I have had to deal with my MIL for 10 years now. Also not my first post about her, but I reappt need to vent!
In the past, there have been periods of no contact, she has affected our marriage at times, caused me so much stress and anxiety. She forces her religious views on us, she comments on our weight, our looks, and criticises our way of life with every visit. She seems to start arguments as a hobby as she seems to genuinely enjoy the 100% attention she gets from my husband. They can go on for hours and i generally tend to disappear to another room. I really do think she gets a buzz from them.
Whenever we ask her not to shout or force her views on us, she bursts into tears and says it's because she cares about us. She is a lecturer. If anyone tries to engage, she increases her volume.
She just stayed for 5 days and left on Sunday and she wants to know what we are doing for dd birthday!!!
MIL had been wanting to visit for months but we have been putting it off due to the stress she brings to us, and that our house is messy with having a toddler and although our home is clean, there is stuff piling up as we have 3 different businesses we do from home. She has made digs at me about the house, even though we both have equal responsibility at home. I did call her out and she laughed saying it was just a joke. (Meaning I can't take one)
MIL very kindly offered to look after our 2yo daughter so we could do some important stuff that wasn't child appropriate on Saturday. I would have asked a friend but it was going to be a very late night)
However, it came with a price. She was worse than usual and laid into us for most of the time she was with us. I usually create a bingo sheet as a lighthearted way to deal with her bs that me and DH can tick off. I ended up ticking about 10 items off!
Her cutting judgments, endlessly repeating stuff she's said before, criticising our way of life was the theme of the visit.
She made comments about our looks, our weight, our daughter's size (she is 23 mths) what we wear etc. She dressed it up as "concerns" and "how she shows she cares". DH is apparently too skinny and if there was a disaster or a war and lack of access to food, he would DIE. If he got ill, he might DIE. Yes, she really used that argument. She said she was concerned he is stressed and wasting away.(He is in the healthy weight range according to the NHS). He repeatedly reassured her he is fine but she wouldn't stop. She had made her judgment and no matter what we said, she wouldn't budge. He will die, she is very concerned, and that meant she could engage her other top hobby - lecturing us about vitamins, minerals, fats, sugar and weight. Never mind that we are both in good health, she has no teeth of her own and is fighting high cholesterol, and has non alcoholic fatty liver disease, due to her addiction to sugar.
Funnily enough, this time, she seemed to think I look slim and athletic. In the past she has told me if I'm too fat. When I had just given birth, she commented about my weight, just this time, that I fit her definition of a good size.
Our daughter can hear all this crap and when we both asked her to stop with the comments, she burst into tears and said she does it because she cares.
I said if she wants to show love, she can not comment or criticise our bodies so much as it triggers my old eating disorder. Tears of poor me, I say it because I care, it is just who I am!
Next it was her Christian faith and her belief that Jesus is an alien hybrid. She brings this topic up every time she visits as though it is brand new information and will be a revelation to us. There is no discussion, it is a lecture. Always a lecture and she is ALWAYS right. It always turns into an argument because she just needs to be right about this. Mary was impregnant by an alien and this is why he had super powers. We say we know, she has already told us at least 10 times! I think she continues because we aren't Christians and certainly don't believe in the alien Jesus theory.
Next was our choice to home educate our daughter. This is new information to her and she was absolutely livid and it created the most awful arguments for days. I was mostly excluded from the arguments and my husband and her locked horns in another room. Our reasons were clearly laid out to her. The British school system is in dire straights at the moment and has been for a while. We are both on the spectrum and don't want the struggles we went through, for our daughter. There are other reasons too, all perfectly reasonable. We have a plan for her education and it will be nature based.
She really hates that we don't watch mainstream telly or the news and tried to bring me up to speed with the most horrific, triggering, traumatic news she could think of. Dead babies, torture of children, wars. I asked her in advance to please not tell me, I'm a highly sensitive AuDHD, PTSD with a toddler and can't cope with these horrors. I literally cannot process them, I get nightmares. I also struggle with turning off injustices in my mind so for my own protection, managing my issues, we made a decision not to watch national news. She ignored my direct request and told me anyway saying it was important I knew.
Husband was livid. This is every visit she does this. She feels angry we don't spend our time watching telly and the news. She thinks we are ignorant and uneducated. For the record, we subscribe to our local newspapers, do voluntary work in our community, own hundreds and hundreds of books on a huge variety of subjects and always learning new things. We are always busy with projects.
We went out to a maker market that my friend runs and another friend had a stall set up. We went there to support them and take a look around. Saw loads of people we know and had lots of lovely chats. I thought that went well. We ate in a cafe and had a nice time.
Then the last straw was on the last day. The home school thing got brought up again while in the car and she was shrieking and shouting at me while sat next to our toddler. Literally shouting about wars and school and how countries that don't educate kids end up third world countries. She just won't listen! We are educating her at home ourselves and she thinks that means no education at all. DH is educated to degree standard and i was a very successful childminder for years!
The argument continued into the house, I was nursing and cuddling our daughter and they were shouting in the hall, suddenly it stopped and I could hear her whispering. My husband was whispering back. I couldn't move from the lounge because I was nursing and she had fallen asleep. But I could hear them whispering.
Obviously this meant only one thing. She was shit talking about me to my husband, i couldn't hear it, but that would be the reason for whispering.
Making me out to be controlling, manipulative, selfish and that the reason he is skinny is nothing to do with him getting food poisoning from the food I told him not to eat (back of the fridge snack) but because I was stressing him to death. She thought that he was being abused because he was left "holding the baby" while I chatted to my friends for what amounted to 45 minutes at the market! Apparently I'm not allowed to have friends or coparent equally and must be a servant to my husband at all times. It has been 10 years and my mother in law still thinks the worst of me.
My husband put her straight and she burst into tears (again) and came to apologise to me for "adding to my stress".
An understatement!
My husband told me exactly what she said after she had gone, to confirm what I guessed.
She has always thought the worst of me. Not liking me from day one. The root of all this is that she divorced her husband when DH was 12 and DH lived at home till he was 29. She came to think of him as her surrogate husband, it was an enmeshed relationship where DH was both her son and her spouse and therefore, I am the "other woman" who stole him away.
I will always be the object of her hatred.
DH and I have had some major arguments and they have 9/10 been because of her.
These days, she visits very rarely and we don't tell her very much. But this time was particularly bad and it has upset me greatly.
My husband thinks it's great that she has apologised to me. This is actually a first, I don't think she ever has before. I accepted it and she gave me a kiss on the head.
Is this the end of 10 years of being shitty?
Well. No. I really don't think so.