Sorry for the long rant**
I 28(f) and my husband 28(m) live with his mother due to her needing help with bills to maintain and keep the family house( been in the family for generations) we have three kids 9(m) 5(m) and almost 1(f). The oldest two are from a previous relationship. My MIL is absolutely hard to live with, let’s start off with the fact she doesn’t do anything around the house, she leaves it up to husband and myself. She doesn’t sweep/mop any of the main areas, doesn’t take out trash or recycling and doesn’t do this dishes except for on the weekends. She works a part time job, husband works a full time job and I work part time while going to school full time and taking care of the kids/ house.
She’s able bodied so she could do these things, she just thinks we need to do them instead. She’s also a recovering alcoholic and believes she’s better than everyone because of it. Husband and I have occasional drinks once maybe twice a week, nothing to get super drunk. Whenever husband has a drink she constantly blames everything on his drinking and always has to bring up the fact she’s sober.
She also has an issue with trying to parent our children, even before we get the chance to. If they are acting out/ not listening she jumps right in even if we’re right there and tries to tell them what to do before giving us the chance to correct the situation. She also doesn’t listen to us as far as rules/ things were uncomfortable with. For example whenever my husband says he doesn’t want her to do something with the baby because it makes him uncomfortable( like holding her a certain way) she tells him he’s overreacting and she did it when her kids were little.
We’ve tried telling her they are our kids and we are allowed to set boundaries/ rules. Another example is we’ve told her our daughter is not to be up on beds because she’s quick with the crawling and even if you think you can get her in time it’s dangerous. She had our daughter on her bed and my husband was standing in the doorway, baby got a little to close to the edge for my husband’s comfort so he held out his hands and slightly lunged forward to catch baby just in case. MIL flipped out and started yelling at him about how “she’s fine and you don’t need to constantly worry she’s a baby and she’s going to get hurt”
Another example is she had placed daughter in her playpen in the living room, it’s a big one where baby can crawl around and play with toys. There was a piece of play money that had made it’s way into her area, instead of taking it out MIL left it in. When my husband noticed it was when our daughter started choking/gagging. He was able to remove the paper from her mouth and asked why it was in there. I said it probably dropped in when the boys were playing out here a minute ago, MIL chimed in and said no it was already in there I just didn’t remove it. We told her it was a choking hazard and her response was babies stick everything in their mouths, yes they do, that’s why we make sure it’s nothing she can choke on. Like WTF?
She then talks crap about my husband to our daughter like ” Daddy’s overprotective, he needs to calm down” and things like that. She’s also been caught saying weird things to my daughter, like calling her “My baby” mentioning they could have matching outfits and even admitted to me she “accidentally” told me daughter to ” come to Mommy” when she was on the floor crawling to MIL.
We can’t move because we’re helping her with bills while continuing to pay our bills, but she’s constantly throwing the living situation in our face, saying we can move out, but if we move out and take our daughter away from her she won’t leave my husband the house in her will. Or how she’ll go after us for grandparent rights. It’s a down right toxic situation and I’m at my wits end. I’m not sure what to do, husband and I have a very good relationship and this hasn’t put a strain on our relationship at all but I can tell it’s driving him crazy and he’s losing that spark in himself that makes him, him.
Has anyone else dealt with this before to some extent? Have any advice? If you need more context please let me know and I’ll do my best to give more/explain.
Thanks for reading!
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I would say call her on her bluff. I know you say you cant, but you actually CAN stop paying her bills and move out. Withdraw support from her and watch how quickly she falls in line.
Is a house really worth putting up with her toxicity? She may live to 90, which if she is still working, could be another 30 years. Your kids will be grown and gone and will probably blame you for having to deal with her their whole lives. If it were me, I would move. Life is too short and she sounds perverse enough to trap you until she dies and then leave the house to anyone but your husband.
Is there any way you can move? MIL needs to figure it out because under zero circumstances should you have to put up with such nonsense just to keep her house. We have issues now with my MIL but even if we didn’t, I’d never live with her, and I’m sure my husband feels the same about living with my parents. It’s just way too much of an invasion of privacy and the lack of boundaries would drive me insane.
The whole parenting your child for you is never going to change. They say they’ll stop, but they don’t. I hosted a family member at my house who basically tried taking over my parenting role for me cause she didn’t like the (age appropriate) things my 4 year old was doing. Multiple occasions I’ve told her that “I got it” and “I’ll handle my own child” but she doesn’t listen. The only resolutions to wait until she left my house.