By: Luise

Luise — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:18:18 +0000

Dear M. One of the hardest things to face in life is that people are how they are. Your mother is cooperative. Your mother-in-law seems to have no idea about boundaries. Your husband is sympathetic but has not been exposed to the whole picture and does not take action on your behalf. That’s what you’ve got. Those are the players in your drama. In all probability they will all continue be be how they are. However, you are the child’s mother. You make the rules and you decide what is best for your son. You do no have to give the grandmothers equal time unless you want to. You do not have to put up with being treated as though you are not the mother. Talk with your husband about this when you are not fighting. Ask for his help and allegiance. Decide between the two of you what the rules are going to be and then enforce them, consistently. If you need to, carry a small tape recorder and each time your mother-in-law yells or bad mouths you…pull it out and let her know you are taping the incident for your husband’s review. Let her know that if she continues to create a stressful environment when she is around your son, you will remove him from her life. He doesn’t need to be raised in such conflict. My point here is she is not entitled to run your life and you need to take it back. Blessings, Luise

By: M.

M. — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:38:52 +0000

I have an 18 month-old son, my mother-in-law is 67 and my mother is 50 years-old. I am my mother’s only child and I am 28-years-old. My husband is the fourth of six children in his mother’s brood. They all have different fathers so their mother sort of raised them alone…and he is the only son. From what I have come to understand from my husband he grew up not so much around his mother alone, but he would live with other relatives or other. So he has pretty much been in and out of his mother’s …say care. They have a loving relationship and obviously so do I with my mother. She too is a single mother. Now my mother-in-law initially portrayed herself as caring towards me. I fell for it, but lately I have doubts. The reason is mostly because of my son…he is currently visiting my mother out of the country for the next couple of months (it was my husband’s idea - both times this year and last year). My mother-in-law gets him for local holidays and many of the weekends. She even at times demands that he stats longer that we planned and even tries to boss me around where he is concerned. I do not take very well to this so we have already had a few altercations regarding my son. The squabble now is that “how is it that my mother get to take my son for two months when she only sees him on weekends and with instructions?” It has become a real problem with me that I bother to make sure she spends time with her and her other family, whereas my mother only get to see my son every three months for a week at our place as we host her. My mother-in-law has on many occasions demonstrated that she should be raising our son. He has stayed with her before at least a few times for as long as over a month, which is more than the time my mother gets to see my son….there have been a number of incidents where she has acted as if she is his mother and I do not exist. When he cries after a fall or from just being uneasy she grabs him away from me and does not want me to take him and comfort him. She has this idea that he should live with her and raise him. However, when he is staying with them we tend to buy all his essentials (while in the case of my mother she and her partner buy everything and ask for nothing) and send them along with him (which is expected) when he runs short she instead calls my maid to drop whatever he needs off at her house (without even calling or checking with me)…when he is staying over at her place she does not check in with me to at least let me know how he is doing…he even at times comes home with a mark here or bruise there from an accident while he was playing (which happens, she is a good woman as far as I can tell and they all love my son and would not do anything to hurt him…he is sort of the lovable cousin, nephew and grandson to most of them and they always look forward to his visits), but my problem with this particular point is I am never told if he has hurt himself except when I notice and ask about it…they would deny it saying he left their place without a mark and he must have hurt himself while he was back home…now I am talking about noticing a big scratch while we unpack his stuff after we pick him up.
Lately I am convinced she makes unfair and rude remarks to me and recently at my mother, her partner and I. They are good people and I do not want them caught in the middle of any of this. When she makes these comment my husband is never around, hence the cause of our fights that he probably cannot imaging his mother doing so to me. I am starting to notice her two faces (how she acts when my husband is around and how she speaks to me, she even yells at me but would never do that when my husband is around, she would even introduce our son as her son’s son and not acknowledge me as his mother, only when my husband is not around) and I am not sure I want to keep a relationship with her at all, but I have to. I need her to understand that she is overstepping her boundaries and that she should know where she stands as one of the grandparents. My mother has never given us any problems and have never fought or argued about her at any point regarding my son, whereas regarding my mother-in-law my husband and I have had the fights and arguments and I feel her interference with our son is coming between us. I even warned my husband that his mother would be a major reason why he and I would split if ever. My husband does not condone what she does, but he is yet to speak with her and put his foot down when it comes to decisions we make regarding our boy. Three parents is one parent too many. What should I do to help the situation where possible? M.

Comments on: How Can I help My Daughter

By: Luise

By: M.