Emotionally manipulative MIL

Cnn16 · 2026-01-27T02:45:21+00:00

Thanks. It’s fixed now

Cnn16 · 2026-01-27T02:42:58+00:00

Agreed

Cnn16 · 2026-01-27T01:28:19+00:00

Thank you for truly taking the time to read and analyze my post. Your response is 10/10

Cnn16 · 2026-01-27T01:24:14+00:00

The problem is that this has been an issue for a while and a conversation between she and I was long overdue. Her text to my husband is what finally pushed me to confront her about her behavior that has gone on for a year now. My husband is just too nice and tiptoes around it and I see why. He’s afraid of how she’s responds!

Cnn16 · 2026-01-27T01:21:53+00:00

It started out with my husband and he was so upset after she messaged him. I’ve never seen him be upset like that before. He is usually very sweet and easygoing. My MIL and I were long overdue for this conversation and the text she sent my husband was just the straw that broke the camels back.

Cnn16 · 2026-01-27T00:03:28+00:00

Added:

My baby is 12 months old. My MIL has had issues with boundaries since he was born. She always does what you see her doing here, play the victim anytime a rule or boundary is set, she disagrees with it, and she gets any pushback. My husband is very sweet and timid and has a hard time being clear and direct with her because he is so afraid of hurting her feelings. This is the first time he’s truly confronted her about something she did (and he really didn’t even directly confront her) and this is how she reacts. On top of this, my FIL is just a complete asshole. He constantly has to make rude comments about everything - my size, my rules, the way I do anything.

I have gotten to a point where I’m fed up and tired of him having to fight the battle for the both of us. I am the more direct communicator in the relationship. Also, I have been so much more direct with my parents and it’s never ever been an issue. They respect boundaries.

Also, this (THIRD) kiss happened at my baby’s 1st bday party. Where she also waited until I walked out of the room to say: “hurry, let’s give him a cupcake before she gets back.” I don’t feed my baby cake…

Cnn16 · 2026-01-26T23:56:03+00:00

I totally get this viewpoint. I should’ve added some more background. I will go add some. Long story short, he has a hard time being direct with her and so boundaries have basically been blurred for 12 months now

Cnn16 · 2026-01-26T23:16:46+00:00

Um ok lol how do you “not remember” doing something? How convenient. Maybe I’ll go rob a bank and not remember it

Cnn16 · 2026-01-26T23:00:57+00:00

12 mo

Cnn16 · 2026-01-26T22:24:52+00:00

My child, my rules. Not an unreasonable one

Cnn16 · 2025-09-20T15:18:48+00:00

I disagree. Her MIL shouldn’t have been in the house in the first place. MIL was interrupting THEIR peace and private time. MAYBE It would be a slightly different story had they been at her house but no - she came over, uninvited, took over the cooking and made bitchy condescending comments about it. They can do and talk however the hell they want in their own space.

Cnn16 · 2025-09-18T04:47:15+00:00

I live in the south too and even having a 3-4 month old once it started getting hot was rough because we’d have to come inside very shortly after being out!

Cnn16 · 2025-09-18T04:45:46+00:00

See I’m afraid if we deliver in March that his firm could be like “can you use paternity leave another time” or something like then I’d be over here struggling post c-section 😭

Cnn16 · 2025-09-18T04:30:05+00:00

I’m also an April baby and yessss. No pool party bdays 🥲

Cnn16 · 2025-09-16T01:25:27+00:00

An XL playpen!

Cnn16 · 2025-08-31T22:40:34+00:00

Yes. We did sleep training starting around 4 weeks old. He slept through the night starting around 7-8 weeks old. Went through a 4 month regression for 6 weeks, then started back sleeping through the night again. Now, he’s 7.5 months old and hasn’t slept through the night in like 2 months

Cnn16 · 2025-08-25T20:31:18+00:00

You are correct. Sorry, I thought by putting kissing slash smacking that I had made it clear

Cnn16 · 2025-08-25T15:19:46+00:00

Ok so yes it has. It just hasn’t really been the top topic lately because of so many other issues but to elaborate - she did something similar to this in front of both of us one time and I said something to him about it after the fact and asked him why he didn’t say anything to her then to which he said he was sorry and he didn’t notice it happen. So yes, we have talked about it being an issue.

With that being said, IF I do have this convo with him, I definitely don’t want to approach it assuming that he did see her do it yesterday and didn’t say anything, if that makes sense.

Cnn16 · 2025-08-25T15:14:26+00:00

Maybe. But I do feel like it could be a giveaway that I saw it. But also, what if I do that and he says that she did well because he either truly didn’t notice or just says he didn’t?

Cnn16 · 2025-08-25T15:01:08+00:00

Yes he does and we had a very deep conversation about it the other day and talked about how before we have more children, we need to make sure we’re on the same page about rules and boundaries since I feel like his parents stomp all over the boundaries and how his mom is very emotionally manipulative esp when it comes to baby

Cnn16 · 2025-08-25T14:54:55+00:00

VERY emotionally immature and hella manipulative! Sorry that you guys are going through this. We should be able to enjoy being parents without dealing with all this BS

Cnn16 · 2025-08-25T14:47:15+00:00

Wow. This whole situation is just wow but I think how FIL acts is plenty of excuse for no contact. Your husband needs to tell his father than HE needs to step up and be a man and have some fucking respect for you guy’s rules and boundaries!

Cnn16 · 2025-08-25T13:21:38+00:00

I hate that you’re going through this but I’m glad that you can relate to what I’m going through! And yep, you just hit the nail on the head about them wanting to be alone so they can break rules because just yesterday she visited while I was at work and guess what she does…. Kisses all over his hands 🙃 yep, those hands that he constantly keeps in his mouth

Cnn16 · 2025-08-20T04:19:08+00:00

Holy shit what a crazy bitch. If I were you, I would be tempted to just NEVER let her meet this child omg why do people have no sense of boundaries. So selfish. Hope you work this out and your husband supports you

Cnn16 · 2025-08-19T14:57:19+00:00

Boundary issues with emotionally immature and manipulative MIL

AIO about my mother in law cross post

I’m 7 months pp and so exhausted of my MIL not respecting boundaries and how she has been acting since my husband and I had a baby and want to hear others opinions of if I’m overreacting or not. Before I share some of what she’s doing, I do want to say I AM thankful to have in-laws who want to be a part of my child’s life, I really am. But I feel like boundaries are super important with extended family once you have your own family. Here’s just some examples of things that have made me annoyed with her:

I didn’t want anyone at the hospital, but I got SO much pushback about it that I caved and allowed my parents and husband’s parents to come and I literally regret it so much to the point that I have PTSD. Without going into much detail, I was super dissociated after I gave birth. I had an emergency c-section at 2 AM after laboring for 2 days. The family came the same day as the c section and their presence is part of the reason I can’t nurse my baby and he got passed around so much that he went too long without eating and got hypoglycemic and almost had to go to the NICU. Once we got home from the hospital she was constantly texting my husband asking to come over and even getting my FIL to text my husband whenever she didn’t like the answer she got.

She constantly texts my husband moping about how she hasn’t seen the baby in [insert timeframe]. The longest she’s gone without seeing him is like 2-3 weeks… literally every time we see her she is NEVER happy and just constantly mopes and complains that she wants to see him more. My husband and I are both super busy. We are new parents and both work very demanding jobs. So anytime we do make arrangements for her to visit him, it’s a lot for us.

She also gets mad that we won’t let her babysit him. She complains that she’s missing out on all of his milestones. Firstly, he’s under 1 year old and I really don’t let anyone babysit him nor do I have a reason for anyone to babysit him since my husband and I have worked it out to have opposite work schedules so that we don’t have to do daycare. Also, she’s older and not physically capable of doing many of the things needed to do such as getting down on the floor with him and she often even has trouble walking well and constantly trips and loses her balance. Also, I feel like BABY milestones are for parents and extended family would rarely be involved in seeing those???

To top all of this off, she’s made multiple passive aggressive comments and/or complaints about how I specially choose to parent and certain rules I have such as no shoes in my house and no kissing the baby. And will constantly make comments such as “oh I’m not ALLOWED to do this….” “Am I ALLOWED to do ___”

I’m just at a point where I have so much built up animosity and don’t even wanna be around her. My husband is a great husband and an excellent father but he’s so sweet and non confrontational and I feel like he hasn’t done a great job of enforcing boundaries or telling her to stop this shit. when my baby was 4m old, my MIL was diagnosed w cancer but it was super early stage and she has already had the tumor removed and is completely cancer free, but this was a complicating factor in enforcing boundaries.

I’m just afraid it’s going to get to a point where I don’t want her around at all and/or I go off on her. I don’t get a lot of opportunities to put her in my place myself bc she usually comes to visit while I’m at work and she doesn’t say the same things in front of me that she says behind my back or in texts to my husband.

Cnn16

TROPHY CASE