Feeling ill over boyfriend’s parents

[Lunalara]

Hey wonderful people of Mumsnet,

I am really struggling to cope with their nitpicking of my faults. The mother is really nice to me in person, but then decides to criticise me to the boyfriend, who agrees with her most of the time. Even on days out when I am by myself, my boyfriend will send me a text. For instance, once when I was in a theme park, the mother wasn’t happy about how I didn’t say please once. I haven’t forgotten since, but she finds over issues about me and blames my issues on my anxiety.

I tell my boyfriend that he needs to stick up for himself and me. He shouldn’t be used as an intermediary between them and me. I told him that he needs to leave the room if they do that after asking them to confront me directly.

I have a generally strong relationship with my boyfriend, but his parents are trying to nitpick me all the time. I worry how this will be like in the future when we decide to have kids, but don’t want to leave an otherwise solid relationship.

This isn't the right relationship for you. You're feeling anxious because your boyfriend's lack of ability to stand up to his mother is making you feel unsafe. Her behaviour is weird and unhealthy.

You need to decide if this is the life you want, because this environment will affect your mental healthy. I can sense or is causing anxiety in you already and it's only going to get worse.

What leaps put at me OP is that you are quite possibly in an abusive relationship and that your boyfriend goes out of his way to put you down. Personally I have doubts whether his parents actually say anything bad about you, or at least that he is twisting the truth.

There are many men out there who will try their best to put their partners down, to crush their confidence so they won't leave them because inside they are extremely insecure. Repeating criticisms that apparently someone else has said is just another mechanism.

If he truly cared, and the criticism was happening, it wouldn't be normal to pass it on. What do you think?

Yes, 100%,this is a DP problem.
Ringing you to tell tales when you are out is ridiculous. You need to be rid if this confidence/joy stealing man.
He knows you are going to be anxious if he tells you these things. He doesn't want you to feel confident or enjoy time without him, or with his family.
You deserve better.

Yes. HE noticed you neglected to say please once - not his DM.
I'd be tempted to go to his DM and say "so sorry I forgot to say please. DP told me you were upset with me".
This man will destroy your confidence. Get rid of him. Continue to work on your anxiety OP.

Why would you have nothing in your life? There are other friends, and other potential partners, out there for you.

Im so frustrated reading your thread because I really feel for you and wish I could give you the benefit of 25 years more life experience. I guess your posts have quite touched me, and upset me.

Stop blaming yourself all the time. Stop letting others blame you all the time. Learn that most people don’t really change that much, no matter how long we wait for them, or wish for them to do it.

Start applying for full time jobs, if you’re not already full time. Get yourself on the waiting list for your local council and all the local housing associations. Mention your Autism and how it affects you as part of your application.

Your current situation (your wimpy man-child boyfriend, his mother who doesn’t want him to ever leave her) and the behaviour of these two nasty people combined is killing your spirit. You have a long life to look forward to and lots to enjoy. Please ask your counsellor to help you focus on ways to build your belief & trust in yourself, your own strength and abilities. Start looking for ways to get out of there asap and leave.

I want to pick you up and get you away from those awful people! But I can’t. Like all the women who have replied to your thread here, I can only try to give you the benefit of our experience, help you see outside of the bubble you’re in. As you get older, I don’t know how to explain it, but you learn better how to read people, how to respond to them. Don’t set yourself up for a life of utter misery. Leave the ‘boy’ friend, the hideous mother, the whole miserable chapter. You get one life. Don’t suddenly find yourself at 50+ with kids she has manipulated against you, future grandkids you might never see. And that awful partner, still snarking at you. I don’t want to sound harsh, my dear, just realistic. Sending you very best wishes for a better future.

Eh, what? You're talking about leaving by the spring but then say you don't know what will happen if you have kids one day? You sound very dysfunctional tbh.

I have not read the whole thread, but all yoir posts, @Lunalara. Your boyfriend does not seem good for you, but you seem stuck im your situatoon.

I recently read a newspaper article about a successful scheme which matches up an elderly person who wishes to stay in his or her own home with a young lodger who pays a very reasonable rent in return for providing a small amount of assistance. Might this prove a way to help you move on? (Google Two Generations for one such scheme; there might be one where yoi are.

Best wishes.

I have to leave by spring as the mum doesn’t want me there anymore after that date. It’s probably for the best.

Effectively I am stuck. I feel so angry at myself for all the wasted potential I have that my mental health has deteriorated massively.

I didn’t get that from the first post, I read it as a theme. Just because the op is posting their view doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be challenged. I questioned, she answered, yes it sounds like mil is awful.

He instead is creating a war between him and you. Am sorry, he needs to have your back. Until he demonstrates that he is loyal to you, even if in the form of telling his mum "Sorry, I don't want to hear anything more about my g/f and I don't want to get involved" would be better than him being massively two-faced and a coward. I'd not get married/have children with a man like this until this issue is sorted.

By your own admission, he's making your mental health worse. This isn't a healthy relationship.

Being told 'too sensitive' as a fault is a red flag. How you feel is valid and nobody should tell you that you're too sensitive for feeling it.

If you are 'too sensitive' then you'll be covering that in a calm, kind way in your therapy.

So what does your boyfriend say about this? Is he going to leave with you or is he happy to stay at his mum's?

Don't worry about that. You're still very young. I am in my late thirties and only started to get my life together a few years ago.

He doesn’t have a job yet so can’t leave until he gets one. He is ok with me leaving.

Is it really not too late for me? I feel like so much wasted potential…

You are young, intelligent, and sound like a very nice person. Your BF and his family do not sound like the sort of people you want to be involved with for the rest of your life, do they? So time to cut your losses as soon as financially practical. Your BF should be sticking up for you around his Mum and certainly not telling you things she has said to which you can’t respond; and to tell you you’re “too sensitive” is absolute rubbish. You are as sensitive as you are and there’s no right or wrong about it. If he doesn’t love you for who you are, and makes you doubt yourself, he’s 100% NOT the one. You deserve so much better.

I think your original post was ambiguous. You didn't say thank you once could mean you didn't say it at all that day which does sound rude, you've clarified that you did say it except for one occasion that day. I think people might misunderstand.

My late MIL was always horrible about me but she did it to my face. I used to laugh which wound her up.

I understand. I am sorry if I was ambiguous at all.

It sounds to me like you’ve moved from one toxic family to another and have normalised your boyfriend’s poor behaviour to boot. I don’t think a relationship with this man-boy is tenable, as he is clearly contributing to your low self-esteem, if not the major factor in it, given the fact he is the one feeding you all the negative information.

I feel like he isn't the one for you. He doesn't sound very mature or supportive of you at all.

Of course not.

People start new things and change careers all the time. A friend of mine retrained as a nurse in her late 40s and is now enjoying a great career.

You can't retire until at least 68 so even if you didn't get your shit together until you were 48 you'll still have a 20 year career ahead of you.

In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that he is deliberately undermining you as a form of control, to boost his own self-esteem by painting you as the inadequate one who is holding him back and making everyone’s lives difficult.

Well why not keep hos mouth shut if he doesn’t want war

How do you know everything he says is true