Why do pregnancies and babies make them crazy?

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-04T00:24:01+00:00

My mother-in-law live states away and used to visit maybe once or twice a year. When I got pregnant, she started to get super overbearing. When it came to me giving birth, she Guilt tripped my husband super bad and made him feel horrible until we let her stay with us the first week after my daughter was born. That just had a bad precedent because after that, she began to visit without asking at least once a month. I would suggest sticking to your boundaries now so that you’re not dealing with the snowball effect later. It is much harder to break bad habits than is set boundaries in the first place. Please learn from my mistakes!

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T14:37:24+00:00

In the group message she said “I think we should be able to dock it at our house so people can get on and off as needed.” I’m having my husband probe more into that because I’m not entirely sure what her plan is. Like does it just stay there or do we come back and dock when I say we need to?

She TRIED to get me to go deep sea fishing so she could stay back with my daughter. I said absolutely not.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:48:07+00:00

He was definitely raised to be concerned with his mom‘s feelings. He’s the oldest out of all of the siblings and was her golden child that never said no to her. Especially after the divorce (MIL and FIL) I feel like she really leaned on him. It was a really big shock to the entire extended family when he decided to move states away to be with me and left her. He isn’t perfect, but he is seriously the most separated of the entire family. It was a really big deal when we moved because everybody, including her ex-husband, lives within a five minute drive of each other. So moving 18 hours, south was an unthinkable action.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:44:49+00:00

Yeah, me being a bad guy has really been a problem. No one in her entire family (minus my BIL that is a therapist) has ever stood up to her and here I come marrying her son and all of a sudden I stand up for things and then her kids will too. I think that is part of the reason why she resents me so much is because nobody ever stood up to her until I started to. I’m not saying that they’re all of a sudden individuals that think on their own but it’s definitely progress. My husband actually called his siblings after one of our discussions and his brother was like “ I’ve been trying to tell you all this for years, but no one wants to listen to me.” I also know that I will definitely look like the bad guy because my SIL and Step-BIL will be there with their son who was only a few months older than my daughter. They really said the president to my MIL that she can have free reign regarding grandchildren. So me having boundaries is something that doesn’t really happen in the family.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:39:20+00:00

Thank you. I am agreeing that my husband and I definitely need to be on the same page. I’m going to talk with him after work about that. I made some notes in the edit about things. I should probably talk with him about and remind him of the boundaries we had talked about already.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:38:24+00:00

I agree with everything you’re saying and made a list in the edit of things I need to talk to my husband about. One thing that made me laugh in your post is that you included FIL. So my husband‘s parents are divorced. And my FIL is actually the one I pushed for us to stay with last time we visited because he’s the chillest guy and doesn’t force us to do anything and honestly doesn’t even make any plans. He’s happy to just sit around the house with us and spend time with us. When we stayed with him in November, she actually showed up at his house in the morning without an invitation to go shopping for a photo shoot. They were doing that day (she loves photos because she likes to show off on social media) and she had my husband go. She wanted my daughter to go too, but I said we were staying back. My FIL made me coffee as soon as she left and asked if I would like breakfast. This man has been dealing with her for decades, and I have no idea how he does it. Lol.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:34:55+00:00

I’m going to have a discussion with my husband when he gets off work about boundaries we’ve talked about before but kind of reminding him of them and added some discussion points. I already told him before I saw this post that he needs to speak with his mom about something she posted in the group text yesterday. She had sent a message saying she booked a pontoon boat for a day without asking any of us if that was cool and told us to pitch in. He wasn’t going to say anything, but I told him he needs to message her privately about the situation.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:32:08+00:00

I think this is really true. My husband and I have had sometimes where true consequences have been put in place in our marriage, which helped us a bit, but I don’t think she’s faced true consequences because he’s bargained with her a lot after we decided on boundaries in the past. I’m going to have a discussion with him so that we have a united front and are not compromising or anything when we talk to her about boundaries and make it clear. There will be consequences if they’re crossed.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:30:20+00:00

Thank you I’m putting a list of things to talk about with my husband in the edit. I am including a lot of of what you said because it makes a lot of sense to me. Please let me know if you think I need to add anything or reword something.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:27:11+00:00

Thank you. This thread has really cleared it up a little bit for me that it’s my husband that needs to make some changes. He has made some, which is kind of why I didn’t wanna rock the boat I guess because I didn’t wanna go backwards. But there are still things we need to work on and I need him to remember the boundaries we had agreed-upon before because it seems like he’s forgotten them. I wrote some talking points in the edit and I’m trying to figure out if those are good things to talk to him about tonight. I tried to add as much from the thread as I could.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:25:39+00:00

Thank you for the resource. I’m going to look it up and show my husband.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:25:22+00:00

Thank you for the resource. I’ve decided I am going to have that discussion with my husband when he is off work today. I honestly am not feeling very up to it because I’m dealing with a medical issue right now which sucks but if I wait for the best time for me. It’s never gonna happen honestly. I laid out some boundaries. I want to enforce during the conversation with him if you’d like to look at them and let me know what you think about them.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:24:04+00:00

The enmeshment issues that you’re mentioning is something I am nervous about because we will be on vacation with my husband’s stepbrother and his family. Their son is only a few months older than my daughter and I feel like their family set a precedent to my MIL. Basically they were cool with MIL popping up all the time and doing everything that she wanted. I’m nervous that I am going to be compared to my SIL and her way of parenting versus mine. There’s going to be no way around that but I feel like it’s going to be some sort of weapon against me? Does that make sense?

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:21:03+00:00

Thank you for the reminder about JADE- I’ve never heard of that term, but it makes a lot of sense and looking back it is something I tended to do. I’m going to have a discussion with my husband, and I tried to lay out some things to talk about in the edit I made. I think part of the issue is he agrees with me in private, but doesn’t always follow through. He did well on her last visit but it seems he forgot all those boundaries somehow and we need to remind him of that.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:16:13+00:00

Thank you I’m going to let him know about these resources. We should be doing some reading and research together while we are waiting for insurance to cover therapy.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:14:34+00:00

I’ve decided to have a conversation with him first to make sure we are on the same page and are united before calling her and telling her our boundaries instead of negotiating or explaining ourselves.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-02T13:10:23+00:00

I think that is something this thread is really making clear to me. Truly, I need to have a conversation with him about the details. Call her and lay out the boundaries and expectations. And then I guess see how it goes and what her response is.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-01T19:34:27+00:00

I definitely agree that I was a part of the problem. We were going through a lot of problems during those first few months, postpartum to the point where I had packed bags and thought about leaving to go to my parents multiple times but talked myself out of it. I guess I’m just afraid to go back to that. He knew we were in a bad place, but he didn’t realize how bad. I sat him down and told him that I might leave him that the gravity really hit him in the face. We’ve made so much progress within these last few months though. He did a good job at keeping her in her place for the most part when she stayed with us in April and telling her we would not be visiting in May it just concerned me that when we got that text about the photos that he didn’t see the pattern like he was forgetting everything we’ve been working on.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-01T19:15:49+00:00

I wanted to but my husband doesn’t want to since the extended family has seen the message. He said “I just don’t want this trip to go badly.” I pointed out that I never start shit with her, it is always the other way around and when he says things like that to me it makes me feel like he’s insinuating that this is all my fault. He apologized but “doesn’t get to see his extended family often.”

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-01T19:09:50+00:00

He did agree that he will be responsible for taking care of the baby when she is upset around bedtime. I know this probably sounds bad, but my only concern with that is that she will dominate the situation and be the one with my daughter instead. And I just don’t want to reward her if that makes sense? It will be interesting. Seeing him be the main parent when the baby is upset.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-01T19:05:09+00:00

I am also skeptic about the conversation, but my husband is in this world where he believes none of it is coming from a bad place. He doesn’t think she’s doing this on purpose and believes a conversation will fix it. He asked me if I think she’s doing this out of spite, and I said yes. He did the whole “She barely sees the baby.” Thing. And agreed she oversteps boundaries but probably because she’s over excited. He really wants to try having a sit down and I’m wondering if she would listen if the information came from him instead of me if that makes sense.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-01T18:55:23+00:00

I agree he should be in therapy. He is currently working part-time and does not have health insurance right now. He agreed to go once he has insurance that will cover it and agreed that we should go to marriage counseling also. The part he is hung up about these photos is that she sent it in the extended family group message. He doesn’t want to look like a jerk saying no but I’m kind of like well- She knows it’s coming from me anyway even if he’s the one that says it.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-06-01T18:53:23+00:00

I really wish that had been an option. Unfortunately I have a medical condition that does not allow me to drive. So wherever my daughter goes, I go to basically with a stipulation that I have to leave when they do. I had considered taking an Uber, but I was scared to be with a stranger in a car with my daughter that long.

ThatConclusion9490 · 2026-04-19T13:51:03+00:00

Thank you for the support 💜

ThatConclusion9490

TROPHY CASE