Long story short, to save you the drama, my father in law is on some pretty heavy drugs. He was always pretty normal and this was very unexpected. He has been on drugs for awhile. As soon as we found out, we distanced ourselves and our 1 year old daughter. Today we have another baby, and a 3 year old. We haven’t seen him since April 2020, he’s never met our son.

My MIL chose to stay with him, which is her choice. He’s very verbally and mentally abusive. I have a lot of trust issues with my MIL as she knew about his drug issues before we even got pregnant with our first. We used to leave our daughter in their care, and her knowing her husband was on drugs would leave our daughter alone with him for a couple hours at a time. As soon as we found out he was on drugs, I hated her for a long time for it. I just didn’t understand how she could leave a baby alone with him. He’s at a point where he isn’t off the drug for any amount of time, always high, and she chose to leave him with our one year old. He always had some pretty creepy friends over, and my mama gut told me I needed to pay attention so we never allowed sleepovers.

We don’t see her a ton, sometimes holidays and such. When we do see her she’s taking pictures of our kids to show her husband even though I ask her not to. She rarely asks about our kids or how they’re doing, but talks to my husband on a daily basis. She hasn’t babysat since we found out about the drug issue, but today she asked if she could start taking our daughter on Sunday’s for the day (to church and other things) and it was an absolute no for me. I got this feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I just knew I wouldn’t be able to let her watch our daughter alone. I know she cares about our kids, but I can’t get myself to be okay with her babysitting. I’ve heard so much about a mother’s intuition and she just doesn’t seem right to me. My SIL is overbearing, obsessed with my husband, and always tries to set stuff up with our MIL. I’m over it.

To me, I feel as though I am my kids voice for now until they understand right from wrong. I am their #1 protector, and I would never forgive myself if something happened. For someone who never texts or calls me about our kids, this seems random.