A wife who is also a mother recently shared her side of the story on how her mother-in-law manipulates her husband and also tries to take over parental control of her newly born daughter.
Here is what she stated in her Facebook post.
As a mother I am constantly living under the shadow of my mother In law who is influencing his son, my husband for her own beneficial gains.
After I gave birth, my parenting style, personal boundary,lifestyle , personal space is invaded by her. She come to my house >10 hours a day , almost daily as she was very free. She interfered in my parenting style , how I want to take care of my infant and thinks her views is ALWAYS RIGHT. During confinement, she went into my room and watch me breastfeed to see if the girl was adequately fed.
As she is my MIL and not my mum, I have no means to retort but to swallow all my grievances.
When I was pregnant, My MIL did tell me she want to be the full time care giver of my girl, I already chose my mum to be the caregiver as she was also baby sitter. My mum took care of my baby for 2 years. My mil and husband HAD NO APPRECIATION for her actions and even went to the extent of blaming my mum for POSSESSING my girl. This means because mil could not take care of my girl and my mum and me should be blame for creating this distance which causes them misery and pain separation.
When I ask my husband for baby sitting allowance , he said “how can the mother in law request money from him. If the parent wants money, should get from their own children.” But let’s be objective, this is not parent allowance but Baby Sitting fees.
In jan 2020, my mil took over caregiver duties , at the same time from Jan to Mar my girl is also adapting to child care which is new to her. She adapted strongly despite crying so many times at my MIL new house. However, my husband is totally unbothered by my toddlers behavior. In April and May , it was lock down. School is closed and no visiting allow. My toddler is with me at home. The times was challenging and stressful but I endured very hard. I need to handle work, house hold chores and a toddler, tending to her every day needs. No one was grateful for my contributions. Instead, all my MIL concern was the fact if she can have access to my child.
Starting 2 June, Singapore open up. My MIL knew it and immediately ask my husband to request for visit. I told my husband , she will go Mon, wed , Fri. and Alte week, Mon , Wed. He was angry, furious and wants to force me to give in more. He told me last time when his mum did not take care for the past 2 years , she only meet my girl once a week. There fore right now to be fair, my parents side should be limited to only once a week. Who is he to be calculative towards parents treatment and enforce such rule.
2nd incident. When I rejected my mil that I cant allow her to stay with me. She told me in front of me to her son “please tell her make sure that her parents also cannot stay here” Again, who is she to determine who is coming to my house to stay? She could not get her ways and she expect others to suffer, so evil.
If I am a irresponsible parent, I am not than happy to let her take five full days so I can relax and focus in my job. A pandemic happens only once in 100 years, how many times in our work life can we work from home for so many months? None.
I felt the best arrangement is to let her go there when I have my work meetings.
Recently, something bad happen. My toddler started to have nightmare each time she visit her. It only stop after I complain that she is over stimulared. She also start to be clingy, so extreme that I cant even go toilet with the door open. I can’t even step into the kitchen to handle her food preparation. I was helpless. She expect to be carried all the time and I cannot put her down. She was fully independent and can be left alone during April to May.
This is a top concern because this is worrying , it stems from her insecurity and it was created by habitual and conditioning. I have been monitoring her behavior for 2 weeks before I feedback to husband. He was defensive , unbothered and totally non sympatric towards my girls behavior and my struggle. We did a 1 week experiment where she does not go any where except home. I found out that she does not have nightmare at home but still clingy. Therefore, i requested for extension to have time to discipline and inculcate independence in her. Again, he was angry, demanding and aggressive trying to find out when can she go visit, how many times, why cant she go, to the extent of saying since u so stress, should bring her over to relief your stress etc etc.He turn DEAF ear to all the problems and only care about his mum frequency of visit.
Because of this, I insisted and reacted strongly from these stress that she can only go once a week when we visit as a family. He BAN me from going, which until now I am still fighting for it. I felt strongly unjust because I am not in control of the welfare of my girl and the MIL house was never the ideal place due to 2 reasons.
1) They are living under one roof with 2 male which I am unfamiliar with. My girl is young and cant communicate, how do I protect her as a mum if any thing happen
2) She is a hoarder and refuse to throw things away. Her room is fill with dusty items and mould. The 2 months she went, she has block nose for weeks.
3) My MIL behavior is horribly possessive. She can carry my infant for hours refuse to let go. When my girl is scare of her other son because they do not see each other frequently, she ignore all her crying cues and insisted him to carry and BE CLOSE to him just because that’s her son. There are so many times, she disregard and disrespect her cues despite her shouting and yelling. A baby also needs to be respected. She is only concern of the things that she wants to do and disregard any one who objected to what she wants. She step all over my personal boundary and thinks that is right.
I am in a relationship with a monster in law who is manipulating her son to determine fairness and he is checking his checklist to see if there are any unfairness to his mum.
All these time, my husband has been calculative if my parent visit is FAIR to the MIL side , is it more or less. My efforts to take care of my girl is not appreciated, recognised and considered as a contribution.
Source: Storence