Originally Posted by
AnvilheadII 
here's the one thing you can't change.....that woman is HIS mother. right, wrong, good or bad, that's MOM. so there is going to be a weird loyalty there, that can defy common sense. remember, internally for him there is no CONTEST between his mom, you or the baby.....you each have roles in his life.
but what a freaking nightmare THAT was huh??? you totally have the right to say "not back in MY house!!" - and your husband has the right to say "i can invite my own mother to my own house if i want to!". which leads to a stale mate and somebody would have to make other arrangements.
since she seems underfunded, it's not likely she's going to be flying back any time soon, not on her own dime. so i think you have TIME on your side. you don't have to have the rules written on the stone tablets by 3pm TODAY. LOL
ACOA stuff is a sneaky, tangled beast. i'm 57, my A mother passed away when i was in my early 30s, stuff STILL comes up. good and bad. shows up in my dreams A LOT. my mom can be like reruns of Law & Order, no matter what channel you choose, there it is, again! i had this impulse to call her the other day.........sometimes i want to say i'm sorry i was so distant and cold those last few years. i am a mother myself now, and it's not that i try to NOT be my mother, i just try to parent DIFFERENTLY.
if you can, ease up on your husband just a bit. he didn't ask for this. and unlike alcoholism, there isn't anything you can STOP doing that makes you STOP being an ACOA. family of origin stuff is in our DNA.
I'm not sure what you mean by ease up... I haven't told him that I will never ever allow our child to be "locked in" with her (or anyone else who is in active addiction by extension) precisely because it is such a stressful conversation to have, even if it goes "well". I was hoping to never have to have it at all because just needing to have it is depressing. But it's also true that my husband is now an adult who can take care of himself - or to the extent that he cannot, can be expected to learn - and our child is, well, a child. I cannot throw my child under the bus for the sake of my husband. I see his as well as his mother's deep suffering, but I can't fix either. They are both adults in charge of themselves. I am in charge of my child and have to do what is best for them, which is to not expose them to an environment where the destructiveness of active addition is on display. Especially because they will see their dad hurting badly along with whatever my MIL does. I am trying to do this as compassionately as possible with respect to my husband, though, and what that should look like is what I need some perspective on.
And while it's true that we don't need this resolved ASAP, they have set tentative dates and are actively discussing her visiting (on our dime again). The "we need to be able to leave" discussion will just become even more emotionally loaded if we have it after plane tickets have already been bought, or even closer to the visit than that. That's why I'm asking for advice on what reasonable expectations from that conversation are. We are already locked in to an offer to visit having been extended. I need to decide how to handle this before plane ticket shopping starts. I have some time, but my hope of never having to have the conversation is dashed.