My husband (27) and I (22) moved to his hometown in France after finding out we were expecting a baby, and his mom asked us to stay with her in the meantime we found a house we liked, that way we would save up some rent money and we wouldn’t be so rushed to find a place we didn’t really like right away. Something important to know is that her husband (step dad of my husband) died 4 years ago, and she was living alone here, plus she has other 3 children that don’t visit her more than twice a year even though they don’t live that far away but she shows more antipathy towards my husband than the rest, he genuinely believes she never loved him and I couldn’t understand why if she was being so nice, until a couple days after she began getting a passive aggressive attitude towards us. At this point I was 4 months pregnant, and couldn’t tolerate bad smells like rotten food or trash, and somehow every time I was in the kitchen she decided to open the trash can and leave it like that, or taking the decomposed food can (that she used for fertilizer) into the kitchen for no reason, I ended up vomiting or gagging almost every time and she just took an extra victimized position telling everyone I was an exaggerated and just wanted to make her feel bad. Little by little she started complaining about how I was cleaning, and mind you, I was cleaning everything everyday, kitchen, bathroom, floors, plates, tables, while being with the pregnancy tiredness, weakness and nausea, but for her I was “pregnant, not sick” and it wasn’t the right way of doing it even though she wasn’t doing anything at all and she was “cleaning” (getting the robot to clean the floor) once a month and keeps everywhere around her dirty and unorganized. “This is not how you should clean the pan”, “don’t use the sponge to clean the fridge”, “don’t clean the floor with this broom (the functional one that rests on the garage) but use this one (a small, uncomfortable useless one)”, until there was a complain even for the smallest things like “why didn’t you cleaned the shower drain?” or “why did you use the aluminum to cover your food if there’s no need for it? (it was a lasagna and it was going to the fridge, she took it out and removed the cover so flies would get on it)”. I never told her anything, and since my husband was working I didn’t wanted to tell him anything because I wanted everything to be peaceful. After a couple weeks she got a dog, but for some reason she screams at the dog for everything, to come, to sit, to stop, to sleep, and I had to listen to her high pitched scream everytime, and my head wasn’t handling it well. She went on a three-week vacation, so my husband (who was also on vacation) and I stayed alone in the house, and honestly, the most peaceful time so far; we were cooking together, everything was in order, no more flies in the house, no more bad smells, just peace and order.
NTA. Time to find that new place to live.
Yes! We found a great apartment but they give us the key in one month, mid January, so I’m holding up a little bit more
Do you even wonder why her other 3 kids barely visit?
Not at all, they don’t even talk to her unless she calls them. When they came during summer, they were so stressed they left one week earlier…
P2.
When she came back from the house she found that I had cleaned things she hadn’t even thought of organizing in years, book shelves, kitchen cabinets, machine filters, walls, under the couches/behind furniture… and yet she found a way to complain about the only thing I didn’t do (that it’s forbidden during the pregnancy): to clean the garden. She arrived screaming at us because her flowers were dead (its winter) and no one put water on them (even though jt was raining 4/7 days a week), but since my husband was there and it was the first time he saw her attacks towards me, he took the defensive mode and told her to stop screaming, which she obviously didn’t do, so he calmly told her she is an ungrateful person that doesn’t sees anything I do for her and the house, that she was always complaining about something and that he wasn’t going to let her treat me that way specially with a baby on the way, so she started to scream louder and louder “What? What are you saying to me? (in FR)” so he just stood up and repeat himself, so she said “tomorrow you two leave my house, I don’t care what you do, but I don’t want you here anymore”, I left to the room to start looking for a place to go and my husband stayed discussing with her, when he came back he just said that she was sorry and that she doesn’t wants us to leave, but honestly I don’t want to see her again. I find her irritating and stressing, she doesn’t cares I’m pregnant and treats me like sh!t, so since my husband wants to stay one more month until the end of the holidays, i decided to stay in our room all day long, cook fast and clean whenever she isn’t around, eat in the room and avoid seeing her during the whole day. She says I’m rude and that I let her eat alone, that I’m ungrateful because she received me in her house and complains about the state of the house now that I stopped doing the full cleaning. Am I the asshole?
Never, tell your husband you’re leaving now. Your peace means more than the money you’ll save doing this. No wonder her other kids never visit, she’s a horrible woman. That poor dog, too bad you can’t take it with you.
You should have stopped doing all this the first week. Your husband moved you into this house, while pregnant, already knowing his mother is awful. You all need to see a counselor. NTA.
OP it’s time to leave, if not for yourselves then for your baby.
That peace you felt during her vacation was your nervous system calming down, so your baby may have also felt it.
Don’t wait a month if you can help it, leave now.
Move
When you move try to find a place far away from this woman. And if she insists that she wants to visit and help with your newborn say no. If your husband says she can visit make sure he is home while she is visiting. And make the visit a very,very short one.
move out. just find a place and leave. she wants a maid to abuse. stop being that.
Maternal stress during pregnancy impacts the fetus. You need as much calm as you can find. Book an Airbnb for the next few weeks