r/Mildlynomil

How do you deal with constant criticism and unwelcome advice?

My MIL is constantly criticizing everything. They recently came when I was 3-6 days post partum... it was awful. She cooked one pot of beans for herself from my pantry supplies but I cooked everything else. When she cooked the beans, she said she'd have to wash the pan first because it was so dirty (she at least admitted it just had some tough stains after attempting to clean it herself). She also said I held the baby too much. My 2 year old talks too much. My four year old eating blueberries for dessert will make him fat. I shouldn't sit with my older kids while they fall asleep. I need to wear head coverings to church. We need to go to a church that talks more about the different roles of women and men (our pastor just preached a Regular sermon that applies to both men and women... God forbid). We need to move to the suburbs. My husband shouldn't have to cook or do dishes ever (even when I just had a baby!!) Etc etc etc. It was the most awful postpartum visit ever.

My husband tries to talk to her weekly, which I encourage a little because I want him to keep a good relationship with his parents. She'll follow her tack of criticism with him too. In her last call, she told my husband that she can tell that I don't really like or love my kids. I was angry but not surprised that something so ridiculous came out of her mouth.

I guess I'm mostly ranting, but also want advice. How do i deal with this? I'm constantly walking on eggshells when around her, which thankfully isn't often, so I just keep my distance and let my husband handle his family. But is that enough? Should i ask him to distance himself more too? Have some other boundaries? Can I just zen my way through this next time I see them? I want to be respectful, but I'm having a hard time thinking about dealing with her again.

My future MIL is a nice woman but she likes to give unsolicited advice. My mother even told future MIL that OP hates unsolicited advice. It’s my biggest pet peeve.

But this woman can’t help herself. She gives everyone unsolicited advice. She gives my fiance unsolicited advice and he just tunes her out. I’ve started leaving her on read when she gives me advice.

Today, I shared a IG reel for a recipe I wanted to make because she shared one with me. She gave me tips on cooking chicken.

I went to a friend’s place for the fourth today and she suggested I take my dog to day care.

It’s NON STOP!!!!!!! My patience is running thin and my fiance has no idea how to deal with it because he has always just tuned her out.

* my fiance does stand up to her when she does this in person when we’re all together. She was giving me advice on how to feed a dog (mind you our dog is actually my dog I had years before I even met my fiance). So my fiance said please stop, we know how to care for our dog. But it’s when she does this over text. I can’t even have a regular conversation because she finds any opportunity to give advice. It’s soooooo annoying.

After begging for years, my mil has had my 2 older kids for the past two days. It’s been really helpful because we’re in the US and hosting 4th of July, so it’s given us some much needed time to clean the house without kids trailing us.

We told everyone to come in the afternoon so we would have time to get the outside together. We also have a 10 month old who demands to be held at all times. Tell me why this woman informs us she will be arriving with our kids 2 hours earlier than we invited people to come.

I freaked out and told my husband to tell her absolutely not, which he did. He told me he did tell her she could come a little early, but two hours?!?!

She claimed she would help but she isn’t actually helpful because she just follows me around telling me the same stories she’s been telling me for the past 10 years and telling me I “don’t need to worry” about my decorations for the party, etc.

She also wouldn’t be able to hold the baby bc baby is in stranger danger mode.

This woman drives me insane.

Now that my son is 2.5 and more independent, and she realises that she cant force him into her lap and hold him hostage, we actually have a fairly good relationship again.

But sometimes it gets annoying to talk to her because shes constantly trying to tell me how much harder she has it (see previous post). This time its because im pregnant again and it was about how she couldnt believe how she worked right until the end with her first because she had to commute far via train to get to work and it wasnt easy cause the trains here are not like the trains in India and went on and on about it. And im like yeah thats tough and spoke about my experience and how I worked until 3 days before I gave birth with my first and i found it tough being on my feet all day at work (nurse here) and shes like oh, I thought you worked at a desk. It baffles me because she knows im a nurse 🧐 And then she ended the conversation instead of also acknowledging that it may have also been hard for me too 😆

Granted she also stopped working after her first and had mutiple people/staff clean, cook, raise her kids. Im working pregnant full time with a toddler, which is totally fine, to each their own but I never go out of my way to say how hard my life is and parade around how amazed I am at myself for handling it but she seems to love making it aound like her life is 100x harder than mine somehow 😂

Im sure shes just trying to relate the best way she knows how or just make conversation so I dont take it too personally but it makes me laugh.

I’m looking for some outside perspective because I’m really hurt.

My partner’s mum has never liked me. Over the years she’s criticised my weight, my job, my family and, since our twin girls were born, she’s questioned their health, appearance and our parenting. It got so overwhelming that I asked my partner to set boundaries, which he eventually did, and the comments about the girls have mostly stopped.

Today I accidentally saw a notification with my name on my partner’s laptop. I know I shouldn’t have, but I read the messages between him and his mum where she had made comments about me.

The worst was her saying I “ruined” her son by introducing him to drugs and alcohol. The reality is we got together when I was 16 and he was 18. I didn’t drink or smoke before we met. He was already drinking and had smoked weed when he was younger, whereas I never did. We’re now 25 and 27, have careers, a home and twin daughters, and have long moved on from that stage of life. She has no idea whether either of us uses drugs now, yet she still blames me.

She also criticised us for having a few drinks on our first night away since the twins were born (they were three months old and safely cared for), saying, “When a man drinks it’s bad, but when a mother drinks it’s worse.” We hardly drink, but she seems to assume we do. She grew up with an alcoholic mother, so I wonder if that’s influenced her views, but it still feels unfair to judge us based on assumptions.

She never says any of this to my face, only to my partner. To be fair to him, he has stood up to her about comments regarding our daughters after I asked him to set boundaries, but he never told me she’d been saying these things about me, and as far as I know, he didn’t challenge them.

I think that’s what’s hurting me the most. Finding all of these messages at once has made me feel like the trust between us has been damaged. I can’t stop thinking that he was willing to defend our daughters but not me. I understand he may have been trying to protect me by not repeating her comments, but instead I feel blindsided and like he let her speak about me that way for years.

Am I justified in feeling this hurt? Would you tell your partner you found the messages, or just let it go?

I’m 27F and my boyfriend is 37M. We’ve been together almost a year, and the relationship is serious. Recently my mom was visiting, and we spent the weekend at my boyfriend’s mother’s house.

During the visit, his mom took my mom on a walk and asked whether I would be ready to marry my boyfriend in about two years, once I’m done with my PhD, because he is ready to settle down. My mom told her that I care about him a lot and want a family one day, but that it’s too early to make that kind of promise. She said we should live together first and see how that goes, and that after my PhD I would also need to find a job before getting pregnant.

His mom also asked my mom about medication she had seen on my nightstand. I take it for anxiety/presentations/public speaking. She asked how long I had been taking it and whether I would stop taking it soon.

Later, the conversation became tense between our moms in front of us. My boyfriend did step in and defended me. He also told me afterward that he plans to talk to his mom about boundaries and what topics are appropriate to discuss.
I’m glad he defended me, and I don’t blame him for what happened. I’m mainly trying to figure out what a reasonable boundary-setting conversation should look like now. I don’t want my timeline for marriage/kids, career plans, or medication discussed between parents as if those decisions are up for family negotiation.

For people who have dealt with a parent or future in-law getting involved in private relationship topics, what boundaries helped? What should my boyfriend say to his mom? Should I say anything directly, or should this come from him?

TL;DR: My boyfriend’s mom asked my mom about our marriage/kids timeline and my medication, and the conversation became tense. My boyfriend defended me and says he’ll set boundaries. What should those boundaries look like?

My mil sucks, but that’s beside the point. My question is: How are we explaining to our mils that we don’t feel comfortable with our baby alone at her house when LO goes to and stays at my parents’ home quite frequently. She didn’t necessarily do anything “wrong” when she’s watched LO at our house, but I don’t feel comfortable, period, end of story. Part of me feels bad for not having a reason, but besides my husband and I, I only trust my mom with my child. It’s my first baby and he’s 4 mo old.

Quick edit to very briefly explain why she sucks….. Boundary stomps, makes fun of boundaries such as that I don’t want LO parked in front of a tv, and plays Mommy right in front of me while I’m there…. Well, she tries to, it doesn’t work with me. I don’t trust how she’d act while I’m not around.

Hi all! Just a vent post here. I have the MIL who has potentially has sticky fingers, throws my stuff away, reorganizes my things, doesn’t know hygiene, and gives plenty of unsolicited dangerous holistic medical advice. The majority of these issues came up when I was freshly postpartum.

When I was around 20 weeks pregnant my MIL said she wanted to move back to our area to be closer to us, be present in our baby’s (and my BIL’s baby) life, and help us. It sounded wonderful to be able to have her help with our house and our LO. She was a SAHM to my husband and his brother and did a fantastic job raising them. We offered to let her move in and take our downstairs bedroom. She accepted and has been extremely excited. My due date came and she came down to help. Holy shit. I’ve never felt more anxious in my life. So anxious that my gestational hypertension wouldn’t resolve and I had to go on medication. I understand now that part of that has been my already existing GAD, new PPA, and my OCD ramping up. BUT, my husband completely dropped the ball. He was more concerned about his mom and her feelings. In his eye’s she’s perfect and a little sensitive, so she needs to be put on a pedestal and absolutely nothing is her fault. I felt completely walked all over. My house was no longer my home. My things were being moved. Sentiment items were lost forever or straight up thrown away. My things were damaged. As I brought them up, DH deflected and shifted blame. He didn’t want to hear it so I shut up and buried it.

We came to an agreement with my BIL and his wife that my MIL will split her time between our house and theirs as I cannot handle her full time. She purchased an airstream for their backyard and has a fenced off portion of their yard. She has an elderly dog who is unreliable. We’ve all decided she will keep her dog away from our babies and once he has crossed the rainbow bridge she will have our downstairs bedroom for potentially a one week on one week off schedule. She was poking around our yard several months ago looking for a spot to put a trailer or tiny home. Not possible. We don’t have a large yard and would have to rip out my very compact but sizable and abundant veggie garden. Not happening. Her house out of state is currently on the market and she has moved into her airstream at BIL’s house.

Well my first few months of postpartum came up last night. DH and I were having a disagreement. I don’t want to say fight because we make it a point to never raise our voices at each other and try to discuss everything respectfully and never go to bed mad at each other. It came up that I’ve been burying things and letting them fester and make me incredibly anxious where I’m on the verge of a panic attack daily. I had already discussed his failure to defend me in my postpartum days and he said. “Yes, we’ve already discussed this. I know I screwed up and infantilized my mom.” Have to admit I was proud of him for saying it out loud. He said he would do better. I also told him it was much worse for me than we ever discussed. I felt like my home was not my own. Everywhere I turned something was messed up and/or damaged. She lacked basic attention to detail. You can tell her something and within minutes she disregarded what we said. She’s researching holistic treatments for LO and directing all unsolicited advice to me and every time she directs advice to me it feels like criticism. Like I’m a POS mom, I’m not doing enough, and I’m doing the wrong things. She’s not saying these things or even insinuating, but that’s how she makes me feel and she’s disregarding when my husband says “please do not give us unsolicited advice.” I think when I said it makes me feel like a POS mom, his heart broke a little. He said he will sit down and have a conversation with her. That no unsolicited medical advice will be directed to me about LO or myself. If she is insistent she can direct all advice to DH.

When she does move in we have discussed showing her everything in the house and giving her detailed instructions with WHY we do them, but she still has the memory or a gerbil. I think I’ll have a three strikes policy where if she does something we’ve asked her not to do, by the third time we’ll say “please do not _______. We will handle it from here.” DH asked if I could just ask for her help with things I won’t feel the need to correct and explain repeatedly or feel the need to redo once she’s done. There’s nothing. Literally nothing. The dishes she washes need to be rewashed because she didn’t use soap. The dishes she unloads from the dishwasher need to be pre-washed and put back in the dishwasher because they come out with food stuck on them from when she loaded the dish washer. She drops needles on the floor when she mends clothes and they stay there because she can’t see them. She’ll pull weeds in our yard and leave the ones with medicinal properties or that bloom pretty flowers. She’ll pick up dog poop and put it in a bucket I use to water the veggie garden with. She’ll cook food with LO’s allergens that I can’t eat because it comes through my breastmilk. It goes on and on and on. I know we didn’t quite land on a final resolution, but verbalizing what has been eating me up inside did make me feel better.

Hi everyone, so we called my MIL to australia to help with our pregnancy and postpartum ( total 4 months stay)...I was never ok with this but seeing how my FIL passed away last year and my husband wanted to see him mum i begrudgingly said ok.

Shes been here for 2 months so far and I can't stand it. Yes she cooks a bit and helps with cleaning but at the cost of my mental peace. Here's what annoys me:

- she does bare minimum = needs to be told what to do, and when she does she announces it. Basically she's a lazy woman who would prefer to sit and watch TV and knit.

- bitches about her eldest daughter in law daily, to the point that I feel like telling her to shut the f up. Im sure she talks shit about me too.

- when hubby comes home, she gets insecure if I'm speaking to him as if I'm complaining about her but I'm not

- she is unhygienic- i have to tell her to wash her hands with soap and not plain water

- she waits for me to wake up in the morning so I can make her breakfast

- she wants to go out with me everywhere and I have to refuse her because I want some alone time. I find so much relief just going to the shops without her.

- she doesn't understand English and is so boring to talk to ...her conversations are so dull and shallow. She mentions superstitious stuff that sets my teeth on edge and I have to explain logic to her.

- she tells me what an amazing cook she is and how everyone loves her food. She also says how beautiful she was and constantly just talks about herself.

-when my mum comes to visit me for a day or two, she expects my mum to do everything while she sits back

- she leaves the TV on for hours while watching tik tok videos...like hello electricity is expensive

- everyday she complains about an illness either headache, tummy ache, knee pain...my hubby had to tell her off because every morning she complained but never likes to take medicine or exercise.

-i have no privacy in my own home= can't watch Netflix in my living room because she's always there and talks throughout my show. She also watches what i eat and wear.

I mostly spend my time in my room, with my book and laptop. I wait eagerly for the day she leaves just 2 more months to go.

I just wanted to vent as I'm slowly resenting her. I mentioned some of these issues to my hubby but gets defensive of her saying look how much she is helping us -_- I would rather do it alone.

Basically title. I wish I was making this up.

My MIL is good and means well, but a touch overbearing and insensitive (planned a vacation far away from us while we have a 9 month old and got upset when we said we might not be able to make it). Our child is the only grandkid on her side; husband's other siblings are unlikely to have any, definitely not anytime soon.

I sometimes post photos on Facebook of my family members with my daughter. By "sometimes" I mean less than 15 photos total. There are photos of my daughter with her grandparents, a few with my mom, and a few with my dad (parents are divorced). Of course there are a lot with my husband. But by no means am I posted constantly.

Last week I posted a photo with my mom and said "incredible to see your mother love on your baby", or words to that effect. A few hours go by and I get a text from my husband saying his mom messaged him letting him know she feels left out of getting posted and husband asked if I could post her more!!

she failed to ask HIM to post her more, somehow it's my job??

TW - ectopic pregnancy

This happened some time ago, but I still think about it daily. Very early on my pregnancy, I had pain on my lower right side of the abdomen. My clinic also called me to lmk I had low levels of HCG. They wanted me to come back in a few days to take more blood. I decided to go to the ER instead, since everything pointed to an ectopic pregnancy. Long story short, my HCG came back higher, but they couldn't find my baby right away in my uterus, nor in my tubes, so they couldn't rule out an ectopic pregnancy. ER scheduled us for another ultrasound and blood test within the same week.

When I came back home, my MIL called to ask news. We were supposed to go on a family trip w her with non-refundable tickets. When I told her what happened in the ER and that the Dr prevented us from flying, in case my tube ruptures and that I bleed out, she said "if it [your tube] explodes, it explodes, you can always try IVF later on". Mind you she has two family members who went through the hardships of IVF.... not only did she have no regard towards my health, but none towards my unborn child. All this bc the tickets were not refundable. She wasn't even gonna be alone, her other son and DIL were going with us too.

Later on during my pregnancy, around the 8-10w mark, while I was still nauseous and throwing up daily, she told me while on facetime to "eat less or I won't be able to push out [my] baby". I was chopping salad when she said that, not eating. I was BARELY eating during that time too. There's more and it truly baffles me how she is herself a mother, but so cruel to a FTM...

Me and my boyfriend are currently pregnant with our first child. We are looking for a place but had been staying with his mom for a bit because we’re working on our credit to purchase a home. She told me we should stay after the baby comes, I said I didn’t feel comfortable due to the home conditions we’re in the basement and the main bathroom has like mold from a jacuzzi tub and my baby needing a-lot of space. She doesn’t want us here really and she complains a-lot so I thought that was weird she all of a sudden wants us to stay but we also help her with bills a-lot so that could be why. I was wondering was it just to be nosey and judge our parenting. We were just going to hold off on a house right now since he will be here soon and we’d have to house hunt we talked about an apt to lease but are weighing the options. She texted my boyfriend and said our area isn’t clean and called my son a “Poor Baby”. The home is older and in the basement so even when it’s cleaned regularly it’s doesn’t feel or look clean. She doesn’t even know how it looks down here though. I feel disrespected literally want don’t want her to come to my baby shower, Why are you calling my son a POOR BABY- Is that wrong to tell her don’t come? We’ve had issues in the past from her gossiping her rudeness and being passive aggressiveness she also treats my boyfriend bad

Ok friends so I wanna be brief because I can ramble on the topic of this woman, so let me just vent about something small: buying clothes for my kid.

My relationship with my MIL is strained, but I try my best to tolerate her a few times a year for my husband and I like the rest of his family. This usually involves us staying with them for several weeks in the summer. We have an almost two year old who she is, no exaggeration, obsessed with. It’s creepy. Anyway - one of the most mildly irritating things she does is the way she shops for him. She will literally buy him an entire wardrobe of clothes for the entire stay that were staying with them, without even mentioning it to either of us.

I was packing today and asked my husband to just touch base with his mom about what kind of stuff she has for him (because I know she has some things) and she sent a picture of literally piles of clothes. 15+ t shirts, shorts, PJs, sun hats, socks, etc. She then tells my husband to tell me that I can pack “sweaters and pants” because she’s got the rest. The place we’re going is roughly 32-39°C daily. My toddler isn’t going to be wearing fucking jeans and a hoodie and she knows it. My husband says it’s great news that I have less to pack but I can’t help but feel like this is her way of exerting control over him. Like she’s using him as her little baby doll to dress up for 4 weeks. Also, I’ve already bought him an entire summer wardrobe and summer end at the end of August for us. I should just not use any of the cute clothes I bought because she went and spent likely over 1000$ on clothes he doesn’t need??

Like ok yes, I can just not use the stuff right? I can just bring my own stuff. Trust me, I will. I just feel like she does this on purpose so every day that he isn’t wearing she bought she can say “oh I see he’s not wearing the nice set I bought him”. She also will constantly make comments about the sizing of his stuff. Like she thinks he’s constantly growing out of things??? She came to visit in April and brought this cute set in size 18-24 months (he was about 20 months) at the time and he’ll turn two this summer. When I sent her a pic in May of him wearing it she said “ok so I guess it’ll be too small for him this summer. I should have brought more summer things since they won’t fit him this summer”. HOW IS THAT MY PROBLEM? Like I can’t control what size he wears.

Anyway I’m just annoyed because the stuff she buys is genuinely nice quality and I know I can get use out of it. I just can’t stand the amount of stuff? I hate how she has no hobby outside of shopping for my kid.

ETA: ok just wanna make sure I’m not being totally tone deaf here. Yes I understand this is minor and I am genuinely grateful for gifts given to my son. I love when people who love him buy sweet outfits and I always make to send a pic to the person when he’s in it. This post is about the excessive nature of her shopping. Buying an entire wardrobe of clothing is such a massive burden on me, a mom who already has a huge mental load. Guess who washes, folds, stores, makes room for, tracks sizing, dresses him, rotates, sends pics of him in special outfits? Me! Also it takes some joy from me as a first time mom who personally loves shopping and styling her child. It’s not like she’s buying super special outfits. She’s buying essentials and everyday basics which feels like an overstep into parenting territory. She doesn’t need to do that because he has parents who have already done it. Finally, I’m so lucky that my husband and I are in a financial situation where we really don’t need help with buying clothes for our son. The excessive clothes are purely wasteful.

My MIL is mildlyno but also has severe mental health issues. This is one of her things, but this instance is by far the worst in my opinion.
I am pregnant with our second and we have a 3yo. I would think most people dream of taking their kids and family to Disney. We certainly do. We can afford to. Not every year mind you. And we haven’t yet nor have we agreed on “when the kids will be old enough”.
Now my MIL goes to my husband and asks if we would be interested in a Disney trip come this March. The implication is they will pay. And of course we are interested, in general. But I am apprehensive.
What ticks me off the most is then she tells my husband “Well I haven’t talked to your father about this idea yet.”
OH, so it isn’t going to happen. Mind you, they never took their 2 kids on any Disney or Disney-esque trip. I fear my husbands hopes are going to be squashed and the relationship will continue to deteriorate.
I am annoyed because we have never done a big, or heck, even small, family trip with them. They don’t like to spend money. This is going to be awful no matter the outcome.

I’m struggling with the relationship to my MIL since the birth of my daughter. I see a lot of posts here from mothers with similar problems and how they get encouraged to set stricter boundaries with their well meaning husbands mothers who are driving them crazy. It seems to make sense to me for a mother to just exclude the MIL and see her less. The comments always have these sentences about the mother and her child, nobody can tell them what to do and the mother comes first etc. However when I swap out the genders, I feel a bit lost because it doesn’t seem as obvious anymore and I can’t find references.
My MIL is amazing. She cares and wants to help and genuinely loves everyone involved (but more than anyone, she loves the baby, haha). She has a history of overarching and being controlling, though.
Some examples:
- treating our apartment like hers: she puts kitchen papers everywhere to protect pans from each other or tomatoes from fridge surfaces etc.
- she goes around and folds every piece of clothes she can find, reorders things in the kitchen and baby room (for reference, i keep the order in those places, not my wife)
- when we were younger, she had a key to our place and would enter and wash my woollen laundry too hot after being told not to touch it
- when i stayed at her place she “unpacked my backpack for me” and didn’t understand why that’s not okay

The important part here is that she really doesn’t mean any harm. This is her showing her love by caring for is. She wouldn’t let anyone help in her kitchen though, because she has “her own ways of doing things there”.
The problem is she keeps “forgetting boundaries when we set them” (to her defence, she is older and does forget things) and she easily gets emotional and cries when confronted. My wife enables her because after half a life of struggling with the controlling behaviour herself she is very used to it and lets her mother get away with a lot in order to keep the peace, because she loves her mother a lot.

It doesn’t stop here, I also get quite uncomfortable when she is around our daughter. She constantly makes sounds and tries to get babies attention and wants to hold her and play with her whenever she can. She visibly suffers when the baby even just sneezes or has food in her face and has to hold herself back to intervene and make constant comments about her being cold or whatever. Due to her age and health I requested that she should sit while holding the baby, but my wife doesn’t agree and wants her mother to enjoy the baby fully by being able to walk around with her. After setting the boundaries, then pushing them back and forth for some months, both of them kept pushing the boundaries and took me not saying anything anymore as a permission.

Before the birth I loved this woman (I still do but also resent her) since it was possible to somehow set boundaries and avoid her when necessary. Now it has become impossible: we see her multiple times per week, because they buy us food and offer to bring it over or we see them because my wife needs something she left at their place or there’s a family gathering etc etc. They help us a lot and are extremely generous and that has lead to us depending on them because of all kinds of things , like our car breaks down and we use theirs or whatever. Getting out of the dependency is an uphill battle, especially since my wife often doesn’t mind. She understands me and often speaks up for me or sets boundaries, like passing the baby to me when her mother asks for it etc, but my MILs overreaching care is so ever-present that it drives me crazy and the reason I am making this post is to find out if I am in the wrong.
I feel guilty pushing my MIL further away from my daughter, who loves her back intensely. But every time i let her come a step closer she takes the chance for a leap, a middle ground doesn’t exist.
Since I am not the mother, I can’t always just say “me and baby are leaving”, because my wife is breast feeding her and their bond is stronger. She needs her to fall asleep without a struggle and sometimes just can’t be without her.
This is why I can’t fully relate to all the other posts here. Are there any other fathers in this sub?

A little background, my husband (36) and I (33) have been married for 8 years. We have a son (4) and I’m 20 weeks pregnant with our second baby. My relationship with in-laws has always been strained. My MIL has never cared for me and has consistently criticized me for “stealing her son from his family” and now criticizes my parenting choices. Lately things have been better. She’s been communicating with me about things and been more kind and thoughtful towards me. I’m trying to stay guarded still because I know it could be due to the pregnancy and her wanting access to the new baby.
I am a teacher and I have an upcoming summer training. I asked my MIL to watch my son that day. I scheduled this with her a couple months ago. One of her complaints is that she doesn’t see our son enough. I asked her ,rather than my mom or a sitter, to try and help that issue. She agreed. I found out today that MIL asked my husband to get our son the day before she is scheduled to keep him. She wants to take him to SIL house for a sleepover. SIL lives over an hour away from us. I have always struggled letting our son have sleepovers. I know it stems from him being in the NICU as an infant. I have been to therapy and am improving. I still have some anxiety about leaving him overnight. He has only stayed overnight with grandparents who each live 15-20 minutes from our home. I am finally comfortable letting him do that and he has been more frequently. MIL asked my husband this question when we were at her house for a birthday meal. She specifically asked my husband when I was outside. She pulled him into the kitchen alone and asked. I don’t want to let him stay, but I feel backed into a corner because I asked her to keep him the following day. My husband is stressed because he feels trapped in the middle. Should I put my feelings aside and let him spend the night or should I ask to stick to our original plan?

Every time holidays/future travel comes up, my MIL pushes for us to take a family vacation together. She lives 45 minutes away, we see her at least once a month (or more). My family lives thousands of miles away, and my sibling just had a baby, so our travel time and PTO feel more limited.

I'm not close with my parents (they can be controlling bullies) so we've also spent both winter holidays with my MIL for the past six years. I don't want to subject my husband to my own parents, and relish saying no to them now.

My husband is usually great about setting boundaries with his mom, but he doesn't think we need to set a firm expectation that we won't regularly fly places together but I disagree.

My MIL is mostly wonderful, but she's struggling with "no" here. She's generally pretty flexible, fun, and loving. I'm honestly not used to it.

If we mention money, she offers to pay even though she's on a fixed income. But the issue isn't just money; it's also PTO, time, and energy. Flying, especially across time zones, aggravates my anxiety and insomnia. We'd rather use our limited vacation time for bucket-list trips, visiting my family, and occasional trips with friends.

We suggest road trips with her instead, and even have one coming up, but she seems to feel deeply that making certain memories requires destination vacations. And I disagree.

She's also older and increasingly anxious to travel while she can (why can't she just do that with her friends? She already does, a lot!). My husband doesn't want to say "never" since there may be a year when a trip makes sense. I would prefer we come to her when that time comes instead of constantly feeling this pressure.

Am I being rigid and selfish for wanting to save our limited resources for our own trips and visiting my family, since we see his mom locally and frequently? Should I let this go because it matters so much to her?

Or should my husband set a clear boundary of "no" for destination trips? That's what I've been telling him because this is his mother.

I'd especially like to hear from the perspective of older folks on this.

I have a post history you can see. It’s titled “MIL just can’t help herself.” It’s in this subreddit.

I finally had enough and presented my grievances. They travel the US constantly. My FIL was once again diagnosed with cancer for the 3rd time. Eye roll. Call me Satan. That’s fine. My daughter who is not my husbands daughter is here for 6 weeks in the summer. FIL had cancer again. :( Excuse me if I sound cold. I relinquished one of my 4 weekends with my daughter so my husband could go see his dad. Especially for Father’s Day. I did my due diligence. Huge regret. He is so physically healthy he could drive to Kentucky from MI???? But they never try to drive here??? Also wtaf???? Excuse me but WHAT. I’m salty about this. I once again sacrificed for … what?

I sent MIL a very mild list of grievances which were totally fair and I was not aggressive. My husband agreed with that.

It’s been two months. I have had no reciprocity. Nothing. Not a response. I blocked her from socials because ERMMMMMM if you can’t communicate with me, you aren’t able to see my kids. Simple as.

I messaged MIL after I was just DONE.

This was the text I sent her:
“Idk. Jon won't say it so I will. It's incredibly insulting and disappointing when you guys come here and then offer the opportunity to watch the kids and then you guys dip out early. I don't ever feel entitled to your help or offerings until you offer them. And then I'm just again disappointed and annoyed. If you don't mean that and have no intention to follow through - simply don't do it.
Don't offer.
It's also incredibly insulting when you do come here and ignore my boundaries of kissing the kids or throwing on screentime. And then trying to hide it?
These are my kids. These are my rules.
They are SUCH good kids because they're not overexposed to bullshit on a screen.
And then you come here and you brag about traveling 300000000 miles in a few weeks but getting you to establish a memorable relationship with our kids as their grandparents feels impossible.
I would LIKE you guys to be involved. I WANT my kids to have some kind of semblance of grandparents. But honestly
I don't see much point. You pretended to get offended while I accused you of lying about having covid and then you FaceTimed us with people at your house.
And then chose to brag about your grandkids over FaceTime while living a lie that you had Covid. And then I called you out when you had intentions of coming a week later and you asked me "what the hell is wrong with you?" Idk maybe what's wrong with me is that I'm being lied to.
I would so much rather O interaction that weird promises that are being made to make yourself feel better.”

Absolutely nothing. 6 weeks now. Bye. 😭😭✌🏻

I’m expecting baby #2 within the next few weeks. I just came to the realization I need to update the daycare paperwork that says my mom can pick up my older child in an emergency. Why? Because she hasn’t shown up for a single second with my 1st. It hurts so bad planning and preparing thinking your mother is going to be present and help ( especially when they said they are) and then don’t. Yesterday was my 30th birthday and she didn’t even call me just sent a gif text at 6 am. I’m fortunate my MIL/ FIL are so willing to help. They’re ten years older than my parents and so I fear the day they start to have health issues.

I also feel a bit guilty from when I had my first. I felt like my MIL was overwhelming us with the amount of support and trying to do for us. Looking back it was so stupid to be upset over it and it probably stemmed from the disappointment from my own mom.

My husband set a couple of boundaries with MIL for the first time. She reacted poorly. A week later they had a conversation - MIL was calm and mostly worried about her relationship with our children without caring to reconcile with my husband (she said some very hurtful things to him initially but seemed to have no memory of that and took no responsibility).

During the emotionally charged conversation she said ‘my family is you (husband), child 1 and child 2.’ Ouch. I wasn’t on the list. I always felt this from her, like I was never accepted or included. But I tried to give the benefit of the doubt, didn’t react to passive aggressive comments and so on. Without going too deep into specifics I think this has made me finally just face the truth. It’s not worth my energy to continue to try so hard, it’s just not going to happen. She has a lot of narcissistic traits and is definitely emotionally immature - my husband has a lot of healing to do at the moment as he’s just only realised all this and the negative effects it’s had on him.

I’m hurt. I’m angry. I’m sad. She just want access on her terms to our kids and every visit exhausts me and I get such anxiety in the lead up. They live interstate so when they visit (usually monthly) they have to stay at our place. They can’t afford a hotel.

I don’t know how to process this and still facilitate a relationship with the kids - they aren’t terrible people so I don’t think cutting them off is the way. The kids enjoy their relationship with them… any advice or similar situations?