Offense

I love my mother-in-law. She's a completely different mother than I'm used to. But I think I have offended her and it really bothers me. We had asked her if she could stay for a particular weekend to watch Josiah so that we could have some time to ourselves before the baby gets here. But after asking I very quickly realized that it was a bad idea. Not because she can't handle Josiah and not because I don't trust her with him. But I realized as she scrambled to come up with a way for it to work out that I was completely inconveniencing her. She couldn't think of a way to get here, since her husband needed to be in the field, and she had to figure out a way that she could leave her newly begun business unattended. I felt so bad for asking her to go through all this trouble that I wrote her an email telling her not to worry about it and that we'd take Josiah with us.

I was trying to let her off the hook. Make it easy for her to back out without feeling guilty. I was allowing her to say "no" she couldn't do it without feeling bad. I didn't want to put any more pressure or stress on her in an already stressful month. Plus I know how difficult my son can be at bedtime and I really didn't want her to have to be pulling her hair out in frustration the way I often do. I was trying to be considerate and polite.

She took it the wrong way. She got offended. She thought that I was saying that she wasn't capable of dealing with bedtime. She thought that I didn't want to leave Josiah with her or that I thought she couldn't handle it. She was hurt.

I feel terrible. I was trying to make her life easier and instead I hurt her feelings and potentially damaged a very good relationship. I don't know what to do. I don't want her to be hurt and I really want her to spend time with my son. I think she is a very good mother and an excellent grandmother and if anyone can handle Josiah's freakouts it would be her. But I still don't want her to go out of her way to come here. I just can't inconvenience her like that. I care too much about her to put her through all that trouble.

I'm considering bringing Josiah to her for the weekend instead. That way she won't be inconvenienced, she'll be able to tend to her new business, she'll get to spend time with her grandson, and he will get the fun of being able to play on the farm. I think it's a winning solution. However, I'm afraid that she's already so hurt by this that I won't be able to remedy it. I'm not sure if I can fix the situation. I don't know how she deals with being hurt like this and I'm afraid that she'll forever think that I don't trust her.

I really messed up a good thing. And now I can't sleep again.