Visiting Mother-in-law with dogs
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| Wed, 02-07-2007 - 8:57am |
My husband and I live in a two bedroom apartment with our daughter Katie. My parents live locally, but my husband’s parents (who are divorced) live out of state. My biggest problem is my mother-in-law. She lives four hours away from her only child and constantly wants to visit her first grandchild or have us visit her. When she comes to visit she brings her two inside dogs (who btw never are up-to-date on their shots).
My daughter has just turned two months old and my mother-in-law is wanting to come visit this weekend. I asked my husband if he would tell her to not bring the dogs along this time considering that the last time of the dogs vomited all across the apartment. He got all defensive saying that I was putting conditions on his family visiting us. I felt it was the least he could do considering while I was pregnant he wouldn’t help me enforce personal space boundaries and let his mom kiss and fawn over my pregnant belly. (He would tell me that she just misses us and is excited about her new grandchild and I should just deal with it for those couple of days during the visit.) I am stressed out and feeling like he doesn’t care about my feelings.
Please give me some advice on how to deal with an overbearing mother-in-law and a husband that doesn’t understand the needs of his wife.

You are a mommy now. You will be called upon, again and again, to defend your family. Dig deep and find the Mama Bear in there. She will help you to have the courage to stand up, sweetly and kindly, to anyone who would cause strife in your home. Lots of good suggestions so far. Hopefully you will find success with them.
I am very sorry that your husband reacted the way that he did. We can see that you are not trying to keep his mother away, but just protecting the nest like a good mom. I think that you should tell him that you are going to let his mom know that she is wanted, but without the dear doggies. If he balks, tell him that you want $500 cash today, because you are going to have to have the carpets professionally cleaned, and you and baby will need to stay a motel for a couple days while the carpets dry and the chemicals in the air settle back down (carpet cleaning always makes me so ill for about a week, yuck).