This is a long one. For the past two years I have not been on good terms with my MiL and lately that has progressed to not being on good terms with FiL and one BiL as well. Since just before Christmas I have not seen them personally, which has meant they have not seen LO (just turned 2).
They have always been controlling, demanding and hard work. DH is the youngest of four and they grew up being told that if they ever upset their mother then they would be responsible for her mental breakdown. As the youngest (his siblings are 10, 8 and 6 years older than him), DH was at home with them alone when the siblings moved out (all at 16/17 years of age) so he bore the brunt of her smothering and guilt trips and as a now 30 year old he still reverts to little boy status in the company of his parents and is scared to upset them in any way.
The official story is that MiL is depressed but she has no medication or therapy for this and diagnosed herself. I have always found her to be hard work but I am the sort of person who tries to accommodate everyone and I felt sorry for her. For the first six years of our marriage I worked hard to keep MiL happy but in 2007 I lost our first baby (stillbirth, completely unexpected and devestating to us) and her behaviour took a very nasty turn. Eleven months later, in December 2007, I lost our second child (prematurity) and again was devestated, this time also seriously ill myself from an infection which almost killed me. Again her treatment of me deteriorated and still I tried hard with the relationship.
The recent breakdown in our relationship came just weeks after our LO born, when her latest piece of nastiness was the final straw.
So you get the idea of how she has been throughout our marriage I will list the things I can remember, as it shows how her treatment of me/us has always been strange and why I finally felt pushed too far. Some of this is down to FiL too he supports everything she says and does.
Pretended to forget my name right up to our wedding day. We met and married within just seven months so she claimed it was because she didn't know me very well. We saw her every weekend before the wedding because DH would travel from his base to see me/them and stayed at their house a lot.
Telling people at our engagement party that DH almost married someone else but decided to keep her as a one night stand when he found out she had children. He didn't actually know this woman, she was their friends daughter but he hadn't even met her. She saw his picture in his uniform and said she fancied him.
Told everyone that we had made a mistake about the date of our own wedding and brought it forward by one day. I had to contact everyone again to set them right.
She opened our gifts and cards at our wedding and took money and vouchers from them, "to keep them safe."
Told everyone I was pregnant but keeping it quiet until after the wedding. I wasn't.
Told everyone we had basically slapped her in the face by not cutting the wedding cake when she thought we should, despite her not saying anything to us about it.
Insisted on driving us to the airport for our honeymoon and then when we got there was bitching at us for taking up her time, then charging us petrol money. My dad was going to take us for free until she made her fuss.
Bringing a big knife with her for her first visit to our new house.
Coming to visit on a whim but not even letting us know they were on the way, never mind asking if they could come. Frequently. Saying they were only staying a night and then staying a week. Borrowing money because they couldn't afford the petrol to go home and would have to stay. Going home after a week and then phoning up within half an hour of getting there to say they were on the way back because they had argued with BiL and "needed a break."
Spreading rumours that my DH had cancer when he was in hospital having an infected cyst removed. Throwing a tantrum and calling me a bitch for not telling them their son was dying. Turning up to visit on the day he came home so we had to fuss over them instead of DH getting some rest and me fussing over him.
Phoning when we asked them not to. DH is in the forces and was away for six months just after we got married. We wanted a couple of days alone in peace when he came home and they called us fifteen times in one day. Every day, demanding to visit.
Calling me a slapper. Numerous abusive insults, casual nasty remarks. Snooping through personal letters and property when staying with us.
Telling strangers about my medical history (I had been treated as a young teen for epilepsy) and she was asking strangers if that meant I couldn't have children (non-existant baby not materialising after the wedding made them wonder.)
Ruining every Christmas and New Year with demands that we see her every day we were visiting for at least four hours at a time (both families live in the same town but mine had a bedroom for us and we had to sleep on the floor PILS). Crying if we didn't see her every day. Made threats. Turned up at my parents house shouting abuse. Tried to run DH down in their car. Lying about us to the rest of the family. We did try to see them as much as possible but also wanted to visit other people and have some time alone too. My parents worked all through Christmas so it's not like we saw them more.
Treating us like their personal bank, borrowing money but not paying it back.
Lying to us about our SIL (her other DIL) on a number of occasions and caused bad feeling between DH and his brother because DH believed the lies and thought badly of SIL. BiL set us straight on what had happened and then DH was embarrassed. No idea why they lied or what they thought they would gain from it.
Expecting us to pay off BiLs drug dealer (BiL is an alcoholic and a drug user). Expecting us to have BiL hide at our house when the wrong people were after him. Expecting us to let BiL ring up and abuse us and not mind. Wanted us to lend BiL money he doesn't pay back. Invited Bil and his equally alcoholic drug using girlfriend to LO's first birthday party and wondered why we objected to them being drunk and smoking cannabis in our front garden.
Cut the cake at LO's birthday party and ate it before we had lit the candle and sung to him. He didn't care but we did (having waited so long to have a child and celebrate a birthday after our losses - maybe PFB of us but I think we were allowed for one day on his first birthday in the circumstances).
There's a lot more but this is already very long and this is the worst.
Three days after our son was stillborn my MiL asked me if it still hurts to give birth if the baby is already dead. She argued about the time our son was born and demanded to know if we were going to try again.
Two days later she was ranting to us about SiL's (DH's sister) mortgage and how unhappy they were that she was financially struggling. Didn't mention our son or ask how we were. Stole the information for the bereavement midwife and rang her to ask how long we might be feeling sorry for ourselves and then spending an hour talking about how her mother had died the year before and how she coped with that (she was in a terrible state and the family rallied around a lot) so we should cope with this.
Rang us the day before our sons funeral and told DH off for sounding miserable on the phone.
Caused a fuss on Mothers Day and Fathers Day that year because we didn't send them cards. My parents understood why we ignored the day.
Declared themselves bankrupt then took offence at DH saying they perhaps should give up the credit cards. We bailled them out the first time by buying their house, which meant they could pay off £77,000 in debts but the second time they were £17,000 in debt and happy about being bankrupt. Then claimed that they didn't feel they were made welcome in our house because they still looked at it as being theirs and moaned that when we redecorated it made them feel unwanted.
I lost our daughter. They told everyone about a totally made up medical condition they thought I had.
They told everyone I had a late termination because of this made up condition, even though the reason our daughter was premature was because a lorry rammed into the back of my car at a red light and I went into premature labour and picked up an infection in my placenta.
Telling people my former treatment for epilepsy was to blame for the babies dying.
Then they kept ringing to tell me about cases in the news of child cruelty and the debate about termination limits, even though I found it all very upsetting.
They rang me six weeks after my daugher was born, which also happened to be our stillborn son's first birthday, to tell me how excited they were that SIL was having a c-section the next day and they would have their first granddaughter after three grandsons. Actually my daugher was their first granddaughter and our stillborn son was their fourth grandson.
When I reminded them it was his birthday MiL said "I forgot about that" and then proceeded to tell me why our children don't count as real grandchildren in the same way.
Telling me it was okay to put a photo of my daughter up because she "doesn't look...well, she is still family I suppose. I know she was going to say something nasty. I have a feeling it was "she doesn't look dead."
Looking at my daughters photo and asking if she was born with all of her face. Of course she was, you can see her whole face in the photo for a start. It was actually at this point that I cut contact with them because they started to spread more lies than ever about me and complain about me to DH. They felt unwelcome in our house. They couldn't understand why what they had said might upset me. Then they denied ever saying it even though DH was there for a lot of it.
Disowned us both between christmas and new year, telling DH that he was a tiny part of their lives that was over now, that we were users who took them for mugs, that we thought we were better than them and that they were sick of us and finished with us both.
Lied about BiL having a rare blood disease but refusing to say what it was, when in reality he had taken an amphetamine overdose. They made us think DH and LO were at risk from this blood disorder, which they kept saying might kill BiL and we even wondered if this was why our stillborn son died. DH's cousin also lost a child to stillbirth at the same time our LO was born so it made it seem as though it could be due to something that runs in the family. We were worried for over a week before SiL told us the truth.
Lying about me to family members, threatening me, stalking me, parking outside the house to watch me, kerb crawling after me as I walked home with LO, writing to me to harrass me, making phone calls up to 20 times a day, picking LO up by his neck, keeping some personal things DH had stored at their house against my wishes, refusing to give those things back unless I did as I was told, stealing some of the things that were stored there. Called me a bitch. Wished DH had never met me and that he would leave me for someone else.
They sent a text to DH after that, telling him that I had written to them to accuse them of things (not true, I returned the letter they sent to me with a note asking them to stop harrassing me) and that I had just turned up to take the stuff they had stored. It was full of lies, half truths and was only sent in spite. He was away at the time on an exercise that could have changed his career if he had failed. They just wanted to tell him their lies before I could tell him the truth.
BiL then sent DH a message that disowned him as a brother, called me a "f*ing evil mad bitch" and said I have lied about everything (certainly all the things I've told you here.
By the time they were finished with that most recent thing, in March this year I was diagnosed as having panic attacks and mild, grief related depression and anaemia.
And yet now they think a text to DH to say they don't hold any of this against me is enough to have us all playing happy families again.
DH has been good to a point and has told them to leave me alone, but he still visits them. That's fine, but he wants to take LO and I don't want him to go.
Partly because of the neck lifting incident, coupled to the fact that both MiL and FiL are disabled, diabetic, over 20 stone each and prone to falling over. BiL and SiL have banned them from carrying their youngest children about because FIL fell on the stairs and dropped their son but I know DH isn't quite that strong and he will let them drag LO about.
Partly though because I don't think they are good people to have around a child, given the way they treated DH as a child. One of their favourite family stories is the time they had a neighbour strangle his rabbit and leave it in the cage for DH to find because it was ill and they couldn't affort the vet and wanted to teach him about death and heaven. He was nine at the time and heartbroken.
And partly because I know they will be happy if they can get DH and LO without me.
They don't do anything with their other grandchildren. They are too big and too unfit to run around or play and they only show an interest if it means they get to be visitors in someone elses house. They don't actually want to play with or talk to the children very much, they like to use them to show off to people with but they think a walk to the park or the beach is too much effort.
DH thinks I am being unreasonable to keep LO from his grandparents. I think it's unreasonable to let them have human contact with anybody because they are insane.
So, am I being unreasonable to feel I have to protect myself and my son from these people and their problems and nastiness? Would you think this behaviour is acceptable? Is them saying they don't hold any of this against me a reason to forgive and forget? I mean, it's not even an apology in my eyes but DH says it means they have accepted responsibility for all the trouble. I don't think so, I think it means they blame me for it all but are letting me off. Or are they being unreasonable to think they can have a relationship with us after all that? Is DH unreasonable still to see them at all, with or without LO.