Morning Guys,

Need some advice on how to deal with this.

The relationship between my mother and I has always been rocky, she is one of those “I’ve been on this planet many years, I know better than you” type of person. Trying to talk to her literally always ends in some disagreement or argument as she thinks shes knows best and her way is better than most.

Recently, my other half gave birth to our first child, emergency c-section due to Eclampsia/HELLP syndrome, 8 n a half weeks early. This has been a truly horrific time for us both, coming home to find her having a full seizure not breathing is not a good start.

Anyway, little lad is in SCBU and has been since birth and will be for a few weeks now. Everyone else has given us space and time as we’re exhausted too and fro’ing from the hospital and I’m still working the day job etc trying to keep the house together, trying to see the son as much as I can. Everyone but her, she has come to see him every 2 days since birth and even showed up at the hospital when we weren’t even there to see him.

Yesterday hit the nail on the head as she showed up unannounced again, Kas had just got him to sleep and wanted some alone time understandable but all she wanted to do was talk, ask questions and fuss. I know its nice to be there but when we’ve already told her to back off she just doesn’t seem to understand our wishes and makes it about her; “why are you keeping me at arms length”,”I want to see MY grandchild”,”I have a right”.

Any tips on dealing with a crazy mother who doesn’t listen to someones else’s wishes.

You have two hopes, and Bobs dead

My mother is not a good yin.

My daughter is 10, and hasn’t seen her since she was 10 months old, and she hasn’t missed out.

Bombers?

“I have a right”

“Sorry Mum, you don’t and I need to look after my partner and son now and what they need is my priority. I love you and I don’t want to fall out with you over this but please, give us space and we’ll involve you when we feel able to.”

Easy for me to type but a lot less easy for you to say.

You have to choose, and quickly – your partner is looking to see which way you jump and if you’re seen to pirotise your mum’s needs now it will be remembered.

Also:

I hope your son is well and continues to improve so he can leave the SCBU.

Wait till she puts her finger in your babies mouth.

@big_and_daft – there is always hope 🙂 perhaps not for her in general…

@rorschach – I have some tasty carbon forks and some revs, would they do?

@wwaswas – thanks for that, i tried saying something along those lines but it did no use. I have a pre-written script for the next time she contacts that she will get via whatsapp so i know shes read it. My other half knows which side of the fence I sit on, we’re firmly in the same boat on this one. Elliot is doing well 🙂 perhaps another week in SCBU and he’ll be free. Just gotta get some chunk on him now.

Are the hospital able* to stop her coming in when you’re not around?

*admittedly a determined granny is basically unstoppable

Your wife and child come first, anyone else comes after, quite a bit after.
Just be firm with your mum, if she doesn’t like it thats just too bad.

Congratulations!

Difficult situation, but evidently your mum is putting her own needs first, so she’s covered, leaving you to concentrate on your missus and boy. Hard when it’s family, but sometimes has to be done.

I can fully sympathise, the day before my daughter was born i had to drive 280 mile round trip to get the parts for a blinkin IKEA sofa bed as my wife announced by mother in law was moving in for a month to help her with the baby.

I struggled to get near my daughter for her first month on the planet!

Before you kick your mother into touch…

…how are your future childcare arrangements!!! 😀

Grandparents can be a massive help, but along with it comes a fair amount of shit to deal with. They will think they are right, but you need to find a way of letting it wash over you.

You’re the grown up parent now. You just need to step up and take control of the stuation. Lay down the rules and stick to them.

Our youngest was born in almost exactly similar circumstances as you describe and spent a few week in the SCBU.
I know how tiring it can be for you.

Ahah! a granny who knows best, your so fked you might as well change your name to Derek and move to Madagascar..
Best wishes for the little un,

It’s tough but if she’s gonna help with childcare down the line it’s worth some stress now!

What does Narcissit mean? It sounds like a town in Alaska.

Have faith in the medics; they know what they are doing. Your little boy will be fine in the end; many new parents go through stress and anxiety especially with a premature baby. We went through some scares with our boy when he was tiny and you just have to have faith in the wisdom of the hospital staff; now he’s 18 and beating his old man in 10 mile TTs. Look after yourselves and accept that your Mum is as stressed as you are and will be unable to prevent herself from popping in to check on him.

Been there done this, my mother didn’t see my kids for 15 years and their life is/was a better place without her – she lived about 5 miles away. The arriving unannounced thing was the straw, she turned up uninvited on Xmas day morning after me and the wife had just got over pnuomonia while looking after 4 small children (never saw her while we were ill) – I have no regrets about shutting her out it improved our quality of life. She was selfish simple as. Also stuck her fingers in my kids food while smoking 20 a day. Got he own back in the end as my micro vascular heart disease is most likely down to her smoking while carrying me.

Is your partners Mother bigger than your Mother?

If so you can sort it out primary school style.

Sheesh; that sounds tough. You must be knackered. Congrats on the babba, tho.

Wwaswas’s suggestion is pretty spot on. The “I’m a Granny and I have rights” thing is tricksy tho; where do they get these ideas? My toxic mother was always pulling that line out, basically you just have to put your foot down and make it perfectly clear that your/your partners/childs needs are far more important than her rights.

Best wishes, must be a tough time.

Interfering grans are par for the course, I’m afraid. For every one who is happy to let you get on with it, there will be another who is convinced that everything you are doing is wrong and won’t be shy about telling you.

Setting down the ground rules now will be to your benefit. Tell her that visiting time is precious to you and she can come to see your lad when he is out of hospital and in better shape. Be firm. You are his parents and you are right.

Childcare will not be an issue. At this rate, shes more likely to make us move closer to the other set of grandparents in Norwich who have been incredible so far in terms of support etc, although they did rush down here at 2am when Kas was admitted to hospital and camped out at the house for a week. But, they did tidy up, cook all our meals, look after the dog and only came to see Kas and Elliot when requested and made sure they asked first – they were excited first time grandparents 🙂

I doubt after the blazing row me and my mum had yesterday she will be in touch for a few days. Once she makes contact i’ll lay the law down, if she doesn’t like it, she knows where the door is.

Having been in a similar situation (my boy was born early and has a very rare genetic growth syndrome, 5 weeks early and on SBCU for sometime too).

My advice, take her to one side for a coffee, reassure her the time for grandparent time is just around the corner. Explain you are being pulled in too many directions at at this moment in time (emotionally, physically, financially and just about holding it together). As you know, your wife and baby are the priority. Reassure her you will keep her updated as the situation progresses, tell her this may not be everyday so she should expect quiet time of maybe a day or two before the next contact to enable you all to get through the situation (the last thing you need is having constant texts). However you handle it you both need to come away being absolutely clear about what is acceptable and what isn’t, basically dont finish the chat until you are confident she has got the message – you only want to do this once so be firm and sharp if necessary but end on a reassuring good note. Remind her this is just a temporary arrangement. Get her to help in other ways, cleaning the house, washing clothes, buying food. Lastly, maybe get her to think about what she would of wanted if she was in your wifes situation. Would she have wanted her mother in law getting in the way. This will help put her actions into context. If she is a complete nutter about it then you know what to do, wife and baby come first. You can rebuild bridges later.

Good luck and more importantly I hope everyone gets through this fine.

THIS

Every parent loves their child more than they love themself and if they dont you dont need them in your life

try and explain, be sympathetic if its her first grandchild but if she is always like this you have a tough choice.

@globalti, trust you to pick up on the spelling…the staff at the hospital have been incredible so there is no issue there. My mother tried to question them once on why they were taking so much blood for tests, I had to ask her to leave and let them do their job as she was trying to stop them.

@The Southern Yeti, the mother in law is an ex county champion canoeist and very fit and healthy. My mother struggles to get about due to a bad back. It would be an unfair fight.

Setting down the ground rules now will be to your benefit.

This^^ As difficult as it is its best to get things ironed out. A smaller argument now is usually better than a complete falling out.

We had a similar issue before the kid was born.

In the end we sat down with the olds and said if you would like to be a part of our daughters future you need to give us some space. It was very hard for them at first and there were a lot of stoney looks etc but its paid off.

Good luck, have a work just you and her and tell her that you need her help and this isnt helping.

Give her a list of things to do that would actually be helpful, cooking meals, shopping etc. Then take her to see the nipper when it works for you. Give and take but keep her involved and feeling like she’s contributing.

When our daughter was in SCBU only we were allowed in, and could go in anytime we wanted day or night. Guests could come in but only if we were there, approved and stayed with them. Is this not the case in your SCBU?

@the-muffin-man – This SCBU is the same, we are allowed in whenever we want and there are visiting times for grandparents and siblings. Shes already been kicked out several times for overstaying the allotted hours.

Sorry to hear about your son OP and hope he, his mum and you are doing okay? I have an interesting family. To keep them at arms length I moved to Cheshire from Yorkshire. None of them drive so I only ever see them on my terms. If I were you I’d just be blunt with her, harsh, but maybe the only way to get through.

Best of luck and best wishes to your little family

Firstly, to the OP – I hope that the little fella is out of intensive care very soon. Sounds as if you’ve prioritised your partner and son’s needs which is commendable.

As someone with a narcissist mother in law who is incapable of empathy, I understand that it’s a minefield. MiL has always struggled to understand the rules of basic social interaction, but she lost her husband five years ago which seems to have tipped her over the edge to the point where we strongly suspected that she was showing symptoms of dementia.

All attempts to try and support her and help her through her grief were met with passive aggressive and unpleasant behaviour on her part which rapidly descended into her bullying of my partner and I, trying to turn family members against us. Thankfully, everyone else could see what was happening and paid MiL little attention.

Time is always a great leveller – since then MiL has been forced to accept that at some level her behaviour has alienated her from her daughter and grandsons. Mrs PJM has taken control of the situation and interacts with MiL on her own terms, meanwhile MiL appears to have accepted that she has to curb her behaviour if she wants any interaction with her daughter and grandsons at all.

Be prepared for a very long haul…

Maybe ask her to focus some assistance on where it would help, meals in the freezer etc?

trying to keep the house together

“Hi mum, thanks for coming, it’s really appreciated. Here’s the hoover and a duster.”

@lesgrandepotato – shes been doing that already which I’ve told her was amazing and really appreciated.

@Cougar – she currently pays my sister to clean her house. She doesn’t do any cleaning if she can help it due to her back issues which also means she cant walk our dog.

Situation just improved a little, we now have a leaving date from the hospital, little man should be home Monday as long as his weigh in on Sunday is over 1.8kg – super excited!

If you havent already – perhaps take baby round tonsee your MiL at her place. Do this a few times (maybe twice a week) and see if that reduces the number of times she turns up at yours unannounced.

Maybe because she already has a frosty relationship with you – she feels that turning up unannounced and showing her willing to be hands on mean you cant say “no” – which is what she’s afraid of.

Then, after a few visits to hers – if she still isnt backing off – you can approach the subject again with her and prove that you havent been keeping her at arms length because youve even been visiting her.

I agree with all the stuff about laying down the law but bear in mind her behaviour may be partly due to her being worried sick about her new grandson being in SCBU too.

First of all good luck with your child’s recovery

It’s you and your wife’s family and it’s both of your rules, you need to be united dealing with this problem.

Unfortunately there’s a perception in life that granny knows best/ with age comes wisdom / that all old folks are nice descent people. Unfortunately this is far from true and some remain the same unpleasant self centred folks that they were in their youth…. except now they play on being old etc….

Of course most are wonderful folks who contribute/ contributed greatly to society however being old doesn’t automatically correlate to this.

Not much to add – except maybe make it clear to her that NO visitors are welcome for the first month you come home from hospital, its not just her.

However if she is genuinely a narcissistic personality then everything is about her, but you can try !

Also, just because somebody knocks at the door, doesn’t mean you have to let them in.

Jolmes!!!

You MUST read the following book..

“Difficult mothers” by Terri Apter.

Was like a bolt from the blue when i read it and finally understood what had been happening all these years.

Basic message is that narsicistic people essentially have incredibly fragile egos and try to bolster their unhappiness by making people feel the same way. Please read the book. Its got lots of ways dealing with your problem mum.

PS…… My mums behaviour got even worse when my wife and i had our daughter…. Sounds like you are having a similar experience.