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Me verses the MIL

0173wendy's picture

Hello all, i am married to a man who has a 4 1/2 year old son. My husband lived with his mother for the first two years of his sons life and the mother thinks she should be able to make all the decisions for this child who i will call T. Its been a battle from day one. The mil spoils T like theres no tomorrow and she thinks that my husband owes her because he lived with her for two years. T's mom sees him one day a week so she really is not involved much. The mil has been told to stop buying T. stuff but she wont listen and she sends home little things to rub it in our faces. T. also has many behavior problems, he is a very needy child. T. cant play by himself so no matter what we are doing this childs is up our butts. T. is also very, very winey, alomost everyother word that comes out of his mouth is wined to us. He can also be demanding, now i know children need plenty of care, i have raised two myself but this just goes beyond the norm. I have done many things to change some of the behaviors such as when i first met my husband he would have to rock T. (who was 2) to sleep. i have helped change that also no one was even trying to potty train T at that time so i helped my husband get that done. There has been many positive changes in the past two years but i am still struggling with many behaviors. Today i am struggling with the mil spoiling him daily, you see we only have one car and i stay home so the mil takes T to school everyday and brings him home at noon. We are grateful for this but remember the mil thinks my husband owes her. She continues to spoil T with toys, candy, clothes, ect and wont stop. for example my husband bought T a pair of shoes for school and the mil didnt like them so she went out and bought him a different pair. this hurt my husband, like the shoes we bought were not good enough. We did confront her and i told her if i see those damn shoes i will throw then away. Over the past two months she continues to send home stuff like new underware, ive seen the shoes once ( i promise myself if i see them again i will dispose of them) shirts, pants. now some of you may say thats wonderful but T does not need anymore clothes at this time, so for me its like shes rubbing it in our faces. My husband and i fight over this often. i dont know what to do anymore, so ive decided anything she sends home im going to donate it all. I am also trying to get T to eat with his mouth closed. My husbands 16yr old son ( who lives with the mil, long story) eats like a barn yard animal, i was raised to eat with my mouth closed and i cant stomache the noise he makes while eating. T also will start screaming right away if he dont get what he wants these are hard habits to break when grandma&grandpa allow to do as you please. T goes to the mils house every friday afternoon and for a sleep over on saturdays(my husbands choice) so breaking these behaviors is impossible. The mil also treats T like a baby, like she dont want him to grow up. buying him fisherprice toys for 18 month olds she still gives him a sippy cup at 4 1/2. Any time she sends one of these cups home i get rid of them. T has teeth issues because of all the sugar she gives him with the junk and the juice. I am grateful for this website so i can vent my frustrations, im sure ive not posted the half of it. I am fighting my mil not T.s mom so it has caused much friction in my life with my husband, like thanksgiving is coming up and i am going to refuse to go to the mil house because i cant stand her. Oh and so you know in aug of 09 i had a miscarriage and the mil told some of her friends whom i dont know and the friends decided to approach me & start to talk to me about it (it had only been a week) for this i hate her, she dont think she did anything wrong. i am open to all suggestions anyone may have so that my marriage dont fall apart!

Comments

stepoff's picture

MIL needs to be phased out slowly. But I have to play 'devil's advocate' here for a moment. My own mother is a bit like your MIL. Sounds like your MIL stays at home. Grandparents love to spoil their grandkids. That's just nature. I would cut her a bit of slack regarding the clothes and toys. Telling her that the next time you saw the shoes they'd be in the garbage didn't help, I'm sure. However, the sippy cups are definitely past his age. Toss those immediately. But if she's watching him in her home on Saturdays, there's not much you or DH can do except to tell her that you would LIKE for her to stop the sugary foods and drinks. Also, is there any other way of getting SS to school during the week? If so, utilize it. It doesn't sound like she's trying to rub it in your face tho, to me anyway. Sounds like a grandma spoiling her grandson.

0173wendy's picture

We have cut her back, only to friday afternoons and saturdays. However she has had a attitude for the past two months over this. She is a stay home grandmother and her problem is she has no life, her life is all about her grandkids who she thinks is her own children. I would love to cut slack on the clothes and toys except that she uses these things to gain the love of her grandchildren. Any time we take T to the store and he wants and we say no T will say but my grandma buys me stuff. The issue im having with all the gifts is T has no appreciation for things for his birhtday or x-mas and he expects to receive a gift of some sort all the time. T goes to a preschool class at my mils church and i have no way to cut her out of this at this time. We have to depend on her to take him to school and pick him up (for now). I am really hoping we can put him in public school next year and he can ride the bus. Where we live public schools dont have preschool programs so we have to put up with this until we get antother car or next school year. I am not the only one who sees all that the mil is doing, my husbands ex-wife of the older son (who i will call D ) also sees this. Just last week she called my husband and complained that the mil is spoiling D so bad that he dont even want to see her. She is dieing of cancer and the mil has been helping out so now that she has been helping out she thinks that she gets to make all the decisions for D. The ex told my husband she was terrified to say anything to the mil, why is everyone scared of her. I have never even spoken to the ex on this matter so having her confirm what i thought was maybe in my head helps. Im sorry but she is rubbing it in our faces when she has been asked by my husband to stop buying stuff, like for halloween she bought him a costume and bucket without asking. we already had purchased these things for T. and had she asked she would have known she did not need to buy anything and then she sends them home so to me thats rubbing it in our faces. It makes us feel like we cant do anything for T because she always does it first. T does not need any clothes at this time, hes 4 1/2 and has more clothes then i do and i love clothes. i personaly think if she wants to spend all this money then buy him a savings bonds for college. spending money on clothes that he dont need is a waste.

JustAnotherSM's picture

You are right for wanting to stop MIL's actions now. My SS is 17 and feels that he is entitled to get absolutely everything and anything he wants. BM and the grandparents continue to give him everything he asks for, even when he is disrespectful and is failing in high school.

You are a good mom for wanting to teach your skids that they won't get everything they want in life. And it's much easier to learn this lesson at a young age. Good luck and stand firm!

0173wendy's picture

Hello, i need to vent. I am battling the mil. She helped raise my dh 4 year old for two years and she has common law custody of his 15 year old. We have had some issues this past summer over my ss4 and some personal issues with me. I had a miscariage this past aug and my mil told one of her friends whom i dont know and this friend walked up to me at ss4 school and started talking to me about it, not even two weeks after it happened. I went off on my mil, i was very angry. She does not think she did anything wrong, she may not have intented for her friend to say anything to me but she did. If the shoe were on the other foot i would feel responsible for my friends actions. That is the way i was raised and i have explained all of this to my mil, after two months of not speaking she wrote me a letter to once again tell me she feels she did nothing wrong. I wrote her back. We did not go to the mil house for thanksgiving this year, she was very upset. She then told sd25 & ss15 that their father was turning his back on his kids. She told them he had a new family now. Dh talked to sd25 and told her we just wanted to relax, watch football, put up the x-mas tree, ect. SD25 said she understood and that maybe she would come later for pie. she never showed up or called. sd25 then turned around and told mil everything that dh had said to her, he specifically asked her not to discuss issues with mil, to call him if she had them. Now back to the letter i wrote, just yesterday sd25 sent dh txt msgs with quotes from my letter, i am sickend. I said nothing about sd25 in my letter but she was defending mil in the txts mgs. How is this her business. I was very upset three months ago over my mils gossiping, and now she has sd25 involved. I believe she is trying to turn dh other children against me because i wont put up with her trying to control our lives and her gossiping. She is using dh kids to hurt him because at this point this is the only way for her to hurt him. Ive told dh that i am done, i am refusing to spend x-mas eve over there. How can i possible go over there knowing that all mil and sd25 do is talk about me. I would not be comfortable at all. I am choosing to stay home with my two children. I still have to see mil all the time bacause she helps us with ss4, we only have one car and she takes him to school and brings him home. Until yesterday i was being nice to her everyday saying thank you when she dropped of ss4. She has been cold as ice to me. She mops around and tells ss4 she has a broken heart so ss4 is acting just like her. he mops around saying hes has a broken heart. How much is mil telling ss15 & ss4. if she has brought sd25 into this whats to stop her from telling ss4 stuff he should not even know. we know for a fact she has said plenty in front of ss15. What is wrong with this woman. nothing that is said in this family is sacred. mil has told sd25 personal stuff about out finances in the past. Once again how is this her business. dh has stopped telling mil our personal business and now she is complaining that he never talks to her or turns to her anymore. OMG, my head is spinning!