u/Intelligent_Can_1111

Hi all! Freshly NC with my MIL after posting on this sub and finally coming to terms with how awful our situation has been postpartum.

Just wanted to rant because my MIL has tried to use the argument to literally anyone that will listen to her that I became a completely different person after having my baby.

Ummmm isn’t that the point??!! I deleted my main post about it but- the fam drama started when I LIKED an instagram post about pp support starting with the words “nothing is as transformational as motherhood”

The IRONY of her argument now. L-o-l

I knowww she’s only mad about it because I used to have no backbone and no boundaries and none of my own family in town and was 100% a people pleaser for her and the rest of the family just trying to be accepted and she still had full control and equal consideration with DH as I did as his partner. I’m realizing that in her eyes I was simply the incredibly “easy-going and isolated from my own family” accessory that didn’t interfere with her control of him since he had zero boundaries either.

Motherhood made me finally grow a backbone and start enforcing boundaries, so she’s mad because the complete open field I used to be for her to run all over now has boundaries.

Anyways! Anyone else like this with their MIL? used to be extremely selfless to the point of self abandonment, did all the things for them because I genuinely wanted to, tried to organize family stuff with them myself, and now that’s even twisted by her that I was “love bombing” and that my boundaries and bluntness after having a baby are who I really am?!

Insane.

I’m freshly NC with my MIL, but in one of our last conversations she tried to use a laundry list of excuses including that she was going through weird hormone changes and was sleep deprived.

Mind you- these were her excuses for how she treated me/DH three weeks postpartum all the way til now, 9 months pp, after bringing baby home from the Nicu. I’m absolutely villainized for standing up for myself after her behavior while I am truly the once in a lifetime definition of sleep deprived and crazy hormonal, but she’s allowed to treat us like shit because of it and never apologize??

L-o-l

Every single day I feel less and less stress and anxiety about my JNMIL after recently going NC.

I’m finally relaxed enough to creatively think again, been doing things I enjoy because I actually want to and not because I’m forcing a distraction for myself, finally able to laugh and loosen up and do dishes without getting lost in my thoughts, sleeping through the night again, and so many other small wins.

I had no idea the mental chaos I was letting this woman cause for me every day. She truly had condos in my head. I was also prioritizing everyone else’s feelings- my fiancés, HERS, his entire family’s, over my OWN. I feel like I have my power back and the peace I feel now has been extremely validating that I’ve made the right decision.

For now I’m hoping for temporary NC, Lord knows I tried so hard not to get here to the point of NC anyways, but the more I rest in my own body and mind again, the more I’m thinking about never going back.

**just want to say also that I’m not trying to encourage NC for everyone! I’m still a firm believer in trying to work things out even after my own experience. Just sharing my own relief/success story on the other side of finally letting the rope go.

It’s officially been one week with my MIL blocked and my boundary set with my fiancé of not wanting to hear any of the guilt trips and hate she spews to him.

It feels so good now. I definitely still struggle with the guilt and anxiety some in the mornings mostly, but it feels so good to not be on edge all the time especially when my fiancé walks in the door for the day or just even being on my phone waiting to see her name pop-up.

It’s like I’m realizing how heavy the weight I’ve been carrying for the last eight months since our son was born has been in addition to just transitioning into motherhood.

Has anyone dealt with MIL problems where during conflict she tried to also control or weaponize your relationships or lack of with the SIL or BIL??

My BILs wife was also involved in the whole situation that pushed me to NC with my MIL. Long story short, my SIL and I tried to work it out as we used to be really close, but I eventually stopped trying with my SIL because every time we heard from my MIL, she would use that newly distanced relationship as a guilt trip to my fiance or would try to fight battles for them that we’d never heard was a problem from them personally. It’s like she can’t stand not being in control of those relationships either

Finally went NC with my MIL. Only been four or five days.

For context my MIL had a typical case of baby rabies, day ONE after bringing home baby from NICU we told her we wanted a day home alone with baby, no visitors, and her response was “guess I’m on restriction then huh” in *that tone* you’re probably thinking of. That pretty much sums up her attitude for the rest of postpartum. I have a couple other posts about how she’s treated us.

To summarize, we’ve tried to sit down with her twice now hoping to hear apologies and anything resembling “I never meant to cause this much chaos for you guys while you start your family” to no avail. I keep thinking if I explain something a certain way she will understand. Recently she had texted me about coming over and “we have to start somewhere” but it was all on her terms even after my fiance suggested baby steps we would be open to. We weren’t comfortable with her coming to visit yet.

Anyway, I took the bait anyway and agreed but told her I’d like to address somethings I recently overhead her saying to my fiancé. Even tried to reinforce I’m still open to a short visit. I got no response. Then I spiraled for days. Had an appt with my psychiatrist and they advised me to take a full break from communicating for 4 weeks. I’m now 8 months postpartum diagnosed with acute PTSD from my birth experience and how we were treated by her and I have yet to take a break from hearing the hate she spews to my fiancé or the entire town.

With that being said, now I am spiraling because I blocked her after reinforcing I’d be open to a short visit. I’m struggling knowing I need to take a break from her completely. It’s like the communication directly from her triggers me all over again and even when I tried to communicate back in good faith my mental health cannot take it. Especially since she no-responsed me which I took as her trying to avoid accountability for the umpteenth time again.

Am I stupid for still caring?? I’m just in that phase of still somehow holding out hope and I can’t help but think maybe that third time sitting down would have done the trick and I should have just pushed through the mental chaos again that all of this has caused me while becoming a mother. Thoughts?? Give it to me straight plz

Does anyone have a MIL they went NC with early on and have grown children now?? How do your grown children interact with MIL?

TW: traumatic birth experience

We had a traumatic delivery experience and I was diagnosed with PTSD after it. Basically Baby was in Nicu for a week completely unexpectedly after a stat cs and so all of our plans changed for postpartum visitation once we finally got to bring him home. Only people that met him in the NICU were my own mom and dad and my MIL.

A couple weeks after we had him home, my in-laws saw we had ran a couple errands (an oil change and a target trip) but still weren’t having visitors other than the three that met him in the NICU, and my SIL saw a random Instagram post I liked that started with “nothing is as transformational as motherhood” -it also mentioned remembering who shows up for you postpartum- it was taken completely out of context and extremely personally by her (probably because she was insecure she hadn’t actually shown up for us at all but I genuinely didn’t care bcz I was praying to be left alone in our own bubble anyways after everything). Instead of anyone asking how we were doing once we got home or if we were ready for visitors, the family gossip train RAN, and next communication with them we got attacked and blamed for everyone’s insecurities about not having met our son yet and assumptions saying we were hypocrites because of the post I LIKED. My MIL went on in her rage text messaging to guilt trip my fiance by texting him awful things including bringing my own mom into it, saying his [perfectly healthy] f*cking grandmother was going to die before meeting our son, and how “it’s f*cked up we can’t tell *other ppl* when they ask that we’ve held him yet”. My fiance read me word for word her crazy messages as they came across his phone

Mind you- I was hearing all this with my newborn in my lap and my insides still split and still scared to death every day that my newborn is having seizures potentially, and we even sped to the ER at 10 PM one night because of it and she knew it.

Since then we’ve faced more insane guilt trips, received hateful Facebook messages from random distant divorced out family members she still speaks to, and have been blacksheeped from the family.

I have been accused of keeping my fiancé from his family- never once ever did I even say anything along the lines of that to him and never once has anyone else in the family uninvolved reached out to him either - and I have been blamed for everything. No one has genuinely apologized to us nor has anyone tried to understand our side (which I feel like needed no explaining anyways). Everyone wants to brush it under the rug and ask for us to give THEM grace. No one gave it to us during the most vulnerable time of us bringing our son home after such an experience.

Anyways now we have a new baby and the big happy family I dreamed of having hates my guts and I’m still trying to heal from the ptsd of my birth experience soooo yeah!!!

I’ve had this huge insecurity because I feel like my eyes always get so wide and spaced out looking anytime I’m stressed or overwhelmed or disassociating or even just feel uncomfortable and awkward in conversations. I don’t know why. only one person has pointed it out to me in my entire life and now I feel like I notice it all the time. 😩

TW:// traumatic birth

Hi, new here.

I’m eight months postpartum and just saw a psychiatrist for the first time in my life.

I was diagnosed with CPTSD, acute PTSD, and bipolar type two. We had to unpack a lot in the first session, but next session we are going to explore BPD.

All of the major ups and downs I’ve had in my life have always been related to something that has happened to me. The most recent being the traumatic birth of my first son. I was 39 weeks when my placenta abrupted during labor. I was intubated and completely asleep within minutes, and baby needed CPR for 10 minutes before going to the NICU for HIE protocol. (He is completely healthy with no brain damage miraculously😭).

Three weeks postpartum after this already traumatic experience, my entire in-law family decided they wanted to contribute to the trauma. I was still so hypervigilant and on edge MONTHS after we got to bring our son home still and my MIL and other in-laws never once asked how I personally was doing after we finally brought him home (guess they thought everything was fine and dandy now that we were home?), but instead took our desire for space and no visitors personally as they also heard we had been running errands (an oil change and a single Target trip). When one of them who I was close to finally did ask how I was, I was happy I could explain the mental struggle I was going through with knowing people wanted to meet him, but that the thought of someone holding him and breathing his air literally made me feel like it was a life or death situation all over again. I literally told her I had images of him intubated and blue imprinted in my brain. Instead of even acknowledging that and giving me grace, I was responded to with all of the judgment that had already been going on by the entire in-law family prior to this conversation. The things my MIL also separately said to my fiancé, which he then relayed to me, have now become part of the trauma for me.

I find myself going through what I now think is “splitting” nearly every day with my own partner, but also in sense during this whole situation with my MIL. I have always been called an extremely sensitive person in the fact that I have a huge heart and love deeply. But when I am angry and feel disrespected, I go 0 to 100 with pure anger and feel the need to stand up for myself dramatically.

My struggle every day now is battling with the intense anger I feel when thinking about how we were treated, but also flipping in the next second to wanting to be this light of a person that approaches it all with pure kindness. I have lashed out and felt like I needed to stand up for myself to my mother-in-law when in these phases of anger. And I have also tried being nice. Unfortunately, now I have been labeled as a narcissist and manipulative because of my reactions. All I have ever wanted was for someone to acknowledge the awful experience we went through and to not think of themselves related to our situation for one second.

My poor fiancé is in the middle and definitely stands up for me to his family and hasn’t really spoken with them aside from trying to communicate to them how upset we are at how we were treated and still have been. He sees the worst of my mood swings when I am so so angry, but then suddenly I will get a thought that I need to be this kind person, and I will immediately switch my entire tactic of how I approach and view the drama.

I’m exhausted because of my own mind. I feel like I can’t decide if I am angry with the situation or completely fine with it. It changes in the same conversation depending on literally just the words that are said about it at that time . Unfortunately, it doesn’t help that none of the in-law family has tried to genuinely apologize nor do we feel like they have ever tried to empathize or put themselves in our shoes. All of this is fuel to the fire in my brain. I find myself wanting to overexplain simply to be understood because of how hurt I was, but no one ever validates or acknowledges it which makes me feel like I have to explain even more.

I have noticed these same patterns in past relationships where I love so big but the next minute I’ll get a random feeling of insecurity and switch to completely emotionally detached from this person and can’t even hug them. My postpartum experience so far has been the most stressful and most impactful situation I have ever had to deal with in my life, and I feel like all of these patterns have become so clear, even with the hormonal changes I’ve been going through.

I guess I’m writing this because I don’t really have anyone else to talk to about it and I’m driving my fiancé up a wall with the spells I get into every single day about it.