u/CutesyVibes

Hi, I’ve posted a couple of times in here. Long story short: me and my husband don’t have a close relationship with MIL, she’s quite entitled and has very much a status thing where she expects access to us and now our baby, despite not building a good quality relationship with us. She’s also very selfish. I’ve tried for years to like her and have a good relationship but I can’t… she often makes passive aggressive remarks to me and disguises them as “jokes”.
A few examples include: making comments on my appearance quite a lot. She bad mouthed my family also. She said my baby would “come out like an eel” which was odd.

Anyway, when my baby was born, she came round with a terrible cough. It was awful. I swear she even kissed my baby. Thankfully he is fine. I had an emergency c section and was in a daze when this happened, high on pain killers, it felt like I was in hell and had no control in that moment.

Since then my husband messaged her to set a boundary and say don’t visit when sick and no kissing! She messaged me like nothing was wrong… I was fuming, she then basically started saying how SHE was upset at my husbands message and us thinking she would “bring germs round”… so I sent her a message that clearly set that boundary even firmer and tbh I wanted her to hold herself accountable… a trait she seems to not do.

Anyway since my message, both my MIL and FIL read my message and said it was “hateful”, “vile” and “nasty”… my FIL said that if he received it and if I wasn’t my husbands wife then he would have “blocked me and told me to f**** off!”.

It almost feels like now their focus is my message, rather than my MILs actions.

I want to know your guys thoughts:

- is my message “hateful” or “nasty” (coz I’m struggling to see it… I will include my message below)

- my husband would like us to still have some relationship with his family and “get rid of this stress”… how could we do this?
I feel so disappointed by his parents, I feel I will never forgive them for the trauma and tainting the early sensitive postpartum days

- what should I do from here?

Thank you

My message: “I'd have just thought it's a no brainer really to not be being around a new born when you have a cough, even if it is the “tail end of it".
I've had a couple of bad coughs and have avoided seeing my niece for weeks even if the “contagious phase" has ended. There's no point in risking it as they are just so fragile.
I know you say you're upset that we would think you'd consider coming round with germs... but that is essentially what you have actually done. You don't know if you were contagious or not at the end of the day. And overlooking that risk is what we aren't happy with.
As for my husbands message, he was also put in an awkward position and he was simply just looking out for baby and me and being a good Daddy. There's no need to get upset by it, just reflect and move on
At the end of the day MIL, I'm not concerned about whether or not you're upset by this. My only concern is Baby’s health and welfare, and that is the bottom
line.
Yes here's some photos in the meantime xx”

Hi, I posted before about how my MIL came round to meet my baby in the first few days and she came with a very bad cough.
This really affected me and still does. She even held my baby and I swear kissed him. I was high on pain relief and very vulnerable, I felt frozen in the moment and like I was living in hell. I couldn’t believe it. I felt so unsafe.

My relationship with MIL before this wasn’t exactly good. I’d be nothing but nice to her, but she always seemed to make digs about me personally - my appearance, my family etc. she even made comments about my unborn baby and said he would “come out like an eel”… odd. Even on the day of meeting my baby, I said I’d go upstairs to breastfeed and she said “sure if you’re embarrassed”. She held my baby and said “hi I’m grandma, don’t know what they’ve said about me but none of it’s true none of it’s true, don’t listen”.
Even when I was telling my birth story, I could just see she did not care one bit and wasn’t listening. My husband mentioned this to his dad and the dad said “oh I don’t notice, probably coz I wasn’t listening either haha”….

Anyway, after the visit, I was very distressed and I decided to message MIL. Me and my husband both said she is not welcome round for the foreseeable. She showed no accountability for her actions that day, she tried to make it about herself and how SHE is upset.

Since then, my husbands best friend died which has of course been an added stress we have been dealing with.

My husband works with his dad, and his dad the other day addressed the topic. He said that he read my message to MIL and he said my message was “vile and nasty” and that “if he had have received it, and if I wasn’t his sons wife then he would have blocked me and told me to f*** off”…
I don’t believe at all my message is vile OR nasty. I was setting a clear boundary that needed to be set.
His dad even said “he was so angry he wanted to fire my husband”…

I just can’t believe we are dealing with this now. I feel like I’m being made out to be the horrible person and again the offender (MIL) and her actions are almost being forgotten about.
I can’t tell you how traumatised I was by her coming round my newborn with her germs, the whole thing has broken my heart.

I will paste the messages below of what’s been said, please give me advice and thoughts thank you:

Me: I’m not going to lie, I did feel quite distressed after you visited with a bad cough. I know you said you didn’t think you were contagious, but with a newborn that’s not something we can take any risks on.

We just need to be really careful with baby while he’s so little, so we’ll only be having visitors when everyone’s completely well

Otherwise, we are all doing really well thanks xx

MIL: I think I’m more upset that you both think I’d even consider coming round if I thought I’d give baby any germs - I’m so used to having a cough as it’s a tedious side effect of my meds, that I figured it was just back to normal after I’d had a summer cold a couple of weeks ago, but obviously I take your point and I’m sorry for any distress caused. I have to say though, that the wording of <my husbands> messages really upset me, but I guess it’s down to how you interpret them isn’t it.

Keep the photos coming - if I can’t visit in person, I need my daily fix ;) xxx

Me (this is the “vile message” I believe): I'd have just thought it's a no brainer really to not be being around a new born when you have a cough, even if it is the
"tail end of it".
I've had a couple of bad coughs and have avoided seeing my niece for weeks even if the “contagious phase" has ended. There's no point in risking it as they are just so fragile.
I know you say you're upset that we would think you'd consider coming round with germs... but that is essentially what you have actually done. You don't know if you were contagious or not at the end of the day. And overlooking that risk is what we aren't happy with.
As for my husbands message, he was also put in an awkward position and he was simply just looking out for baby and me and being a good Daddy. There's no need to get upset by it, just reflect and move on
At the end of the day MIL, I'm not concerned about whether or not you're upset by this. My only concern is baby’s health and welfare, and that is the bottom
line.
Yes here's some photos in the meantime... XX

She then ignored my message for a week and then tried to message like nothing had happened. I then ignored her.

Any advice would be great and also thoughts, thanks!