He’s a Jerk to Our Baby
My father-in-law is a jerk to our baby. A little backstory: my father-in-law hates me for no real reason. My husband suspects it is because I am not as submissive as he expects women to be.
My husband also says it is because I have an advanced degree, a good job, and I was well-established with my own home before I met my husband. He says this “intimidates” his dad.
In terms of how he treats me, he basically ignores me entirely, even when I talk directly to him. So I basically just don’t talk to him anymore, because what’s the point? I don’t particularly like how he treats my husband either.
He makes him feel guilty for not spending time with him, but the man NEVER calls or comes to see us either. The phone and roads work both ways. My husband’s mother, who lives 2,000 miles away, has visited us more than his dad has, who is only a 40-minute drive away.
Anyway, to get to the point, we had a baby six weeks ago. His dad did come visit us in the hospital, which was honestly a shock to me. I was exhausted, but I kept a smile on my face and tried to engage him.
His reaction was chilling. He came in the door, didn’t even glance at the baby, sat in a chair, and watched football on the TV. His wife even told him to look at the baby and hold her, to which he simply said “I’ve seen pictures” and went on watching football and talking about his fantasy league.
He didn’t ask us anything about how the labor or delivery went, whether we needed anything, if she was healthy, ANYTHING. Just football. When he left, my husband got teary-eyed and said to the baby: “I’m sorry your grandpa is so rude, baby girl,” and I literally burst into tears.
Granted, I had been up for nearly 40 hours at this point. But still. There’s something else that really grinds my gears. He has nine other grandkids and he is not like this towards any of them. For example, he has posted to Facebook with a photo holding them at all their births.
He posts photos of them all the time, brings them presents, etc. He dotes on them. But he is ambivalent and rude to our baby? Just because he doesn’t like me? She is a BABY! She has done nothing to deserve that.
It’s heartbreaking. I told my husband I was never going out of my way to see that man again and he agreed there’s no point of putting in extra effort, but I know he is hurt.
This was six weeks ago and I’m still so mad about it. Every time my husband mentions him, I just see red. As if that wasn’t bad enough already, there is another part of the story that paints the picture even better.
After she was born, our daughter had to stay in the hospital for an extra five days and was nearly admitted to the newborn ICU. My Facebook is pretty small. I basically only have friends and close family members on there. So I had been using it to keep everyone updated, but not with the specific details.
Just posts like “We are still in the hospital, but hope to be home soon. Thanks for everyone’s support.” The man NEVER called his son the entire week to even see what was wrong, if she was home, when she was coming home, etc.
UGH! That jerk! Suffice it to say that I am very hurt by his actions and I definitely don’t want to associate with him anymore. Story credit: Reddit / CardMath