Woman asks if she's wrong to tell mother-in-law to back off around her baby.
Being a mother is hard, especially when you have to navigate difficult relationships with your in-laws. Sometimes MILs or FILs can get super involved in your kid's life to the point where you have to set boundaries.
But, should you overlook these boundaries and know that they're usually coming from a good place? When this new mom wants to confront her helicopter mother-in-law and gets no defense from her husband, she takes to the popular Reddit forum to ask:
'AITA for telling my MIL this is not her baby?'
Leastlettuce4907 writes:
I (28F) have been married to my husband (30m) for 2 years and we've been together for almost 10. I love my inlaws and have never had an issue with them, at least before I was pregnant with my first baby.
Oh no, I'm nervous.
My MIL has one other daughter,( let's call her Jane) but she lives across state, she has 2 boys and is done having kids. She lives close to her MIL and the boys are pretty close to her, which obviously causes some jealousy issues with my MIL.
My whole pregnancy has was one big guilt trip about how she never got to be there for Jane for her pregnancy. She would touch my belly or get really close to it to 'talk' to the baby. I would tell my husband that it made me uncomfortable and while he was understanding he also felt bad for his mom too and reminded me about how she missed many 'moments' with Jane.
Oh my, I don't like this 'Jane' excuse.
During the last couple months of my pregnancy we made the decision to move in with my inlaws to save money for a house. This made my MIL so happy. She kept telling everyone she was excited for the baby to come home to her. I let those comments slide for a while but finally had to confront her after my baby shower.
Good for you OP!
My parents bought us a crib and nursery decorations from our registry and my MIL made a joke to my mom how good everything is going to look in her ( my MIL) room. And that she's basically going to be our live in nanny. My mom has never had any reason to dislike my inlaws but these comments were very off-putting.
Poor OP.
I had a sit down with my MIL about boundaries and she started crying and said she just wanted to feel close to at least one of her grandchildren. I tried not bringing up the topic after that but she didn't make it easy.
The thing that gets me upset the most is the constant need to have all the baby firsts. She wants to be the first to do everything and it's so hard to tell her no. Until one day. She waited until I left the room at dinner time.
When I came back my husband excitedly told me how much the baby loves mashed potatoes and that my MIL gave her a small spoonfull and she went nuts. My MIL said 'you weren't supposed to tell her it was grandma's little secret!' I snapped.
I said 'thats my child and there will be no secrets no matter how small' things got tense and I got called dramatic and that she's allowed to have 'grandma moments' with my child, whatever the f*** that means.
Wowwwww, shots fired.
I think my last straw is this. My husband and I have just been approved for our loan and will be signing papers on a house soon, about 45 minutes away from my inlaws. Lately she's been going on about how it's unfair to her and how she doesn't know how to handle her baby being so far away.
She's 'jokingly' brought up suing for grandparents rights or about setting up 'her' new room. I wouldn't be so upset if it was one or two 'jokes' but after hearing about it daily, it's starting to feel less like a joke and more like she wants to take my baby. AITA for wanting to have another sit down?
Well, is OP the AH? Let's see what Reddit users had to say.
cpolland486 writes:
NTA - she has serious jealously and boundary issues and should talk to someone to help her with it. DO NOT give this woman a key to your house.
Korruptkit writes:
NTA. Hubby cares more about mummies fee fees… it was obvious when he let MIL treat wifey as a damn incubator with no personal space or rights to her own body. He’s told wifey to sit down and shut up from the very beginning. This won’t change anytime soon and not because hubby wants it to.
Excitingtabletop writes:
NTA. Yep. As always, OP has a husband problem, not a MIL problem. Best thing to do is have a sit down with the husband. First clarify if he is married to OP or his mother. Second, noodle out all of the boundaries. Third, set reasonable course of actions for violations. 'MIL shows up unannounced, no contact for one month. Extend one week per call or text.'
anglerfishtacos writes:
NTA.She is not joking. She’s claiming she is joking to avoid getting a reaction out of you, but she is not joking. This is dangerous, get out of there as fast as possible, do not give her a key to your house, and do not let her babysit unsupervised.