My fiancé and I are getting married later this year. We’ve been together just over 5 years, and he’s both the love of my life and my best friend.
We grew up in very different families. My family was relatively “normal,” married parents, one sibling. He’s an only child, and his parents got divorced when he was very young, partly because his dad is queer.
His mom has had resentment not just towards his dad ever since but towards life. She feels owed and like her life hasn’t gone the way she wants and that it’s not her fault. She also has a bad habit of saying hurtful things one day and “forgetting” about it the next.
Wedding planning has been up and down. She constantly pushes boundaries even though my fiancé is clear and firm with them and I support him, and she’s almost competitive with me? Has said no one will ever really understand what she has with him etc. But I’m just… scared of what the rest of our lives will look like. In no way does it make me question marrying him, but it’s an issue that will never go away.
Best advice on how to handle this moving forward? My fear is things devolving into a low or no contact situation, and as tough as their relationship can be, I know my fiancé doesn’t want that.
TLDR; how do you handle a tough MIL?
Comments
I’m not married but i am dating an only child and one thing we most remember is that his mom/dad is going to be in our life’s so matter what and maybe even try to live with us. It’s best to ignore her as she’s bitter with life, she might just feel like this is the only “man” she has a grasp of. Maybe try introducing her to men or even friends! My mom is a narcissistic lady and getting her friends and a boyfriend calmed her down A LOT.
My husband is an only child also, and his mother got worse the more years we were together.
My husband does grey rocking when she does something he disagrees with. Recently, she asked him why I didn’t like her even though I’d told her myself several times, but she couldn’t even look at her behavior. He wrote an extended, thought-provoking response, saying she’d acted unwelcomely towards me since our wedding day. Going through my wedding pictures, she had this sneering look and bossed my family around. I thought this is a one off and things will get better, boy was I wrong.
My husband said she saw her son getting married to a single mom of two on welfare so she was trying to be open minded. I reminded him I’m now a graduate student and received a trust fund later in life. If he were to leave me tomorrow, Im at a place in my life to probably marry above him! I stayed faithful to him and I’ve been a good wife but every year she seems angry our marriage is lasting. Marrying me is probably the only rebellious act my husband has done
She said she was sorry, but then she followed it up with your wife, who has said things, too. He told me he’s not responding at all because she’s just trying to keep the drama going. I see it as her redirecting the focus off of herself and trying to put it back on me when she’s the one acting horrible, which I find highly manipulating, lacking accountability and immature. But she is extremely immature for a 70-year-old.
I don’t have advice honestly. Ignoring seems to be working though. We live states away so contact is limited. She gives a great example of what not to be as a MIL
First, acknowledge what you can and cannot control in the situation. Specifically, you cannot control a MIL’s actions, nor can you control how she will react in any given situation. All you can do is set boundaries and enforce those boundaries, hopefully in collaboration with your spouse. It sounds like this woman is a bit of a boundary pusher, and likely she will do so in small ways that make you feel like the bad guy for calling out. That’s why it’s so very important to have that full communication with your spouse and to clearly demarcate what you’re willing to tolerate and what you’re not, and to stand up for yourself regardless of if the transgression is “small” or “large.”
Personally, I take the “everybody gets one” approach. Sometimes, your MIL might do something that you hadn’t even thought to guard against. I’ll tell her, “Hey, this thing you did made me feel uncomfortable. I know that was not your intention, but now that you know, could you please not do it again?” No anger, no upset, just calm and firm. It is likely that she will try to argue you out of being uncomfortable about it, at which point I hit her with “We all have things that make us uncomfortable, and it doesn’t matter that this sort of thing doesn’t bother you. It does me, and I need you to respect that.” Having a partner who stands with you in this is crucial!
The thing is, you cannot control whether setting these boundaries will lead to a low or no contact situation or not. And if you cater to your MIL to prevent that, you’ve given her a powerful tool to always get what she wants. Low and no contact situations do not have to be forever, and it might take a period of time for her to understand that you’re serious about your boundaries being respected.