MIL’s strange behavior during my pregnancies
I’ve always been very bothered by my MIL’s behavior in regards to my pregnancies and I’d appreciate outside perspectives.
My husband comes from a very enmeshed family. His mom has always been overly involved in his romantic relationships and (I’m no doctor) shows traits of NPD and is also a heavy drinker…. I’ve lost count of the # of times I’ve seen her drunk if that tells you anything. Thankfully we live about 10 hours drive away so there is good distance.
Our first baby was planned but we were not married yet. We told my family immediately but waited until 12 weeks to tell DH’s family because we didn’t know how his mom would react. DH told her alone over the phone and said she just seemed “shocked” and became quiet. I knew she didn’t like me, but she had been begging me for grandkids for a long time so the reaction was confusing. Weeks passed before she even reached out to congratulate or check on me. I later learned that she was telling relatives how upset she was by the news and essentially saying DH made a mistake. It wasn’t until she seemed to realize MY family was extremely supportive that she did a 180. She suddenly became extremely obsessed with my unborn child and tried to force her way into every little detail. DH pushed back and regularly reminded MIL that this is OUR baby, not hers and that always ended in a massive argument between them. We were very strict with boundaries and she ultimately had no choice but to respect them. She complained to others about my mom’s involvement and how it was unfair.
By the time I was pregnant with our second child we were LC with MIL. We didn’t share the news until I was 28 weeks, and MIL was extremely upset about that. I ignored her texts this time around. She never showed any excitement or joy about our second child at all, she never even bought the baby a gift.
With our third pregnancy we didn’t even tell MIL, she found out because DH posted a photo of lasagna I made and you could see ultrasound photos on our fridge. By this point I had cut contact. There wasn’t a specific event that caused it, I just got tired of pretending she’s not immature, vindictive, manipulative and emotionally exhausting. DH supports this and has no patience for his mother. Of course me being nc meant MIL didn’t see our kids. Again, she was “crushed” learning of this pregnancy. One of DH’s relatives sent me screenshots of MIL’s posts aftwards including things like “God I’m tired of being your strongest soldier! I need peace!” and “I am strong, I’m praying for relief from this heartache”. Her friends commented things like “you will get through this!” and “love you!! Praying so hard!”.
I can understand being hurt that DH didn’t share the news much sooner. What I can’t wrap my head around is that this is now three pregnancies where she has acted devastated by the news. It gets old having *every* pregnancy treated like it’s bad news- for one specific person… the same person who claims to love our kids?