My Step FIL kissed my baby and then passed away.

Last year my daughter was born. Getting pregnant was a very emotional journey for us. We had been trying for three years, worked with a fertility clinic, I was on a lot of medication, and we eventually conceived through IUI.

Because of that, I was extremely nervous to share the news with family. I waited until I was about 15 weeks to tell anyone. At 7 weeks we had some complications and I was terrified of losing the pregnancy. On top of that, I had felt a lot of pressure from family for years about having a baby, especially from my step father in law.

We never told the family about the infertility until the announcement. The only person who already knew was my sister. Eventually the constant asking about children got to the point where my husband actually yelled at his mom and stepdad to stop asking us about babies. Both he and his sister had asked them to stop multiple times before that. They mostly stopped after that, although my step FIL would still occasionally make comments and my MIL would usually shut him down.

For context too, my step FIL does not have biological children. He came into my husband's and SIL's lives when they were about 10 and 14. Everyone in my husband's family says he has always had a big soft spot for kids. I will admit that because of some of my own past trauma, I sometimes viewed his behavior around children a little differently. Not that there were ever accusations against him, but I did have some odd experiences with him when I first joined the family.

After we announced the pregnancy, we talked with the family about expectations and boundaries. Our biggest rule was simple. Do not kiss the baby. They questioned it a lot, but overall seemed to accept it.

My step FIL still made some comments that made me uncomfortable. He would sometimes call her "his baby." When we found out she was a girl he said he wanted to buy her a cheerleader outfit for his favorite football team. The outfit itself is not weird, but I remember thinking why jump straight to a cheerleader outfit instead of a normal onesie or dress.

Still, everything was mostly fine. Our daughter arrived last March and she was loved immediately by everyone.

A little over a month after she was born, my MIL and step FIL came to visit. My MIL had already come the first week to help around the house and with our dogs, so this was mostly my step FIL's first time meeting the baby.

They brought lunch, we ate, and then sat on the couch. My MIL held the baby first, they took some pictures, and then she passed the baby to him. At one point my MIL decided to take my dogs for a walk.

They had already been there around 40 minutes. In the last 15 minutes before she left, my step FIL had made two separate jokes about kissing the baby. The night before the visit I had actually texted my sisters saying I was really anxious about him holding her because I had this gut feeling he would kiss her. I ignored the feeling because I thought it was just my anxiety.

After my MIL left, he adjusted the baby into tummy time on his chest with her head very close to his face. I was sitting on the other couch watching nervously. I kept hoping my husband would say something like "maybe move her down a little away from your face." My husband was across the room on his phone playing with our cat and didn't notice. Before I got the courage to say anything, he kissed her. Right on the forehead between the eyes.

All I could say was "NO."

My husband looked up confused. Earlier my step FIL had made kissing noises as part of his jokes, so my husband thought that was what happened and assumed I was just annoyed by the noises. That is what he told me later was his perspective in the moment.

At the time I was furious. About a minute later my daughter started crying and I said I was going to go feed her. I took her to my room and sobbed for hours.

I was struggling badly with postpartum depression and anxiety but could not go back on my previous medications yet. On top of that, ignoring that gut feeling as a parent felt horrible.

My husband handled the situation once my MIL got back and they eventually went back to their hotel. For the rest of that visit we did not allow my step FIL to hold the baby.

Part of that was anger that our rule had been ignored after he had just joked about it. The other part was that he never really apologized. The apologies were things like "I'm sorry but no baby has ever gotten sick because I kissed it" or "I'm sorry but it was instinctual."

During the next visit and for months after that, he completely ignored me. He blamed everything on me and not my husband. That made my resentment worse. If the jokes had not happened minutes earlier and if the apology had been sincere, I probably would have been much more understanding.

By Thanksgiving we decided to move forward. We told them he could hold the baby again and just reminded everyone not to kiss her. She never got sick and I did not want the drama anymore.

During Thanksgiving something happened with my husband's grandma that caused a big argument between her and my MIL. I was somewhat involved in the situation, but both my MIL and step FIL stood up for me.

That was when I started to feel guilty about how angry I had been at him. He had my back when I was not sure he would. It felt like maybe our relationship was starting to repair.

Then Christmas happened...

We were visiting my FIL and step MIL. On Christmas night while driving to my dad's house, we called my MIL. She told us my step FIL had fallen a few days earlier and had not been able to get out of bed. He was barely eating and looked terrible. She was unsure if she should take him to urgent care.

I told her that if it had been days and he still could not get up, urgent care would likely just send him to the ER anyway. She should take him straight to the ER.

My step FIL hated doctors and avoided them whenever possible, so it was not surprising that he had refused to go.

The next morning we found out that after the phone call my MIL followed her gut and forced him to go to the ER. He was rushed into surgery because he was in septic shock. The surgeons could not close him back up and he went into AFIB. He was left open and monitored.

The next day he was airlifted to another hospital for higher level care.

That was when my husband and I started the 12 hour drive to them.

Four hours before we arrived, he passed away.

We stayed for several days helping with arrangements and grieving with the family. A few weeks later we flew back for the funeral.

During that time I felt an overwhelming amount of guilt. I know it is the classic hindsight feeling of what if and I wish, but it was hard because everything happened so suddenly. It felt like we had just started to mend things and then that chance was gone.

At the funeral I held our daughter wearing a dress with his favorite football team on it.

I knew he adored her, but I had no idea how much he talked about her to everyone in his life. People recognized her immediately at the visitation and told me how often he showed them pictures of her and talked about her milestones.

Every time someone said something like that, the guilt got heavier.

Then I started hearing comments from coworkers and friends like "oh you're the daughter in law who would not let him kiss the baby" or "he told me he was going to kiss her the second you looked away." It was not just one person saying it. It was multiple people from completely different parts of his life. I was honestly shocked and had no idea how to respond.

It has been about two months since he passed and I have worked through a lot of this in therapy. I still feel guilty, even though my mom gut was technically right. He did kiss her and apparently had even joked about doing it regardless of the rule.

I am still not completely sure how I feel about everything.

There really is not a point to this post other than venting. I do not want to bring it up to my husband because he is grieving the loss of someone who helped raise him. I lost my mom three years ago so I know how heavy that grief can be.

I talked about it in therapy but mostly got "your feelings are valid" which honestly did not help much because I also recognize that I was not entirely right either.

It does not really matter anymore. The moment has passed and he is gone. The situation will never fully resolve. Based on Thanksgiving I do believe he understood that he crossed a boundary. It just was never directly said to me.

I am mostly just trying to let go of the guilt so I can move on.

TLDR

My step father in law ignored our rule about not kissing our newborn and did it anyway after joking about it. It caused a lot of resentment between us for months. We had just started repairing the relationship when he suddenly died from septic shock. At his funeral I learned he had told multiple people he planned to kiss the baby regardless of our rule. Now I am struggling with guilt and unresolved feelings about the whole situation.