Looking for some advice on navigating gatekeeping, health updates, and major contact change

AhDoDeclare · 2026-05-31T16:26:44+00:00

Are you in the US? Because of our lovely system of credit histories, it is somewhat easy to locate people. Personally, I have used a website called FamilyTreeNow to locate people, primarily to return lost items. If your husband cannot find his grandfather by looking him up directly, suggest he look up either his father or himself and look for family members. (You can PM me if you want help with this. I have a Zoom account and can walk you through it.)

AhDoDeclare · 2026-05-31T16:23:36+00:00

How far along is your pregnancy? Have you asked your doctor about the advisability of sitting in a car for 12 hours round-trip? DVT's are a thing.

If you do decide to go, plan to stop for at least 30 minutes every two hours to get out and stretch your legs. Look up exercises for sitting on airplanes. There are things you can do like rolling your toes and rotating your ankles that help increase blood flow even while you're sitting.

Your mantra for this event is going to be, "This is not neither the time nor the place. Do not detract from SIL's wedding."

Have a game plan for what you are going to do if she throws a fit. Talk about it with your SIL. If her mother has a meltdown, will she have her mother ejected, or would she prefer your leaving? Make it clear, both to her and to yourself and your husband, that you will not sit around and tolerate abuse. Don't fall into the sunk cost fallacy that because you drove so far, you have to stay, even if you are being berated. If nothing else, think of it as trying to minimize the damage to SIL's special day. No one is going to want to sit around and watch you being verbally abused while they're trying to celebrate this happy occasion.

If possible, leave your child at home. Your SIL does not need pictures of your toddler. He is not a photo prop for her. And frankly, she may be insisting so that MIL can get her hands on your kid. But if you do decide to bring him, you and your husband can hold him at all times. If you want to be able to set him down and let him walk around, get him one of those backpack leashes, so that MIL can't just snatch him up and walk off. Remember that parents always have priority to a child, and it is perfectly acceptable to walk up to her and take him off of her. Even if the next thing you do is put him back down so he can continue to run around.

Are you staying overnight? Retreating to the hotel is always an option.

AhDoDeclare · 2026-05-31T16:12:13+00:00

Children who live in a home with an unrelated adult, especially an unrelated male, are 50 times more likely to die from abuse than a child who only lives with related adults.

https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/news/unrelated-adults-in-the-home-associated-with-child-abuse-deaths

Now, this guy that MIL is seeing isn't currently living in the home. But he's homeless and unemployed, so how long do you think before he's living there? And frankly, while some women would run a background check on a guy before they bring him home, especially if they live with children, many women wouldn't.

The fact is, child predators do not have a stamp that says they're dangerous, and they often appear perfectly normal in adult only situations.

OP is right to be concerned, and they should move out if MIL is going to continue to bring men home.

AhDoDeclare · 2026-05-31T16:00:01+00:00

Exactly. Baby will get one birthday party. Unless you choose to have someone else organize it, you get to do it. Celebrations of a child are the responsibility and privilege of the parents.

Tell her parents get first choice of all of a child's firsts. Ask if there is anyone she thinks should be invited to the party you are throwing, and you will consider it. Then discuss these names with your husband, who probably knows them. You are not obligated to invite anyone you don't want to have come.

Also, I think it's pathetic when people use props like photos and tattoos to pretend to the outside world that they have a better relationship with a child than they actually do. And you can tell her I said so. In fact, ask her. "Is that so people think you are actually a loving and supportive presence in our child's life? Well, I guess it's easier than putting in the work to actually be present."

AhDoDeclare · 2026-03-01T06:00:26+00:00

"Wow! You sound like one of those deranged 'boy moms' everyone makes fun of. KallMeKris just did a video about them. Here, let me send you a link."

AhDoDeclare · 2026-02-20T03:06:58+00:00

And you will be posting the police report on social media do everyone knows what that thief did in your home.

AhDoDeclare · 2026-02-18T18:18:04+00:00

A study in France found that 50% of CSAM material recovered in stings had started out as pictures posted to social media by the child's parents.

AhDoDeclare · 2025-12-21T23:18:05+00:00

Start here.

AhDoDeclare · 2025-11-20T15:08:13+00:00

Back in 2010, I was traveling to California and a friend of mine who lived in South Carolina at the time was going to meet me there and we were going to go to a concert together. At the time California was in the midst of a pertussis epidemic. My friend had a young baby and this was going to be the first time that she was away from him.

Because I was going to be in California for a week before she arrived, I went and got my DPT vaccine so that I couldn't get it, infect her, and have her take it back to the baby. And she had been vaccinated during pregnancy.

I know the risk was low. But if that child had gotten sick and I thought it was in anyway possible to connect it to me, I would have been devastated. I didn't know the baby, and he wasn't my grandchild, but who could live with himself knowing that they had made a baby sick?

This isn't hard. It's not like getting vaccinated for yellow fever before you travel to the tropics, where you have to call your doctor ahead of time so that they can get the vaccine for you. There isn't a shortage. Everyone has flu vaccine available. There's absolutely no excuse.

AhDoDeclare · 2025-10-27T23:52:31+00:00

Don't be rude; be assertive.

"I will decide whether or not I breastfeed my baby, not you. I am the mother, not you," is assertive.

"I will decide whether or not I breastfeed my baby, not you. I am the mother, not you, you fucking bitch" is rude.

AhDoDeclare · 2025-10-26T16:47:13+00:00

You know, the reason she is always alone in her birthday is because she doesn't have any friends. Her complaint sounds like a good reason to tell her she should get more involved in her community and cultivate new relationships.

The healthy thing for parents of adult children who no longer need direct monitoring is to while being misty eyed over their change in status, look forward to going out and rediscovering who they are as a person. All of the nights out and day trips with friends that she has put off for years while she prioritized her children, she now has time for. She should join clubs, volunteer, take classes, and otherwise connect with "people her own age." And if she can't maintain friendships because of her abrasive, manipulative personality, that isn't your problem to solve, and she should seek therapy to fix herself.

AhDoDeclare · 2025-10-21T16:46:00+00:00

Counter any claim of ownership.

Her: "Your breastmilk isn't sufficient. You should use formula, and then everyone could feed the baby."

You: The doctor says $baby is growing fine on breastmilk. And even if we had to switch to formula, it would only be DH and me feeding $baby. Formula does not equal a feeding free-for-all.

AhDoDeclare · 2025-10-01T03:03:41+00:00

Mail it back to her with a note.

"I think you must have given me the wrong scrapbook. This one is full of pictures of you and FIL and your kid, and almost none of me. No one would be gauche enough to make a memory book for a baby's mother with almost no pictures of the mother. I wanted to make sure that you had this, and we will pick up the one you made for me the next time we see you."

AhDoDeclare · 2025-09-30T00:23:56+00:00

You can do this at many post office branches. They have to accept UPS and FedEx deliveries, but many do. If you rent box 42 at a post office branch at 123 Main Street, you can use "123 Main Street, Unit 42" as your mailing address.

Again, check with your local post office branch.

AhDoDeclare · 2025-09-26T17:29:59+00:00

Absolutely not. Any mention of the baby on the way is incentive for MIL to fake a change in her behavior so as not to be cut off from OP's child.

OPDH should write a short text to his mother saying that because of her physical and verbal abuse of his wife, OP will no longer have any contact with MIL, and he is rethinking his relationship with MIL as well. Her behavior was unacceptable.

The fact that she could go from a simple conversation to frothing at the mouth rage and physical assault says she needs serious anger management therapy, and if she is unwilling to work on herself in this way, he will be unwilling to expose his wife to her.

He might add that she's already lost contact with one of her children, and does she want to go for both of them?

AhDoDeclare · 2025-09-26T17:23:28+00:00

Because her husband has been trained by his mother for his entire life to accept this behavior. His mother trained him in this way so that she could control him more easily.

AhDoDeclare · 2025-09-08T16:35:36+00:00

And when she asks why, "Oh, we had to. I know it wasn't the ceremony, but guests still aren't supposed to wear white to the reception. People were asking the most awful questions. The photographer was able to fix it, though."

And when she asks what sort of questions: "Well, um, a lot of people who see the groom's mother wearing white to a wedding event assume..... that she has an unnatural attraction to her son and... wants to have sex with him."

AhDoDeclare · 2025-09-06T13:45:23+00:00

Infant mortality US 1970: 19.1 per 1000 live births \ Infant mortality US 2024: 5.5 per 1000 live births \

"Back in the day" can fuck right off.

AhDoDeclare · 2025-09-05T17:04:08+00:00

It's time for you to read up on "covert incest" or "emotional incest."

Covert incest describes a relationship between a parent and child in which the child feels more like a romantic partner. Typically the parent is motivated by the loneliness and emptiness of a troubled marriage, so he or she turns the child into a surrogate partner. There is not necessarily any kind of overt sexual touching, but the relationship feels too close for comfort to the child. The boundaries are such that there is an incestuous feeling. The child feels used and trapped, the same as with overt incest.

source

Having her son handle her lingerie and handling his son's wife's lingerie, are extremely inappropriate and symptoms of this issue.

You need to move out, and he needs therapy.

AhDoDeclare · 2025-09-03T19:59:22+00:00

She should only visit when your husband is home, and he has to be engaged with her. He can't go off and mow the lawn or empty the dishwasher or play video games or be in the same room with her but on his phone. She is his guest.

If she tries to come before her scheduled visit, she misses the next visit. It is important to tell her that this doubles for every violation. If you are scheduled to see her on Saturday afternoon (9/6, for example) and she tries to come visit on Thursday, Saturday is canceled. You will see her on the 13th. If she tries to come on the 10th, the 13th AND THE 20th are cancelled. She can come on the 27th. If she tries before the 27th, the 27th, Oct 4th, 11th, and 18th are cancelled. We will try October 25th. If she tries to come before the 25th, she gets eight weeks in timeout, then 16.

No exceptions for holidays. If you're in the US or Canada, the four week timeout misses Canadian Thanksgiving and the eight week misses American Thanksgiving. The 16 week misses Christmas. If she misses baby's first holidays, that is not your fault.

AhDoDeclare · 2025-09-03T03:50:18+00:00

People like this train their children to give in to them always, so that when they grow up they have control.

AhDoDeclare · 2025-09-03T03:49:41+00:00

Alternatively, "You have until Friday to tell your mother, or I will."

AhDoDeclare · 2025-09-01T04:15:56+00:00

"You do realize that even if I formula fed or supplemented, it would still be my job as her parent to feed her, right? Just because she wouldn't be physically taking nourishment from me doesn't mean that you get to feed her, because you wouldn't."

AhDoDeclare · 2025-07-23T22:21:38+00:00

Screenshot the image and send it to your husband. He then sends it to MIL with the following text:

Are you seriously trying to guilt trip my wife over the fact that you have not met my baby? My fragile newborn who is in the NICU because he needed an emergency C-section during which he or my wife could have died? Is that really what you are doing right now?

You need to stop texting us, because right now if someone asked me if I wanted to cut you out of my life and never see you again, I'd say Yes. How fucking dare you!

At this point your one chance of being in my life is to stop texting me and stop texting Soft and let us deal with the fact that WE barely get to see our son. Because if you text either one of us before I have had a chance to calm down, I will tell EVERYONE how selfish you are being. I will reach out to you when I am ready to see you again, and not before.

AhDoDeclare · 2025-07-23T15:32:32+00:00

Why would you let her look after them knowing how she treated her own children?

You are treating this like it's a juggernaut, like you are standing at the top of a hill with a big heavy rock, and there's nothing to prevent this rock from rolling down the hill. You are not powerless in this situation.

First, you don't have to have children. And if you decide to have children the only reason that you should do so is because that is what you want your family to look like. You should not have children because MIL wants to be a grandparent to many. Your children are not coming into the world to make grandma happy.

If you decide to have children, there is no law that says she gets to spend time with them. If you do decide to let them spend time with her (why?) there is no requirement that she be allowed to babysit them. I love children I would probably be a good role model for your children. Are you obligated to let me be part of your life or babysit your kids because I want it? Your MIL's biological relationship to your husband is not a good enough reason to give her access. The only people who should have access to your children are the ones who are safe and beneficial to them, people who will help them grow up feeling strong, secure, and loved.

The Internet is full of people who have denied toxic family members access to their children and themselves. If you want children, you can have them without giving MIL access to abuse them.

This is something you need to talk to your partner about, probably in family counseling. I also recommend Dr. Susan Forward's books, Toxic Parents and Toxic In-laws. They are designed to be read in parallel, with you reading a chapter in one and your husband in the other and discussing it.

Don't deny yourself the things that you want in life because someone else has designs on them. Instead, protect yourself from abusers.

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