So I guess I have both a MIL and spouse problem here. A bit of backstory, MIL and my husband’s dad inherited his family ranch years back, with FIL doing the majority of the ranch work. From what I have heard MIL would help out here and there and work odd jobs, but mainly she was free to do what she wanted. Well, four years ago they divorced, and it was pretty messy, but MIL ended up with the ranch.
Issue is, she is completely incompetent, she does not know what she is doing it seems, and is constantly breaking equipment. I don’t feel bad saying this because she is not a nice person, I could write a short novel on all the reasons why, but she is extremely childish and selfish, more on that later. Anyway, my husband continued to live with her after he graduated and would basically do most of the ranch work for her, while working a demanding full time job. This all changed however when we got married and moved in together. MIL no longer had her live-in work slave.
Since then, she has been a constant thorn in our relationship, and it’s getting worse I think. My husband works 8-6, and I’d say at least 3 or four evenings out of the week she demands he come help with whatever it may be, I say help but more like him just doing all her dirty work. He’s a mechanic so she also takes advantage of the fact he can fix whatever equipment she breaks, so even if he’s not helping her at the ranch he will be spending evenings fixing her things. He will spend hours of his time and hundreds of dollars worth of parts out of his own money and she doesn’t even offer to pay him back.
Because of this, I barely ever see him. We also have a young baby, so I am left doing 100% of the child care, and by the time he gets home most nights she is already in bed. Not only am I missing out on time with him, but our daughter is too, and I really struggle with it. I get one whole day of the week with him, Saturday, and then every Sunday he is with her all day until late in the evening, “her day” as she calls it.
Even when he is at home, she is always calling, and the threat of her demanding he come over is always hanging over me. It’s not uncommon on Saturdays when we’re out and about for her to call him up to four times. This is all questions about how to run equipment, cattle issues, etc, things she should know herself since it is literally her job, supposedly. The spouse issue comes in because he just will not say no to her, ever. He knows if she does she will throw huge tantrums, threaten to sell some of the cattle he owns (which is a completely empty threat because she would be completely incapable of doing that without help), and he just thinks it’s easier for him to comply.
I don’t know what to do at this point. It’s always been the main topic of fights if we have them, and I’m finding it extremely hard not to feel completely resentful and full of rage every time I get a text from him after work that he’s been summoned, which is almost every night. Like tonight for example, she can’t figure out how to check the tractor oil and hook up a bucket, things she should know if she’s supped to be a “rancher”! The hilariously painful thing is, she’s said she plans to keep ranching for at least another ten years, she’s already in her early sixties and completely helpless so how the hell that’ll work I don’t know. She’s already backing out of even more important ranch duties like branding/giving shots, because she doesn’t feel up to it, so it again falls on my husband.
The right thing to do would be for her to admit she is not up to ranching, that she cannot do it herself, and to move on. But no, she wants to have her cake and eat it too, because if she gave up ranching she’d have to get a job where she’d actually have to do things, and so she’d rather reap the benefits while my husband does all the work, instead of just giving the ranch to him entirely. He doesn’t get the money, the land, anything, yet he does absolutely everything. It’s incredibly unfair and yet she doesn’t care, even my SIL has told me that what she wants comes first, no one and nothing else matters if she needs something, and that’s just how she is.
So because of her selfishness and stubbornness, my husband works two full time jobs basically, one completely unpaid, and we barely ever see him. I feel so burnt out as I have zero help as a parent and my family is in another country so I’m doing it all solo. Not to mention, I’m so lonely, he’s my husband and yet we can barely even make plans together because she is guaranteed to need him and he won’t say no. I can’t make him fucking grow a pair it seems, and she will never stop, so I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I know it’s entirely up to my husband to solve this, but he won’t, he says he’s used to it, but at this point it’s not just about him it’s about his own wife and child. This is long, but god I needed to get this off my chest.