u/Smooth-Molasses-8509

This is probably an odd question and I very well could potentially be TAH, but I just wanted to gather some opinions.

My grandma has a lot of health issues, she can drive but she tries not to as she knows it not safe, I really commend her for that, we need more senior citizens to realize this. My grandparents are home bodies, they don’t go out and do much and are home pretty much 24/7 together.

My grandma has this “I don’t want to be a burden” mentality, which I know many people as they age get, and I have a lot of sympathy for. I know getting older and having to rely on others for things probably takes a big toll on your mental health and your confidence.

Recently grandma has been asking nearby family (grandkids as her own kids live out of state) to bring her to her appointments that are typically 30+ minute drives one way. There’s 2 grandkids and their spouses that live nearby, my sister and her husband and little kids, and husband and I, expecting first kid in 2 months. It’s not always convenient for us to bring her places as husband and I work full time jobs, and the other family has little kids.

My grandpa on the other hand, is home 24/7 and can drive, they go out to dinner once a week, he’s always doing house projects, etc. To be fair I have seen him say he can’t do something because “it’s when the game is on” and so on. Grandma doesn’t ask him as she doesn’t want to burden him.

This is where I wonder if I’m TAH. My sister reached out to me and asked if we could pick up grandma and bring her with husband and I to our baby shower this weekend, and bring her home after. I let her know we’d probably have a packed car on the way home and wouldn’t have room for a 3rd person, we could bring her there if grandpa has things going on. I asked why grandpa couldn’t bring her, and sister said “Not sure, she just asked me to bring her, but I’m going an hour early to help set up, I know it’s not ideal but if you could drive her that would be great”. We called my grandpa and asked what he had going on that day and he said nothing, and that grandma never asked him to give her a ride there and back.

Would husband and I be TAH if we told grandma we can’t bring her and she needs to ask grandpa? It’s getting a bit old her refusing to ask him for help because she doesn’t want to burden him, but she’s asking her grandkids who have busy lives and can’t always work around her needs. I feel at some point she needs to get over her fear of being a burden to her husband and be okay asking him for favors, since he’s the one who’s going to always be available 24/7.

Edit: Adding an edit in here as a lot of the comments are suggesting some things husband and I didn’t consider. Sounds like we should be having a conversation with grandpa about possibly why grandma doesn’t want to ask him. We shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about her not wanting to feel like a burden, and maybe considered HE is the one making her feel like a burden, and that makes sense. I’m going to talk to my sister and my husband and see if we can figure out a way to bring this up to grandpa. Some things people brought up that I would like to talk to him about;

-she doesn’t feel safe riding with him.

-he makes her feel bad when she asks.

-she doesn’t ask because of the history of reactions to her asking.

I appreciate everyone’s input, sounds like there was more than we were considering and I appreciate those who kindly brought those to my attention.

My SIL never congratulated me on my pregnancy, she had a less than positive reaction when husband told her we were expecting after multiple losses, and I never even heard a congrats from her, she ignored husbands text telling her the gender too. She has always had this “claim” over husband when she’s around me, spoiled little sister behavior type stuff.

I just hit 28 weeks this past week and she texted me for the first time in this pregnancy “Happy mother’s day! How’s the pregnancy?” I just didn’t respond. No she’s not trying for kids, she’s single. No clue why she all of a sudden cares.

My husband has always struggled with night terrors, probably a few times a year I have to wake him up because he’s hyperventilating and shivering, he said he’s had them since being a kid.

His mom today told me that his older brother and younger sister have also had night terrors since being kids and they were worse than husbands.

I have never had anyone in my life that had night terrors (or at least were open about having them), so hearing husband and his 2 siblings all had them is interesting.

Any reason why this could be? Are they genetic? Maybe due to a similar upbringing?

I’m 7 months pregnant. My MIL has shown little interest in the pregnancy (I know it’s not personal, she shows no interest in anyone but herself) but she has shown interest in having our baby over to her house to have a relationship with them. This is fine with me.

My mom has already said she wants to watch our baby often if it’s okay with us, as she’s retired and it’s her first grandkid. She has gotten approval from me for every baby item she plans to buy, she planned to use the crib from us growing up, but it was drop side, and I let her know they were banned in 2011 due to the high rates of infant mortality so she cannot use it. She went out and bought a used crib from marketplace the next day as she knows safety is my #1 priority with the baby. She asked about a second hand car seat and I said I’d prefer new so she went and got a new car seat.

MIL told us that she has a drop side crib as well. We didn’t say anything in the moment, but later I asked husband about talking to her about getting a new crib and he just shrugged it off and said we’ll talk about it later.

For context; MIL has never been responsible with money, she refuses to get a steady job as she states she doesn’t belong in an office, she has been updating her house in lavish ways, such as putting in new hardwood floors, she continues to get new pets she cannot afford, she recently bred one of her horses and could have sold the baby for a couple thousand dollars, but instead bonded with it and added another horse and expense to her life. She can do whatever she wants, it’s her life, but she tends to use her lack of money to play victim, especially with husband.

On the way home from the visit with her, I let husband know that I hope he’s knows I’m serious about her getting a new crib, as the current one isn’t safe. He said 100% he wouldn’t let our baby stay over there without a safe place to sleep. I said we should mention something to her about it. He then mentioned we could just buy her one and not have to bother her with getting a new one. It’s not a hill i’m willing to die on, if he really wants to get her one he can. I asked if she had an up to date car seat that’s not expired, and he said “eh if it’s expired we can buy her a new one”.

This is where i’m wondering if i’m being a bit selfish, but I would like to give MIL the chance to show some initiative with buying these things first rather than husband just doing it because he “doesn’t want to bother asking her to get new things”. I want to see her WANT to provide safe places for our baby, if that makes sense? Mind you, I’m not asking her to babysit, I’m not even asking my own mom to watch our kids, they both have expressed a desire to do so. If we were asking someone to watch our kids, I would 100% be offering to buy them the necessities.

I probably sound like an asshole, and like I said, husband can buy her whatever he wants, I won’t tell him no, I haven’t even brought up my concerns with him because I feel like I might be being a bit selfish wanting her to show initiative. But inside I feel like it’s more of a principal thing? She could be completely okay with purchasing these things but I want to give her the chance before husband just does it unprompted. I should just let husband buy her the items and move on right?

Edit: People keep asking why we don’t bring it up with MIL saying i’m trying to sabotage her. I told husband we should bring it up and he said we should just buy her one. I would love to bring it up with MIL but husband seems like he would rather just gift her the items and call it good. I’m asking what the better option is and if I should just let husband buy the items and let it be.

This situation happened a while ago but was recently brought up again and it still felt like there was no closure and I’m wondering if I am overreacting here.

When husband and I got married, I asked his sister to be in my bridal party to lend an olive branch as that’s what I thought was a nice thing to do. SIL lives out of state but came home the week of the wedding, she came home on a Monday, rehearsal was Thursday and wedding was on a Sunday. The wedding venue was a bit in the middle of nowhere about 45 minutes from the majority of where everyone lived, so not lots of signal for GPS and whatnot but most people had no issues.

We had the rehearsal at the venue and then drove back towards home for the dinner after, which was all paid for obviously. When everyone left to venue to head to dinner everyone turned left out of the venue except for MIL and SIL who were riding together, and husbands best man, who went right.

Everyone arrived at the dinner except for the 3 people who went the other direction. Best man showed up about 20 minutes after everyone and said he got lost, he showed up right about when food was served. MIL and SIL were not there yet. Husband texted MIL and she said that they got lost and while they were already out of the way they swung by husbands grandparents because SIL hadn’t seen them yet since being home.

Husband was annoyed, I was annoyed, people asked where they were and husband and I just said they were running late. MIL and SIL finally showed up 45 minutes later, so an hour after dinner started. They apologized and just said “we got lost on the way here!”

Husband called out MIL a few days later and she just said sorry and she “didn’t have a choice” because “you know how your sister is” and said sorry. We essentially left it at that and didn’t bother it anymore.

Recently, MIL was disrespectful to us, I won’t get into it but essentially SIL threw a fit about how we announced our pregnancy news to her (a text), and when we called MIL to tell her the babies gender, MIL chose that moment to tell us to “make sure SIL found out in a better way this time”. Again, happy news for us was overshadowed by SIL and her enabling mom. I was done, I cut all of them off. Husband understood and cut his sister off and went to go have a talk with MIL about her behavior.

He brought up the rehearsal dinner and how he’s sick of her standing up for his sister and never putting us first. MIL explained the situation and said they got lost and SIL and MIL figured while they were already late, that they would just stop by grandma and grandpas so SIL could say hi. Husband explained that 1. they were far more late than his best man who took the same route, and 2. it didn’t matter if the stop only made them 5 minutes later, it wasn’t the time or place. His mom apologized and just said “yeah I understand what you mean.” Mind you I wasn’t there for this conversation, this was passed on from husband.

MIL has “made amends” in a way by apologizing and wants husband and I to do monthly dinners with her to mend the relationship. I just don’t buy it. Even with her apologies I know she will likely again put SIL before us and “apologize” to make up for it. I have attended a few of these monthly dinners and MIL acts like all is good in the hood and nothing has happened in the past, as do I, but I just don’t trust her anymore, she’s made me feel so insignificant, and besides me I HATE how she is making her son feel, thought he doesn’t express it. I feel as though MIL thinks we’re in a perfectly fine spot (which I have allowed her to think as again, I have been attending these dinners and talk on the phone when she calls husband) and so part of me just thinks I’m being dramatic and should just lower my expectations with MIL but try to rebuild the relationship to keep the peace, but the other part of me feels like I would never accept treatment like that from any friends or people in my own family and am justified in my thinking.

I know I can’t exactly go completely no contact with her, as I would still see her at get togethers, holidays, etc. but I want to limit contact as much as possible. Husband forgave her but keeps her at an arms length and says he can see she’s trying and her apologizing was a big step and that he is actually enjoying these monthly dinners and enjoys seeing his mom and I get along, but I still hold a lot of resentment and these dinners feel more obligatory for me. Since we told MIL we’re no contact with SIL, MIL has respected that and not brought her up, but i’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, and maybe that’s me overreacting.

So, AIO by distancing myself from MIL after she apologized for being late to the wedding rehearsal dinner but continued to favor SIL?

Funny rant, but actually I die a little inside every time it happens.

My husbands grandpa lives next door, he’s very old and is not aware. Last year we planted an October Glory maple tree towards the end of our driveway in our yard, $60 tree, standing about 8 feet tall and I was SO excited for it to grow as we planted it between us and the neighbors for more privacy, plus I was excited for years of color.

My husbands grandpa came over one day and parked at the end of the driveway in the grass, did some stuff with husband, and then left. Husband came in and told me not to be mad. He said his grandpa ran over our maple tree and snapped it completely in half. I cried. I’ll admit I’m a tree hugger and love all living things and grow a bond with them, as dumb as that sounds. I thought maybe it would come back, I cleaned it up, fixed it in the ground, and last month went to check it after winter… completely dead. I was sad.

These past few weeks, husband and I put garden beds in our yard, with edging, mulch, garden boxes, and lilly’s surrounding the garden boxes, all the lilly’s have already begun to grow! I put flags near all of them so husband would watch for them and so we wouldn’t accidentally weed them. Husbands grandpa stopped by today to talk to husband, and husband was showing him the garden beds. He told his grandpa, “watch out for the lilly’s on the ground” and his grandpa immediately after walked right into a garden bed not even paying attempted and STEPPED ON AND CRUSHED A LILLY… I was livid. He didn’t even notice or take note of what husband said.

After he left I told husband keep your damn grandpa away from our house and away from our plants! I cherish my plants so much and he keeps killing them with his neglect! I get he’s old, but cmon now, if you can’t see an 8 ft tree in your car, you can’t see a child in a housing development, if you cant coherently watch where you step after being told, well.. I don’t have an answer for that one.

Anyway, to my fellow plant lovers out there, keep your plants safe for me!