Setting boundaries with your in-laws can be tough. But what if you've tried to have the hard conversation and it just doesn't stick? That was the problem that one mom was having with her mother-in-law after she repeatedly told her that they weren't allowing people to kiss their infant son, but her MIL kept sneaking in smooches. Now the mom is at her wit's end and took to the BabyCenter parenting forum to ask other moms if she's being totally crazy for feeling like her MIL is seriously overstepping her boundaries.
Frustrated by her MIL ignoring her wishes, the mom wrote in that when she point-blank asked her to stop kissing her son, things got really tense.
User Medard8 wrote in to the internet forum saying that she asked her mother-in-law multiple times to stop kissing her son, but she kept noticing that her son's head would be covered in the vaseline that her MIL used to cover her lips and would catch her sneaking in kisses when she thought that Medard8 wasn't looking.
Medard8 said that she even caught her MIL mocking her when her brother-in-law asked to hold the baby and MIL told him, "in a mocking tone 'Don’t forget you can’t kiss him.'"
Fed up, the mom asked her husband to have a conversation with his mother about respecting their wishes, but Medard8 wrote that "anytime he confronts her about it (or anything else), she starts to cry and says she 'can’t do anything right' and leaves."
On Friday night, things finally came to a head after Medard8 came home from work and noticed that her son's head "was greasy" from her MIL's vaseline lips and decided to try and put an end to things once and for all.
"I texted her and said that clearly asking nicely wasn’t effective, so I was telling her to stop kissing on our son," she wrote. "I told her that we have asked this of everyone, yet she is the only one we have had to discuss it with multiple times — even though it’s not up for discussion. I told her that it was not okay to continue to be disrespectful by not following our wishes."
But the response that Medard8 received was not hopeful. "She wrote back to me, 'Honey — you have a real problem — please get yourself some help!!'" the mom explained.
"This woman literally puts her greased up lips all over her grandchildren and makes moaning and groaning noises."
Medard8 said that in the past, things had been downright creepy between her mother-in-law and son. She said that she noticed her MIL making noises like, “Mmmm nom nom nom…gramma’s baby boy mmmmm” and commented on one of Medard8's photos of the child on Facebook with the comment that he “tastes so good.”
The mom said that she has since deleted the comment and blocked her MIL on Facebook after the two came to blows on Friday, but now things are uncomfortable between herself, her mother-in-law, and her husband, who feels torn between the two.
"I need some help with how to go forward with this," Medard8 wrote. "It's kind of hard to place consequences when DH (dear husband) still wants his mother to see her grandchild. Though I feel I’ve earned the right to set some boundaries, no?" she wondered.
Many people agreed with Medard8 and said that her MIL was not being respectful of her wishes.
"Your home is supposed to be your safe space," one user told her.
While another user agreed that the MIL's groaning was kind of weird...
And this person confirmed that Medard8 wasn't crazy -- she was being ignored by both her MIL and her husband.
But some people argued that this wasn't the MIL's fault. It was Medard8's for not setting strong enough boundaries.
"This is a YOU problem," one user responded. "Stand up and protect your child."
Another mom wrote in that despite all of the mistreatment from the MIL, she can't believe that "you still allow her access to you and your child?"
And many people thought that as long as Medard8's husband kept using his mother as childcare, the rules were not going to be followed.
In a later comment, Medard8 clarified that she does not use her MIL as childcare. The problem is that whenever her MIL comes to visit she catches her sneaking in kisses to her son. "Unfortunately, I can't ban her from my home, as she is my husband's mother and I don't think he is going to go along with not allowing her to see her grandson," she wrote.
In the end, however, it seemed that almost everyone agreed that standing her ground with her mother-in-law was the only way that Medard8 was ever going to protect her child.
"Nice doesn't work," one user said. "Be as big a bitch as you need to stop this."
