Dear parents in law

Sally - 25 May 18

Dear Parents in Law

How much our relationship has changed in the past 5 years.

When did it get so hard and uncomfortable to be in your company? The day my daughter was born. You visited us in hospital just as we were finally being discharged. I had endured the most horrific labour and was in shock and exhausted. I asked my husband to pass me a nappy and MIL you said ‘please?’ Of all the times in my life to be pulled up on my manners, I was horrified.

But as I look back now over the past three and half years that has been my reaction every time I have spent time with you.  I have an inability to react as I would normally, to firmly pull someone up for what they have just said or on the odd occasion if I am particularly stressed, lose my temper. I absorb all that you say and then I have a bank of criticisms that I throw at myself all based around my inability to to be a good mother.

I know it’s hard being retired teachers and thinking you are experts on all things related to children however I know my little girl pretty well and find days like Christmas Day particularly wearing when you try to convince me all day that my daughter is sick or that I should put her down for a nap when she has napped out of the car in the last 9 months.

This week was especially challenging. You were so kind to look after our daughter for a couple of nights so your son and I could have some quality time together before no 2 is born in August. When we picked our daughter up you were quick to get our daughter to say ‘cupcake’,my daughter obediently repeatedly said ‘cupcake’, I was somewhat confused this is not a new word. You explained that our daughter wasn’t pronouncing it properly but she is now.

You went on to tell me how she had good fine motor skills but was very much behind on gross motor skills. I was baffled, what motor skills! She is three and happy and healthy. I don’t need a report on areas to improve on, I am her mother and in my eyes she is perfect just as she is.

Then the icing on the cake, the quiet little blows that no one except me ever picks up on. You say to my daughter, while your son is deep conversation so he won’t pick up on it, it’s been so lovely having all your daddy cuddles, you can go home and have lots more of your favourite daddy cuddles. As if I don’t exist, as if I have a minor role in my daughter’s life. As if my daughter doesn’t love me..

And that is what hurts the most, I am doing the absolute best I can to be a good mum and I know my daughter loves me but I am a shadow of myself when you are around and my daughter senses my anxiety and fear in your company and distances herself from me as it is a mummy she doesn’t know or understand.

The damage has been done, there is no going back but maybe with child 2 I will finally find my voice and speak up, defend myself and praise my children so that I won’t have an overflowing bank of criticisms to play over in my head.

And this time around there will be no hospital visits, this time around I am in self-preservation mode, so you can visit you granddaughter and meet your grandson but when I am in the fragile phase of the fourth trimester you won’t be seeing me, commenting and criticiquing me. I have learnt that you were final nail in the coffin for the onset of my post natal depression. I am older and wiser now and will do everything I can to protect and preserve my mental health.

From

Your only Daughter in Law

Sally

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