I've had it with my MIL. I think we need to cut her out....

[MaryPoppinsPenguins]

Such a long backstory. DH & I are completely not contact with his brother and his wife, over things that happened a few years ago. My DD2 has some serious medical issues and without going into it too much, we feel they are at least partly to blame and they've treated us very very badly. Ive had threads about it years ago and it was unanimously in our favour. We haven't seen or spoken to them for more than three years, avoiding FIL's 70th party, Christmas meals etc... and as they live in another country it's not hard to avoid them day to day. My oldest DD found it very hard to suddenly lose her cousin she was very close to, but has all but forgotten about him now and our youngest children have never met the other family that they would remember.

So yesterday we had a big lunch for DH, his parents were there and we all had a great time. MIL feels it's my doing that her family has been 'torn apart' and no matter how much my DH tells her it's actually his decision, she refused to believe it and makes digs all the time. But she was so nice at the lunch, it was bizarre.

This morning we got straight out of bed, packed up the kids and presents and drove there in pjs, total states, to have Christmas morning with DH's parents.

I was helping DD2 up the steps and DD1 ran ahead and I heard her shout out that her cousin was there.

MIL came to the door and said 'Surprise... we've got some special guests!'

They've been there since yesterday. She knew and could've warned us, but instead she pushed her own agenda against all of our feelings and it was like a car crash. We were all so scruffy and unprepared for one thing.. B&SIL were completely dressed up. I mean, we don't want to see them at anytime, let alone when we're at our worst. There's a horrible vulnerability about standing there facing someone who has really hurt you in old pyjamas and with bedhair!

The idea of them being in the same room as my DD2 makes me feel sick. There's so much history and it's been such a long time. It actually made my heart jump. We argued, turned and left and MIL text and said I was wrong.

I felt shocked and shaky all day, after this morning, actually our Christmas was ruined. DD1 was so upset, they didn't get to go in and have their presents, it was a shock to them to just turn around and leave, and also DH & I have been upset all day.

Shes not sorry, she doesn't care. She constantly thinks I'm in the wrong. She refuses to think it's anything other than my fault despite the fact that I tried to sort things with B & SIL about a dozen times in the early days.

I want to cut MIL out, but obviously she's DH's mum and I don't want him to resent me for the rest of our lives. But today I think he'd agree.

I text her and said 'why would you do this to us? It's Christmas Day! What did you think would happen?'

She has zero remorse.

Op, if I were you I'd send the following text:

This will be my last correspondence regarding this matter. Your actions have ruined Christmas for your grandchildren and your son. As such, we will not be attending any further Christmas celebrations at your home. In fact my children will not be visiting your home at all in the future. You may still see them in our home however I cannot trust you not to put them in an upsetting situation. My daughters are sad and confused at seeing their cousin whom they can no longer have contact with for obvious reasons. I will not put them through and further upset. Any thoughts you have regarding this matter should now be addressed to your son. I will not discuss the matter any further.

OP your MIL has behaved appallingly to you and your family today. I hope you and your family can have some good times over next few days, focus fully on them now and lift your family back up.

After 7 miscarriages and a difficult pregnancy, your DDs illness must have hit especially hard. But maybe blaming them is not the way forward. These things are complex and causation is impossible to work out.

When my grandad died, my mum was convinced in her grief that her half sister hastened his death. She just felt it in her heart and saw the events that way. But it wasn't what happened. It split the family and we never recovered.

@purplepicnic
Not seeing this. A woman who wants to get her children talking again? Thoughtless, misguided, naive, yes. But she arranged this meeting to spite the OP? Really?

Spiteful is defined as deliberately hurting, annoying, or offending someone. The MIL knew full well that deliberately creating this situation was going to anger, hurt, offend and upset both the OP and her DH. The MIL decided her wishes and needs over ride the wishes and needs of the OP, DH and their children, which is incredibly selfish and immature of the MIL.

I'm NC with my mother, and my grandmother, God love her, pulled this trick repeatedly over the last 15 years. I love abroad but every time I went home, I was on edge waiting for next swift move. I didn't go home for nearly five years, until my grandmother was on her death bed. I miss her dearly but at least I don't have to worry on my next visit.

The MIL owes you an apology, and if you don't go NC, I'd suggest restricting contact to your own home in the future so you can retain control.

I know I can't know for sure.... but I think just being treated that way during a high risk pregnancy was enough really.

Thanks for your replies... it's been a generally rubbish Christmas Day and now DD is being sick 😷 Ugh!

I definitely won't be rushing round to MIL's again on Christmas morning. The sad thing is I bought DH theatre tickets for Christmas and it's on Friday... but MIL was going to babysit and now that's not going to happen! So even my Christmas gift is ruined!

Tomorrow's another day!

I feel like your MIL was just trying to play "happy families" rather than being intentionally malicious. I wouldn't cut her out completely over just this, but maybe you could insist that future meetings are at a neutral place where you can make sure that SIL & BIL aren't there.

Why can't she babysit for you?

Because BIL & SIL are over for a visit now, and even if we 'make up' with her after today, they would never come over if it meant missing time with them as they live abroad.

What happened to your DD was tragic but not your in laws fault. It's likely her conditions would have occured even if they didn't give you stress. However, having said this, your mil should have respected your dh's wishes and so I don't think yabu for cutting her out of your life. Cut them all out. You don't need the fuckers.

I feel for you being ambushed by your mil!!
That was a horrible thing to do and especially to the children what in flips name was she thinking??
I would take that as a pure betrayal of my trust as she knows the history.
You would be dead right to go nc with the stupid selfish woman. How dare she!!

I tend to think that if parents of adult children want their children to get along so that they can all play happy families that they need to behave in ways that mitigate conflict rather than fuel it. They also need to stop having favourites and treating adult children differently.

If the MIL in this case wanted a happy family then she needed to step in at the time of the wedding and point out to BIL that his brother and family would simply be unable to attend. She could have suggested a special family celebration when the wedding was over (that didn't involve travelling) and that could also have welcomed the new grandchild into the world as well (I know that wasn't an issie in the original narrative, but it just stuck me that it would be a nice idea). Instead, she let unconscionable behaviour go ahead that detrimentally affected the OP and her family and that saw one of her sons humiliated. At that point, in my view, she handed over all rights to a 'happy family' that was not 'torn apart'.

Put bluntly there is no right to a happy family without responsibility and it is not the responsibility of people who are treated like shit to put up with it to ensure their elders can have "happy families".

Whoever said that "They sound like a total shower of cunts" is totally right in my view. MIL is a manipulative cunt who totally set the OP and her family up and in my view if the OP wants to cut her out she is well within her rights.

They sound like they behaved unreasonably to you over their wedding plans but it doesn't sound like they can be reasonably blamed for anything else.

Your MIL shouldn't have orchestrated a reunion but I feel sorry for her because it must be very difficult to have this going on with her family. I really can't understand why you couldn't just let it go and not upset the children by all the drama. Sounds like you barely need to see them at all and would only have to put up with occasional get together for everyone's sake.

Threads like this make me feel old. Life is so short and so many people waste their energy with unnecessary rifts and grudges. It is so much simpler to have good boundaries and be firm when boundaries are being pushed. 'Sorry I can't travel so soon after dd2 is born' and repeat. You don't have to like them or enjoy seeing them and no need to engage with drama - either then or now. YABU.

YANBU . I can't believe the people defending MIL. Regardless of why,you and DH have been no contact fpr 3 years! This is not a petty or very recent spat that can be sorted by simply being in the same room together. And if she actually gave a shit about your feelings she would've warned before,to give you a chance to at least prepare if you chose to see them.

They behaved badly over the wedding.
You have behaved badly by blaming them for causing a child to be ill, especially now you know she has a genetic condition.
Your MIL has behaved badly by trying to foist this reunion on you.

I think going no contact would be for the best tbh. None of you seem able to climb down and it's only going to cause more and more unhappiness.

I think while mil behaved badly I think you did too, dragging ur kids away from cousins and mil and their traditional Christmas. You could have stayed for present opening and then left, for ur kids. Bit sad too that cousins aren't allowed to know each other.

I know that you may not want to her this but you need to access some support to help you to move on. You can't live your life dwelling on what happened in the past, it isn't good for you or your children. Please get some help .

To put this into context. I almost died due to the actions of someone else (was told I was dying, was in hospital and had whole vicar thing going on etc). I survived but have lots of health issue and a very reduced life expectancy as a result of what happened to me.

I realised that you have to accept that sometimes rubbish happens and you have to move on. You can't live life reflecting on what happened or what might have happened. I don't blame the person- yes what they did was really really silly but they didn't realise that it could have killed me or indeed anyone else.

Please try and find a way to move on. Family is really important. Sometimes people do crap things and mess things up but by not finding a way through the rubbish and into an acceptance it affects you and other people much more.

Sorry not worded very eloquently. Sounds like you have family who love you, your DH and your children. They may have messed up in the past and may be messing up now but it sounds like they care. That is worth an awful lot.

OP - leave your DH to deal with his family - delete their numbers etc and back away from texting -

Silence is worse than the text they are no doubt reading to wider family members - ignore and salvage Christmas for you lovely DDs

Awful awful awful. I think you need to let your dh deal with all this shit. Don't get involved, that's why your mil blames you as you text etc. I only ever communicate with my in-laws to send happy birthday or thank you texts etc. As I just don't ever want to get involved in their general family crap as I have my own one to deal with. Have a sleep on it and discuss with your dh in the morning. I would find it very hard to forgive the mil but she is your husband's mum and dc's grandmother.

Family is really important. Sometimes people do crap things and mess things up but by not finding a way through the rubbish and into an acceptance it affects you and other people much more.

OTOH, sometimes people behave in completely despicable ways and do not deserve to be forgiven, family or not.

Also, where / how / why is it a given that family is "really important". That's a value judgement. For some of us, being treated well is more important.

I've also found that talk about acceptance and forgiveness is fine in the abstract, but, in many situations I have observed, it is the same people who get trodden on and abused and who are expected to forgive, forget and accept and move on blah, blah, blah, whereas the abusers are rarely called to account.

In the OPs case, leaving aside the issue of whether some of her daughter's health issues were caused by the ridiculous wedding, the BIL/SIL behaved like total cunts to her and her husband, and in my view, that is enough to justify NC. If the MIL wants to be the matriarch of a happy family, then, as I said above, she needs to be constructive about it instead of manipulative - there is no automatic right to a happy family without responsibility to make it so. Telling the SIL and BIL that they behaved badly re the wedding and asking for a sincere apology would be a good start (instead of telling the wronged party to suck it up).

Holy fuck

No more text messages, no more communication of any kind - just leave her to it. She can't be trusted to protect her son, granddaughters or you from such ridiculously poisonous behaviour. So fuck her - personally I'd cut her out, certainly until you get an apology.

Can anyone else babysit?

Oh mary, have some hugs and . What an utterly shit thing to have happened.

We have the same situation, no contact with SiL, we live abroad and whenever we visit, SiL ALWAYS finds a way to interrupt our visit. Of course, I am the one who split her family (in MiL's eyes).

Last year, when younger two were christened, I left venue with kids and parents, and DH, his parents and DB went for lunch. Guess who suddenly happened to pop into the restaurant and join them for lunch? His sister. MiL swears it wasn't planned but we don't believe her. She has total form for this sort of stunt and then constantly plays the victim so everyone just lets it lie.

So we are going for our Christmas visit tomorrow, and I am bracing myself....

Its horrid, I hate it but I think it would be worse for DH if I added more pressure to the situation. So I say to him, it's your family, and I will follow your lead. But I do refuse to let the in laws have the children on their own as I know they would let SiL have access and then lie about it.

Thank goodness we live abroad and only deal with this stuff once or twice a year. It always puts a dampener on our visits though.

Xxxxx

I've also found that talk about acceptance and forgiveness is fine in the abstract, but, in many situations I have observed, it is the same people who get trodden on and abused and who are expected to forgive, forget and accept and move on blah, blah, blah, whereas the abusers are rarely called to account.

Absolutely. Also sometimes the only way you can achieve forgiveness and acceptance is when they can no longer get to you any more.

In my part I can accept my sister is who she is, and forgive her actions because she's never been given appropriate boundaries by anyone before. But I cannot and will not forget them, and I'll never trust her because she is who she is. This peace has come through her not being in my life and not causing more problems, upset and drama.

yanbu to have gone home again

YABU to engage further with MIL, let DH deal with his family from now on.

YABU to go out in your pyjamas.

You do need to work on your boundaries, this will be difficult but in the long run life will be easier as a result.

I'm confused about what really happens at Xmas looking at your previous post from 2015 ? www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2528166-Christmas-PIL-Sorry

That was a horrible thing for your MIL to do, but YABVU in blaming tjem for your dd's health issues. From your early posts I assumed they intentionally harmed her, such as giving her peanuts when she had an allergy or something similar. There is absolutely no way of knowing if the stress caused this.

You also sound like you heavily engaged with the drama, sending messages to your BIL about "letting DH go to wedding". Your DH sounds like he needs to grow a pair.

It is very sad you are depriving your dc of their cousins, the dc are innocent parties and I would be trying to facilitate the relationship without having a relationship with the parents. This happened to me as a child and like you my parents think that I have "all but forgotten them" but that is certainly not the case.

In the nicest way OP I think you need to seek counselling, take a step back and let your DH take over with dealing with his family.