Mother In Law From Hell

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-06-2007
Mother In Law From Hell
2
Tue, 02-06-2007 - 5:49pm
Please help. Ever since my husband and I got engaged, his mother has been acting like a lunatic. We now have a seven month old baby and she has on four different occassions referred to herself as "mom" and her husband as "dad", in relation to my son. After the first two times of this happening, I was furious. I talked to my husband about it and told him that I wanted to talk to her about it. He agreed that I should. I called her and told her that the past two times I had seen her that she referred to herself as my son's mother. After explaining the first incidence, all she had to say was " I did!" , then proceeded to state that I had misunderstood her (which I know I had not) and she said that she was sorry and there was nothing more she could say, she then hung up on me before I had a chance to respond. About an hour later, I received an e-mail from her stating that she would never do anything "intentionally" to hurt me and "why on earth" would I want your son to refer to me as his mother. She again stated that I had misunderstood her and that I shouldn't be so sensitive to things said in casual conversations.
The latest incident happened over the weekend. My son is just now saying "dadadadada", quite indiscriminately. He will say it when he looks at the floor, the lamp, me, the dog...etc. After he was babbling "dadadadada", she said, "He says dadadadada evertime he looks at Bob (her husband, my baby's grandfather).
Has anyone had this happen to them? How did you handle it? Help... I don't know what to do.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-09-2006
Tue, 02-06-2007 - 6:54pm

Take a deep breath and let it go. Relax. You're making mountains out of mole hills. Your son will not grow up confussed, because you're there each and every time correcting them, and since he spends all day with you and his father, he'll soon enough know who momma and dadda are, and who grammy and gramps are.


Is this your first child? Often, first time moms become hypersensative about percieved over-stepping on their mothering. Oddly enough, they feel it by their MIL, and not their own mother but I digress. As you gain confidence in your own path of mothering, these little things won't bother you so much. Eh, his mother is looney, but she's not evil. She's annoying. Annoying is tollerated out of loving obligation and for the sake of peace to our beloved husband. So she comments about calling "Bob" dada, laugh and cheerfully say "yeah, he calls the floor dadda too, sooner or later he'll figure out that DH is dadda and Bob is gramps". You hear her refer to herself as 'mom' to your son, pipe up immediately and say "you mean grammy right, mil?" loud enough that who she's talking to hears. Sooner or later it'll embarass her out of saying it.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 02-06-2007 - 7:25pm

Ever since you got engaged she has been acting like a lunatic? That's a very dramatic sentence. You sound like a passionate lady. Not everyone else around you is going to have the same personal intensity that you do. Some people prefer to make their lives easy and peaceful.

Are you OK, frauline? What else has been stressing you out, besides these slips of the tongue from MIL?