My husband has acknowledged in couples counseling that his mother has been extremely toxic toward me and our children. He agreed that, going forward, the kids and I will remain no contact with her. However, he still wants to maintain what he calls a ‘surface-level’ relationship with her for his own peace of mind. He’s promised not to discuss me or the children with her and to fully respect our no-contact boundary. I’m wondering if anyone has had a similar arrangement where one partner stays in limited contact with a toxic family member while the other partner (and kids) go no contact and if it worked without negatively affecting your marriage?
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I offered this to my husband and then when he acted on it, I realized it didn’t work for me, I’m uncomfortable at the idea. I believe he may have something with his brother and I’m not comfortable but my marriage is already in shambles. Â
HOWEVER I have sent this work with people who are actually able to hold strong boundaries and I have also seen this create more issues because the inlaws plant seeds. At the end of the day, it’s a step some people need to take in order to feel like they’ve done all they could. Â
It works for us. Me and the kids went nc with toxic JNMIL in March 2022. Still nc.
At first my husband kept a cordial relationship with his parents. But his mother was pissed and was retaliating on him. She would give him the cold shoulder, passive aggressiveness and attitude. Lots of nagging.
She would invite him over about once in a couple of months and treated him very distant, ignorant and kept saying that I’m not right, that I need to respect her cause she birthed and raised my husband blah blah blah. Denied all the bs that she did and said, to me and behind my back, her mistreatment, that led to nc.
He stood up for me and told her to stop talking about his wife to him and anybody else. He doesn’t wanna hear it. And the drama queen didn’t like that for sure.
She would avoid eye contact with him, barely spoke to him. Just showed him that she’s unhappy. FIL even though he didn’t have any conflict with us, was siding with MIL and started mistreating my husband as well. This led to hubby getting tired of this treatment and he went nc as well, eventually. So they sabotaged their relationship with their son.
I still refuse to break the nc. And until then, as my husband said, they’ll treat him like 💩, so he chooses to stay nc also.
Going nc with toxic IL’s , has been a good change in our marriage . We’re living our life with our kids. Drama free, jealousy free. It all stayed behind with MIL.
And hubby doesn’t have any resentment towards me, because he did keep his ties with his parents but they f it up. I was out of the picture at that time . We’ve been happier that ever tbh. So it was an eye opener for both of us, that we’re better of without toxic IL’s.
They did try to reconcile a few times, then threw fits, tried manipulating with health, fake cancer diagnosis, inheritance, flying monkeys, playing victim. You name it. My husband ignored it all. I admire his patience and resilience.
Eventually IL’s accepted that we just don’t want a relationship with them and stopped.
I tell my husband that if he wants a relationship with them, it’s his business. He needs to do as he feels like. As of me, I’m not giving this woman any more chances and I’m not trusting her ever again.
I gave his mother chances after chances and all she did was F it up with her jealousy, her endless attempts to draw an edge between her son and me and paint me as a horrible person, behind my back, never cared about her grandson, never helped when she was needed.
She wanted this herself.
The only reason she changed her mind and wanted to be part of our lives, was the birth of our daughter. She wanted access to her. While she couldn’t care less about our son, her grandson for 8 years before sister was born. She would openly play favourites with our kids, invaded with her visits and unwanted advice, telling me what to do and everything I do is wrong, going behind my back and trying to complain to my husband, that I disrespected her by not taking her unsolicited advice. So she went toxic level 1000, after baby girl was born. This was her last chance and she blew it.