I treated my MIL better than her sons did. I was her friend, listened to her, helped her, and showered her with gifts and girlie outings etc..
But she would always mock me, comment about my body, skin, hair, laugh at me. She gave absolutely no space to me and my husband and we had to steal away a few private moments. She was so possessive about the gifts we got in our wedding and was arguing that some were given to her!! She was controlling and would monitor and micro manage what I’m buying and how much it costs even though it’s my salary! I helped my husband pay off his family’s debts and educate his brother and take care of the house as were the only 2 who worked. She’s treated my husband, her elder son like an ATM and demands money and demeans him when he started putting boundaries and asking her to ask the younger son.
I was too young to realise what she was doing to me but I’ve gone absolutely no contact with her and my husband is healing from the difficulties his mom put him through and the pain of conditional love, parentified, used him as a crutch instead of sorting issues out with her husband and bad mouthing his dad to him because of their issues.. My husband completely missed a relationship with his Dad and dad’s passed away now.
Some MILs can be so so horrible!
In-laws are a rising reason for divorce and a young couple deserve their chance. It’s interesting that some MILs put themselves above their sons peace and chance at love and secretly want things to fail – just insecure, jealous, lonely and have no real friends or life of their own. It’s really sad.
She’s out of my life and my husband supports and understands the struggles I’ve been through. She keeps guilting me that I never call her so my husband tried to tell me to talk to her – I’ve become so strong now with my boundaries and I found myself saying – can you protect me from the guilt trip she’ll do on the call? If you can speak to her beforehand and inform her not to do that and be respectful to me then I’m happy to speak.. if you’re asking me to put myself in an unsafe situation, how can you make it safe for me please? Even the best husbands have massive blind spots when if comes to their mom’s!
I stand up for my husband always and never let my Dad manipulate him or use him like an emotional punchbag. I’m used to it as I don’t tolerate that behaviour and have practice speaking up.
However my husband has always only spoken up against his Dad and never to his mom! Poor guy I don’t know how he was punished when he was young for speaking up to her and it’s now presumably turned into fear but he’s been doing really really well and I’m proud of him but I’m always going to defend myself first after years of unnecessary hurt.
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I know your pain! I spent 9 years trying to befriend my MIL and she would constantly complain about me to my husband. Every kindness I showed her she tried to flip and make it seem like SHE was doing ME a favor.
I’ve been NC since mid- July last year. She has refused to leave me alone. She has had SIL spy on me and kept sending cards. My husband fears her reactions to boundaries, so he was accepting gifts from her to me after I made it clear to literally everyone that I wanted nothing to do with her.
I found my way to reading books on boundaries and had my husband read one. It didn’t help him. I stumbled upon covert narcissism and that really resonated with my experience with my MIL. Even if yours isn’t a narcissist, she sounds like she has high narcissistic traits: a lack of empathy, high need for control, strong sense of entitlement, no accountability.
Look up Dr.Ramani on YouTube for her content about vulnerable or covert narcissists.
I tried to DIY my mental health healing and marriage issues, but my husband freaked out on me on mothers day because I didn’t let him accept a card from his mom for me. I’m pregnant with our second and he yelled at me in front of our son. He was mad my boundaries are too inflexible and that he was forced to actually stand up to his mom.
She sent a photo of the card anyway to be like, “look, it’s an innocent card. I’m making an effort and your wife is just causing issues.” So I signed us up for couples counseling.
We had our first session yesterday and the counselor told my husband EVERYTHING I had been saying about his mom. She pointed out the emotional abuse and blackmail, inappropriate attempts to control our lives, and his trauma response to her dysregulation. She told him why boundaries were necessary and how he needs to support the family he decided to create. I’ve been trying to get him to understand for over a year and hopefully he can hear it louder from someone else unbias.
Get therapy if you can. Your MIL has had time to do so much damage to both of you. Her trying to get to you through him is divisive and manipulative