Think I'll feel better after I've vented on here and written it all down.
My relationship with Mil has always been strained since 12 years ago. It really is toxic, each time we've met I have ended up fuming and stewing for ages. It is one of those whatever I do or don't do, say or don't say is taken the wrong way, anything that goes wrong would be my fault and she would make a point of disapproving and disrespecting anything that I say I liked...for whatever reason, I think she fundamentally cannot deal with someone who is very different to her (I'm not the gushing, overtly emotional type, and not the sort of person who knows the right things to say in social occasions...DH thinks I am slightly aspergers).
I have always tried to remain civil and polite, we HAVE to interact for the sake of DH and Dd. The relationship has its bad and less bad phases, even though after each time we meet I always end up fuming, I make a conscious effort to wipe the slate clean each time and at the beginning believed that the relationship will get better. There were blips when I thought it was getting better and we have turned the corner, only to find that, as suspected, they were only blips and she returned to form with her rudeness and disrespect. Over the years, I have decided that it takes two and have given up hope on her ever changing, although I've decided to remain polite and civil.
Cut to last week, we had a week's holiday together in a holiday resort in Borneo - me, dh, dd, MIL and MIL's dh. This is the first one since 5 years ago in centreparcs when I said to dh that I'm never going on holiday with MIL again (and therefore MIL cannot holiday with her beloved Gd) until she behaves herself. I was dragging me feet about booking this holiday, but DH somehow persuaded me that it would be a lovely thing to do as it is the last chance for us all to do Borneo (we live in Malaysia). We paid for the room and bills etc. for all of us for the week. Already, before the holiday, I was saying to DH "I hope your Mum behaves herself this time."
So, all through the week, it all seemed OK, she wasn't out and out rude and making sniping comments at me, the worst was her ignoring (or pretending not to hear) me when I tried to make small talk, and the clear disapproval and contempt her face showed (which I chose to ignore) when I was being ultra careful with dd's sun protection (cream, hat, UV vest, avoiding noon time..)......dd fries in minutes in the equatorial sunshine which she is exposed to daily...MIL is a sun worshipper who is hungry for sunshine having just arrived from the UK. We did the beach, the pool and jungle walks accompanied by lots of mosquitoes.
After a week in Borneo, when we all returned to our home, MIL needed DH to sort out the Wi-Fi password for her Tablet plus other techy things, in doing so, DH caught glimpses of the email exchanges between MIL and SIL ....and he is now fuming as well...
Basically, MIL was bitching about me looking like a tramp on holiday with my clothes for the beach and jungle, that I looked liked I "didn't have two pennies to rub together", that I dressed dd like a tramp with scruffy clothes when we went for the jungle walk (she wore a green ranger polo t-shirt, and tracksuit bottoms so that she is covered from the mosquitoes)....that I was "RIDICULOUS" about the sunshine and suncream (she got burnt, dd didn't).
MIL bitched to her daughter about me showing utter contempt for my parenting and what I wore/am, in a perverse way that I think bonds the two of them closer together as some sort of common thing to bitch about iyswim....If ANO could shed like on how the psychology of that works, please enlighten me...She did this, after she has stayed with us in our home, eating my cooking and us having paid for the week's holiday (she paid for the flight to Malaysia).
There is a whole story behind DH 's fall out with SIL over SIL's contesting of deceased FIL's (exH of MIL) will which I shan't go into (by 3rd party adjudicator, it is now settled, and SIL's contest failed). But basically MIL was siding with SIL in the fall out.
Well, thanks for reading this far...not sure what I expect out of this really...I guess WWYD...and I'm still bl@@dy fuming and getting more angry the more I think about it....
AIBU?
To be fuming and stewing over MIL's malice and rudeness towards me...
queensansastark · 21/07/2014 16:48
Will your DH send them both an email saying 'Having been asked to fix DMs tablet you can imagine how horrified I was to find the emails you two have exchanged during what I had thought was a lovely family holiday. You were both unbelievably rude and mum, you were exceptionally ungrateful. I have no idea how I will get over this, but be assured it MUST start with me receiving your apologies.'
Mine wrote something similar to his DB about 15 years ago and had a heated face to face discussion about it. Since then, nothing!
My DH left me out of it. He thought if he said how it made him feel, how he had reacted, why he felt as he did it might have more impact than him trying to defend me.
But at least, like me, you are now officially and permanently free of any obligation to spend time with either of them! DH makes contact every now and then but I am never expected to go with him - they are his, not mine 
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