To rip MIL a new one?

No one has said you can force an adult to do something. This is about them “requesting” and being ignored. So basically the MIL is prioritising forging a relationship with a child abuser who means nothing to her, over her own son’s request not to Yes, she can’t be forced to not contact her, but a decent person would fully support the request. I’d say it’s the emotional abuse from the MIL part, not her son and DILs

She sounds completely unreasonable and utterly bizarre in her behaviour. Or maybe she's not very bright. Some people do completely lack emotional intelligence.

Sure you'll have lots of advice, but I just wanted to say I'm so sorry that you were dealt a such shitty hand with both your mother and your MIL. It's hard, even as an adult with your own life, not to have at least one of these people be kind and supportive, who has your interests at heart.

It sounds like you've actually done a really good job attempting to set sensible boundaries to protect yourself. Well done, that's a real skill.

I agree with everyone who said drop the rope. I wouldn't be going to see her or having anything to do with her.

I would cancel your trip assuming you have support from your partner. She has hugely crossed a line here. By all means rip her a new one, but doesn't sound like it will have any impact whatsoever to someone with such thick skin. Her son not visiting for Christmas as planned might register though.

It's not coercive control. It's a request. It's hardly as though OP's mum and MIL are lifelong friends and OP is trying to break up the friendship for no reason at all. You compare this to MIL telling OP to stop being her friend. It would only be a relevant comparison if OP's friend had done something objectively terrible to OP's MIL.

There is no reason for OP's MIL to contact her mum and it seems like she is only doing this to cause trouble for OP. However, as she is refusing to stop contacting/seeing her, OP will need to go no contact with her MIL.

THIS
I fully understand why you are fuming!

Of course not.

But you can say 'if you invite this person to an event, I will not be coming, and I will not visit you for the foreseeable future'.

In certain circumstances yes. But this is clearly not one of those circumstances. This is a child asking his mum (with very good reason) to avoid contacting someone they have no need to be in touch with whatsoever.

Maybe the OPs MIL is trying to be the fairy godmother and fix your relationship with your mother, or to show that she has a better relationship with OP now, but regardless she needs to learn that there are consequences of her behaviour, which is to be excluded.

If your DP goes to see her at Xmas he needs to make it very clear why you're not there, and refuse to talk to her about you or the wedding.

Would you be better off eloping, so neither of them are at the wedding?

It's very commonly used!!

Get out the smelling salts quick though!

I’m sorry you’re being put in this position by your MIL. You’ve been dealing with the impact of your mother’s behaviour for your whole life and now your MIL is deliberately stirring things up by repeatedly contacting your mother and sharing details of your life with her.

I wonder if your MIL is acting out of some (deeply misguided) desire to ‘fix’ things between you and your mother. You say that your MIL knows that your wedding will just be you and your DP. Is there any chance that she thinks that this is because of your mother? Could she think that if she ‘fixes’ things you will have a ‘proper’ wedding she can attend? Has your MIL actually grasped the fact that she’s driving you away?

OP and her DP and quite obviously NOT emotionally abusing the MIL by asking her to not contact her abusive Mother. Stop throwing those terms about.

Your MIL sounds awful and I doubt she is as oblivious to what she is doing as you think.

Is she known to cause dramas?

I'd cut any contact with her for now, tell your DP not to share any personal information about you with her.

I'd not talk to her directly as I don't think you'll get anywhere. People like that feed on attention.

Block her on social media, or change your settings so she doesn't see any of your updates.

Don't let your MIL and mother cause you any more trouble. No or very low contact from now on.

The only thing you can do is let them get on with their weird little friendship but start keeping your information to your chest.

Let mil know she’s not a trusted person anymore because she’s a feed to your mum. You tried. She will lose out in the long run.

It’s a very common saying where I am in Manchester. You would use it about anyone that pissed you off. Man, woman, child, dog.

It’s not intended to be violent or vulgar. It just means you would let someone know you were angry.

Vile behaviour from your MIL. Sounds like she is trying to make waves because you've put some boundaries in place with her. She's getting in where she can, trying to get under your skin and cause disharmony in your household. I don't blame you for being upset. But that is exactly what she wants by the sound of things.

@Watchmesing

Ops mil is being horrid beyond words and op is obviously very upset.
Personally I think op and her dp should be well shot of both of them for a good while.

“oh I’m so proud of your beautiful daughter on her promotion at work what a lovely job you did of raising such a lovely woman”

To me that sounds as if she's crowing that she sees you more than your Mum does!

You do understand the MIL understands about @Someadvice reasons for being low contact and not wanting her mother knowing every facet of her life right?

if your daughter left an coercive abusive partner that had been part of the family for years - would you still contact them because you’ve never had a problem with him and she can’t dictate who you can contact etc? Would you still pass on info about how your daughter was doing now. Who she was seeing. Her plans for the future etc.

This is the same. Mother is abusive. Always has been. MIL is colluding with an abuser and passing on info that OP prefers isn’t shared about her life. OP is getting agreement from her Mother because of this information and therefore able to continue the abuse.