Hi y’all, posting on here to vent and hopefully get some advice. I met my husband in our sophomore year of college, I was an international student and he was from the South attending college out of state. He’s black (African-American) and I’m biracial (raised by Caribbean mother in Europe, never been in touch with father). Prior to starting college, I was not planning on staying in the U.S. after graduating, because I wanted to return home with my family. I fell in love and ended up having to make the difficult decision of giving everything up back home to be with the love of my life or go home to be with and support my family but miss out on truly the best man I’ve ever met.We got married in 2018 after I got my Master’s and we bought a house in the South, where he is originally from. However, prior to moving to the South, I had only been with his family on isolated occasions (i.e, every time I would fly from out-of-state to visit them, which was twice for Christmas and twice for 4th of July) because we had a LDR. They were always fond of me during these visits but since becoming his wife, things have been different.Family is extremely important to me, especially considering that I left all my family and friends behind to be with my husband. He comes from quite a traditional household, his parents have also been together since college, have five children together (he’s the eldest), and I wasn’t allowed to sleep in his guest suite at their house before we were married. From the beginning, I’ve tried to be the “perfect” wife in terms of his family’s expectations (I’ve been trying to learn to make certain Southern soul food dishes so I can make a contribution to cookouts, we jumped the family heirloom broom at our wedding, going to church every Sunday, etc.). These are all things that I wanted to do because I want to be respectful of their culture. However, especially since moving close to his family, spending more time with them, being his wife, and having our first child, it seems that I always fall short of their expectations.We started trying for a baby after getting settled into our new house and I think this is when the real problems started to surface. I’ll list them briefly below to keep this story somewhat short:We kept the pregnancy to ourselves until I was sixteen weeks pregnant. My husband describes his mom as “nosey” and when we got engaged during a vacation, we FaceTimed her after and she ended up telling the entire family + putting it on FaceBook before we had a chance to. My grandmother found out I was engaged through FaceBook. We wanted to wait with announcing the pregnancy until 4th of July because my closest family would be there and we wanted them to join in this special moment because they will be missing out on all the others. We took his parents and my mom separately right (minutes) before telling the rest in a toast. MIL was very upset with this, asking us “how we could keep this a secret” for so long and that “this is not normal around here.” My husband told her it was a mutual decision but still it felt like I got the full blame. I understood why she would be hurt and apologized for that.We decided that we wanted to try a home birth with a doula and otherwise go to a birthing center in a hospital. MIL did not understand why we would do this and told my husband “I bet this was her idea”. He explained why we decided on this option, research, that he also read books on it, but she did not agree. Then she asked if she could be there for the birth (I felt at this point she was seeking out a point for further confrontation).She’s criticized basically every plan we have of raising our child, between us wanting to raise our child bilingual, looking into Montessori education, trying to avoid physical punishment, etc.Come the day of birth, MIL is making statements such as “shoulda gone to the hospital” while I was in tears of the pain. Proceeded to spend the night with us that night after the baby was born and was extremely belligerent. I felt robbed from what should have been the most beautiful moment of my life.My MIL came to our house every day for the first fourteen days, arriving most days when she dropped her kids of at school and leaving when she had to pick them up again. I was tired, peeing hurt, and now also had to spend my first days post-labor worrying about acting in a way that was deemed good enough for my MIL. Day 15, my own mother had to fly back home. This was the only time she would have with her grandchild before she wouldn’t see her again for at least another seven months. We requested MIL not to come this day for aforementioned reason. I come downstairs from a shower and see my MIL sitting on my couch because (to baby) “X was missing nana, right?” These were the last four hours I and my child had with my mother and my husband himself had left to have us enjoy that last time together. I called him upset and he came back and send his mother home. She then proceeded to call various family members (his grandparents, his aunt, his little sister) that I am selfish, want to keep my child and husband to myself, criticizing my parenting, etc.His family organized a New Year’s gathering/family reunion last week to get the entire family together (about 70 people attended). Baby had not had her injections yet and it’s flu season, so the doctor adviced me to preferably not bring her to an event like that OR make sure I was not allowing her to be passed around. I was carrying her close to me the entire party, much to the disdain of MIL (and other family members who thanks to her, think I am selfish). I go upstairs to breastfeed the baby and my MIL gathers three other female family members to get “their chance to hold the baby.” I was already nervous about breastfeeding because it took a while for the baby to latch sometimes. Having four women look at my exposed and hurting breast only made this worse and my MIL said “poor doll can’t even feed her child”. This hurt me and I replied: “Unless you have breastmilk to feed my daughter or actual constructive advice to give, please leave the room.” She left and called me a “conceited light-skin” in front of the entire fam, then basically asked my husband if I could go home and leave the baby there since the baby had just been fed. Husband and I left with baby. His parents visited for the first time yesterday after knocking on the door for 20 minutes while I was trying to take a nap after being up all night with a baby with reflux. I stayed upstairs and send my husband downstairs with the baby. Apparently, his mom was talking to the baby saying things like “mommy doesn’t want you to see me” and “has mommy been taking good care of you?” She then asked my husband if the baby could stay with them today (he said he’d have to discuss it with me first) and she barged into my bedroom while I was taking a nap to ask me directly. I told her that I think the baby wasn’t feeling well and too young to spend the night elsewhere (I wouldn’t let her stay with my own mother, either. Hell, I wouldn’t let her stay with Mother Theresa) and that we could try it in a couple of months. She was pissed, saying she already has done this five times, I don’t come from a good family, and said “X is probably better off spending the night with us anyways, you seem a little out of it.” I then asked her “could you pass me X, please” and she turned around and walked downstairs with X. This was the final straw. I took the baby out of her arms and said “when you come in MY house to see MY child you respect MY rules, just as I did when I came to YOUR house to see YOUR child. If you can’t live with that, there’s the door.” She looked at my husband, he said nothing, and she walked out. Husband is now upset with me for being impolite after I waited an entire pregnancy and the first four weeks of having this child (while navigating hormones, pain, and isolation of being without family and friends) for him to stand up against his family blatantly direspecting his wife.Quite frankly, I’m done. I feel like I’ve spend the past year jumping through hoops to be good enough for his family and still fell short. I’ve crossed my own boundaries time after time (out of love and willingly) to get along with them but I feel like everything I do is wrong. All the boundaries I have set pertaining to my household, marriage, and child have not been respected, yet I am now the disrespectful, conceited person. I feel like I’m a bad wife, a bad mother, and a bad daughter for leaving my family back home.Anyone have any advice on how to deal with this? TIA for anybody who actually read all this, I really appreciate it! via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/37Mxgmb
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