How should my husband and I proceed with my MIL going forward?

This might be long, so I’m sorry.

I 22F currently live with my husband 25M and our 1.5 month old child. We live 5 minutes away from my in laws, and I’m a full time university student and my husband is a lawyer. We currently rent our home, but would love to own a home in the future and it is something we are working towards. My parents own an investment property around 25 minutes away, and have offered it to us at the rate of $400 a week - with no rent increases and we can stay there as long as we need to save (my parents are very trustworthy and honest people so I 100% believe they would keep to this offer). If we took this offer, we’d save $300 a week in rent, which is quite a lot imo and over time would of course add up. My husband would only be on the train for 15 more minutes so transport and cost isn’t an issue either. The area is not the best and can be quite rough in some parts, but beggars cannot be choosers of course. The area we currently rent in is only increasing in rent, and we will likely be priced out at some point anyways.

Here is where my mother in law comes in. I attend university approximately once a week in person, and during this time my MIL watches our child for us. Daycare is an option - but we prefer to have my MIL watch us as quite frankly we are terrified of the abuse risk in daycare. My parents live overseas so if we want to have family watch our child, my mother in law is the only one that can do so.

We mentioned to my MIL the offer from my parents - and shit has hit the fan. We briefly discussed it while we were visiting their house, and she was not happy and kept going on about how bad and rough the area is. She later messaged me that night and explained that she wouldn’t be able to watch our child as much if at all if we went, and that my husband would be embarrassed to tell his coworkers he lives there. My husband stated to me that he wouldn’t be embarrassed, so I fully believe she is projecting her own snobbery here. She later doubled down on this by messaging my mum the same thing, so I do not think this was a heat of the moment comment. She also told my mother that my husband would be the only lawyer in the area and that it’s very blue collar (failing to see the issue here). My MIL and I are quite close - so it’s not abnormal for us to message quite a lot and for us to discuss issues etc. I got rather upset by these comments, as I believe she has a pattern of threatening to get her way. For example with our marriage gift, herself and my father in law agreed to pay for our reception. When she found out my sister in law’s boyfriend was not invited (he was not invited as he dumped her 6 months prior, and they had only recently gotten back together and in that period we had seen him once), she threatened to not pay for the reception and also not attend. To placate her and the rest of the family we just sucked it up and invited him - so in my opinion she has a history of this.

Back to the communication with her. I ignored her messages until she messaged me, and she asked why I was hurt and upset. I proceeded to explain to her why, and I feel as if I did so in a respectful way. She ignored me for a few hours and texted both my husband and I that she was upset and wanted to be left alone - and also texted my husband that she felt the dangling carrot comment was rude, whilst explaining how ‘she’s sick of being blamed for everything and having it as her fault’. She then proceeded to state that I was ‘punishing’ her for not sending any photos of our child that day (I normally send daily photos to our family chat)- which I didn’t do as quite frankly I was in a bad mood the whole day.

I am beyond fed up with her at this point - taking this offer would be a huge leg up for our family. Does anyone know how to deal with her going forward? I will not be discussing this over text anymore with her and my husband will do the same, but we still need to come to some sort of resolution. I don’t think she’d actually not see our child and watch them over this - Do we call her bluff? Put our child in daycare? Just feeling stuck and pissed off at this point.

Text messages read as follows

Her:

I would be very disappointed if you went there and I would not be able to help as much if at all

It would be embarrassing for Harry to tell his colleagues he lives there

Next day

Hello

You not talking to me

Me:

Hi

Her:

Are you annoyed with me

Me:

I’m upset and hurt

Her:

Why

Me:

I’m just hurt and upset and overall rather disappointed in your reaction to what I thought would be a good thing.

I know you may disagree with saving for a house and worrying about it, but it is a goal that husband and I would both like to work towards. Our rent already takes over half of husband’s salary each week, and I’m sure this will only increase. We do not want to pay off our landlords mortgage and be forced to stay, or have to shop around each year for a new house and to overall have a lack of security. We’re not going to buy tomorrow nor do we expect to, but nevertheless it is a goal we both want to work towards. Should we take the house, we would save $300 extra a week which over 3 years is almost $50,000. That is honestly a huge amount and a huge opportunity. We have not even said yes to taking the house - it is just something of discussion and we both need to see how we feel about the area and whether we are comfortable there or not.

I also completely disagree that it is embarrassing to live somewhere like suburb. It may not be the nicest area, but that doesn’t mean it is embarrassing. If husband’s co workers and the people around us choose to judge us for that, we do not want to be friends with or associate with those people. There is absolutely nothing wrong with choosing a smarter financial decision that allows us to pursue our goals over choosing to keep up appearances for the sake of impressing those around us.

What hurts me the most though, is that you would threaten to not watch child. You threatened to not pay the wedding reception and even attend if we didn’t invite sister in law boyfriend, and now it feels like the same thing is happening. I could very easily put her in daycare, but you know we would never do that and we are extremely uncomfortable with that happening. You also know how much I rely on your help with child while I’m at uni, and it just feels like you are forcing our hand here. I love you and am always so grateful for your help and you know that - but I do not want it to be some sort of carrot that is dangled over me. If there is a distance issue with watching her, I can always drop her at the train station to you - or we can pay for your petrol and lunch the days you have her.

Husband and I would be happy to discuss this with you when you’re back - we love you all and do not want any conflict ❤️❤️

Her:

I am so upset I want to be left alone

I assume the no photo of baby today was my punishment