r/JUSTNOMIL • u/UnhappyAd4516 • 7d ago
RANT (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ Ambivalent About Advice Ugh, I can’t stand her
My MIL is the quintessential boy mom. She has no life or hobbies outside of her two boys. My DH is older and is very clearly the favorite. It’s kind of odd because he’s had his fair share of issues (he’s a recovering alcoholic), but in her and my FIL’s minds he can do no wrong. They ditched my BIL on this 21st birthday to go see my DH in rehab. They have never held him accountable for anything in his whole life. Even as far back as elementary school, when he had behavioral issues they would blame his teachers for picking on him. All of them. For no reason. I sometimes wonder if that’s why it took him so long to clean up his act. He did some really crappy things to me during his addiction and they never said a word about it to him. I guess I just feel like good parents don’t just ignore when their kids are doing wrong? I could be off base on that…
My issues started at the beginning of our relationship (we were living together) he got sick and she insisted her go to the hospital an hour away from us where she’s a social worker. I think she wanted to be able to access his chart. Our region has some of the best hospitals in the world. Her hospital was not part of that network and he ended up staying for a week because they didn’t have the resources in house to test and diagnose him. It was miserable. This was also during Covid and so it was one support person in the ER and she was already in there because she works there. He’s not close with her. She’s a source of stress and anxiety for him because all she does is cry. I’ve begun to think it’s a manipulation tactic. So she’s not the person he wanted with him as a support person. She doesn’t care. She also knows that this hospital is subpar-she wouldn’t get her hernia repair done there because she doesn’t trust them but she’ll insist he goes there so she can be in charge. This led to me having to force him to be honest with the doctors because he didn’t want to share certain things with them since they would end up in his chart and she would be able to see it. So she basically cared more about control than his health.
Her and my FIL make not actual effort to know him. They’re very surface level. They don’t ask him how he feels about things or how his sobriety is going but they feel like they always need to know what’s going on.
They’re never been outright mean to me, but I know I’m not who they would have chosen for their son. His mom literally sobbed when we got engaged and to this day I don’t think it was tears of joy. They ignored any mention I made of weddings plans so we decided to elope because they seemed so disinterested. She was upset about that. They called us at 10:30 at night on our wedding night-we eloped but to them when we were doing it so it wasn’t like a traditional elopement.
His dad texts him basically every morning at 4:45 to tell him he loves him. DH will reply like once a week. Maybe that’s not weird, is it? I kinda think it is because DH doesn’t reply and FIL doesn’t text my BIL for like weeks, if not months at a time. My BIL is a great person and his wife is an angel, they’re both successful and independent. I sometimes wonder if my in laws are so attached to my husband he needed them longer.
We moved out of state for a couple years, had a baby in December and moved back. They are not super involved grandparents. My BIL and SIL have two kids who have never really been active with. My SIL had mastitis one time and got really sick and my BIL was out of town for work and she called my ILs for help and they didn’t. They live 10 minutes away. This the was only time in two years she had ever asked for help. Anyway, they like to act like grandparents of the year on Facebook but they don’t actually want to do anything with them. They just sit there in their living room and take pictures. My BIL and SIL didn’t get to buy their daughter her first bike for her birthday because my ILs bought her one without asking. They also announced my nephew’s birth on Facebook because BIL and SIL could (they hadn’t even announced their pregnancy yet).
They’re met our DD three times. Our one rule was don’t kiss her. The first time they met her at 2 months old they didn’t. The second time at 7 months old my FIL kissed her. I let it go because I figured he might have thought it was just a thing when she was really little and in RSV season so DH sent them a reminder text yesterday when we went over. This time my MIL kissed her and then said oops. DH thinks it was an accident, I don’t. Then she kissed her fingers and touched DD’s face with them when we were leaving. I’m really mad. I don’t think I’m asking for a whole lot. I’m trying not to overreact. Besides the normal reasons we don’t want people kissing her, I really don’t trust my ILs specifically. I think they’d kiss her when they’re sick. One time when my niece was like 8 months old my FIL was using chemo cream for a spot on his face and he rubbed his face all over hers. I just don’t trust them.
I know it’s kind of an SO problem but he really thinks it was an accident. He tries to avoid them really tries to avoid letting them hold her when we go there. It makes both our skin crawl when they do. We got in a big fight about it. Idk, I just need to vent because I’m so mad and I need to get it out.
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u/OniyaMCD 7d ago
If *he* doesn't want to go over, and *you* don't want to go over... why are you going over?