I am preganant with my second child and very happily so. After my first i felt very drawn to the ideea of a second, because it felt furfilling to me and because, since i don t have any family in this country, i didn t want my first son to grow up alone.
I am a self made woman, i get by and can provide a home and necessecities for my children. I work alot and a very demanding, hard job. I do often feel very alone and in need of help.
The children’s father is a good man but very immature. His family enables him and his siblings and he has never been self sufficient. He contributes minimally and ocasionally to our 2.5yr old son s bills and after much back and forth, for the last few months he s taken our son every other week to his parents vacation house, where he lives, driving him to daycare etc.
We used to be engaged, he wanted our son, but once i got pregnant, he was so incredibly overwhelmed, immature and detached emotionally and financially that it was very hurtful and stressful on me and i broke up with him.
It s hard for me to get pregnant and i am aproaching my 40s. I am busy with my toddler and work and not interested in dating at the moment. When i knew i wanted a second and realized I d be raising two children on my own, i decided it woult be best if they were siblings and had the same father so I did not resume contraception. My ex and i very, very rarely have contact and i just let it be, if it was meant for me to be a mother of two.
It happened. I am happy. He is happy. He s decided he is going to be better this time, which means he stops by to take the trash out or clean the cat litter occasionally, or rub my feet. He said he s going to get a weekend job, walking tourists to their umbrellas(we live in Florida), and use the money to help with the doctor bills. He has a full time job too, it doesn t pay much and he s not driven or responsible with his earnings, no savings etc. He wants to pick a name for the child and for his parents to be here when the child is born.
His parents are smart, tough people, but superficial and emotionally restraint like him and they look down on me for being emotionally expressive(which they see as week) and they blame me for not accepting their son as he is, and for not having less expectations of him. They see my demanding job as silly and my earnings as…undeserved luck.
I tried to bridge our differences during my first pregnancy, but i was met with comments like “your hormones are hurting the people you love” and “do not scream” while I was in labor.
I had asked my retired mother in law to stay with us for 2 months, when my son was 6 weeks old, and i was forced to return to work(I m head of family and do not have maternity leave). I was hoping we would bond and she would.see i trusted her and apreciated what she had to offer. After the 2 months i would fly my parents, one at a time from Europe and they would help until i could take my son to daycare… as expensive as their plane tickets were, it was cheaper than to put him in daycare for the 5 months theybwere here. And he was so little, I was worried.
My mother in law agreed to come stay but was cold, unempathetic and unhelpful during labor, when I came home after C section and when she came to stay. Two weeks later i was so exhausted, depressed and dissapointed for doing everything on my own despite her and her son s presence. I broke up with her son and he went to live in the parents’ vacation house, over an hour away. She left that same day too but would come back exactly when i had to leave for work.and was half way out the door by the time i came home, for the next month. She never washed a bottle or had a kind word to say.
Weeks later she took it upon herself to remove her son s things from my house(diplomas, baby blanket etc). She never told me she took those things. He said he never asked her to. She just went through closets and took them. I noticed one day as i was walking though the house and pictures were gone.
I had been alone for much of this pregnancy, and now at 8 weeks postpartum, working full time and breadtfeeding, I felt disrespected and unapreciated. Days later, her daughter was in town and she came to visit. She was getting on a plane to go home later that day and i rushed home for lunch, as i did every day to breastfeed, to greet her before she flew home.
When i got home they were all gone. My son was gone but the stroller was there. I figured i shouldn t panic and that they must of gone for a walk somehow and they were going to text me about it any minute. I had specifically asked her to tell me if she goes anywhere far with my son so i wouldn t worry. I knew they judge me for being emotional so i tried to wait patiently.
Two hours later they were still gone, no messages. I was so worried i finally texted. It had occured to me that his sister was headed to the airport by that time and it was all so weird, i actually feared she was going to take my son out of state and then they would begin a custody battle or something while he was in another state.
I asked them to send me a picture or video of my son right away and to bring him home immediately. They were home 10 minutes later. When i saw my son, i was overwhelmed with emotion and held him and cried. I asked why she would be gone for so long without telling me. She said they had only been gone for 10 minutes. I had been home for over two hours at that point. She was lieing. I was so upset, I told her i am very upset because i was very worried and because i don t deserve to be lied to. She, my mother in law, kept waving her arms at me and talking loudly, explaining. I said i need some time alone and asked her and her daughter to leave.
They left offended.
Later she texted saying she would not be coming back to complete the time she agreed to help and that my behaviour was inexcusable and she would ship back my house key. My father in law said i need to appologise to his wife or he was done with me and that i was ungrateful for the free babysitting.
Later I found out that earlier that week her and my ex had taken my son to be DNA tested behind my back, which is illegal(since i am 100% legal custodian of our son and have to consent). They just couldn t understand that having a cold, unhelpful, uninvolved partner was so hurtful that i would rather be alone. They figured something else must be the reason for me braking up with him, such as that his son wasn t really his son…they never said this, it s just what i took away from the experience. My son looks identical to his father btw, in the samllest details. My ex told me he did the DNA test because a lawyer advised him, but as i said…the test was illegal and inadmissable in court so i doubt it. His mom, my mother in law, is a retired paralegal. It doesn t make sense. They never pursued custody, I gave him all the rights i can give him as the father and continue to do so.
The in laws did not want to have any communication with me beyond that day, they forbade my father and i from visiting their farm(my dad is 70 and loves farms and wanted to see the heritage of his grandson s family).
Later, they ve started acting like nothing ever happened and started saying “I love you” at the end of conversations on the phone, which was super akward. I brought up what happened once and tried to explain how alone i had been and under alot of stress and I did the best i could while feeling like a single mother. I said i cannot continue to financially support a healthy grown man (their son) and asked them to stop enabling him so he could grow into his own and be responsable for his family. Later my ex said that his mother was offended by my “single mother” comment and she said she would teach me a lesson on what being a single mother really is.
They said i spend too much and dream to high and that s why I worry and complain. That was their answear and the end of it.
Around Christmas, we went to visit, as my mother in law s mother was dieing. Mother in law came up to me during a time when she was crying for her mother, and said “honey, i am sorry for what i did to you”.
I didn t know what to say, as it was Christmas and her mother was dieing and it was not a good time to ask what she meant. I let it go and saw it as a cheap move to avoid an honest apology.
Now my son is 2.5 and i am pregannt with his sibling. The inlaws want to come to the hospital for the birth, care for my son while i m in the hospital and overall i expect they will pretend that the past doesn t exist and never want to talk about it. That s how they “resolve” everything, they just don t talk about it.
My ex wants to come to the Ultrasound appointments and pick a name and act like he is a changed man and it s all better now. He still lives in his parents vacation home, for free.
I am still doing this on my own, still have 100% custody of my son, which i chose to share with the ex, when he actually follows through. I pay all my bills, don t ask for anything. I will have 6 weeks of maternity leave this time, because of short term disability insurance at work, and i am considering flying one of my parents again from Europe, for help when i go back to work.
The whole in laws thing still bothers me. They are a stress and drain of energy and i don t think we can repair things, since they are unwilling to talk about it or take any responsability in it. But they expect to be treated as if they belong here, and they belong in the delivery room. I do not. I want a peaceful birth and since I will be going through this alone again, i don t want to be looked down on and judged and my friends that truly do help me, be given the evil eye.
At the same time i want them to be part of our children s lives. I encourge all visits and activities. I just don t want them in my face, pretending. I can t pretend. I take responsability for having now, two children with an immature man, knowing he may never grow.
I am ok woth doing this on my own but i don t want them to act as if they re helping and they belong and I need to be grateful for it.
I don t know how to keep my peace, except for asking them to leave me alone and not show up until a couple of weeks after the birth to meet the baby, and on my terms. Last time they insisted on taking my son to their house for a day a week, which hurt breastfeeding and broke my heart. Just imagine having your 8 week infant taken away 24hrs a week and you re left there in a silent house with leaky breasts. It feels like pure hell.
Am I being bitter and unreasonable? My ex says: “don t i have a say in all this?”
He s never stood up for me with his parents. He never stands up to them at all. I think he talks about me to them, as an emotional, irrational person who has to be talked to a certain way so as not to trigger unnecessary displays of emotion. They treat his father the same way, because out of all of them he has some empathy and speaks from the heart occasionally. They compare me to him.
All i see…is that that man worked to support a family of 5 most of his life and that i am strong, driven, authentic and capable like him. A provider and a protector and a very good mom, the only constant in my son s life
Am I unresonable about any of this? Is there some other answear or solution that i am not seeing în my sadness? Can you give me some insight into my inlaws perspective so i may develop more empathy for them? I know it will be very hard, alone with two children and no family, and i am going to need so much help but i know from experience, it will not come from my ex or his parents.
I want to heal, forget and forgive. This pregnancy is making me face things again and i have to make some decisions that are best for me and my children.
Help!