Usually, if you’re not super close with your mother-in-law, there are ways to work around it, and you can be civil to one another.
That wasn’t the case for one woman when their mother-in-law demanded that her son take her six week old grandchild to visit her.
The catch? She didn’t just live round the corner. She’s four hours away. And another catch? She said she didn’t want her son to come with his wife.
The furious new mum took to Reddit to vent about what had happened.
She wrote: “I'm going to start this by saying that I never been on good terms with my husband's mom.
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“She first and foremost never approved of me as a wife and daughter-in-law. We didn't fight, we just kept our distance and things got a lot more peaceful when my husband and I moved away.
“Once she heard I was pregnant, she still kept her distance but sent stuff and gifts saying she was intending on having a relationship with her granddaughter.
"I had no issues with it, in fact, I supported this decision and thought maybe my daughter will help soothe things between me and her grandma.
"My daughter is 6 weeks old. Her grandma already saw her via video calls but lately, she has been pressuring my husband to bring our daughter to her. She lives 4hrs away and she told him she didn't want me to come along.
"My initial response was no because at this age my daughter can not go anywhere without me. My husband tried to argue saying if it's about feeding then he'll get formula but I told him it's not about that.
"He got mad at me and said that I'm being unreasonable to keep our daughter away from her grandma.
"I told him our daughter is still too young to travel, He asked me to explain how many "years" his mom has to wait and then said it was no huge deal but I'm making it that way.
"I said that his mom is the one making this a huge deal by telling me to not come and let my daughter go alone. He laughed sarcastically and said that he's the other parent and so I shouldn't feel like she's going alone.
"I don't know, I just felt uneasy being hours away from my daughter for an entire weekend. He told me I was being overly possessive and paranoid.
"We had an argument and I refused to let him take her. He got angrier and called his family who tried to get me to agree to this but I kept refusing.
"AITA for refusing and rejecting the whole idea? My in-laws kept saying that my mother inlaw is just being respectful of the boundaries I've established and is keeping the distance we agreed to keep.”
Many parents jumped to the defence of the new mum, saying the mother-in-law should never have suggested something like that, and it’s a huge red flag that she did.
One wrote: “I have a six-week old and I would never agree to this. Why can’t she come to visit you? And her telling your husband you can’t come is ridiculous. Because of that alone, she wouldn’t be seeing my baby.”
"OP is a package deal with her child, not just an incubator”, another angrily wrote.
Someone said: "I came into this thinking OP just didn't want to see MIL because of their beef but not only does she [MIL] expect a month old infant to travel to her but also has the audacity to say their mother can't come along.”
When you put it like that…
"Grandma can stay at a hotel close by and come by to visit the baby.
"I would NEVER let a six-week-old go for a weekend without me. My HUSBAND would have never suggested such a thing. And if grandma can't be nice to you, grandma doesn't need to be involved with your child.
"OP, you seriously have a husband problem. He's insisting on something that you've said you're not comfortable with and then involved his family to bully you. It might be time to go stay with your family and get into couple's counselling to see if you even want to save this relationship. Also, block all of them.
"But couple's counselling should be a requirement, at the LEAST”, one fumed.
Others pointed out the fact that a baby that young shouldn’t be in a car seat for that long. Someone wrote: "Babies that small should never be in the car seat that long. Two hours max, and I would only do that in a severe emergency, like an approaching hurricane.”
