Hi there! As the title says, I saw my mother-in-law lie to my sister-in-law on Easter, and I'm having a hard time figuring out how to move on because I don't feel like I can trust what she says to me anymore.We were having dessert on Easter, and my mother-in-law was holding my niece. My sister-in-law (let’s call her Colleen) and brother-in-law were in the other room, out of earshot. My mother-in-law wanted to give my niece (15 months old, I’ll call her Amy) raspberry cheesecake that my mom had made. My mother-in-law asked the few of us that were still at the table "Should I let Amy try it? What ingredients are in it? She's had dairy before, it's probably fine, right?"At this point I didn't think too much of it, because I have no idea what my sister-in-law approves of Amy eating. Then my father-in-law (“David”) said "It's fine, the parents aren't here. Anything goes when the parents aren't around!" This annoyed me a little because my 2.5 year old often sleeps over their house, but again, I didn't make a big deal. I kind of laughed and said "Oh is that what you say when Charlie sleeps over?" and he said "yeah pretty much!" and then he laughed. I smiled and jokingly kind of rolled my eyes and shrugged it off at the time. My mother-in-law then proceeded to give her at least 3 bites of cheesecake. I really only noticed she was feeding the cake to her because it seemed like they weren't sure if it was going to be approved by my sister-in-law. I never usually notice what Amy eats. Then my sister-in-law walks into the room and says "You're not giving her dessert, right Mom?". My mother-in-law tells her no and then proceeds to give her raspberries.I didn't say anything at the time because I didn't want to step on the mother daughter relationship of my husband's mom and sister, and I still wasn't clear what my sister-in-law did or did not approve of my niece eating. It's none of my business anyways! I made a mental note of this and later discussed it with my husband, because I wanted to make sure they respected our parenting wishes when our son sleeps over. The problem for me was not that she gave Amy cheesecake, but that she lied to my sister-in-law when she asked if she gave it to her. My husband was completely in agreement that we should talk about it with his parents at some point.A few days later, the in-laws wanted to have our son sleepover. We don't mind, and our son has tons of fun with his grandparents. My husband and I agreed that we wanted to mention what happened about lying to my sister-in-law about giving the cheesecake, because we just wanted to make sure they were honest with us about things related to our son before he slept over. I texted my mother-in-law and mentioned that we wanted to chat about the incident when they came over to pick up our son, and I had texted this in advance because I wanted to give them a heads up about the chat we wanted to have so they weren't completely caught off guard when we mentioned it. My hope was that it would be a quick chat about just staying honest with us and then our son would have a fun sleepover with them afterward. (This is what I had texted: We think Charlie would have so much fun doing a sleepover at your house tonight. So here's the awkward part, I felt really uncomfortable when you lied to Colleen on Easter about giving Amy dessert, and then David was pretty much in agreement by saying pretty much "anything goes" if the parents aren't around. We want to make sure we can trust what you guys tell us when he sleeps over, so if he sleeps over tonight we should all talk about this first. Or if you just want to stop by and say hi tomorrow when my grandma is watching him we could chat about it another time.)Well, my mother-in-law completely denied that she gave the cheesecake! This is what she texted back: I am so surprised. I don't know what to say, and just to set things straight, I didn't give Amy the cake, as I wasn't sure what was in it, but yes I did give her some raspberries. If I had I would have told Colleen, I have no reason nor would I lie to Colleen. I wasn't lying and David was making a joke, teasing with you. Maybe we should postpone tonight. It is breaking our hearts that you feel this way.Then they texted again saying my father-in-law was joking around. This is what I responded: I know you were being light hearted, but the issue is the lying and then you being in agreement with it by making that joke. We always trust you guys, and seeing the blatant lying right to Colleen's face is the issue. It reminds us of the lying about the banana when Charlie was 6 months old. We know you always have the grandkids best interests in mind, but we hope you respect the parents wishes as well.(The banana thing was the only other time they have lied to us. Our son was having tummy issues at 6 months old, so we didn't want him having solids for a few days until his digestion regulated again. They babysat one night when we went out to dinner, and we asked them to only provide expressed breastmilk, no solids. The next day, our son's poop looked like he had eaten lots of fresh banana (it gets weird black strings in it if you haven't seen it). I asked my mother-in-law about it the next day, because I was confused. I even sent her a picture and I knew he hadn't had banana for about a week so it didn't make sense to me why his poop looked that way. I wasn't trying to catch her in a lie, I was just genuinely confused so wanted to see if she had insight as to why it looked that way. My mother-in-law called my husband later that day and admitted that she gave banana while we were at dinner. It really upset us that she lied, but we were glad she admitted it and we moved on.)I responded to her text reiterating exactly what happened (mentioned above). I also mentioned that my mom saw her give the cheesecake too, so I'm confused that she's saying she never gave it when I wasn't the only one who saw her give it with my own eyes. I didn’t text this, but my father-in-law also would not joke about something being ok if the parents aren’t around if Amy was truly only eating raspberries. So this comment by him also confirms to me that he knows Amy was eating cheesecake.My mother in law then responded saying that she truly doesn't remember giving Amy any cheesecake, and she doesn't know what else to say. I wrote back that we can chat more later about it on the phone to try to resolve it, and that we seem to have very different perceptions on what happened.Her last text to me was: I did not intentionally lie to Colleen, I do not remember feeding her cake, I don't even remember her reaction to it. This shouldn't be a big deal as I didn't do anything intentionally wrong. I don't know what more you want me to say. The bottom line is it was nothing intentional. Again I would never lie or hide anything from either of you, I learned my lesson in the past. I don't know what else I can say.That’s basically where it left off. I’m more upset now about it than I initially was, because there is absolutely no doubt that my mother-in-law fed my niece cheesecake and then lied about it to my sister in law, but now she’s lying to me about not giving it after I saw her do it with my own eyes. I find it very hard to believe that she truly forgot giving the 3 bites of cake in the 30 seconds between when she did it and told colleen that she did not. Additionally, my mom saw her give the cheesecake, and I’m also 100% sober because I’m pregnant with our second child so I’m confident in what I saw her do.I’m very upset that my mother-in-law has lied 3 times in the past 2 years (that we’re aware of). She also dragged Colleen into it saying that I’m accusing my mother-in-law of giving her cake when she never did. I’m just not sure how to move on and trust her. I wish she would have been honest about these lies and then we could have all moved on. If she truly did forget giving cake in that 30 second timeframe, I’m concerned about what else she could so easily forget while my son is in her care.I feel like I need a third party, unbiased opinion on the situation. I think we all want things to go back to the happy way they were before, but I have such a grudge about the way she handled the situation that I’m having a hard time letting it go. I doubt they will want to talk in person, I have a feeling they will let a few weeks go by and then pretend this never happened. I don’t know how to believe anything she says anymore after! Thank you for reading and thank you in advance for any advice! EDIT: forgot to change my son's name to "Charlie" in one spot. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2ppiEqf
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