The aftermath of her

As we deal with the latest issues with my JNMIL during very low contact, I’ve been looking back through my email archives to a time when a good friend would let me decompress and unload after time spent with MIL. This blast from the past was an email I sent my friend 14 years ago and it was right at the start of us going low contact with MIL with 4 months between visits.

Here’s the email:

MIL called this morning just as we were getting to leave the house to ask if she could come visit for a couple of hours today. DH told her that we’re spending the afternoon with DS#2’s friend and his parents. There are some hockey games being played at the lake between the fire department and the police department and our two families are going together to watch. Any normal person, seeing that it was an inconvenient time to visit, would say “oh that’s okay, I hope you have a fun time” and go about their own day.

MIL threw a terrible-two sized tantrum and launched into guilt trips, demands and then out right threats. She told DH that if she doesn’t get to come down today, or if we don’t drive the 2 hours and stay with her today then she will make it so he’s not legal to drive our vehicle by the end of the month. I didn’t understand what she meant by that when DH was telling me afterwards. He didn’t either. He was of the mind to just leave it all at that point.

I’m so sick of her inappropriate behavior and we’d had a break from it for a while so this one kind of blindsided me. I started crying in frustration. DH wondered if maybe we should just tell her that if she could get here by 11 then we’d visit with her but she was to be gone by 12:30 so that we could spend the afternoon with friends as we had planned. I asked what his reasoning was on that. He said that its all just so stressful with her and she will continue to stress us out until she gets to see DS#2 again, because she didn’t see him when she met DH and DS#1 last month. He thought that if we got it over with then she wouldn’t bug us for a while and he hated seeing me upset about it and wanted find a solution.

I told him that bringing her to our home is not a solution. What bothers me is that absolutely no one calls her on her behavior. She obviously feels she has the right to call us up as we are getting ready to start our day and behave so badly to us because no one ever takes her aside and says, “LISTEN! This is BAD behavior. You are being inappropriate and disrespectful and we will not be treated that way.” Something clicked for DH right then and he said I was absolutely, 100% right. He purposely walked over to the phone, picked it up and called her back immediately.

As soon as MIL picked up the phone DH raised his voice like he has never done to her and he told her that what she just did was WRONG! She interupted him and started to speak and he forcefully yelled, “NO!! YOU LISTEN!” He shocked her so much that she did just that. She listened. She didn’t hang up for the first time ever. He continued on in a forceful voice and told her that she has no right to call us up and guilt trip us and try to make us feel badly just because she didn’t get her way. He told her that she has no right to hold things over us or make threats every single time she gets mad. She objected and said she has never held anything over us. He asked what she thought this thing she just did was. He told her that she always holds former gifts given over our heads when she is angry with us and it is always in the form of a threat. He told her she was wrong to do this and we would not accept her behavior any longer. He told her that true gifts are given freely with no strings attached and to continue to attach strings is bad behavior. She said that she just wanted a couple of hours with us and back when she was being raised her parents didn’t care if they were already having company when family was coming by. Family was allowed to come no matter who was there. Family came first no matter what. She said, “you guys just don’t want to see me!” DH replied, “We DO want to have a relationship with you but we CAN’T have a relationship with you.” She asked why he would say that. So he told her that every time she comes to visit or have supper with us or any time we come to her house she says things that hurt our family and she behaves in a deplorable manner. “You hurt my wife with your words and you hurt my kids with your words and you hurt me with your words and because of that we cannot have a relationship with you.” She replied, “When have I ever hurt the kids?” (An acknowledgement that she knows she hurts DH and I). She demanded to know instances and DH said, “Quite frankly they are hundreds and hundreds built up for nearly two decades. Getting in to them all would be impossible. The point is that you do this. You do not censor yourself. You do not think about the other people. You just say what you want to say and because of that there is always an aftermath when you leave. It’s not just an afternoon visit with you or supper with you…our family deals with the AFTERMATH OF YOU for days and weeks after each time we see you. This HAS TO STOP or you will not be seeing us. We will not put up with it any longer.” She said she didn’t know what he meant or what she does. She thinks she behaves fine. Then she said, “I’ll never understand you! According to you I am so bad I dont even deserve to be alive!” (What a piece of work). DH told her he does not believe she is bad, only that she does not ever stop to think of the feelings of others when she speaks. As for how her parents raised her, it was a different time. There are more demands on people now, not to mention health problems and she cannot expect us to go beyond our limitations for her. She cried out that she has limits too. Then came the whole reason for her tantrum today and it was delivered in a way to make DH feel guilty. She started bawling and told him that its just hitting her that she is old and she has taken on more then she can bear. She is looking after her sister in law while her brother goes through dementia. She’s still working two jobs. She can’t seem to do everything she has taken on and the realization that she got old is really hitting her and she wanted to see her grandkids (Nsupply to help her feel young again). She asked DH if there is still aftermath for us if we stay with her and could we drive just to have supper with her and then go right away. He said of course there is an aftermath Mom. Whenever we see you there is an aftermath for us. That is why things have been the way they are. We can’t take it anymore. You cannot treat us like this any more. Then he asked her what this threat was about, that he wouldn’t be legal to drive our vehicle if we didn’t see her. She said, “Well your pink slips expire at the end of March so I paid for and had your new ones sent to me.” “And you have the new ones at your place?” “Yes.” “So that’s what that was about? You were going to hold my pink slips after going behind my back with them?” “Yeah. Well, I guess I could send them to you.” “Please do.” She was crying too hard by then and said she had to go.

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What a battle ax she’s always been! We did low contact with strictly enforced 4 months between visits for 2 years and then went to once or twice yearly visits because she just never changed. I’m glad all these years later for my email archives of what it was like when we first started standing up to her consistently. At the same time, I’m also sad that we still have issues with her during the very brief moments we spend with her. You can see from my previous posts where we are at with her now. Ive experienced complete radio silence from her since July 23 and I am grateful for the month of silence! She’s only reached out to DH the once and after his reply she’s not responded again. I asked him how he felt about all that the other night and he said he doesn’t even think of her at all unless she comes up in our conversation and does not wonder about her, or miss her, in any way. I wonder, where he does not, when her next re-entry will be.