Mumsnet, what would you do? I'm sorry, but it's a mother in law one :(

[NayFindus]

Sorry this is long, but I don't want to drip feed. I've posted before about MIL but reading Mumsnet, drinking lots of wine and stressing aren't helping.

There are some family events coming up. Dh's family are lovely, friendly, well mannered people, as is he. MIL is desperately insecure I think. She has a pension so is very generous to everyone in her family but makes excuses why we shouldn't give presents, to make her look more generous I think.

Years ago, when dh and I had been together a couple of years, she talked him out of giving his nieces the birthday money he had given them every year since birth. She said it was silly as their family earned so much more than him and that she was only repeating what the nieces father said, so he thought it was their idea. One was an adult by then, so not a big deal, but the other was only about 10. He told me last year.

Tiny little comments over the years have made it plain that

1. It was NOT their idea. It came as a shock to them.

1. She's put it down to me.

I've heard her say countless things about family members, which make them look really bad, which have turned out to be total rubbish. She shrugs her shoulders and says 'I don't know, I must have got that wrong, I thought blah de blah de blah' and is never, ever put out that she's been shown to be a bare faced liar.

My urge is to just out of the blue say 'I have never told dh not to give somebody presents' to the nieces parents, just very calmly and then change the subject. But I think they probably know MIL is a bit mental and have figured it out already. And it would look like colossal shit stirring. And if I say it outright it might be the final push of all the wedges MIL has put between all the family members and irreparably break the family.

But on the other hand, the colossal stress of meeting family every year and having to smilingly make out that MIL is sane, all is well and we're all one big happy family would no longer be a problem, so when dd has a birthday dh won't start fights every day for 3 weeks beforehand so I can't get on and arrange it with him begging me like a 5 year old 'can we just cancel then, can we just cancel?'.

Really I just want you to tell me to keep quiet and not rock the boat. And that I should just drink myself under the table like I do at every family get together. Tell me just to keep quiet. Please :)

I'm confused, why does your dh want to cancel you holding the party?

Random it's really stressful keeping up appearances when MIL has stabbed both of us in the back and made us look like total sods to the relatives. We feel really bad.

Oh NayFindus, you poor thing. Absolutely loads of sympathy here. I have tons of this kind of behaviour in my family - lying, denying, minimising, inventing a whole separate reality. It's exhausting and absolutely bloody infuriating! The whole situation with blaming you for stopping the nieces' birthday money is horrendous and is highly toxic and dangerous behaviour.

I honestly don't know what to advise you. You know best what the repercussions would be if you say something - do you think it would be worth it? It really bugs me how these people create such chaos which no-one is allowed to ever speak about for fear of rocking the boat, but then again, you have to actually live within this family and you need to put yourself first here.

If you think that the family of the nieces already know that it's just MIL stirring things up, I would probably leave it. However, if you do mention to them that it was not your idea, you will have done nothing wrong - you would just be standing up for yourself. Only you can judge what the fallout would be like and whether it would be worth it.

Good luck

I would just start again with the presents if you wanted to do that in the first place. Your other relatives are adults who will, presumably, be able to see MIL for what she is and will be able to guess what's been going on.

Oh thank you Pianos that means a lot to me. It would be so lovely to be honest and open with people wouldn't it? Except MIL would have the most massive stick to beat dh with because I broke up the family.

And thank you for the good luck, I will most definitely need it (and lots of :)

So he doesn't want his own daughter to have bday parties because of lies his mum has told?

How screwed up is that?
(If I've got it right)

Your daughter is more important than your mother!!

I think you should go with your instinct and tell them, yes. No need to say anything other than the facts, but you can put it nicely: just say MIL got her wires crossed and gave your DH the impression his gift wasn't welcome, and you're delighted to realize this was wrong as you had always enjoyed feeling able to celebrate your niece's birthday.

Personally I think people like that only get away with it when other people don't talk honestly or are too shy to tell the full story. After all, if you say she's got her wires crossed, what can she say back? She needs to realize that if she is going to spread rumours, sooner or later the family will stop trusting her reliability.

Also, she's your DH's mum so I think he should be doing some of this. When she comes out with stuff you think is suspect, can he not ask her if she's sure she's got it right because she got her wires crossed last time?

Btw, I think diddl is absolutely spot on but I can't help feeling for your DH - that does not sound like a great mother/son relationship.

That's very good advice from LRD.

And yes, odd that she "talked him out of it"-unless he wasn't bothered either way-in which case he's as much to blame.

He's an adult, he can give presents to whom he wants-he doesn't have to do what mummy says!

If your DH doesn't want the party every year, why are you still doing it? It's his family after all (OK, yes, it's also your DD's family but does she really care?)

Your MIL sounds like an aged female relative of mine, long defunct (thankfully!) who used to set her own daughter and DIL against each other by a whispering campaign, telling each one what the other "had said about you", when she hadn't at all, it was the Aged Relative shit-stirring. She was an utter bitch and never happier than when she was causing trouble amongst her relatives.

As to whether or not you say anything - I don't know, I couldn't live with that hanging over me, however bad I looked trying to put it right! I'd have to at least attempt to clear my name. I think women like your MIL rely on others being too reserved to bring it up, so they can carry on their nasty little games - if everyone opened up and said what MIL had told them about everyone else, then they'd all realise what an utterly awful set of situations she had created - but then she would probably be ostracised herself. (Do you care?)

Or, everyone might realise that she is just mean, and refuse to listen to any more of her toxic bile any longer, or at least phone the "quoted" person to clarify - I mean, if your DH had phoned his BIL to "just check" that he no longer wanted his DDs to get birthday money from your DH, then the situation would never have occurred - but of course back then neither of you would have ever thought that she could be lying through her teeth to make you look bad. :(

Xposted lots - diddl - I don't think that's at all odd, MIL said that the nieces' father had already said he didn't want the monetary presents to continue, that would have been enough to get the OP's DH to stop giving it, IMO.

" it might be the final push of all the wedges MIL has put between all the family members and irreparably break the family."

See, I don't think this would necessarily be the case. I think if you DID all openly discuss what she has said about each of you to the rest, then perhaps you would ALL realise that she is a stirring oul' caah and has lied to ALL of you - and that in fact, she is the only wedge. As I said, that might result in her own ostracism, but why would the rest of the family break up because of that? Unless there is, somewhere in there, someone who has escaped her lying tongue, who is always the "golden one", who will defend her to the hilt - that would be problematic.

"I don't think that's at all odd, MIL said that the nieces' father had already said he didn't want the monetary presents to continue,"

Yes, but she has "form".

Besides which, I'd expect my adult sibling to tell me directly, not via our mum.

OP, would it be best just to say something only if it came up?

Or tell BIL/SIL what happened?

And can your daughter have parties with just friends?
(had no idea that anyone always had a family get together for children's bdays!)

Comtesse, LRD - that's genius! I could give niece the missing 8 years birthdau money and say sorry for the terrible mix up. I'll have to find out how much it was.

It's more obvious now she's done it so many times, but she hadn't done anything that major until the birthday money. He was feeling really bad because he forgot the older nieces birthday and was talking it over with his Mum and that's how the conversation came about, but yes yes to her only getting away with it because we're too polite to say anything.

It might just be my wishful thinking but I think there's been a bit of progress in the last year. I gave nieces Mum a potted plant and said 'I haven't filled in the card so if you don't like it you can just regift it' (cringe, I am just so bloody wet) to let on that's what MIL had said. The time after that I said 'oh has DMIL locked herself in the loo? Shame :)' and they were smilingly like 'what - you don't like DMIL?'. Because she'll say 'oh yes, so and so rang the other day' and make out she's really close and on good terms with everybody. I don't think she is though. I think she puts the wedges in to keep everyone divided because she thinks we won't twig what she's doing.

And yes, it does sound as if you all need to talk, rather than letting her divide & conquer!

If she's always trying to get out of things by saying "well, I must have got that wrong"-then surely it's better to check with the person concerned-as she is-by her own admission-often wrong!

Oh you lot are all so lovely. Thing is, if they already have me down as evil shit stirrer, getting dh to stop giving niece birthday money, there's always the risk they won't believe the truth.

Thumbwitch, properly laughing out loud at 'oul' caah'

I'm so glad I posted now, I feel much better. Thank you.

Good luck, love.

She sounds a right pain, TBH.

Bringing these things out in the open deprives the stirrer of their power and hopefully discourages them from doing further damage.
The potency of their 'he said', 'she said' antics is entirely contingent on feeling the parties involved will be too upset or embarrassed to compare notes.
An open dialogue, one she can see you are having, hopefully takes the big shit stirring spoon out of her hands.

My MIL is like this, and for years, if DH wasn't sure of the social etiquette for a family event, he would ask her.

So, for an aunt's significant birthday, we went to a party, and as MIL had said we shouldn't take a present, we didn't, and were the only nieces and nephews who hadn't.

And then MIL had the audacity to tell off DH for not taking a present!

Well, that was the last straw! We use our own judgement, now, and DH trusts my sense of etiquette now, rather than MIL's.

It's rather sad though that they all take her word, rather than talking to each other.

It sounds as if the OP's DH is right under her thumb, though, and scared of his mother or intimidated by her. I guess maybe his siblings are too.

I mean, as you say diddl, it's not normal to react by thinking 'oh, we should cancel DD's party'.

Glad to have given you a laugh, NayFindus!

But in all honesty, I do think you and the rest of the family need to be more open with each other, maybe just start asking questions about the stuff that MIL has said.

I gather that she told you your SIL regifted all the things she was given, hey - perhaps start with that and go from there. If SIL knows that she has been lied about, she's more likely to accept that you were lied about as well. :)

And yes, divide and conquer is exactly what she's doing! She's like a matriarchal old spider sitting in the middle of her web of lies, pulling the threads and having you all jump around to her plucking. You need to put a stop to it for all your sakes.

Mt Mum is a bit like your Mil she will take her opinions and put them in my words so she would say to my sister something like " You know Lolli thinks you spoil your daughter" Which I never said but it used to cause such upset, until we realised that she did it. We now have an understanding that when she says these things we talk to each other.
I think you should talk to everyone involved (apart from Mil!) to make it clear that it is not you saying and doing these things.

I know you're right diddl. I'm thinking I'll get a birthday card, put last 8 years birthday money in it and get nieces Mum alone to explain to her. I thought I'd open with 'you know MIL's a nutter don't you?'.

And if I've got it totally wrong putting together the little bits I know. Erm...

Sanity are we related??? Are you MIL's secret other family?????

Toom, toom toom toom too too doom