I simply would not put up with that.

Pp I think you are the 'crazy' one. There is nothing wrong with mil wanting to spend 4 hours with her son. So many dil complain about not having your own space and forced to stay with in laws!

Good grief

I'm an adult son, husband and father. I definitely understand the MIL's desire to have a short private visit with her son. As long as she is not against spending time with the entire family, including her DIL and grandchild, one short period just to visit with her son is not a horrible request. I come from a bilingual and bicultural family and whenever we visit there are times that my mother and I want to sit and visit when we don't always have to converse in English (my mother's second language) and don't always want to have to explain the customs and things we are doing. We like to talk about people we know that my spouse doesn't know. My wife really doesn't care that my mother's neighbor of 30 years has such-and-such problem. Or the mother's work friend from before she retired, has a grandson who will be going to college. Or that something significant changed aboutthe place we vacationed years before I had met my spouse. When we are together, we try to keep our conversations to topics that are more universally interesting and that my wife will feel like a participant in the conversation rather than talking about people and places that she knows nothing about.

However, the problem here are the details of the private visit. The MIL is making the visit an inconvenience on her DIL and grandchild. When we visit my mother, we do stay in her house. Both of us are night owls and we have our private visits at night after my wife and kids go to bed, so it isn't really an inconvenience for my wife and it isn't making my wife and kids inconvenienced for our visits.

If OP's MIL wants to visit with her son they need to find a way to make it less of a burden on the OP and her kids. As people pointed out, MIL can pick up her son or OP can drop off her husband. Also, the visit should be in the morning or evening, rather than smack in the middle of a day. Like, they can all have dinner together and then OP's DH can drop wife and kids off after dinner, OP, can put the kids to bed and stay in and DH can visit with his mother as long as they want. Or if she goes to bed early, then he can go over first thing in the morning and then come back to pick up his wife and kids for lunch.

So the request to have 1:1 time is not a horrible request. Breaking up a day by taking the middle of the afternoon and leaving the family in hotel without transportation is the inconsiderate problem.

Maybe someday you'll want some "alone" time with your own child, and then you'll understand.

Anonymous wrote:"Alone time"? It's giving incest vibes.

You bumped an 8-year-old thread to say this? Why?

Anonymous wrote:I think that is perfectly fine. My husband wouldn't think twice about me doing something with my mother without him. I would actually be pretty annoyed if he insisted he always come with me. I think it is actually a bit odd that you don't allow him to see his parent with out you.

My husband often does things alone with his parents or a parent and I am the same. Neither of us would ever say that we could only see them together.

Same. It would be a total hill to die on if my husband insisted that he be included in everything I do with my parents.

Anonymous wrote:I don't see anything wrong with wanting to spend alone time with him but if she lives there why does he need the car.

Can't she pick him up?

I am not a MIL but they can't win on DCUM.

We complain if she wants to spend time with the DIL we complain if she doesn't want to spend time with the DIL.
Craziness.

OP is questioning why MIL doesn't want to spend time with her own grandchild, not with OP (DIL). Big difference...

My MIL did this - granted she was a weirdo - it didn't bother me at all, but DH hated it. We tried to include everybody after having kids, but she was clear that she wanted just him, and we finally just gave in. She didn't know her grandkids but it was probably for the best. She was a narcissist btw so it was some weird control thing. Anyway - sorry you are dealing with this but it happens and you can't take it personally.

Anonymous wrote:I think that is perfectly fine. My husband wouldn't think twice about me doing something with my mother without him. I would actually be pretty annoyed if he insisted he always come with me. I think it is actually a bit odd that you don't allow him to see his parent with out you.

My husband often does things alone with his parents or a parent and I am the same. Neither of us would ever say that we could only see them together.

The OP says that when MIL visits them she has no problem with them going off and doing something. It’s the weird rudeness of stranding OP in a hotel room in the middle of the day for half a day because that’s what MIL demands. Adults do not do unreasonable things because some nut case demands it. They say nope, not doing this.

I think that is perfectly fine. My husband wouldn't think twice about me doing something with my mother without him. I would actually be pretty annoyed if he insisted he always come with me. I think it is actually a bit odd that you don't allow him to see his parent with out you.

My husband often does things alone with his parents or a parent and I am the same. Neither of us would ever say that we could only see them together.