My MIL is nice, but also subtly manipulative in ways she doesn’t recognize (neither does the family she created). Details left vague because DH is on reddit (though not on here I don’t think).
This is a very very very long post so thank you for reading if you do!
She’s nice to me, and lovingly calls me her child that she gained shortly after losing one. I have no reason to complain. Really. Except for the fact that I simply cannot stand her sometimes. I grew up an only child of a single mom who encouraged independence from a very young age. MIL did NOT. Her kids are emotionally dependent on her (DH to a lesser degree, but he is still enmeshed in ways that put a strain on our relationship sometimes) and she is heavily dependent on her kids.
She married her college sweetheart and they’ve been through a lot of life together, and at this point will not separate because of the weird love/companionship they share. She has a hard time getting her emotional needs met in her partner (my FIL) so she seeks it out from her children, which they are happy to enable 🫠
Long story short… I was visiting her and my FIL this weekend and her child (twin of the child that died) who is isolated and lives in a different state is going through a really rough patch in their marriage and MIL is going through a really rough patch in her health. MIL is also refusing to go to the doctor because she’s worried about bad news. She said, out loud, “if I have cancer, I know child will leave spouse and come be with me”. Which…. oof. I do not approve of the spouse either, so I would be happy for that to happen. But the way she said it gave me the ick.
She just wants people to give her attention and dote on her, which drives me nuts. She had skin cancer shortly after her child died which left her partially (or mostly?) blind in one eye. She has been having “symptoms” for a bunch of things but is refusing to go
to the doctor to do anything about it. Because “what if it’s bad news and I have to do it all alone”. She doesn’t. DH and I, and another child and their partner all live in a city ~2 hours from her. She would love for all of us to quit our lives (or put it on hold) and go be with her all the time. She says she wants us to live our lives, but I don’t believe that’s the full truth.
When we were talking about potential cataract surgery in her partially blind eye she said “I may not be able to climb up 3 flights of stairs to other child’s apartment, so can I stay with you?” to which DH quipped “our apartment is about the same height as other child’s apartment” (I LOVE this man, even if he sometimes infuriates me he does put me first because he understands how important it is for me to feel prioritized) and she immediately went “well the doctor may tell me I cannot strain myself” to which DH obviously said yes.
Anyway, now I am DREADING the possibility of her coming to temporarily live with us during her recovery from surgery. I need a lot of alone time/time to decompress from “outsiders” to feel rested/human, and I do not feel comfortable around her for a multitude of reasons, not one of which is she is just soooo weird about cats (and we have two!). Has anyone else been through something similar, and what did you do to get through it? How do I tell DH about this, even though he probably already knows?
Again, I understand that this isn’t the worst case of MIL on here and I am lucky in a lot of aspects but the potential of her living with us for a short period of time is causing me soooo much anxiety 🫠 thanks for reading!
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You recover from cataract surgery in about 24 hours. There are a couple of appointments afterward, the next morning and a few days later. It’s one of the easiest procedures (on patients) that docs do!