MIL relationship

I know it sucks to hear but she has no obligation to take care / be in your child’s life. If that is what she wants and is choosing it’s her choice. You can’t force the relationship. My FIL is the same way… my son is turning 2 and he’s maybe seen him 20 times his whole life is retired and tries to put the blame on us for a lack of relationship 🤷🏼‍♀️ but truly it’s his fault and loss

I agree with @Adriana she has no obligation to be in your child’s life or take care of your child. Does it suck? Hell yea! Would it be great if she cared? Definitely! But unfortunately it seems like she has other priorities. Plus I would like to add that I think it should be your husband’s responsibility to talk to his mother and set boundaries with her. You can both discuss this and come to terms on an agreement but he should be the one giving that information to her.

She has no obligation to take care of her grandson, and it should not be expected either. It's also true what she said about people her age should do only (or mostly) things for themselves. She clearly is not enjoying when you and your husband take her time for granted, even if she is active for her age. She should be definitely free to do whatever she chooses. Being a grandma should not be a chore or hard job. You are also definitely free to cut ties with her too and express yourself as she does. Sorry if I might sound rude, please disregard it if you find it offensive.

My husband says he doesn’t care, his mother has always been cold etc. But her help even once a week would make a world of difference as LO is a poor sleeper and my husband works very long hours and I’ve communicated this and showing no regret or remorse she says she just wants to have fun. If she was just a friend I wouldn’t bother with her anymore but because she’s my MIL I have to smile and act like I have no hard feelings.

So I've been married for 11 years, together almost 13. My MIL isn't rude to me, but she's not always kind to my husband and when he was growing up their relationship was rocky. When we told her we were pregnant with our oldest son she put in her two weeks so she could help us. That lasted maybe a couple months and she told us she needed to start helping her husband with his business (it was 1 day a week). My husband was upset but we just said ok (we had my mom). Since then we've had one more son and I had a daughter from another relationship. While I know she loves them and she's good to them we would go weeks, even months without seeing her or talking to her. The only reason it bothered me was because her actions hurt my husband. Fast forward to 2022 she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Since then she has been more active in all our lives, she calls weekly, the kids see her more often but it's not all the time.

Unfortunately you cannot expect her to help 🤷🏼‍♀️ she had her babies and now just wants to live her own life . It’s hard raising a LO with no village !! But you got this and will come out on top . Maybe look at hiring a baby sitter or something once a week to ease your load

But action wise, we just didn't ask her or if we did it was like a couple times a year maybe. We lowered our expectations of her and didn't expect anything from her. If she wants to be mad because you stopped asking or accommodating her requests, let her. I know that may not be a good answer, but you can't control her reactions and you guys shouldn't walk on eggshells trying to avoid confrontation. If she wants to be around, she knows where you live

She really has no obligation to help you raise your child. It's nice when grandparents help out, but it shouldn't be expected. They didn't choose to have this child, you did. They already raised their babies. She's allowed to enjoy her childfree years however she sees fit.

My family in law is like that. No emotions, no affection, cold as ice. It used to bother me, but realized it's better not to give them the chance to reject us. Fortunately my family is the opposite, even living far away. I hear you it's very hard to navigate motherhood with little or no help. But it's better than having someone rolling her eyes at you. She will find a way to bring her "help" up every time she can.

I might suggest something that worked for me when my son was that age. I was exhausted and my house was a mess. I met a neighbor with a baby (at the park), we started getting to know each other and realized we had the same problem. Then we traded babysitting. Once a week I would watch her baby and mine, while she would have some time to do housework or to rest. And she would watch both babies next time.

I’ll take ur mil over mine lol … jk jk Mine is just too overbearing so I wish she could give us some space sometimes

Ultimately everyone can have their expectations of how involved grandparents should be. Everyone has the right to say no and should not be pressured to facilitate someone else’s expectations. Unfortunately I think you have to respect her boundaries of not being as involved as you would like. If you don’t respect her decision it will affect your relationship. My MIL has wanted to be more involved than I have wanted and her pressure / guilt for involvement has lead to her not respecting boundaries and negativity affected our relationships. I’m not sure what is worse someone not meeting your expectations or being made to feel like you aren’t meeting someone’s. Neither is nice. I think when someone doesn’t meet them all you can only accept that is how it is. At the end of the day you choose how you feel not someone else’s.

Grandparents are different these days…especially the younger ones (although your MIL doesn’t sound super young)

I can't believe how many people are defending her like this. Yes, she is not obliged to help you with your baby but you would think that she would just simply so she could spend time with her cute little grandbaby. Assuming they don't live too far away when that time comes, I would be thrilled to babysit my grandchildren on a regular basis if/when my daughters have kids someday. It's fine, good, and even healthy for a person to spend some time on themselves and do things that bring them happiness, but you would think for a grandparent spending time with their grandchild would be on the top of that list.

@Jasmine I was thinking about that too. I feel like grandparents born in the 60s through 80s (well early 80s, I was born in '89 and I'm definitely nowhere close to being a grandparent since my daughters are still just toddlers) are more likely to be overly self-centered. It's not to say that grandparents from older decades can't be too self-centered and that all grandparents born between the 60s to 80s are overly self-centered, but simply that grandparents are more likely to be overly self-centered if they were born between the 60s to 80s. It seems to correlate to when individualism was becoming more of a value in the US.

@Breaha I’m not sure about self-centered. I guess that could be apart of it. Just when I was younger, I had an older grandparent that was already retired so she had nothing to do other than go to Bingo lol. Grandparents these days are 40, 45 out here living their best lives traveling, partying (because 40s is still young) and working. And they might still be having kids themselves lol

…adding to my original post: everyone is making sense but it’s the disappointment that I can’t help. Anyhow, yesterday I found out something about how she raised my husband that has overshadowed my disappointment and now I feel sad for the little boy that was my husband (in the 80s) and his brother. Apparently, while both parents worked and my MIL would teach in school in the day and do school admin work all evening (so only saw her kids at dinner time) come the weekend both parents would be spending both days playing their respective sport all day and have their kids just sat around watching them play, waiting and doing nothing. No stimulation, no attention, no family time. In the evening MIL would return home with her bored-out-of-their-mind kids and their father would go on to post-match drinks and dinners 🤯 and she told me all this with no regret like it was normal. Meanwhile, I know her boys were getting bullied at school and suffering in silence and she had no clue… how would she

…so I think this is just her personality and I’m going to focus on how my husband is feeling (if he wants my support) because damn… it’s one thing to have issues with your MIL and another with your own mother (obv nobody is perfect but this recent revelation is quite sad)

P.S: they played sport as a hobby (so didn’t earn an income from it)

@Jasmine Yeah, grandparents are very young these days. But that doesn't mean that they should place themselves above their family. It doesn't mean that a grandparents shouldn't make time for themselves and have hobbies. But a grandparent is still a parent too and even adult children still need their parents, especially in challenging times and raising babies and toddlers is definitely challenging.

That is incredibly sad. Honestly it sounds like she really should have never become a parent to begin with. Obviously it's good because your husband exists because of she and her husband but she clearly has very weak maternal instincts.

@Breaha I think times have changed. While it’s disappointing, the expectations were different back in the day. A grandparent has already raised their children but society I guess decided it was their duty to continue to make themselves 100% available. Many women were sahm back in the day and that’s all they knew. My mil became a grandmother before she turned 40 so the expectation of a 38 year old grandparent that still has 30 more years to work and still young enough to want to party and have fun are much different than a 60+ year old grandparent that is retired or close to retiring that doesn’t have the same energy as a 40 year old. I get it why some just don’t want to continue raising or helping to raise or expected to babysit children. But again, still disappointing because a lot of young adults now are used to something different from our grandparents.

@Breaha she may not have had much of a choice in being a parent, contraception was less widely available even 30 years ago. Back then it was also the societal expectation that women have children, my own grandmother was similar -she had 4 children because she really didn't have much choice. It's unfortunate but the reality for some people.