Any of you decided on no contact for yourself and your children (against your husband’s comfort level) and having weird moments of grief and asking yourself how the future will play out with JNMIL and ILs? Remembering the “good times”?
I just turned 40 and my husband and I have been together since 21 years old. We live across the country from MY support system and 10 minutes from his mother, father and 2 adult siblings (all of whom live together).
I’d say the last 11-12 years of the 18 years we’ve been together have been miserable because his mom flipped an absolute switch the second I got pregnant and married him. I WISH I had seen it coming. In a nutshell, I figured it out.. I’m not crazy.. it’s not me.. I’ve been kind, polite, forgiven again and again with no apology.. I’m not imagining the competition, passive aggressive nature, the fact they want my kids and husband and to push me out.. and that at the root of this is ENMESHMENT… VERY toxic and dysfunctional but it is SOOOO subtle and disguised as love it even took ME years to see that was what was going on.. it goes so much further than a JNMIL being just a little difficult.
At the root of enmeshment is typically .. from what I’ve seen.. a very unhealed, emotionally/mentally unhealthy person bullying and controlling the family and setting the tone for the dysfunction. It’s hard to point out in many instances as this person is (in my case) VERY COVERT.. religious.. acts vulnerable.. and has conditioned and brainwashed everyone for decades to believe being “close” and “helping” is what family is about while she domineers, controls, interferes and throws tantrums.
Marriage therapy has gone on for years and it absolutely did help my husband halfway but I now realize the reason these men regress in many cases is because of a few things.. they’re freeze/fawn .. not fight or flight like so many of us.. and a LOT of childhood trauma.. abandonment issues in his case (immigrated from Latin America)..but I feel our therapist never called out the enmeshment because she likely saw he was the type who was too deep in the fog and would resist but I truly feel that did us a disservice and I’m starting to wonder if it is due to projection.. as her own family system seems to be a bit enmeshed..
Either way.. he did improve but these men regress because they have actual trauma in their body they never process.. enmeshment is emotional abuse and emotional incest and it’s a form of ongoing trauma that makes men second guess themselves and stay in this state of hypervigilance to make sure the bully matriarch isn’t upset with them or going to take away their love and approval.. It is a literal form of MILD/subtle/ongoing CPTSD/PTSD when they are in the same environment as the abuser/enablers.. hence why they seem like different people or peoples’ marriages work when they”get away” aka move. I couldn’t understand this but ANY time his mom/dad would travel to Latin America for a month or two or we would be away from them for traveling or during COVID.. it’s like he start to very slowly become the man he needed to be.. I wasn’t the bad guy.. he sort of had these moments he woke up and said he’s sorry for not prioritizing me and felt our marriage improved without contact with his parents/mine (COVID isolation was a blessing in disguise lol).. but as soon as we start getting around his family again.. we slip within months back into the pits of chaos, conflict, constant stress/bickering.
I just wonder when he’s going to realize it’s his mom but I’m starting to think it’s unlikely unless we move (goal now to do that and get out of here anyway) it will be hard to impossible to have that clarity when his nervous system is in the state it is now.. I don’t even think he realizes it as most men don’t.. and when it is in low grade PTSD that means it does interfere with the parts of their brain that have logic… etc. because it’s being hijacked by this low grade PTSD.. I can’t believe it took me so long to see.
Anyway, we had a trauma this past year and I have never seen this man regress so hard to almost an abused boy. He looks normal to everyone else but his mom really zero-d into his weaknesses and is pushing this disgusting and sneaky enmeshment dynamic. Long story short, I’m applying for jobs way out of here and I decided to get down to VLC (dinner once every 4-5 weeks MAX– big difference between twice weekly or more) with his shitty family and I recently said in marriage therapy I’ll be pausing ALL dinners until he can send a group text to let his family know I’m his wife/the mother of his kids and we love and respect each other .. and basically just a GENERAL message to set the tone we are a united front.. as we HAD been before this trauma.. and we had worked SO hArd in marriage therapy for that. Essentially this means NC..
And my only goal once we move is to eventually get to NC.. Moving will easily get us to the point of just seeing them once per year.. if they do something overt again.. I’m going full NC with my kids..
I’m already halfway there.. I NO longer message with them.. text.. zero group text.. zero updates from me.. I don’t plan and set up everyone’s birthdays or holidays.. I FELL BACK ENTIRELY.. like ENTIRELY.. I do not at ALL talk to them outside of a group invite to dinner once a month at most.. I am finally just DONE with the passive aggressive treatment and knowing that in our most vulnerable moment their masks entirely dropped.. they showed me during an emergency they are willing to gang up on me, take advantage of my husband’s neuropsych vulnerabilities and I got to see through the smiles and progress I thought we’d all made.
I’m just done. My JNMIL is 64… she’s insecure, jealous, competitive, rude, nasty and very very very manipulative and no amount of reassuring and kindness from me has ever changed that.. EVERYONE can see it except my husband and apparently his family.
My kids are ages 6-11 and all 3 of them don’t care to see his family but NEVER told my husband.I told them to just be respectful and neutral.. I don’t want them to give my JNMIL more of a reason to debate, deflect, etc. What makes VLC/NC easier is that my kids.. in over a year since I started to do VLC.. have not once said they miss his family or asked to go see them. I think they range from indifferent to disliking them (my older ones definitely)..
But here’s where I struggle .. not a ton because the increase of peace is SO worth it and I can only imagine how amazing full NC can be.. do you struggle because you think of the other.. say 90% of the time they weren’t being totally awful and there were even some good times before you kind of woke up and smelled the coffee?
Do you often wonder.. how will life look like as people pass away.. funerals.. (like will we attend or not etc?).. what do you do for graduations as your kids don’t care for these people.. what about when your kids are 18 and these people start sending lots of money and trying to manipulate them into contact? (They’re not loaded but I’ve been noticing them using cash as a sort of treat to reel them in and get affection etc.).. My kids will have cell phones then but don’t want his family to have the number.. and honestly I’m glad.. because I know with 4 in laws soooo enmeshed and texting on them/working on them it’s a LOT and make you question your reality and intuition when they are “so nice”.. but how do you even tell the in laws that?
I did NOT make this decision swiftly to finally go VLC and work toward NC (and you better believe my husband who has been trained to appease “Mami” or he feels shame or guilt.. is NOT happy my VLC/NC includes the kids..).. These people got to take my kids and do as they pleased .. could barely respect me or be kind.. and I always found it stressful even in our “better times”.. I felt suffocated and like there was no room for us or my mental health to flourish
But I think to myself.. what about the future? When my kids are 18?
It was once they were 10 and my son started mentioning things that he felt they weren’t kind to me and didn’t like me and my other two kids picked up on stuff.. small stuff but it let me know I’m not crazy if my own young kids were picking up on the covert behaviors that most adults have a hard time identifying.
What do we do for their graduation? Weddings? When they’re 18 and don’t want all the in laws to have their numbers? They don’t like them or want to see them and my husband has no idea.. and I want to protect them and be their biggest advocate and I won’t tell my husband this because as good of a man as he is he needs loads of enmeshment therapy to ensure he can hear his kids out bc unfortunately I feel due to his kind nature he was also brainwashed by a bully mom to defend her toxicity at all costs and to smooth things over or even coerce to e kids into loving “Abuelitos” and I just find it sick and like it screws kids up.. and I love my husband but his parents are the cause of a ton of trauma and issues he has had that have never been processed and I don’t want that generationally passing onto my kids
I know for sure my in laws will be the type to try to contact my kids.. subtly send them old pics of them together as little babies.. to guilt them “sweetly “ and buy their love with money and stuff and I don’t know how I can even get in front of this .. have any of you considered what NC becomes
For the long term future ?
I wish so much I hadn’t had kids into this family ..
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My kids were 11 and 13 when we all went NC. They are now early 20’s. They heard the huge fight that led to NC and every. single. nasty thing said to us when MIL’s mask finally came off for good.
We are estranged from DH’s entire family. When we went NC with MIL, they all picked a side – hers. There are a couple cousins we wouldn’t mind seeing, but not enough to reach out. We are not invited to any family events on that side and if we were, we wouldn’t go.
IL’s tried for about 2 years sending gifts/letters to my kids. I intercepted them every time and asked the kids if they wanted to see the card Grandma sent (didn’t tell them about the gift). Never cashed any checks she sent. When my oldest turned 16 she sent a letter saying “now that you can drive you can come out to see me” as if lack of transportation was the reason my kids didn’t see her. My kids have never responded to them.
Once they are teenagers, especially once they can drive, there is really nothing you can do to keep your kids NC from IL’s. But they will also be old enough to see through the BS. After they were about 16, I have always made my kids’ choice if they wanted to contact them, but I would not be involved at all. I think this is important bc then kids aren’t rebelling against me by contacting IL’s.
Basically, my kids only have my family. For graduations, IL’s not invited. My kids aren’t married, so no weddings yet but I assume IL’s wont be invited. IL’s know nothing about us – heck my oldest had an organ transplant and we didn’t even tell them. We were called when my FIL died, DH let it go to vmail and we never responded. I’m sure we won’t be called when MIL dies.
My kids are over 18 and can resume contact if they wish. They want nothing to do with IL’s.
You deserve a freaking award for sticking it out with him this long! I know there’s deep rooted trauma that causes these grown men to allow their mommy’s to create this chaos in our marriages but our husbands’ are still ultimately responsible. Have you asked him how much more he expects you to take from HIS family till you eventually just leave? Better NC than divorce. Even if you have had some good times with them, it doesn’t negate all the damage and bad times they’ve caused you and now your kids. When other adults’ negative behavior starts to bleed onto my kids, they should no longer have access to them.
Have you considered doing family therapy where the kids will have a safe place to get their feelings out in front of your husband? I think it’s one thing for us to point out our partner’s family toxicity but for our kids’
to recognize and vocalize how it makes them feel would be heartbreaking. Maybe it will the wake up call he needs. I’d also suggest finding a new therapist that is willing to point out the enmeshment that is still going on with him and his family.
As far as future events go, I think these are things y’all’s should talk about in therapy. I watched my mom struggle as a DIL and how passive aggressive my dad’s mom was towards her that it made me dislike her immensely. She took it for so long and because of that I was never close to her again after about the age of 14. All you can do is sit down with each kid as they get older and tell them that they never have to allow anyone to be a part of their lives if they don’t want.
Distance definitely helps. It helped save me and my husband’s marriage after we moved 10.5 hours away from his family 3 years ago. Before we moved my husband knew we essentially had an expiration date on our marriage because I refused to let his family’s dysfunction continue to ruin our lives. Your husband is actively choosing to keep you and y’all’s children in his dysfunction. Where’s his accountability? Has he not considered that by allowing his family to stay in y’all’s lives that he is exposing y’all’s babies to the same toxicity that he was raised in?
I was forced to have a relationship with grandparents who hated my mom. Don’t do this to your kids. The bad vibes were no fun to be around.
Protect them.
Once they’re 18, it’s frankly none of your business what kind of relationship they choose to have or not have with them. They will be adults by then, their decision, stay out of it.
I was ready to cut off contact for me without him but kept delaying. Eventually she took care of that herself the day she attacked me in front of our five year old and her own son had to drag her off of me…..don’t wait until it gets to that point I should have trusted my gut sooner and my sons wouldn’t have had to witness something so heinous