Forgive formatting errors/issues as I’m on mobile.I’m going to do a (hopefully) brief recap of what we’ve been through with my JNILs and then talk about what’s new. Feel free to read my previous posts for more in depth detail.My in laws (more specifically my JNMIL) have always been a struggle for me. My MIL has never treated me particularly well, all kindness has been very obviously fake, but we have for the most part been cordial for the 10 years we’ve known each other. This all sort of came to an end when I got pregnant with DS1 (our 2 year old son). Things my ILs have done since then, again, heavy emphasis on the MIL. Please keep in mind these early stories are embarrassing for me because my SO and I were very weak.:-Lost their ever loving minds when we asked them to get their Tdap and flu vaccine to meet our newborn born during flu season. Like LOST their minds. DS was born after 3 horrible miscarriages and we didn’t want to risk his health. They fought us and made it hell and essentially ruined the end of my pregnancy with the drama. We made it clear no one HAD to do anything but without proof of the vaccines they wouldn’t meet DS until he was 6 weeks old, per our pediatrician’s recommendation. They eventually did get the shots, right within the time frame they were needed.-When I was being induced with DS we asked that people could VISIT but short visits only. MIL took that to mean that she could be there for every hour of my long, miserable labor leading up to my emergency csection. Her and BIL parked themselves on the couch of our tiny room and watched as I was poked, prodded, and examined for 3 days. I was genuinely relieved when they announced the emergency csection because it meant they wouldn’t be there for the birth.-the csection was traumatic and I had to be essentially put under because the epidural failed and I could feel everything. My husband and I got one hour with our son that was uninterrupted but I was still knocked out during this time. Once I woke up they transferred us to postpartum. I had assumed everyone went home. I was wrong. My parents and ILs (now including my GMIL who had driven from California during my labor) were waiting for us in the PP suite. Everyone knew I had been knocked out. Everyone could see I was shaken and traumatized. My parents gave us a hug and kiss and made a big deal about leaving to “give us time to recover and be together” because they knew we had no spines. My ILs didn’t get the hint. My MIL immediately snatched my newborn for three (yes 3!!!!!!) hours while me and my baby cried. It took a nurse coming in and telling them that we needed time to bond alone for them to leave.-my ILs would never come to us for visits and would insist we visit them. Because of this, visits became VERY infrequent and we started to get guilt tripped like crazy. They have a very violent dog that we insisted is locked up when we visit for our son’s safety and again, we had to fight for that.-my MIL pushed a lot of boundaries with holidays and we had to keep pushing back. We eventually (around Halloween last year) told her she wasn’t going to be included in everything just because she wanted to be and she would take what we gave her or she’d get nothing. We also took this conversation to lay out gift boundaries for Christmas (5 gifts. Shouldn’t have been hard. Just limit it to five fucking gifts) and she agreed and played along and when we showed up Christmas Day it looked like a toy store in their living room.-DS first birthday was in January. MIL came down with a horrible illness 3 days before the birthday party and called my husband to let him know she was still coming (😂😂😂). My husband told her no, she was absolutely not coming, because aside from the fact that no one needed to get sick, there were several kids coming who were high risk. She then sobbed and begged him to reschedule the party which was again, 3 days from the conversation. Needless to say that did not happen.-covid strikes! We immediately lock down as a family per our pediatrician’s recommendations. We don’t have to see ILs from March 1st-June 8th! Wow! It was incredible. Okay....on to what’s new.So those months of LC due to the virus did wonders for me and my husband. Our communication became IMPECCABLE, he started to come out of the fog, and we attended several online couple’s counseling sessions. MIL FaceTimed DS maybe once per week for a few minutes and it was great. My ILs are huge trump supporters and completely deny the virus. This is important. But for the most part the ILs respected our wishes and distance, at least to our faces.In may we bought a house. My husband didn’t want to share the news with his parents until we were closed with keys in hand because they make negative out of everything. Surprisingly they were very happy for us. No criticism at all.We also found out in may we were expecting again. ILs reacted with ZERO excitement. MIL has not asked once about this baby or pregnancy except to love bomb social media. This is different because during my first pregnancy she was INVESTED.In June our pediatrician revised his recommendations and said that we could have visitors to our home with masks on. After talking to him he assured us my parents were very low risk because they both work from home and had been grocery delivery for the entirety of the pandemic thus far. And still do. My parents were absolutely amazing and still are. They wear a surgical mask under a cloth mask, are very careful with hand washing, and do everything we ask. My MIL agreed to wearing a mask. We still ran into an issue when she snuck into the kitchen to eat and I caught her feeding DS with her fork. From her mouth. She apologized and did great from then on. FIL will NOT wear a mask because the virus is “fake” and hasn’t seen DS since early February. MIL was coming twice per month early on and FaceTiming on the weekends she didn’t visit. Eventually that fizzled out to once per month with no FaceTime calls at all. No explanation.Every visit she was relatively cordial. I would ignore her and let her visit SO and DS and only talked if she asked me a question. SO has been attending solo online counseling sessions and has started to see his mom for what she is. She is constantly throwing veiled shade at our son. Things like “my kids spoke way better by now”. Or “getting my kids dressed was a point of pride for me” while looking critically at DS’ outfits. Things along those lines. She’s also always openly critical of SO who supports us on a single income in a very expensive city and who owns his home. But that’s not good enough.So that leads us to what’s new. MIL hasn’t spoken a single word to us since September 1st when she last visited. My SO has repeatedly texted to ask if she wanted to FaceTime with no success. GMIL called SO and let him know his mother was “furious” with him. My husband said “whatever” and let it go. MIL pulled a stunt via text where she responded to a request for FT from days earlier and said “I’m too busy cleaning” and then told him to call tomorrow. This was on Sunday.I’ve always hated FT calls and visits with them since DS was born and here’s why: my SO and MIL force DS to “perform” to take the heat off of their shitty relationship. SO grills DS on his skills which he often doesn’t do because he’s a stubborn toddler while MIL looks on with disinterest. My son has been used since his birth as a bandaid on their relationship so any and all communication revolves around him and it gets very uncomfortable. They have nothing to talk about outside of him.So Sunday SO calls MIL on FT. DS was very excited and into the conversation and was met with NOTHING. MIL stared stonefaced at the camera and said nothing. DS kept trying to show her toys and talk to her and she would deliberately look over the camera and watch TV. I was incensed. My 6 month pregnant self stood in the kitchen crying because I realized it was happening again. MIL pulls shit near the holidays every year because she thinks she can get away with it. I watched sweet DS work so hard for her attention and I realized I was allowing a cycle to repeat itself. She deprived and denied SO of affection attention, and validation and we were sitting by and allowing her to do the same to our son. SO looked up at me in the kitchen and hung up the call. We talked for awhile about how we couldn’t keep doing this but SO said he’s not ready to cut them off, but he does agree that the behavior is sick and toxic. I asked him for permission to withdraw myself and my son from the picture until his relationship with them is healed and he said he had to think it over. But I will not allow my son to be used as a bandaid or a pawn anymore. One way or another I’m breaking the cycle. I need advice on how to proceed and how to continue to help SO out of the fog.Thanks for making it this far. ❤️ via /r/JUSTNOMIL https://ift.tt/3lskq2X
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