Made MIL cry?!

Sums up the whole batshit situation beautifully.

No, not just for him for the good of his relationship. If he doesn’t enact boundaries now his mother will become more enmeshed, more demanding and more dependent as she ages.

I haven't RTWT but have read all your posts OP. I understand you are very irritated by your MIL but your responses aren't helping you at all. You can't change her! You need to manage your feelings. Accept she is jealous of you or feels you aren't the best wife or whatever her problem is. DON'T respond in kind. Yes I'd be annoyed by the packed lunch thing too, but is it a hill to die on? She is your DH's mother and they have their own relationship. He doesn't belong to you and you alone.

When someone is irritating to me, I try to avoid them and if that's not possible, resist getting engaged into a pointless argument. You don't have kids yet but I can tell you I use this tactic with my teens at times when they're being obnoxious and don't want me to have the last word. It's hard to do but the outcomes are much better.

Sometimes you just need to go on a charm offensive. Countries have to do it with one another all the time so they don’t go to war with each other. She’s his mother not OP’s work colleague, backbone doesn’t come in to it. She knows what the MiL is like so OP needs to take a different stance. It’s not as if the MiL actually lives in OP’s house, it can’t be that difficult to put on a bit of charm and diplomacy to keep the peace.

Except that MiL only mentioned the packed lunches in passing - it was the OP who criticised and escalated it with snotty comments. So you could just as well ask should MiL sit there and be mute while the OP takes pot shots at the fact that she sometimes does a nice thing for her son.

Which is his choice…. If he wanted too!

In your op you said MIL commented that she 'sometimes' makes her son a packed lunch. You seem to have dropped 'sometimes' - are you now trying to make it sound like she does it every day?

Food is her love language and you are mean, grow up.

And? I'm in the middle ofnhaving to explain to my 4 year old that we can't control what people say but we can choose to ignore it.

All you had to say was. That's nice. Or even just ignore her!

You don't even like him! So just end this. Or are you one of those people who need drama like people need air.

You catch a lot more flies with honey than vinegar as they say and if you do see yourself with DP (which includes his family) then you’re going to have to stop pouring vinegar onto an already sour relationship and get that honey out. It can’t be that difficult to just smile sweetly and let it go over your head.

You are coming across as deeply unpleasant.

She's irritating you, you don't get on. She loves her son, so do you. Why are you putting him in this situation? You could drive him away, and who could blame him?!

OP is not coming across as unpleasant, she’s coming across as having a backbone that a of women on MN could do with.

OP is not the one putting him in this situation - he has put himself in it and failed to get out of it because it serves him.

I think you were horrible to her

I would calm down and let her get on with it, it's really not worth the hassle. You seem to be taking it too personally, she wants to feel needed and your DP is playing along to keep her happy, annoying perhaps but it really isn't worth all the drama

Why shouldn't say OP say it in the course of a conversation that the MIL started about the packed lunches, according to her first post? Should she just sit there and be mute? What's wrong with her telling the MIL it's okay to let DP make his own? MIL was the one who turned it up a notch with the love dig.

I am 100% on your side OP. I would really get out when you still can. It will all only get worse.

I think you escalated your argument with MIL unnecessarily. Does it matter if she makes him a pack lunch? I’d be suggesting I’d also love a pack lunch every day. Sending him home with cooked meals? Fantastic, neither of you have to cook.

I’m clearly a rubbish wife but I’d probably find it amusing rather than enraging if MIL implied she loves her son more than me - it’s also probably true on some days 😅

You are coming across as deeply unpleasant.

She's irritating you, you don't get on. She loves her son, so do you. Why are you putting him in this situation? You could drive him away, and who could blame him?!

You'll probably say that you don't care if he does leave you, which is even more unpleasant.

I can't say I got on brilliantly with DH's mother. She was a prickly character. He had a sometimes tricky relationship with her too although they loved each other. I left them to it most of the time and only responded when it directly affected me.

Of course it needed to be said. It should have been DH to say it though.

That’s not a dig it’s a statement of fact. He’s an adult he does not need his mother making him lunch every day. I wouldn’t let my mum do that for me. But my own mother has much better things to be doing with her time… This is symptomatic of a woman who has nothing in her life but her family.

It was a fact that didn’t need to be stated. Mil knows she’s not obliged, she wanted to.

I thought you meant that you would still be with dh long after she’d died! But, it made me chuckle! There’s no harm in fighting back!

How is that a dig at the MIL though? That was a statement of fact that has a grown man the MIL shouldn't feel obliged to do it for him.