How would you approach this MIL dynamic?
Looking for feedback on if I should be changing my behavior or my perspective on my relationship with my MIL. We have always been close and have had a good friendship outside of family life. I feel like things have maybe shifted now that my husband and I have two young children. I'm likely reading into things, but the vibe I get is that my MIL somehow resents me or feels odd now that I am the "mom". I'll try to provide some context / examples.
She is the quintessential matriarch - my in laws are wealthy and have beautiful homes that we spend a good amount of time at with them so I feel like she is possibly used to dictating things / expecting her children around her. In general she makes off putting comments that are always excused with the vibe of "LOL we are just drinking / hanging out / I just say what I think". She hasn't really ever been called out or kept in check as my FIL wouldn't say anything to her and a decent amount of friendships have fizzled out over the years. It's gotten more exhausting now that childrearing is in the mix. She makes comments like "I'm just going to teach child X to do this thing when we are all together, its time they learned" or "I'm going to pop by at some point tomorrow to say hi and I can take daughter out". The vibe is very "I will do this" vs. "Is this okay?". She also loves to push boundaries because they merely exist, such as sunscreen or rear-facing car seats. Once we were on the boat and she had some wine and was jokingly splashing my daughters sunscreen off as I was putting it on. The vibe is basically needing to challenge boundaries because I created them and feeling like she "knows" better (even though I'm sure she had these same boundaries for her kids).
It feels like she loves me and wants to help, but also resents me and thinks we live a privileged life compared to her when she was raising her kids before my FIL did well. Which we do, but we had kids 8 years after her and both work. I just feel like I am always walking a tightrope. If she doesn't see the kids enough it's "I haven't seen them in two weeks, I need to pop by", but if we are up there for a full weekend I can sometimes feel like she thinks I'm taking advantage of her watching them even though she offers and tells me to relax. There's also this weird SAHM vs. working mom dynamic. She makes comments that indicate I have a career for fun, which LOL do you think your son can float our lifestyle in this economy alone?
It recently came to a head when we were in a childcare pickle. And to be fair, she always will watch them for a few hours if we have drs appts or something going on. She has always said "I want to watch them, I want to help however you need, etc" but my intuition has felt like it's more about when it works for her so I don't want to push too hard. We asked if she would be interested in providing part time coverage for a month and she was clearly not into it and even made a joke that she would be my butler. She ultimately said she "wanted to" but it feels awkward now.
IDK, this is hardly anything noteworthy compared to some of the MIL horror stories. It's just my internal feelings are always swaying back and forth between gratitude and resentment. I feel like if she just straight up didn't want to be involved in helping it would be easier - it's the constant comments and trying to read her mood and feeling like I'm never sure where I stand that is so tiring, especially because my own family is so far away. It's also so subtle and hard to put into words, and at the end of the day we can rely on her if we need to. Should I just learn to toughen my shell and not stress?