I just dont know anymore

r/

Hi friends. It’s a long story (aren’t they all) but I think we have a culmination and I just need some support from others who have been there. My husband and I are in our 40s, my MIL is in her 70s. We’ve been married for 8 years (together also for 8 years lol), I have two boys from my first marriage, 15 and 12 (they live with us) and H and I have a daughter together, 7.

So anyway to summarize, MIL shows signs of being a covert narcissist and she was a single mother to an only child. We were not young young when we got married, and he had been briefly married before, but she never really had to share him. Once we got together and then very quickly got pregnant and married, she just started being really nasty to me, but only when he wasn’t around. I posted here before that when our daughter was born she made a remark that the baby didn’t look like him and maybe wasn’t his (she’s his and they’re like identical now). She would also talk to him about me all the time about how mean I was to her. I wasn’t overly loving to her (obviously?) but it is not in my nature to be unkind to people.

Now to get to the point. In April of this year she entered my house (it was unlocked we’re stupid) while no one was home and left stuff there. My husband told her to please not do that again and she lost it on him. She eventually kind of apologized to him but never said a word to me about crossing my boundaries etc. She did say a lot to him about how he’s so mean and he kills her spontaneity. So anyway they kind of worked it out between themselves, but I had told him she had to talk to me about this incident before she was allowed back to see the kids- my daughter really, she dgaf about the other two. A couple weeks ago she texted me and said sorry she made me upset but that she had a lot of feelings and wasn’t ready to talk yet. I said ok that’s not an apology and I also have feelings, but I’m ready to talk when you are. I felt really good about the response because it was the most straightforward I’ve ever been with her. I showed it to my husband so I wasn’t hiding anything.

She was ready last night so we called her. I thought we were going to discuss the boundary of not entering our home without telling us- she apparently thought we were having a conversation in which she got to list everything I’ve ever done wrong including a time I was apparently rude in literally January 2018, and I was much warmer to my own family than to her at my daughter’s first birthday party in 2019. And it went on from there. She did bring up a few times my husband has been rude to her also. Then she said she’s taking a step away from our family to protect her own peace. And obviously that’s fine please do that. She then said that she would be willing to see my daughter with my husband at her house. And I said absolutely not, you don’t get to have a relationship with my kid while you get to just attack me like this.

Y’all I just don’t know. I feel so beaten down. My husband participated in the conversation but I don’t feel he sufficiently defended me (that he let this go on at all is really saddening imo). I did talk to him about it today and he apologized and did say he will tell me when she inevitably reaches out. But I feel sad for my daughter and I don’t know how to explain it to her without her thinking it’s her fault or questioning everything. I feel SO bad for my husband because this is all he’s ever known and he has no other family (except us! we’re good!) and he’s so family oriented.

But at the same time I’m so mad and I don’t see a way forward for my husband and I- like how do I let this go? There’s nothing he can do now to fix that behavior and I don’t know how to trust that it won’t happen again. She lives in my town- she moved here on purpose. Obviously I’m all over the place and have left out like 7 years of BS.

My thought on her is that it’s not about me, it’s about him having a partner and she wants to put a wedge between us, but idk it just feels like it’s working. I’m just so upset today, I can’t sleep, I can’t eat and I’m at work right now doing this soooo. Idk help what do I do why are people the worst

Comments

  1. botinlaw Avatar

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