Hi! I’m sorry about the long post. But my MIL started off having a pretty good relationship from the start but shortly after my husbands & I’s wedding, I slowly started noticing weird behavior.
A little backstory: I was adopted by my grandparents because my biological parents were drug addicts & in and out jail. My papa was a minister & his dad was a pastor. So I grew up in a very religious and healthy home with my grandparents. My husband not so much. Him, his mom, & siblings were abused from her previous marriages. So my husband had it hard growing up and he protected his siblings and mom from the men abusing them. So his relationship with his mom & siblings are close which I 100% understand. He is the only son.His mom is 39 & she’s currently married now. My husband is in the military.
When I first got to our house on base, I was settling in and getting everything situated in the house. That month was rough for me because I had my period 3 times that month and it was the worst I’ve ever had it. Normally during that time I’m not very talkative. My MIL calls everyday & night. To the point she’s talking to him right as he gets off work before I get to. Well one night I seemed aggravated about something to her and she told my husband that she thinks I have weird feelings towards her because of that.
A few days later we were all talking about us staying at their house temporarily until we start getting his disability check. Well we told them about me having my dog with me, my dog is for my anxiety/panic attacks. And she told us she’s not sure if we can have him because she’s worried he’ll attack her dogs & my husband told her that if we’re not able to have my dog, we’re not staying there. Her attitude changed. I told him I noticed her change and behavior. My husband called me after work one day and he added her to our call but she declined it. She kept blowing his phone up after she declined so he called her and she immediately answered. He asked her why she’s been acting the way she has and told him she’s scared I’m going to get in his head & tear them apart. She “apparently” heard someone say something like that at our wedding but i called and asked everyone who was around her at the wedding and they all told me nothing like that was said. She also was trying to get him to talk to her about our finances.
Fast forward from that, my husband got off late one day and wasn’t able to answer his phone at work & she was blowing his phone up and texted him “I called to say goodnight but of course you didn’t answer”. My husband answers all her phone calls and if he can’t, he always returns. He told me she’s always made these comments since he’s joined but now it’s different because he’s married. A few days later I was scrolling through tik tok and she reposted a post saying “my son is my emergency contact because he protects me at all cost” which the timing of this is all weird because she reposted it a day or two after.
After that stuff has been okay for a while but I don’t talk to them much. But the other night we found out that my husband was getting important financial mail to their house and he didn’t know, he thought he changed the address but he didn’t. And she’s been opening it and reading it. I told him she doesn’t need to be reading it. But it seems she can be passive aggressive at times & controlling. I feel like he’s not noticing some stuff because it’s what he’s used to seeing. Idk maybe I’m just overreacting but at the same time maybe not.
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His mother needs to be aware that it’s a federal offense to open someone else’s mail. It doesn’t matter if it comes to her home…it’s still illegal.
You are right to feel the way you do.
Get in his head and tear them apart? Say what now?!
Girl please. MIL made that up and she sounds like a girlfriend not a mother. Your husband likely doesn’t know how bizarre and dysfunctional his mother is bc it’s how he was raised so that’s his normal, but when I read that, it jumped off the page at me.
What’s backwards is that a child was protecting an adult rather than the adult protecting her child from domestic abuse. Translation: MIL put her children at risk by choosing dangerous men and her oldest son was parentified. MIL failed rather dramatically as a parent. What she successfully did was create a strong trauma bond between her and her son, and I’ll bet he feels a lot of responsibility for her and guilt when he doesn’t do what she wants.
I think you may want to check out the suggested reading list posted in this sub. Something tells me you are going to need it.
I didn’t see anything about you communicating this to your husband. Have you spoken to him about how you’re feeling? My therapist has been advising me to communicate and ask questions so I can gauge my BF’s responses and any behavior changes moving forward.
Maybe if you tell him you’d like to be the first person he calls after work and it to just be you two?
Never live with her. Ever.
Enmeshment and parentification. Look into it.