New to BBC and this group, but not new to dealing with difficult family...my FOO has been plenty difficult over the years, however this is about my MIL. A small bit of back ground...MIL "loved" me until it was apparent that her son and I were getting married. She was miserable at the wedding, tried to sabotage things, etc. Eventually we made peace, and I learned I was pregnant with what would be her first grandchild, and she "loved" me again. I lost the baby at 10 weeks (on her birthday, coincidentally) and when we told her a week later (since I didn't want to "ruin" her birthday with the news) it was right back to ignoring me. Whatever. Slowly over time things got more amicable, dare I say almost pleasant...got pregnant again in 2013 and she acted like my BFF.
Had my baby after a rough pregnancy and she was on her best behavior. For months! I knew all along that her feelings for me never changed, but she was smart enough to treat me decent and respect our boundaries.
November of 2014 I found out I was pregnant again...DH and I went on vacation january of 2015 and my MIL was to keep our son for 2 days and my mom was to keep him for 2 days. As soon as we were far enough away, MIL stopped returning my texts or answering calls, and refused to take our son to my mom when it was her time and we ended up cutting our vacation short bc it felt like she was holding him hostage and wouldn't communicate with us at all. Fast forward to february of 2015, worst day of my entire life. I spontaneously delivered my baby boy at home at 16 weeks, he lived for almost 2 minutes. She showed up at the hospital later and played the role of the grieving grandmother, and as soon as my husband left the room she cried and launched into this long winded excuse as to why she kept our son while we were away and wouldn't "share" him, and its just because she loves us all so much yada yada yada...all while I'm holding my deceased son and trying to process everything that was happening. She used our horrific loss as an opportunity to absolve herself of any guilt she felt, bc she knew I wasn't in a place to even respond, and she waited until my husband left bc she knew he would've lit her up.
Fast forward some more...things settled down again, mainly because I let shit slide like I shouldn't have, and things were amicable again. I found out in April that I'm expecting our rainbow. I kept it from everyone, I was terrified. I told my husband around 9 weeks, and waited until 16 weeks before telling our parents. When telling them, we made it explicitly clear that they were not to tell friends or extended family. No one. The only people to know were myself, my husband, and our parents and thats it, 6 people, until we're farther along, closer to viability, and ready to announce. We even reminded her on several separate occasions. Well I found out earlier this week that she told her whole side of the family weeks ago. I was trying to figure out how I was going to handle that, and I ended up seeing her on thursday. I didn't call her out about telling her family, as we were alone and she's so manipulative that I won't discuss any heavy topics without my fil and/or husband present. I did tell her on thursday that we still hadn't told my extended family, but we were tossing around the idea of possibly telling them today (saturday), there's a festival where my grandma lives and my family gets together for it so we figured that might be a good time, depending on how my ultrasound went on friday.
Well you guessed it...I get a text from my husband before i got there today telling me his mom just told my family that I'm pregnant, then acted all shocked when my aunt said she didn't know ("I figured she woulda done told YOU GUYS by now" were her words according to my aunt, who was initially a little hurt and feeling left out of the loop but immediately understood our reasoning once I explained it to her). My husband wasn't present when she blabbed, he found out when MIL launched into victim mode about it. She avoided me all day, and I'm kind of happy she did because I wasn't ready for her to "try to make it right" bc she genuinely doesn't care how her actions affect others and any apology would be for show, and to try to make me out to be the bad guy if I don't accept her apology.
My husband and fil were pissed that she blabbed, but they don't understand why it's as upsetting as it is to me. Announcing this pregnancy felt like the only aspect of anything that I could control, it's a high risk pregnancy on top of that and I wanted to wait until I was farther along and things looked ok, and plus I wanted to be the one to share happy baby news, since the last baby news I shared was the fact that I lost my son. She took that from me, and is already laying the groundwork for the "crazy pregnancy hormones" line, like she knows what she did was a little wrong, but I'm irrationally making a mountain out of a molehill. I want my husband and fil to know why this hurts so deep, and it's not because I'm irrational. FIL is usually good at keeping her in check, but often enables her behavior by validating and comforting her when she makes herself the victim.
I don't know what the best way to address this would be. I can not speak with her alone, she's too manipulative. She's already on "no unsupervised visits" for the fact that she was giving our son things he can't eat behind our back and I was trying for weeks to figure out his stomach issues bc of it. I don't want to see her, hear her voice, or even talk to her but at the same time I want her to know everything I have to say. How should I address thus situation?
Again I'm so sorry this is long, I have thought-diarrhea and I'm upset so I'm babbling.
Had my baby after a rough pregnancy and she was on her best behavior. For months! I knew all along that her feelings for me never changed, but she was smart enough to treat me decent and respect our boundaries.
November of 2014 I found out I was pregnant again...DH and I went on vacation january of 2015 and my MIL was to keep our son for 2 days and my mom was to keep him for 2 days. As soon as we were far enough away, MIL stopped returning my texts or answering calls, and refused to take our son to my mom when it was her time and we ended up cutting our vacation short bc it felt like she was holding him hostage and wouldn't communicate with us at all. Fast forward to february of 2015, worst day of my entire life. I spontaneously delivered my baby boy at home at 16 weeks, he lived for almost 2 minutes. She showed up at the hospital later and played the role of the grieving grandmother, and as soon as my husband left the room she cried and launched into this long winded excuse as to why she kept our son while we were away and wouldn't "share" him, and its just because she loves us all so much yada yada yada...all while I'm holding my deceased son and trying to process everything that was happening. She used our horrific loss as an opportunity to absolve herself of any guilt she felt, bc she knew I wasn't in a place to even respond, and she waited until my husband left bc she knew he would've lit her up.
Fast forward some more...things settled down again, mainly because I let shit slide like I shouldn't have, and things were amicable again. I found out in April that I'm expecting our rainbow. I kept it from everyone, I was terrified. I told my husband around 9 weeks, and waited until 16 weeks before telling our parents. When telling them, we made it explicitly clear that they were not to tell friends or extended family. No one. The only people to know were myself, my husband, and our parents and thats it, 6 people, until we're farther along, closer to viability, and ready to announce. We even reminded her on several separate occasions. Well I found out earlier this week that she told her whole side of the family weeks ago. I was trying to figure out how I was going to handle that, and I ended up seeing her on thursday. I didn't call her out about telling her family, as we were alone and she's so manipulative that I won't discuss any heavy topics without my fil and/or husband present. I did tell her on thursday that we still hadn't told my extended family, but we were tossing around the idea of possibly telling them today (saturday), there's a festival where my grandma lives and my family gets together for it so we figured that might be a good time, depending on how my ultrasound went on friday.
Well you guessed it...I get a text from my husband before i got there today telling me his mom just told my family that I'm pregnant, then acted all shocked when my aunt said she didn't know ("I figured she woulda done told YOU GUYS by now" were her words according to my aunt, who was initially a little hurt and feeling left out of the loop but immediately understood our reasoning once I explained it to her). My husband wasn't present when she blabbed, he found out when MIL launched into victim mode about it. She avoided me all day, and I'm kind of happy she did because I wasn't ready for her to "try to make it right" bc she genuinely doesn't care how her actions affect others and any apology would be for show, and to try to make me out to be the bad guy if I don't accept her apology.
My husband and fil were pissed that she blabbed, but they don't understand why it's as upsetting as it is to me. Announcing this pregnancy felt like the only aspect of anything that I could control, it's a high risk pregnancy on top of that and I wanted to wait until I was farther along and things looked ok, and plus I wanted to be the one to share happy baby news, since the last baby news I shared was the fact that I lost my son. She took that from me, and is already laying the groundwork for the "crazy pregnancy hormones" line, like she knows what she did was a little wrong, but I'm irrationally making a mountain out of a molehill. I want my husband and fil to know why this hurts so deep, and it's not because I'm irrational. FIL is usually good at keeping her in check, but often enables her behavior by validating and comforting her when she makes herself the victim.
I don't know what the best way to address this would be. I can not speak with her alone, she's too manipulative. She's already on "no unsupervised visits" for the fact that she was giving our son things he can't eat behind our back and I was trying for weeks to figure out his stomach issues bc of it. I don't want to see her, hear her voice, or even talk to her but at the same time I want her to know everything I have to say. How should I address thus situation?
Again I'm so sorry this is long, I have thought-diarrhea and I'm upset so I'm babbling.