Back again with another episode of the shit show. This is a long one, sorry in advance and thank you if you read the whole thing.
Quick backstory – was super close with MIL for years until I got pregnant, then the true colors came out with the baby rabies, boundary stomping, and manipulation. LO is now 2 and it’s only gotten worse.
A few months ago around march I had a conversation with MIL. Aired everything out. It wasn’t a great conversation but it cleared the air enough to start to move forward with some boundaries instead of tension and animosity. Then very suddenly a close relative had a major medical episode and that took precedent over any drama. I put my feelings on the shelf to support DH and his family through this time. I feel like MIL took full advantage of that and completely started boundary stomping again. This ended up leading to insane blow-up fights with DH (her, not me) because DH called her on her bullshit.
After talking it through with DH, I have been no contact directly with her, and cordial at best if we are in the same room. He is completely fine with this and respects my boundary there. This was never explicitly stated to MIL, but she wasn’t really trying to contact me anyway and I almost never saw her due to situation with the family member who has been in the hospital still. She often cried as the victim to DH when he would visit solo that she doesn’t understand why I hate her or why I don’t talk to her. DH spoke to me about this and I said I would be willing to have a conversation to firmly state my boundaries, but it’s not going to go the way she wants it to. DH said he completely understood and was fine with that if I wanted to speak to her, but he would never ask me to do something I didn’t want to do.
MIL ended up calling me. I didn’t answer. Thought about what I wanted to say for a couple days, talked to my therapist about it, and then called her back with DH sitting right next to me.
I started by saying I wanted to again clear the air and establish boundaries for moving forward. She started gushing that’s all she wants, so we could go back to the way things were before and be super close again. All I said was “I’m actually not comfortable with that.” And all hell broke loose.
She spent the next 20 minutes screaming crying and mother-effing me. Here are some highlights
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in response to me telling her I felt disrespected she said “YOU feel disrespected?! No I feel disrespected! You didn’t even tell me happy birthday!” Because apparently that is the pinnacle of disrespect. Also, last time I checked MIL was in her 60’s, not turning 5. But whatever.
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she told me how I feel is my fault because I hover around my own son too much and don’t give her any space with him. This was the only time I lost my calm this entire phone call. I snapped back that of course I’m around him, he’s MY fucking son, and I don’t owe her anything, let alone space with MY CHILD.
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she scream-cried that “every single night she cries herself to sleep, just praying to god that I’ll go back to being the old OP, and stop being mean OP”
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she kept screaming at me to tell her what she did even tho I told her I didn’t want to drag her through the mud over every little grievance because I didn’t think that was productive. I finally gave in and used the example of how she tried to talk shit about me to DH when I nicely asked her to let us get settled in and let LO acclimate at a family party because she was immediately in our faces and LO got very upset. She stammered for a while trying to make up an excuse or lie, before settling on it was my fault, and see point # 2.
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There was of course the “apology”. She said she was sorry she just wanted to be a grandma and show love. I told her she’s intentionally convoluting things to be the victim here and she knows it.
The whole thing over the span of 20+ minutes was her just screaming and crying and cussing at me with me barely able to get a word in until she finally hung up on me because she was “too hurt and upset”. I literally barely said anything. She did it to herself.
This was 2 weeks ago. I haven’t spoken to her since and she hasn’t brought it up to DH. I don’t think she knows he was right here and heard the whole thing. He has been very reassuring to me that she was way out of line and that I haven’t done or said anything to slight her in any way. He also hasn’t said anything to his mother or stuck up for me after the way she spoke to me. He keeps saying “I’ll talk to her if you want me to” but like I don’t want to have to ask! You should stick up for me without a request to do so. I finally broke down and expressed how hurt I was by the whole thing. All I wanted to do was say “hey, we are family, DH is the love of my life and for his sake I want to move forward politely. I will see you at holidays and we can be cordial but I am not comfortable having a personal relationship with you beyond that.” She lost her shit on me, berated me for almost half an hour, and hung up on me.
If it were up to me we would be no contact and she wouldn’t have access to my son until she learns to respect me. That’s not an option for DH. We’ve come so far, both polished up our spines, he’s been holding her accountable even when she blows up on him, but in this situation it’s literally me against her and even tho he says he’s completely on my side, nothing is being done about it.
He has said he will talk to her and tell her he heard the whole thing and what she did was not okay. But we’ll see how it goes. Over the last two weeks it has really just festered and made me feel worse and worse.
If you made it this far, thank you. I swear the amazing people in this sub are the only reason I’ve made it this far with my JNMIL lol
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You need to grab your DH by the lips and tell him that his mother and her dynamic with HIS family is HIS DAMNED CONCERN. There IS no “individual conflict”, you are a family unit and it’s his job to manage his mother’s insanity. Get him some therapy if needed.
Kick that woman to the curb and keep her away from your child(ren). Until she learns to behave like a human with a functioning brain, she has no place in your life or the life.
Firstly, I’m so sorry that you are going through this. This woman is crazy! Absolutely NC! If she can’t respect you as the mother of LO and her son’s wife, she doesn’t need to have access to LO.
All of this is 100% a husband problem. You hit the nail on the head when you said that you shouldn’t have to ask for him to say something to her or defend you when she disrespects you. TBH I feel like he’s dabbing on both sides and not really 100% supporting you.
I think you could benefit from some clarifying work for yourself with your therapist or on your own around boundaries. Boundaries are for you—not for the other person—and they come with consequences when they are broken. So, for example, if the boundary is that MIL is not to contact you or that you want to be NC or LC with her then you don’t have to specifically state it to her but you do have to enact a consequence when the boundary is crossed. And part of that needs to include her speaking negatively about you to DH! Your DH needs to set a boundary with his mother that he is not going to listen to his mother bad mouthing his wife.
You are his chosen partner for life. If she cannot respect that and speak about you, to you and be around you in a respectful manner then (consequence incoming) he will not be seeing her until she can find it in herself to be respectful about and around you.
Stated boundary.
Stated consequence.
You have to give the boundary and the consequence. Do this, or this happens. Because otherwise you’re simply expressing a wish for something to be different than it is now. Your MIL has no such wish for it to be different. Without the consequence they have no incentive to do what you’re asking.
It’s like if you lived next to a park, and you built a big fabulous play structure in your backyard with swings and an amazing slide. You put up a fence but left an opening and chose not to put a gate. You’re just hoping the neighborhood kids stay out of your yard but you’re not doing anything to enforce keeping them out. You’re just wishing for them to respect your boundary. If you put up a gate you’re enforcing the boundary by saying keep out. If you want to open the boundary you can do that, it’s not permanent or forever unchanging, it’s flexible—the gate opens!!—but it’s your choice when it opens. If the gate doesn’t work you sometimes have to put barbed wire on the fence, sometimes even add an electric wire to it for some JNMILs!
But so far what you’ve detailed is not setting a boundary it’s more like expressing what you want and then waiting while she disappoints you time and time again.
Your husband has no reason to stick his neck out. His mother is endlessly disrespectful and he is willing to sacrifice you, your child, and the family you’re creating until he’s forced to act.
Couples counseling. He might support you being an individual, but he is not your partner in life on this. He’s choosing to make you responsible for his actionable support of you. He might be the greatest person beyond his mother’s issues, but he is allowing LO to be subjected to her consistently enough that she can cause real harm. Access, even supervised, will give her the opportunity to bribe and undermine parenting so your innocent child sees you and DH as the bad guys. Constantly correcting her in the moment does nothing if she continues her same behavior. She might even comply for a little while and then fall back.
Losing access to LO should be the consequence to constantly crossing boundaries. DH is playing a game with her if he’s not willing to cut contact between her and your child with how she refuses to accept accountability or responsibility for the issues she is causing win your family.
Your husband sucks. He’s avoiding the issues and letting you take all of the heat. His support means nothing if he needs you to tell him what to do.
Why does your DH get final say on whether or not his disrespectful mother continues to have access to your son?
He’s not the one being disrespected so he just sits by with his thumb up his arse being the decision maker on whether or not her behaviour is egregious enough to warrant a time out.
It doesn’t even have to be permanent but this bitch needs consequences. Talking is doing nothing, she knows HER SON will make sure she still gets access, regardless of how she treats you.
He needs to DO something before your resentment moves from her to HIM, which is where it should be.
He’s the one who’s blocking you taking a break from her. He’s riding the fence and says he’s on your side whilst doing absolutely nothing to back that up with action.
Consequences. No visits for 6 months.
Tell him, he either sacks up and handles his circus of a mother or else. Couples therapy so he can be held accountable for not stepping up and doing more.
Make sure to vet the therapist first.
I think that you are wasting your time trying to set any boundaries or trying to get along with your MIL.
Her feelings are not your problem. You are not obligated to have a relationship with her. If your husband wants a relationship with her, he can, that’s up to him but you do not have to put up with her.
And please never sit there and let anyone, especially your MIL scream at you and berate you. That should have lasted 30 seconds, not 20 plus minutes.
Why bother. Seriously, you know she is wrong, DH knows she is wrong, even she “knows” she is wrong. She just doesn’t to admit it.
Him “talking” to her about it will just drag it out. Nothing will get accomplished. So let it go.
However, letting this episode go does not mean forgetting about it. Letting it go does not mean trusting her again. She did not apologize, and even if she did, she wouldn’t mean it. She did not ask for forgiveness. And she has not earned your trust back.
Personally, I would let DH have any kind of relationship he wanted with her. But, child(ren) and I would not be obligated in anyway way to have any contact with her until changes were made.
I would not make any atty to contact her to inform her of needed changes. She is an adult, she knows what is needed. She just doesn’t want to admit it.
Frankly, DH tried to force a reconciliation between the two of you by having you contact her. That should not have happened. She needs to come to terms with how things are and what she is willing to do. Until then, keep your distance.
First up, you should never have been put into the position to deal with her alone on the phone call. That set you up for failure. Your husband should have had the conversation or you both together. Why did he allow her to continue mistreating you for that long? At least, he saw her true colors. There is no reason to consider breaking no contact her. You gain nothing. She wants things the way they were, were she didn’t answer to anyone. She will only continue to mistreat you and boundary stomp.
I’m sorry you went through this. This is the exact reason I’ve decided not to return my JNMIL’s bids for “conversations” about where things went wrong or letters or messages. It’s not productive and she’s made it clear that she’s not interested in changing her behaviour. I kind of feel like once so much of your energy has been sucked by these people, especially in the precious years of early childhood, they don’t deserve much more? But that’s just me.
You can’t win with someone who doesn’t want peace, just to establish you as the outsider ready to destroy her life and her as the wounded grandma “who just wants to love and nothing else” (see how infantile this shit is?).
Your SO knows #1. You can be mad at him for not doing what you think he should do.. or understand he has decades of experience dealing with that toddler he calls his mom.
Again, remember YOU CAN ONLY HAVE PEACE IF BOTH PARTIES WANT IT.
I wouldn’t want to talk to my grandma if she was mean to my mom
If she screamed and cursed at my mom
And I’d she only wanted to be a loving grandma to me but a jerk mother in law and call that normal
You don’t get to hurt my mom then claim her kid
Oh no… between this post and your post history I now not feeling very optimistic about the future of my own situation. I also had a perfectly nice relationship with my MIL before getting pregnant. I at one point talked to her more than my mom mother, hosted his family in my house without him while we were long distance and felt comfortable with them. Since then it is a night & day difference. I am NC. I have a lot of concerns about how my DH will approach reestablishing contact and them having a relationship with our daughter. Is it bad that at some point I think I’ll be okay if it never gets better? She clearly doesn’t respect you, sees no fault in her behavior and is 0% interested in seeing your perspective or actually even letting you speak for yourself. It seems like you see that clearly… maybe a relationship isn’t possible, are you okay with that? So sorry you’ve dealt with this for so long
I think we have the same mil only I don’t have kids yet lol
I looked at some of your past posts and you’ve got a SO problem as much as a mil one. He’s spent his whole life learning not to rock the boat with her. Whether he’s doing it on purpose or not, he’s still putting her feelings above yours and above his own child. She treats LO like her emotional support animal and he happily lets her, as he’s been conditioned to do his whole life to appease her. To be blunt, I would give the ultimatum of therapy or it’s NC for you and LO.
MIL is not your problem. Your problem is that you sign up for her nonsense, and your husband signs up for her nonsense.
“20+ minutes was her just screaming and crying and cussing at me” — when you could just hang up the phone or not be on the phone with her in the first place
“She lost her shit on me, berated me for almost half an hour, and hung up on me.” — when you could just hang up the phone or not be on the phone with her in the first place
And you’re already clear that your husband isn’t doing his job as a husband, so you shouldn’t need that pointed out, but apparently you do, because you keep contradicting yourself: “If it were up to me we would be no contact and she wouldn’t have access to my son until she learns to respect me. That’s not an option for DH. We’ve come so far, both polished up our spines, he’s been holding her accountable even when she blows up on him, but in this situation it’s literally me against her and even tho he says he’s completely on my side, nothing is being done about it.”
So he’s not doing his job and not holding her accountable. I get that you want there to be a universe where he does, but that’s not within your power to create. What is in your power is to decide how to handle the reality that he wants to keep signing up for her nonsense AND force it on your child.
If nothing else, she doesn’t sound emotionally stable enough to be safe around children.
Your MIL sounds like a textbook narcissist. You set boundaries, she threw a tantrum. DH needs to stop mediating and fully back you up. No more enabling.
I would tell DH that until he deals with the emotional abuse that MIL gives you, without being asked, then child isn’t going near MIL without you, and will not be left alone with MIL at all.
If DH has a problem with this then he can sort his mother out
She didn’t want boundaries, she wanted control and when you didn’t hand it over, she threw a tantrum. The real problem now isn’t her, it’s your husband not shutting that down immediately.
Your mil is just noise. Your DH is the problem. He’s giving it lip service but no action to back it up. That lack of action is a problem. The fact that he wants you to ask for him to shut her up means that he wants to be able to make you the bad guy.
I would have DH ask his mom how that last phone call went, without telling her that he heard the whole thing. It would be interesting to hear how she spins it.
20 minutes of screaming? How did you not hang up on her?
“Also, last time I checked MIL was in her 60’s, not turning 5.”
From the sound of it, I beg to differ…
I’m so sorry, OP. I wish you all the best. ☺️🥰🙏❤️
Until DH takes a break from talking to his mom each time she crashes out on you, DH isn’t truly on your side. Sorry 🙁
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My therapist tells me every session: no one will celebrate your boundaries. They would rather you drop them. But my therapist is wrong, because I’m here to say WELL DONE in holding firm!!!!
>she scream-cried that “every single night she cries herself to sleep, just praying to god that I’ll go back to being the old OP, and stop being mean OP”
The old OP had no boundaries. It’s really weird that you stepping back and being cordial has her crying to sleep every night. You aren’t doing anything. It’s like crying every night because you run into a wall… the wall didn’t hurt you, quit running into it.
If DH can’t do anything else, he should do at least that- when she brings up “the old OP”he should be saying the old OP was an unhappy doormat.
Your husband needs to realize that telling her “This was not okay” doesn’t mean anything without consequences. If this is all she gets from him then she’ll continue to misbehave, make up some excuse or non-apology and then keep on disrespecting you. Simply because she can. Even if he doesn’t want to go NC he has to come up with a proper reaction towards her behaviour.