I've lurked on here for a while and finally decided to join and share my situation. I like that there seems to be such great common sense advice and the sense of solidarity here. Apologies in advance for what will probably be a long one.My MIL (and SIL who is Mils clone in looks and personality) have hated me since I got in a relationship with my husband. They'd only visit when I wasn't home and was at work. There's a long history now but some back story is that when husband and I were first dating, she'd used her position in her Govt job to meddle in my file - works at a ministry of social development centre that handles old age pensions, unemployment benefits and student accommodation supplements and at the time I qualified for student assistance on top of my part time work. Husband owned his house and his mother boarded with him. After a long while we decided we just wanted it to be us and he told her that with a long timeline for her to move out but she decided to move out right away and then "advised" her work that I was in a de facto relationship, as being the school holidays when the additional supplement (all of about $60) is stalled, I had only just moved in and hadn't yet got round to updating everyone including these people about my updated details, which I was going to do, but she beat me to it and I got a message from them saying someone had "advised" them of my change in status and address and she did this because it effects what supplement if any you can get. Which I was fine with, what they gave as a supplement was just a small booster to my normal work earnings when I was flatting, but she wanted to beat me to it and it felt like was using her position to hold power over me and meddling in the files of your sons partner is not OK so I filed a complaint.Early on before she moved out and I'd just visit, I noticed a real maternal eneshment situation where she was treating my husband like a spouse at least emotionally. His sister is his twin, MIL and their dad separated when he was 5 and when I visited when she still lived with husband, she showed him a picture of a mosiac coffee table his sister had made and said "look what your daughter has made". He corrected her and then she laughed and joked about "the Freudian slip". Once I was around on a weekend and now husband and I were being intimate in his bedroom, she was working at her second part time job (the Govt job is her main full time one) and she walked in on us being intimate because she always had a habit of opening his door whenever I was visiting without knocking. He told her to get out and instead of shutting the door right away flustered and apologetic as most would she asked him three times where the washing powder was.Fast forward to when we decided to get married - we decided to elope to avoid MIL and SIL drama at a wedding but we decided to have a wedding party a few months later with all family and friends. My aunties had been given control over catering and making food themselves and organising tables and decorations but when they arrived the MIL took over this including catering so my aunty ended up with months of home made foods that she stored for her kids because MIL stomped over everything and brought in ordered food, took over the table and decorations and it was all hideous and my aunties didn't get a look in. MIL had known beforehand too that my aunties were doing catering for the meals and we had told her she was welcome to do the desert stuff which she agreed to but when it came to the time she took over everything and my aunties who are easygoing down to earth people got so upset at her that during the organising of the party that they had to storm off. They later told my mum that understood now what I went through seeing it firsthand. When it came to speeches my grandma spoke and welcomed my husband to our family. His mother decided to speak and didn't mention my name once, instead decided to talk about how husband and his sister are like chalk and cheese and how my husband was welcome to come to her house anytime "through the back door" which made all of my friends and family laugh in shock and horror...And now enters baby who is our rainbow baby. As I said earlier MIL never visited if I was home, only when at work. Once I got to my third trimester she was coming around and dropping off ridiculous amounts of stuff, double ups and a lot of gaudy and used items and cluttering everything up. She also made these bead by numbers large pictures to hang up on nursery wall despite the fact I'd already picked out the decor for my nursery. The first wall hanging she put together was this frankly hideous picture of hedgehogs who are also dandilions and when she gave it to me she laughed about how it was the only pattern left on the Wish? website...she also told us she'd bought a bassinet for her house and said she wanted to offer to take the baby at her house every second Sunday. The bassinet was old school with lots of drapes and hangings and she's a smoker who keeps expressing her outdated ideas about how to bed a baby such as in her day we tummy and side slept them and we put toys and wedges behind their backs... I told her recently how sleeping babies on backs as reduced SIDS by 40% I think it is and she always has an answer for everything, told me why would they even sell sleep aids if they weren't safe? (gee I don't know, the same reason smokes are sold, coca cola, McDonald's - capitalism?!). Anyway the bassinet - I told her baby wouldn't even be staying at MY parents the night when so young and she has an answer again saying oh no, not the night, just a few hours so you can have a break/go out and do something. I notice these Mils with baby rabies always tell mums when to have a break and seem to want to take the baby away on their own...Husband told his mum that we didn't want visitors for two weeks after the baby was born. I told him later that I didn't mind if she visited briefly at the hospital sometime later and a visit or two maybe after the first week home would be fine but what happened was she arrived when I was in the hospital ward while baby was feeding, came right in and looked at how she was latched, kissed me?! then mentioned to husband how she'd like to come to the house and do a big clean up for us. I ignored her. When she was gone, I told husband that wasn't happening and he agreed. Next day I was discharged and I'd had an episiotomy and a few tears, was in quite a lot of pain, had lost a lot of blood and home is meant to be sanctuary but we arrived and I saw her car parked at the driveway... Then found her inside cleaning. Turns out she has a key to our house and if told husband for years I suspected she's probably made cuts of the spare at some stage and he still deals with the fog sometimes... He was like maybe I left one of the doors unlocked... But I was like no because she wouldn't come to our house when I'm at the hospital with plans to come inside when we weren't there unless she had a key. It's not like she turned up hoping to find an unlocked door. Thankfully she left soon after we arrived... but was round the next day and the next and came every day for about 7 days to spend our first week back as new parents with us. She'd actually booked short notice leave from her job in order to do this, without asking.Baby is now 8 weeks old tomorrow and his mother has been coming over every Sunday and I think expects that Sunday is "her time". I haven't obstructed this, once a week I can handle but she said to my daughter in a baby voice "I only get to see you once a week"... Which is more than anyone in my family has gotten because they don't live 10 minutes away from us like she does and she has seen my baby more than anyone in my family so far. She quit her second part time job which took her evenings and Saturdays up. Now she keeps saying over and over again that because she quit it and has more free time, she'd like to come over more often to "help" because she will be "bored" now without the second job. She also mentioned that there will be less financial wiggle room now that she's quit the second job (apparently a full time day job at a Govt department isn't enough to support just herself and side note, years ago husband discovered after asking her to move out of his house via his sister that she had stolen his inheritance left to him by the grandmother and then stolen the sisters inheritance to pay his one back!). MIL explained regarding financial wiggle room that she wants to be able to shout her friend lunch or buy shoes when she sees them...She's a very overpowering and overbearing person. One Sunday she came round to walk baby in pram for an hour to so and told me to read a book or something and when she came back she said she'd like to do it again soon and maybe for two hours next time. I said regarding the next walk that I'd like to come along and she told me no, I can stay home and read a book or watch a movie. There's also been a few times I was breastfeeding baby and when MIL decided she was done, she scooped her away and took her. My daughter has really bad reflux which midwife at the time knew about, and the doctors I've seen know about it and his mother told me she doesn't think baby has reflux because she "knows reflux babies and they projectile vomit". She told me my milk quality won't be good (it's fine and baby is meeting all milestones despite the ongoing discomfort from reflux), when I mentioned some people telling me they've had good results going to an osteopath for reflux she told us "absolutely not" and that they mess around with bones and I kept hearing "no" come from her mouth which annoyed me a lot because she has no parental authority and if we decide to go to an osteopath that is our decision alone.As said earlier, before baby she only visited husband when I was at work. Since baby I've seen her more than ever in the whole time I've been with husband which is so transparent and fake in my eyes. I want to be fair but I want to make sure we have strong boundaries and that she knows our parental authority is not to be challenged but she is so pushy and honestly very narcissistic. She never asks about anyone in my family. My dad once helped me wallpaper the spare room and she came by a few days later when I was at work and ripped all the wallpaper off to begin again. So... I want to be reasonable and fair but have strong boundaries. I am trying to get used to the practice of "no" being a complete sentence. I want my daughter to understand healthy relationship dynamics but unless a serious line is crossed I don't want to just cut off one grandmother but that grandmother needs to know that she's not centre of the ring with husband and my baby.Any ideas? via /r/JUSTNOMIL https://ift.tt/3jmWvjV
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