Mum 'calling the police' on me!

[Mharhi]

My mum keeps ringing me all the time to see 'if I'm alright'. It gets really drainins reassuring her all the time. Yesterday we were out for the day and it was difficult to call back, I just checked my messages and they start out being "I'm worried please ring" then start getting angry "Will you please ring I don't want to have to call the police". She has done this kind of thing in the past. It's a bit unnerving, i just wondered what actually would the police do?!

My DH sometimes tells the story of how, before I met him, MIL reported him missing to his military base because she hadn't been able to reach him on the phone.

He was (and still is) a serving member of the armed forces but because he wasn't instantly available to answer his phone in the middle of a working day, she reported him missing.

He got into a lot of trouble at work because of her calls to the guard room saying she hadn't heard from him in over a week and was very worried about him (she had been on holiday so it was her out of contact, not him). They sent the military police to look for him.

She said she had made a number of calls to him, but she is the type to call every ten minutes on every number until she reaches you. She rang me 17 times in one day once, over the space of a couple of hours. So her "number of calls" all took place in the same couple of hours on the same afternoon.

And once when she knew I was out (DH had told her earlier) she rang my Mum to say how worried she was that I wasn't answering the phone at home and how she thought something terrible must have happened to me. My Mum was 250 miles away (as were PILS) and would have been really worried but luckily I had spoken to her earlier and told her I would be out.

With my MIL, it's about control. If she cannot speak to you the second she decides she wants to she is offended and slighted and FIL panders to her in this. Before we stopped seeing them, if they left messages on our machine they went like this.

MIL: Oh...it's your machine, I'll try your other phone.
MIL: It's me, I can't reach you...call me back please.
MIL: It's me, you haven't called me back.
MIL: You still haven't called me back.
MIL: Is something wrong, why aren't you calling me back?
MIL: Have we done something? Why are you ignoring me?
FIL: Your Mother is in tears, call her back.
MIL: I'm sorry about your Dad, I just don't know what we've done to upset you. Why won't you call us back?
FIL: CALL YOUR MOTHER!
MIL:
DH's Brother: You think you are too fucking good for us don't you?
MIL: Where are you? Something's happened hasn't it? You're hurt aren't you? I'm going to call the hospital in a minute. Something must have happened to make you ignore your phones? Where are you? Call me back!
DH's other brother: Just had Mum on the phone, ring her back mate.
MIL: You've had a car crash haven't you? Or someone is ill? We are going to drive down to see you!

And they went on like this until we got home from work and realised the machine had been filled with this nonsense.

Then DH would be in a foul mood because he knew if he didn't ring it would carry on and get worse (and they would do a five hour drive and turn up on the doorstep) but that if he did ring back FIL would rant at him and then MIL would cry a lot.

No one - what happened in the end with your ils? That sounds intolerable.

And op agree with others - tell your mum kindly but firmly to stop and see If can get some help with her anxiety.

Gigondas - their bodies are under the patio

Not really. They pushed and pushed until we cracked, pretty much. They moved back to our town and onto the street next to ours and their behaviour got much worse.

They disowned DH because we went for lunch with his sister and they thought we should have made them a priority instead, they said some unforgivable things about the two babies we lost to stillbirth and prematurity and they set up a campaign of harassment that had them following me about in their car if I left the house and walked to the shops and back. They used to park outside our house and stare at the windows and if we went past their house and didn't call in they would ring the rest of the family to say we were ignoring them and they didn't know why.

So I started to see less off them and they told lies about me to the rest of the family and tried to hold some of our belongings to ransom to force me to "do as I was told" by them. When they couldn't force me to do as they wanted they tried to break up our marriage, calling me a bitch and saying DH didn't really know me even though we've been married for eleven years. They started sending texts to him while he was working away to tell him things I had supposedly done and said to them in his absence.

We also started getting a lot of late night abusive telephone calls and texts from his eldest brother, calling us names and demanding money from us.

DH sees them occasionally, out of guilt mostly because they brought him up to believe that his Mum would have a mental breakdown if he ever upset her, but DS and I have nothing to do with them now.

fucking hell! noones that is horrendous!

OP - how old are you?

NoOnes

NoOne my mum does this with phone calls, land line, my mobile, DH's mobile in rotation.... getting more and more het up. Which if we're out of the house, driving or in poor signal is really irritating.

And yes, on failing to get through she'd turn up at the house.

Jesus lord! NoOnes!

Siffle - awful how the cycle of abuse can, even when they try to break it, undermine the abused's emotional connections with anyone and everyone - my dad has similar issues... He has always tried to be loving but sometimes his mother's poison does slip through especially after a drink...

for you.

And NoOne, have you passed by the 'how to be a good MIL' thread? Yours could win an award for awfulness! Good Job on ditching them >.>

I can tell you what the police will do.
They will ring your mobile or your phone and, if you don't pick up, they will leave a polite message:
"This is PC XYZ from ZYX Constabulary. Please ring your mother: she's worried about you."
Happened to my SIL when MIL couldn't get hold of her one evening. It was one of over 40 frantic messages left on her mobile - including 2 from DH "For Christ's sake, ring Mum - she driving me mad!!!"

SIL was in her early 20s at the time

Thank you everyone. This is the usual reaction from sane people when I start to talk about my IL's, it makes me feel much better about ditching them.

LeQueen - I think you hit the nail on the head there. They have to win at any cost. The trouble is, we have no idea what the game is and they kept changing the rules. I've likened my relationship with them to playing chess with a blindfold on and some of the pieces missing. I was never going to win.

But the odd thing is, they seem completely baffled about my refusal to see them any more and cannot understand why we might be upset with them. They can excuse or deny even the very worst of their behaviour and once they have done so it becomes the gospel truth in their minds. They really are able to convince themselves that they have done nothing wrong or out of the ordinary.

Your friends mother sounds terrible.

Siffle your GP's sound awful too, your poor Mum. And poor you to have to also go through a legacy of their behaviour towards her.

Haven't seen that that mmmerangue, but if there a prizes I will find it now

My MIL tracks her twin DDs (34) and her DH (61) using their mobile phones and her iPad, some app or other. DDs knew about it and actually agreed, I think to avoid your situation. DH on the other hand didn't know until we mentioned it when we were on holiday with him (she stayed at home). He was fuming! She'd set it up on his phone before she gave it to him and insisted he carry it everywhere.

I walked in on her in our living room one day and caught her trying to set it up on my phone. I gave her what for.

Infuriating!

I think GavisconJunkie just won the prize!

What the 'Mental MIL Award' ? I've not even started yet, best not. I'm 40 weeks pregnant and she is DOING. MY. HEAD. IN!!!!!

I'm just lucky that DH knows she's mad as a box of frogs and we stand firm together.

Mind you there was the recent thread about the MIL with a key who walked in on couple cuddling, baby in bed, shouted the odds and dragged up some pretty nasty things from the past. That OP came back to say she'd changed the locks. So I think I may have a challenger :)

All the responses on this thread are about nutty behaviour and explaining the background to it. Which is fine.

But one thing you said, OP, resonated with me. And that was that you had been ill before Christmas. What sort of illness was it?

I ask as someone who has a close friend who had a suicide attempt recently. That scarred me. It really did worry me immensely and still does. So I can't rest until I know he is okay. Or with people or something. It will be a long long time before I stop twitching. And I think I am normal

Yes quattro, but OP also says (in the same sentence) that she's always been like this.

gaviscon the iphone has a "find my iphone" facility on it, which is intended for use when you've mislaid yours, or it's been stolen. I'm pretty sure it was NOT intended for mad MILs to track their family's movements.
Crazy lady. Not surprised you went for her.

Yes old thing, but the same post hints that there has been a backstory of illness - why would anyone check to see whether someone has eaten? Either the checker is nuttily over-protective or the checkee has some form of eating disorder or whatever. I'm just trying to see if there is more in this than is immediately apparent.

Hi- sorry not been back sooner. I'm a mum of two in her mid 30s, in a stable relationship. I have not got an eating disorder. I had abdominal surgery. HTH.

Thanks for the replies so far!

My DH and I were going out early one day to an event that my husband and I had been organising. My mother rang at 6.00am on the morning of the event (we were up and ready to go) and, when we said that we were going out for the day, she told us that we were 'abandoning her'. My DDH told her that we had to go or we would be letting down 350 people. My mother's reply was, "Oh, and I'm only one!"

As they age, they do become self-obsessed, selfish and perhaps feel lonely but we cannot always be there for them. We do have our own lives to lead. I just hope that I do not become like that but, because I have experience of my mother, I try not to impose on others. I am older now and know my limitations but will not try to dictate to others what I think they should do for me.

None, I think your MIL is having one long drawn out mental breakdown all on her own.

There really are some nutters about. I am no contact with my parents for much less, but my dad has started rumours about me, again it's all about control.

Rule, we'll still have mumsnet or similar. Some of the nursing homes I work in have skype. The residents dont know how to use it but its there!

Yes, Rule, I say she has always been like this, actually she is getting worse with age. She is in her mid 60s.

She was wierd, cross with DP yesterday too, said not how are you? or anything to him but "I want to speak to my daughter' something like that,

So now he's a bit off with her. Tricky isn't it when they get in the way of your relationship...