To be fuming and stewing over MIL's malice and rudeness towards me...

[queensansastark]

Think I'll feel better after I've vented on here and written it all down.

My relationship with Mil has always been strained since 12 years ago. It really is toxic, each time we've met I have ended up fuming and stewing for ages. It is one of those whatever I do or don't do, say or don't say is taken the wrong way, anything that goes wrong would be my fault and she would make a point of disapproving and disrespecting anything that I say I liked...for whatever reason, I think she fundamentally cannot deal with someone who is very different to her (I'm not the gushing, overtly emotional type, and not the sort of person who knows the right things to say in social occasions...DH thinks I am slightly aspergers).
I have always tried to remain civil and polite, we HAVE to interact for the sake of DH and Dd. The relationship has its bad and less bad phases, even though after each time we meet I always end up fuming, I make a conscious effort to wipe the slate clean each time and at the beginning believed that the relationship will get better. There were blips when I thought it was getting better and we have turned the corner, only to find that, as suspected, they were only blips and she returned to form with her rudeness and disrespect. Over the years, I have decided that it takes two and have given up hope on her ever changing, although I've decided to remain polite and civil.

Cut to last week, we had a week's holiday together in a holiday resort in Borneo - me, dh, dd, MIL and MIL's dh. This is the first one since 5 years ago in centreparcs when I said to dh that I'm never going on holiday with MIL again (and therefore MIL cannot holiday with her beloved Gd) until she behaves herself. I was dragging me feet about booking this holiday, but DH somehow persuaded me that it would be a lovely thing to do as it is the last chance for us all to do Borneo (we live in Malaysia). We paid for the room and bills etc. for all of us for the week. Already, before the holiday, I was saying to DH "I hope your Mum behaves herself this time."

So, all through the week, it all seemed OK, she wasn't out and out rude and making sniping comments at me, the worst was her ignoring (or pretending not to hear) me when I tried to make small talk, and the clear disapproval and contempt her face showed (which I chose to ignore) when I was being ultra careful with dd's sun protection (cream, hat, UV vest, avoiding noon time..)......dd fries in minutes in the equatorial sunshine which she is exposed to daily...MIL is a sun worshipper who is hungry for sunshine having just arrived from the UK. We did the beach, the pool and jungle walks accompanied by lots of mosquitoes.

After a week in Borneo, when we all returned to our home, MIL needed DH to sort out the Wi-Fi password for her Tablet plus other techy things, in doing so, DH caught glimpses of the email exchanges between MIL and SIL ....and he is now fuming as well...

Basically, MIL was bitching about me looking like a tramp on holiday with my clothes for the beach and jungle, that I looked liked I "didn't have two pennies to rub together", that I dressed dd like a tramp with scruffy clothes when we went for the jungle walk (she wore a green ranger polo t-shirt, and tracksuit bottoms so that she is covered from the mosquitoes)....that I was "RIDICULOUS" about the sunshine and suncream (she got burnt, dd didn't).

MIL bitched to her daughter about me showing utter contempt for my parenting and what I wore/am, in a perverse way that I think bonds the two of them closer together as some sort of common thing to bitch about iyswim....If ANO could shed like on how the psychology of that works, please enlighten me...She did this, after she has stayed with us in our home, eating my cooking and us having paid for the week's holiday (she paid for the flight to Malaysia).

There is a whole story behind DH 's fall out with SIL over SIL's contesting of deceased FIL's (exH of MIL) will which I shan't go into (by 3rd party adjudicator, it is now settled, and SIL's contest failed). But basically MIL was siding with SIL in the fall out.

Well, thanks for reading this far...not sure what I expect out of this really...I guess WWYD...and I'm still bl@@dy fuming and getting more angry the more I think about it....

[queensansastark]

It does matter that it is the SIL the bitching is directed towards, rather than strangers, because it changes the family dynamics and cohesion....If we are ever to have any hope of being happy family...whatever that looks like.

That's the point isn't it....that's the tip of an iceberg, what we happened to catch on the email, there is probably a whole load of bitching going on that I'm not even aware of. I disagree with your assumption that all people bitch about other people all the time (on a nasty personally level) as normal.

Of course there won't be a happy ending, if I could easily see a way out of this, I wouldn't be posting here.

[GemmaWella81]

Of course you won't agree with me about others bitching, it would be a slight against yourself..

As for reading the email trail... An email preview window is unlikely to show an entire weeks correspondence if she was mailing to level you state. Just hope she isn't bright enough to twig your husband was scrolling through her mail(s) and you might bluff that one away.

Either way good luck. I've been directly between my oh and my parents... It's a great existence loving two enemies.

[hamptoncourt]

OP I wouldn't give a second thought to her "getting what she wants." Who gives a shit?

Just do what makes you feel better and if that includes protecting DD from her then all the better.

She won't be happy anyway, I can assure you she will no like having her "punchbag" taken away, nor the fact that she will have to face up to how seldom DH bothers with her once all contact is down to him.

Just take a big step back very quietly, no need for drama and fireworks. Take the step back and see what happens.No skyping/emails/texts/calls. Take yourself right out of the equation.

[NormHonal]

I just wanted to wish you luck.

DH and I got wind some time ago of MIL/SIL bitching about us behind our backs, and since then have reduced contact. We rarely initiate contact now and see/hear from them much less.

Result = happier us.

[socksandsandles]

I agree. Move your boundaries now. Don't allow her close enough to hurt you. But yes, your husband should be dealing with his mother and telling her exactly what he thinks. Poor you. Sounds awful x

[emotionsecho]

OP, I think Hampton and Mary make very good points, step away and leave your dh to facilitate all the contact between himself, his dm and your dd. If he's not around - tough, he wants the relationship and presumably wants your dd to have a relationship with his mother (though heaven knows why on both counts) it's down to him.

I really feel for you, I can categorically state that if any member of my dh's family treated me the way you have been treated by his dm and dsis, he would have gone ballistic. No way would he put up with his wife being treated with such a lack of respect, and if he had seen those e-mails his mum would have been out of our house pretty damn sharp, and it would take a lot for him to forgive her.

[Floisme]

So let me get this straight: your husband read her personal emails? And then told you all about them? I'm sorry but I can't get past this part

[Nomama]

No Flo, that isn't quite what happened. Read past it!

[Floisme]

I've tried and I can't! What did happen then?

[Nomama]

His DM asked him to fix her laptop. He sat with her and her OH and some emails were partially visible in the reading pane of the open email app thingy.

Assuming his eye was caught and his ire roused, he spoke to OP about the snippets he saw (which they both now probably wish he hadn't).

He didn't seek it out. You could just as well assume his DM wanted him to see them!

[Floisme]

'His eye was caught?' 'Snippets?' 'Partially visible?' He came away with an awful lot of information didn't he? He managed to absorb who the messages were intended for plus several different comments about the op. He was even able to quote whole phrases of the conversation.

Now you may call that 'glimpsing' or 'having his eye caught' but I call it reading. And I don't think whether or not they were in a message pane is relevant - they were clearly private messages, not intended for him.

Of course your mother in law has been very unpleasant, op and I don't blame you at all for being upset and angry. You clearly dislike each other and that must be very hard, especially when there are children involved. So I do sympathise but I'm sorry, I don't see that you have the moral high ground here.

[Nomama]

Never mind. OP didn't claim her DH was innocent, right or in any way inhuman - who wouldn't have looked? Really... who, on seeing such a snippet wouldn't have looked further?

If you raise a hand I'll pass you a stone...

[Floisme]

I'm not sure what you're getting at with the stoning comment? I said that I sympathised and that, in the op's shoes, I'd have been upset too. Would I have read them myself? yes possibly - I'm not perfect. But I don't think I would have been right to do so and so I don't think the op is entirely in the right either. That's all I'm trying to say.

[Nomama]

It's a Christian reference... let he without sin cast the first and all that!

I meant, as I said, that it was human nature....

[Floisme]

Ah I see! sorry I was being a bit dense there.

Anyway I don't disagree with you that the op's husband did something entirely human. However if I found out that someone had been reading my emails I would be absolutely furious with them. The trouble is that the op is now - I would say - in a really difficult position: she knows that her mother in law has been seriously unpleasant about her but, if she raises the issue, she's going to have to reveal how she found out.

Now personally, if I had a relationship with someone that was as toxic as this one seems to be, I would be very careful about getting into a confrontation with them unless I was absolutely certain that I was 100% in the right. Does that make sense?

[Nomama]

Yes, but OP has always been in a difficult situation, she is no worse off now than she was, but her DH may have been able to help dissipate some of the problem if he had been able to discuss the emails with his DH.

[Nomama]

Ooh! Yes, as in you make sense (not yes as in a bit dense - sorry).

[Floisme]

Sheesh it's a moral maze! Anyway I'm off to bed now. I'll try and think of something helpful to say in the morning.

[Nomama]

nothing here is as bad as another thread I have accidentally got myself embroiled in... I too am off to bed!