I haven't seen or spoken to my mil for the last 4 months. In short it's all the usual reasons as to why we don't allow mil to babysit or have LO(2yo) unsupervised. After my DH made this clear to mil she said she isn't going to bother having a relationship with LO if she has to be supervised. (We haven't heard from mil since apart from her asking what our LO wanted for Xmas but DH told her we didn't want gifts until she had a sit down with us)
I am pregnant with our 2nd baby. I'm approaching the end of my 1st trimester and have our first scan in the next couple of weeks. My husband said he will likely announce the pregnancy in his family group chat, after the scan (which mil is part of) but not contact his mother directly as he is obviously upset she is acting like this & won't even agree to sit down with us to try & reconcile.
My dilemma is, as the months go by the more I'm over my mil and what I see as childish behaviour. I think its disgusting to basically give us an ultimatum if she doesn't get what she wants, which is unsupervised access to our child. Mil clearly isnt going to apologise. I don't believe she has the ability to reflect on her own behaviours and even suspect that she could be the one in the wrong.
At this point I don't even want my mil to know we are having another baby. I dont want her thinking it's an opportunity to weasel her way back into our lives without apologising.
I know my hormones are all over the place and mil could also just completely ignore the news. But I really don't even think she's worth telling as I don't think she will truly be happy for us.
I guess it would be nice to hear other people's experiences of announcing a pregnancy while NC or VVLC? Or whether you just didn't say anything at all & how that worked out?
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Other posts from /u/craftyExplorer_82:
Gift arrived from mil, 1 month ago
Mil wants to send gifts after saying she didn't want anything to do with our LO, 1 month ago
Mil being petty & rubbing it in our faces?, 1 month ago
Mil thinks she's perfect & we should change!, 1 month ago
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Well, she’s throwing away the whole relationship with you, with her son, with his family, all because she can’t be alone with LO. I guess that means no holidays or birthday celebrations because you’ll be supervising LO at that time. She really does not understand what she’s doing. Lease make arrangements with another trusted adult when you have LO#2.
I truly believe she is so blinded by her own immaturity & selfishness that she can't see the damage she's really doing. I believe she is so used to getting her own way that she thinks in time we will break and come crawling back, like we need her.
She will try to sweep everything under the rug & try to carry on as normal if we see her for the holidays or birthdays but luckily DH family don't get together very often so we can probably avoid her for a long time. Luckily my side of the family are amazing & the only people we allow to babysit so I know I can call on them if we need to when the new baby comes.
Maybe you could just let everyone except your MIL know, individually. I can’t see how she would act any differently this time around.
I did not tell my mother at all. She only found out I had my son when he was 8 months old. She saw me at a funeral. As far as I am aware, she still doesn't know I had a second child.
Best decision ever, especially as she tried shit when she learned about my son.
Just read your history. I'd wait until after you give birth. Remind DH that peace & quiet with no drama is essential for a successful birth and MIL attempting to reinstate contact with a gift at 2 years old, no discussion or apology, is a bit late. Add her behaviour with your stepson and nope, unless anyone else knows & will tell her. In that case, better to announce & request no drama or visitation until after a healthy baby is born. As far as the gift, hopefully DH could remind her that she has a tradition of no gift no card for your child & you're happy to keep that so you'll save the oddball personalized gift for when she's adult. Either way, a granny who goes out of her way to make her older grandchilden eat so much they get sick has judgement issues and should be with babies or toddlers or even teens as she is just playing with them and doesn't seem to actually care for them.
I did joke with DH about waiting until after the baby is born, he didn't seem like he was on board lol
I think he's worried about looking spiteful.
You're right that we should probably make it clear to her that we do not want any drama & to just continue to leave us alone if she is not going to sincerely apologise and respect us as parents.
I also do not believe my mil really cares for her grandchildren, they are more like props for her to show off to make herself feel good & look good to others. Otherwise, she would take more care when looking after or being around them, but she just so irresponsible & is only bothered about spoiling them (until they are sick, clearly)
That's why I do not want her near this new baby pretending she's this amazing grandmother when all she wants is to get her own way with them.
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Congratulations! My baby is also due in August! Argh, typical JustNo, having to make the pregnancy announcement about her and not the fact that you just wanted to make sure your baby was healthy before telling everyone!
Thank you for sharing your experience and I'm sorry your mil was so horrible to you!
My mil is in her early 60s & also very unhealthy (her mobility is already declining rapidly), my husband is her only child so I like to think she's going to regret acting like this and basically pushing her only son & grandkids away. My husband does have a 10yr old son from before we met that mil spends time with so I assume she will put all her efforts into that relationship instead of trying to reconcile with us so she isn't lonely once she's retired & has someone to check on her lol
Like you, I do want to leave it up to my husband to decide when he wants to tell his mother, but I also want to protect my peace.
I just have no clue how mil will even react to the announcement, which is giving me a bit of anxiety.
Ultimately, I just think I need to be sure me and DH are on the same page and that I'm in a good headspace before we drop the news.
It's a total gift from her not to have to deal, but first, ensure you have her officially writing that she is refusing contact if she cannot have baby unsupervised, and with you mentioning the reasons why not, so if she starts badmouthing you, you have that email snippet to send out.
We didn’t tell my husbands family who we were NC with, only those we are LC with. The NC found out eventually through the grapevine, but not my problem, and their subsequent tantrums also not my problem.
Also - be aware when she finds out she’ll turn on the drama or push to reconcile.
Currently going through this with our 4th and final. I’m 13 weeks and we haven’t said anything to my in laws because I know as soon as I do they will start asking questions and being super invasive like “who’s going to watch the kids” “can we watch the kids” when they don’t even talk to me in the first place. Like me and my mil have ZERO relationship. She barely even talks to her own son and my fil only talks to my husband asking “can we come visit today” knowing damn well they’re only allowed to come over once a week and that’s already too much for me.
But because of recent events that transpired over Christmas and new years we haven’t seen them since and since they don’t know I’ve already told my husband that how she acts in this time of not knowing is going to determine how long I keep them away after birth and I just loooooove that she’s showing her true colors and making it easier for me.
They too think that they should have unlimited and unsupervised access to our children and I’m not kidding when I say I wouldn’t trust her with a dead fucking plant let alone my children I care more about than her. So in my opinion. Keep it to yourself as long as possible if you don’t want her knowing or you should be the one to say something and set the rules very clearly.
Your comment is really helpful, thank you.
I said to my husband that if we were having the baby tomorrow, his mother would not be invited round to see them. I don't want to see her face after what she said & how she's acted, but it further confirms that Mil is not a safe person for our LO to be around & I have been right never to trust her unsupervised.
I dont want to come across spiteful, but I am struggling with whether to let my husband send a message in his family group chat after the scan or whether I just want to keep the pregnancy quiet for a little longer.
The last few months have been peaceful and I've had less anxiety now that we barely hear from mil and I just don't want to potentially disrupt that lol
Just post a birth announcement in the group chat when you are ready to receive visitors. Baby could be 6 or 8 weeks by then.
I’m just going to be blunt with you okay. You shouldn’t let him say anything unless you want to. Pregnancy in itself already has enough stressors that come along with it and it’s been so nice to just keep this to ourselves until I want to say something and while I know I’ll eventually get to the point to where it’s obvious I’m pregnant so I’ll deal with it when I have to lol This is also my last baby so I’m really soaking it in and enjoying it and I think you should do the same. It’s kind of like the one time we have full control over everything because no one else is giving birth except you. So what you say goes and use that to your advantage.
You got this. We got this.
"she isn't going to bother having a relationship with LO if she has to be supervised."
---Good. That solves lots of problems. Keep it that way.
The family is going to tell her. Keep the LC and supervision in place.
“Done and DONE!”
The only person that you need to talk to about this is your partner. You both need to talk about how to respond to her usual manipulative behaviors when she starts them. If you are both on the same page and you have a set plan in place it is so much easier to deal with. Make sure that you know that he's got your back and that he'll be able to handle it and keep the stress away. Congratulations.
Let her get the group chat announcement. It'll probably infuriate her that she didn't get the honor of being the first to know, and when she starts in on your husband about meeting the baby, he can remind her that she chose to throw away her relationship with you and your child out of spite, and that a new baby isn't going to change that.
This is the way