My mother in law drives me nuts. I love her, but I don’t get her at all.
When my DH and I started dating, she hated me flat out. I was…not good enough for her boy. *snort* She even tried to talk him out of marrying me, after we had only been dating about, I don’t know, 6 years? Yeah. Ok. And it was about 3 months before our wedding. SOOO TACKY. And pointless.
Well, lets just see who won THAT little battle, right?
Years into our marriage, she realized, hey, you DONT suck, in fact, I may like you a little better then I like my own son some days. Im in good graces after being ostracized for 6-8 years. Whatever, Ill take it. But because of all that time, I never felt 100% completely comfortable with her. It always seems contrived in a way to be around her.
Then, dum dum dum dummmmmmmm, I get the pleasure of moving in with her for a few months with Charlotte after we got out of the military, before we had closed on our home. It wasn’t that bad after we found a rhythm to it, but it was still a long, long time, since DH was living in Alabama and Charlotte and I were living in Florida.
Now let me back up and say that they live on the Panhandle of Florida. Dh and I lived in Tampa for about 5 years, which is approx. 8 hours from them. We saw them on holidays. I think they came down twice in 5 years..once on the way through to something, and once for our graduation of college. Then we moved To Texas with the military for a year (so about 15 hours from them…hell, maybe more, its just damn far). So no visits either. Then we moved to South Carolina for 4 years, about 10 hours from them. I think we saw them once or twice in those 4 years (and one of those was when Charlotte was born). Then we moved to Ohio for a few years, and they never came there either.
Fine. They don’t travel anywhere we have lived. Its only been like 12 years, not too long. Right? But I figured that would all change when Charlotte was born.
When we got out of the military, we could have moved ANYWHERE. We chose to move to Mobile as there was an immediate job opportunity and it was only ONE HOUR from both of our parents houses. Maybe an hour 15 minutes. We wanted Charlotte to know her grandparents. We took a 20K pay cut.
Do you know that in the 8 months we have lived here that we have seen them about 3 times at our house? Once we asked them to come watch Charlotte when we first moved in and needed to go buy new mattresses (we lost ours in that fire) back in March. Once we asked them to come down in like May so we could go car shopping and once they have dropped her off after we left her up at their house for the weekend.
They don’t invite us over, they don’t stay here, they don’t come over, and they never ever ever ask to see their granddaughter. The only time they see her is if we FORCE them/guilt them and we HAVE to drive up there to their house. If we call to see what they are doing, they have plans, they have to do the yard, they have to mow..hell, wash their hair, i don’t know. Even if we try to plan weeks ahead, we are told “we will have to see what we are doing that weekend.”
What is the deal? Do any of you have grandparent/in laws that have no inherent desire to spend time with their grandchild? Or am I just lucky.
For a moment there I thought you were talking about my in-laws!! The only difference is that they only live 30 minutes from us. They only see the kids when WE bring them to their house. I used to get so upset but have come to the conclusion that they are the ones missing out because my kids will never be “close” to them. My parents are great and see the kids all the time. They will at least know one set of grandparents really well
My mil only lives 5 minutes away, and she still only sees the baby about once every three weeks for maybe an hour. All we heard when I was pregnant is how excited she was to be having a grandbaby living here instead of 3 hours away ,so I thought she would want to see him all the time by the way she was acting…but now all we hear is I’m so busy and never have time to stop by and see him.
Oh and I just want to add…it’s not about us you know, you’d THINK they would actually WANT to spend time with their grandkids. Ugh, i’m all stressed out now.
OH boy, could I tell you a few stories, my Il’s live 20 minutes away and you’d think they were in China. They haven’t asked to babysit our kids in 6+ years and even then my MIL said she never wanted to watch them EVER again after my oldest two’s stay. My hubby was in the hospital on and on for 5 months then…sweet huh?! My parents on the other hand, GEMS! So extreme. It’s sad and I try to stay out of it, thinking that my kids will figure it out on their own, and seriously, they already are.
Andrea, this is the part that pisses me off…we MOVED here to raise charlotte around family. I know what you are saying, but they live their lives every day, day in and day out, for a long time. How can life not be about your family, your grandchild, your son.
This is their ONLY grandchild and she lived her life so far without them. I would be ALL OVER my grandchildren.
They dont work weekends, thier other daughter lives in tampa, so its not like they are with her and she is not married and has no children.
If you dont take the time to involve yourself in your grandchilds life, there will be a time where charlotte just thinks they are wierd or doesnt want to share with them.
The fact that they are so young right now is the time to develop a bond with her. Becuase in 15 years, its going to be their bodies that wont let them do it.
You cant live your life to sit in front of the TV w/ a glass of bourban.
I am not asking for every weekend, come down…but three times in 8 months, after we begged you, is unacceptable.
I am afraid i am going to start a family war if i bring it up, but they have to stop expecting us to do all the work for them and haul her back and forth and CREATE a relationship.
Andrea, thats why its so shocking. THey were great parents to chris and his sister. Very involved, a good family. Mom at home, dad in the military…part of thier lives for sure. (think about how involved Chris is…he learned somewhere, you know?.
I think sometimes we expect too much from grandparents. What kind of parents were they like to Chris? Are they just not overly loving and involved people?
My inlaws are very involved and around, too much so. My parents on the other hand tend to stay back, live their lives and let you live yours. They want to see Aiden, but they are busy and so are we, so the time they spend with him is minute in comparison to the time he spends with my inlaws.
I think we sometimes expect them to be instantly drawn to their grandchildren and want to be surrounded by them, but sometimes they just aren’t those kind of people. Sometimes they are younger and want to live their own lives and sometimes they are older and just don’t have the energy. It varies based on their personalities and how they were with their children and how their grandparents treated them.
It may bother you that they are not around, like it bothers my dh that my family is not as involved as his, however, I am used to it, that is how I was raised. My mom didn’t butt in and was never overbearing or involved to a point that I hated it. It works for me.
That’s really sad. I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to spend time with their grandchildren. I’m lucky because my in-laws live about 10 minutes away. They aren’t the smothering type, but anytime we need a babysitter they are always glad to do it. My mom passed away after I had my first child. It makes me sad to know my kids will never know her. But at least they have one set of grandparents who they know and love.
We see our families on a somewhat regular basis. My inlaws live about an hour north so with gas prices neither of us drive to visit as much as we used to. But they make the effort whenever they can. My MIL has had health problems lately too, so we know that makes a big difference. She’s usually all about her grandchildren (an even dozen of them).
My mom comes up and visits every couple of months – again, gas and bus ticket prices keep us from seeing each other more than we do. She lives 2 hours away. We don’t see my dad nearly as much since he doesn’t visit here very often, but we talk on the phone every few weeks or so and see him a few times a year. I wish we could see him more so the girls could get to know him.
I know that I’m really lucky when it comes to inlaws – mine are very involved in their kids’ and grandkids’ lives, but without being too intrusive or overbearing.
yuck! Don’t even get me started on my Mother in Law!
My MIL is 10 minutes away from us and she barely sees Morgan. What is worse, is that MIL will tell Morgan that she’s going to have a great girls day out with her, and then doesn’t follow through, leaving me with a very disappointed little girl. When she does take Morgan for the day (every couple of months), all she does is set her down in front of the television. They don’t interact at all. It’s a sad situation, but I figure that MIL is the one who is going to lose out the most. Morgan has many, many people in her life that love her and spend time with her and we try to just focus on that.
In-laws/grandparents can be so hard to figure out. I had/have issues with my mother-in-law, too. First of all, I married her one and only son…and child for that matter. I think what got us off on the wrong foot was when we drove 3 hours to meet them for dinner one night right after we’d gotten engaged. We sit down to eat and the first thing out of my future-mother-in-laws mouth was, “So, let’s talk about birth control because we really need to make sure you’re all set”. Whoa. Awkward, and totally none of your business. We hadn’t even gotten our food yet and my husband was literally screaming at his mom because she was going on and on about all this stuff that just did NOT involve her in any way. I excused myself to the bathroom for about…oh, a half hour. We ended up boxing our food up and leaving. So, anyhoo…that was a great time.
When we first got married she acted like the 3 of us were married, expecting to go everywhere we went. If she found out that we went and did something without her she’d call all upset asking, “Why didn’t you call me?!?!”. Hmmm…guess. I had visions of standing in front of Judge Wapner pleading my case the first few months of our marriage. Seriously, I thought “Oh dear Lord what have I gotten myself into”. It was bad. Then we moved about 45 minutes away from them (we were about 15 when we first got married). It wasn’t so easy for her to “just stop in to say hello” like she used to on a daily basis – unannounced. We saw them about twice per week which was MUCH better than it had been. Things were okay between us, but I still wasn’t thrilled to spend oodles of time with her.
We got pregnant with our first child and all hell broke loose. She decided that they needed to sell their house and move into a town home. That made sense to me, but what didn’t make sense was when we were out to dinner one night with them and she announced, “I have some GREAT NEWS!!!! We bought a townhome!!!”. I was trying to act excited for them, so I asked, “Oh wow, where’d you decide to buy a place at?”. She replied, “In the Bridges of Hanover development!!!”. I seriously about fell out of my chair…all 8.5 months pregnant of me. The development was like oh, maybe a MILE from our house. And how convenient…they requested a quick closing and were moving in TWO DAYS before my due date. My husband claims he was fearful for his life as he watched me cut my steak up through the rest of the meal. I have NEVER been so incredibly FURIOUS in my entire LIFE!!!
I ended up delivering our daughter 2 weeks past my due date and there were complications. She had a brachial plexus (shoulder) injury from getting stuck. She was 10 lbs. 4 oz. and 21 inches long. Yowsers. Well the fact that she was injured during delivery only made my mother-in-law that much more clingy – she claimed she was trying to help, but to me I felt COMPLETELY smothered. I did everything I could do to keep her from seeing our daughter because she was completely out of control. When we’d be at a family gathering she’d grab my daughter out of my arms and wouldn’t let another person touch her. She continued to try and stop in unannounced and I finally learned to stay downstairs in the basement and ignore the doorbell or the pounding on the door. She’d stand out there calling on her cell phone and I’d just ignore the phone, too.
When I went back to work I was the typical “new mom”, completely distraught about leaving my sweet little baby and going back to work. Our daycare provider was wonderful, but I still just wanted to be the one to take care of my baby. As the months went on, we got into our routine and things seemed okay. We’d established a “schedule” where we’d go every Tuesday night for dinner with the in-laws and that way they got to see our daughter once a week at least. Then one day I showed up to pick up my daughter from daycare and the lady said, “I need to talk to you about something”. I didn’t think much of it and asked her what was up. She proceeded to tell me that I needed to talk to my mother-in-law because she was really starting to become a big interruption. I was like “WHAT?!?!?”. She said that she’d been stopping in unannounced and would just hang out for an hour or two at a time. I was LIVID!!!! I told her it’d be taken care of and left. The second I got in the car I called my husband and told him that he better call his mom NOW and tell her she better stay the h*** away from our daughter’s daycare if she EVER wanted to see her again. That just totally put me over the edge. I’m usually a pretty laid back person, but I was cussing like a flippin’ sailor when my husband got home. So…we had to have yet another “boudaries” talk with the dear mother-in-law. I was so pissed at her I didn’t talk to her for about 3 weeks. I remember one time I came home and she was in our driveway waiting for me. I was NOT in the mood to talk to her and she was walking along side the car crying telling me how she just wanted us to “be close”. The last thing I wanted was to ever see her again at that point.
As a result of the injury at birth, our daughter has some special needs and has numerous therapy appointments each week. We had our second child shortly before our daughter turned 2. About 6 months after that our daughter was diagnosed with Apraxia (a motor planning neurological condition). So there I was with a 2 year old who wasn’t walking yet and a newborn. Plus I was still working full-time. At that time we only had 2 therapy appointments each week, but I was still just barely getting by without losing my mind. My husband’s a teacher, so his schedule wasn’t real flexible, which meant I was responsible for getting the kids everywhere they needed to be. I finally reached a point where I just couldn’t do it myself. I’d been praying for years that God would work out the messed up relationship between my mother-in-law and myself, and He did. It took time, but now I don’t know what I’d do without her. I ended up quitting my full-time corporate job and now run a freelance graphic design business out of my house. My inlaws help out with the kids on Mondays and Fridays, then they go to daycare part time the other days. We’re up to 4 therapy appointments now, plus our daughter is in special ed preschool 4 days per week. Without the help of my mother-in-law at this time in our lives, I don’t know where we’d be. We’ve learned to work around the early bumps in the road we encountered during our early years of marriage, and I can honestly say now that I enjoy spending time with her. Don’t get me wrong, there are still times I feel like I wish they’d move far away, but most days I’m thankful to have their help and support as we continue on the journey of raising a child with special needs.
Sorry, I didn’t intend for this to turn into MY blog post.
But, Trisha, we’ve definitely got mother-in-laws on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Hopefully with time you two will have a close relationship and your in-laws will realize how important it is for them to make time to be part of Charlotte’s life, even if it means traveling long distances to see her! Thanks for listening to my babbling. I’ll be hosting a book signing at Barnes & Noble this weekend for the biography I just wrote. LOL!!
I’m lucky that my son sees me parents at least a few times a week. He loves spending time with them and my sister. He even calls my mom and sister almost every day.
We see my in-laws on occasion. The thing that gets me with them, is that it seems to have to be on their time. If we have a birthday party or holiday event, my mil comes up with some reason why she can’t come, and they only live 5 minutes away. It drives me crazy, because she promises to come, up until the day of, than says she can’t make it. My hubby’s sister is the same way. My son loves to play with her kids, but she always flakes on plans. I’ve seen the kids once in 3 years, and they’re 15 minutes away.
It really irritates me, especially because my side of the family is so different and my son doesn’t understand why the in-laws don’t see him nearly as much.
I wish my Mil didn’t want to see audrey! She drives me crazy and I don’t like how she lives her life. I don’t want Audrey to have the bad influence, but my husband is totally blind to her faults! We see my parents twice a year simply because we live so far away! We see the mil about 3 to 4 times a year but for shorter stints then with my parents, thank goodness!
My MIL is like 53. Seriously, she is so young. And Charlottes a really good girl when she is w/ them. I think she is just LAZY.
How old is she? Does she just feel more comfortable in her own home?
My mom and MIL both spend lots of time with my girls. But the girls also have great grandparents and great great grandmothers (2 of them). I will tell you that we usually have to take the girls to see most of them, mostly because they are just more comfortable in their own homes. They love seeing the girls and spending time with them, but they don’t like leaving their own homes.
Could that be the case with your MIL? Have you ever talked to her about it?
This is a really tough issue. My mom comes down (almost an hour away) to see the kids at least every other weekend. My in-laws about once a month, maybe.
I don’t go and see them either but right now Abby is happiest crawling around on our floor, and no one else is baby-proofed.
It’s so easy to get lost in the day-to-day that you forget that time is fleeting. People have their own lives and there is “always tomorrow.” I’m not sure why or how this mentality has become so widespread, but I know my son missing my MIL like crazy even though he gets to see her about once a month, maybe a little less. I always wonder what they are doing that they can’t take half a day and come visit for a couple of hours. Shopping? Napping? Reading the paper? Watching sports?
I don’t know. It’s a shame though that Charlotte can’t get to know her Grandma better.
I am lucky. My in-laws live about 30 minutes away, and we see them at least once a month, usually more. My parents live 10 hours away, but they have come up several times so far this year- most of it to drop my siblings off at college, but then it’s a good excuse to see their only granddaughter. I know they would love to spend more time with her, but 10 hours is a lot to drive. I can’t imagine that anyone would not want to spend time with their grandkids.
My in-laws are the same way. They only live 10 minutes away from us and are too consumed by their “religion” to find time for their family. After Kaydence was born my MIL said she’d like to do a weekly visit. I cringed at the thought but agreed because it meant more time for the kids to get to know them. Well…after about 2 visits, the weeks started turning into months. It didn’t help that Kaydence cried every time she saw them and they couldn’t figure out why. Uh..hello…she doesn’t know you! After getting tired of dealing with I finally just told them I wanted nothing more to do with them. Me personally…they were free to see the kids but my husband would have to arrange it. Well…it’s been oh 3 months and not one word from them. No skin off my back.
I live in Kentucky and my whole family lives in Michigan (6-7 hours away). I’ve been here 2 years. At first my dad was coming down a lot to see the kids, and we made a trip up there in 06, 07 and goin to be twice here in 08. the last time my dad was down here was for my wedding in June of 07. Now when I make plans to go up there and see my faimly, my dad has to ALWAYS sabbotage my plans bc he wants the girls to stay at his house for a night. And it’s not even all 3 of my kids, it’s just the older 2. How rude and unfair is that to the baby?! I have lots of people to see when I’m up there so it’s really difficult to have to deal with this. And here’s the kicker, whenever they call, which isnt very often, they always ask how my older 2 girls are doing, never anything about the baby! wtf?! I dont get my dad and step mom sometimes.
Now on the other hand, my sil lives litterally 4 miles away! what is like 5 minutes? They never come over and see us. She has 3 kids, 2 are right around my kids’ age, so it would be nice to have the kids get together and play, right? Wrong! They are always busy, she only works 2 days a week, so how busy can you be? So i’ve stopped calling and tryin to make plans with them. My kids are always asking if they can play their cousin, and it breaks my heart when I have to tell them that they cant bc something is going on or they have to do this.
So, no, you arent the only one. I really hate family sometimes!