I felt I had to write something to process my feelings. I have a lot of anger towards my MIL and it gets in the way of getting on with my life. She hasn’t even done anything bad this last week but there’s so many little annoying things she’s done in the last 10 years I just can’t stand her anymore. My partner said she was considering moving closer one day which is maybe why she’s on my mind more today. I joked “she can live where she likes, but so can I”.
The context is she is extremely enmeshed with my partner which has caused a lot of anxiety and depression. Never giving them independence. And nowadays she just gets involved in any exciting aspects of our life and sours them, crossing boundaries and interfering. If we’re making any significant decision she’ll get in there first and do the research for us, in the past she’s even booked hotels for our holidays without asking us first (we’re 30yo). We try to not share info but sometimes it’s unavoidable and she manipulates with crying or moods.
In theory my partner recognizes the issues and wants her to stop. But in practice they can’t stand up for my boundaries, although there’s been a lot of progress. I’m just terrified that one day we’ll have kids and it will unleash all the worst in my MIL, like all the posts on this sub. In general her actions are just annoying, not dangerous, but when a child’s involved I’m worried she’ll give them anxiety like she did her own children. Giving me battles for the rest of her life.
I feel like the wound has been reopened so many times that I’m losing perspective on the scale of issues, and can’t just enjoy the other 90% of my life that she has no control over.
Any thoughts welcome.
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I really get this, her name alone coming up on my phone would be enough to fill me with dread. And then I’d dread tomorrows phone call. It was no way to live. She had something to say about everything we did ,wanted to or planned to do, she’s a very paranoid person and not very confident she sees the danger in everything and I started getting sick to death of her projecting this onto me. Final straw was when she would list ways my children (from previous relationship ) could potentially die in different scenarios. I knew I was done at that point and had nothing in common with this weird woman. But my partner saw nothing wrong with he’s mothers strange deranged comments. It’s caused problems in our relationship. Needless to say I’ve been putting off kids with current partner because of her I can only imagine how self righteous and entitled she’d feel to that child. The last 6 months I’ve gone no contact. And my life’s been retuning to peace I believe she could cause some real emotional damage. At least you can talk to you other half about it mine acts totally oblivious to it all. I believe these mils know what they’re doing they know what they’re causing but just too ignorant to stop.