UPDATE “MIL trying to get us to perform insurance fraud”

Quick recap – our apartment building burned down due to a neighbors unit catching fire. MIL had her boyfriend, who is an agent for the same company we have our renters policy for, go behind out backs and file her own receipts into our renters policy for reimbursement after the agent already said no.

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SO went to MIL’s house today to drop off some plastic containers that we borrowed for the move. I asked him to please squash any conversation that she might start about the receipts that she wants us to add to our renters insurance claim (our claim is still marked as fraud and still locked for anyone except the adjuster). Unfortunately I was not surprised when SO came home and he was telling me that ‘she as starting to make sense’. He has been doing so well for years, but she just won’t leave things alone. MIL keeps trying to tell him that the adjuster does not know what she is talking about, that MIL is right and the adjuster is wrong, that she knows nothing about anyone submitting receipts, yada yada yada. That she ‘wants to have a conference call’ with me and SO, and one with us and the adjuster. Yea no.

SO told me that he tried a few times to squash the conversation as I had asked, but she kept pushing and pushing to the point where he did not know what to do. I could tell that he was upset at himself because he was starting to stutter and his hands were clenched and shaking.

Some background – SO is on the spectrum and did not get therapy as a child due to his parents wanting to follow unpopular and unproven methods of treatment. This coupled with the enmeshment as a teen/young adult has made him very susceptible to her coaxing while he still tries to learn how to stand up for himself.

I didn’t react in the best way and raised my voice at him and went to bed (I work nights). When I woke up, he told me that his mother was still messaging him about it, but that he had not replied to anything she had said. I had told her previously that our account was marked as fraud due to all this, and so did he, but she keeps wanting to press this. SO thinks it is his all his fault because he was more comfortable going to his moms with the kids after the fire instead of my dads. I have tried to assure him that this is his mothers fault for 1) expecting money back for helping us through a situation like this, and 2) for her just willy nilly buying things and then expecting us to be OK with the fraud.

I haven’t even been able to rest from being in charge of the fire aftermath, renters insurance claim, inventory/damage crap, looking for a new place, moving all while working nights and still caring for a 3yo and 13yo (well, making sure he stays alive). SO works days, so it all fell on me. Now that we are in a new place and we have already been paid out for the renters insurance claim, this is still an ongoing issue. I sent the adjuster an email this evening just asking if there was any attempted activity since our last pay out over a week ago as she knows the situation. It’s been a lot of stress.