It’s a Christmas Miracle! From deaths door to lookin’ for love

MIL has a very very long history of manipulation and abuse, but my husband has gone very very low contact with her, to the point that she’s possibly, maybe, realized that she screwed up and it’s super cereal!

Partner has been through a lot with her, in her eyes he was supposed to be her retirement plan, her caretaker, her doormat, her wallet, her pseudo partner. So, of course, when I entered the picture and she realized that he was serious about me, I became a vexing obstacle to her sweet, sweet golden years plan.

She’s a Disney princess (aka animal hoarder who chose pets over her kids every time, husband has a hard time enjoying any pet now) and an honorary Native American (she’s so white she glows in the dark, but she picked out husband and sibling’s spirit animals for them.)

Husband was very well aware of her shenanigans but he didn’t want her to become homeless and die in a cardboard box at the time. She has made an artform out of her weaponized incompetence. Every time that he left home and tried to go live his life, her health suddenly took a turn for the worse— but she miraculously recovered from cancer using herbal remedies once he was living with her and taking care of her again.

There are so many things that she’s tried to get him to come back to her, but she’s gotten more and more nasty, the mask has slipped and he’s done. He’s got physical and psychological scars and years of intensive therapy due to his mother’s brand of ‘love,’ she’s been trying to keep him emotionally and inappropriately enmeshed with herself.

She went from being an empath who was ‘sensing’ strife and turmoil in our relationship (wishful daydream on her part) to telling husband that she didn’t know what she did to make me not like her. Then she started saying that because I had a terrible home life, I was trying to wreck her—I mean, his life. I will never forget or forgive her for writing a series of emails (that she thought husband would hide from me) wherein she said ‘just because no-one loves her doesn’t mean that you’re allowed to have boundaries with your poor mother.’

She’s also told him in emails (during a sweet, but sadly brief, time that she moved across the US, she thought that hubby would miss his momma and come running back to be with her) that because my husband refused to get on a plane to come back to her, she was thinking of finding a man to ‘date.’

The way my eyes widened when I read the email in which she said that she was thinking of finding a man to date her— because she needed work done around the house, repairs, and car maintenance. She used to do things with her ex-husband, husband’s dad, so that he’d keep taking care of her. She was not happy when ex-husband started dating again and didn’t want to financially support her anymore. (Hmm, could there be a pattern? Maybe I’m reaching…)

We were very low contact already with her when she decided she wanted another dog (already had more than one, but knew how pissed off she’d make my husband and his sibling who still lives with her) so she came up with this genius plan to manipulate husband into ‘okaying’ her having another dog— and destroy our relationship as the icing on top.

I don’t want to get into the details, but the puppy was placed with a wonderful adoption agency and I made sure to alert them that MIL was an animal abuser who’d likely come looking for ‘her’ dog. I’m told that the sweet little thing was adopted ASAP, and it was a huge relief that it was safely away from crazy MIL.

Ever since then, husband has been doner even more so than done, and as usual MIL thought that she’d be able to say she’s sorry (until the next attempt to do some shenanigans because she needs any and all attention, no matter how negative.) She’s tried a bunch of tactics, love bombing him with gifts, with money (actually his inheritance, but it was so generous of her!) and the ultimate guilt trip aka ‘I’m dying… again.’

Just last week she managed to corner him in public at his job (it’s a store open to the public unfortunately and she shops there) where she gave him an ominous ‘we really need to talk about some things’ aka ‘I’m dying extra hard right now and I want your emotional labor, your money and your time, I’m your mother and you can’t say no!’

Husband came home and told me about this— and I just simply told him that he is under absolutely no obligation to go have a heart to heart with her. Ever. He knows this, he doesn’t want to have anything to do with her outside of seeing her for an hour or two for his brother’s sake for brother’s birthday (I haven’t seen it spoken to her since Christmas, I’ve lost all patience with her and she can’t help herself with the jabs, so we’re agreed that I don’t have deal with her if I don’t want to. I don’t give a damn if that makes her think that she’s ‘won’ somehow, husband’s spine is so shiny you’d need shades to look at him.)

So, today, husband’s brother mentions to him that their mother is going to start ‘dating’ again. This is the fastest turn around from being on deaths door just a week ago that I’ve seen. If only we could bottle such vitality, but alas…

I am equally hopeful that MIL has finally gotten the clue that husband will not be her source of end of life care, and equally pitying any man she sets her sights on to ‘date.’ When I voiced my concern that she’d start up the whole ‘let’s play happy family’ thing again to put on a good front for her dates, husband told me that he was very vocal about his displeasure in the past about the men that MIL ‘dated,’ so it’s not like she’s not aware that husband will have nothing to do with this stuff.

That being said, she’ll either try to guilt some poor dude into her end of life care or she’ll come back if/when she can’t emotionally manipulate a man into this circus.

…This was a lot longer than I meant to write, if you’ve read this novel of a post I both appreciate it and am sorry that it’s so damn long! I don’t need any advice really, I’ve come from a very broken family myself and been in intensive therapy for a long time, but dear lord I’m tired.