Big row between DH and my DM. AIBU or is he?

[Stuckbetweenrockandpita]

Namechanged as this may out me to friends. Will try and keep this short but not end up dripfeeding!

Background is my mum is a bit of a PITA. Narc tendancies definitely - she's pretty self-absorbed, super defensive when criticised, thinks she is right and everyone else is wrong etc etc. But she's not THAT bad, certainly not as bad as some of the descriptions of narcs I have read on here. I didn't get on well with her as a teen but nowadays we get on fine - speak at least once a week and she is generally supportive and a decent listener. Sometimes she is judgemental and I can't tell her everything, e.g. she is v critical of anyone on anti-ds, so I never discuss things like that. But I do talk to her more often than friends. She is my mum after all and a mum will always care more about little things than friends will.

She loves my 2 DDs and they love seeing her too. However she is not exactly brilliant with them. She's not great at playing, tires easily and after a while they always end up in front of the TV. She also clearly favours DD1 - not to the extent she doesn't love DD2, but DD2 does end up being told off more often (despite the fact DD1 is much more challenging! so it's not about good behaviour), and for example while out with both of them may say things like "DD1, look at that swan!". DD2 is only 3 and doesn't seem to have noticed yet, but she will.

Long story short, DH has put up with her for 13 years, but on a recent holiday they had a barney. It was over something minor, but was clearly his pent up frustration about her having to be right about everything. Since then, she has ignored it and has indicated she will pretend it never happened. DH however has decided he doesn't want to see her again, and ideally doesn't want the DDs to either. Of course he won't tell her that though, so it would be up to me to tell her and deal with the consequences (which we all know will be a narcisstic rage). Plus she'd be understandably upset if we took away contact with her only DGCs.

I have considered NC before, but decided against it, partly because our relationship isn't all bad and on balance I feel it is positive. That, and I don't want to destroy relationship with my DF. Or my DDs relationship with their DGPs. My gran clearly favoured a cousin of mine, and also wasn't the easiest woman, but I'm still glad that I had her in my life, so I'm not convinced that stopping contact is the best thing for the girls either.

Any advice? I feel like DH needs to suck it up, accept that you don't always get on with family members, and go back to our previous way of existing. After all MIL is no picnic but I put up with her! Is DH being U or even childish for refusing to see his MIL, and by assuming there will be no fallout, or more likely just leaving me to deal with it? Or AIBU for forcing him to see someone he really dislikes, or forcing him to have the confrontation himself?

Either way I feel like it will be horrible. DM is pretty blind to these things and doesn't seem to have noticed he is avoiding her, but DF has and has been asking me about it. It's going to start being obvious soon and I don't know what to do... TIA

Settling and Threetoed - goodness your situations sound so similar to mine! I feel for you both.

Settling that is very helpful to differentiate between difficult/"normal" flawed people and outright toxic. My parents def the former. And they labelled me the stroppy one all through my teens and 20s too! We are all flawed and all have things that annoy the shit out of other family members, but NC not always the answer.

Threetoed - so interesting you do grey rock and your DM hates it. What does she hate about it and what does she say? My DM is really quite unobservant so unless I say anything, chances are she won't notice much of a change, except maybe "Stuck is rather dull these days and also seems a lot more busy..."

I never told either of my parents about anything to do with mental health: seeing therapists, anti-ds, I even don't talk much about the SN support we are looking into for DD1. I know she is just never going to get it and never going to help, just weigh in with her slightly odd opinions. There are lots of things she does get and does genuinely sympathise and help with, so I try to focus our relationship on those.

Thank you both. And yes this did end up a v intense thread, even more than I was expecting. Has been quite cathartic

Stuck- how has mother reacted- well she can't begin to understand why I don't share things with her any more. She says she had me as a loving daughter until I was 56 (unsaid, "shame you're not loving now") Fortunately I am now resilient enough for this not to hurt me.
I can see that her relationship with me is vastly different and she's still where she was, which is obviously hard for her. But my own health means I can't meet her needs, and my attempt to meet those needs previously was a very unhealthy state of affairs. Until I did the "work" I was SO afraid that I would disintegrate when she died. I know losing her will be hell, but I will be OK.
My mum's speciality is a sort of niggly diggy prod. Not overt but little digs that I don't do whatever. I am not whatever. Why isn't it whatever. It's hard to explain, she just push push pushes for it to be what it was. I won't be drawn. I just broken record her, say life changes , remind her that my quiet life in the middle of nowhere is because that's my and my husband's choice. She then wails "But you used to be so full of life" The full of life she craves was actually part of my complex MH issues. She won't accept that I am well now I am much quieter and calmer. She wants the hypomania back because I was more fun.Tough tough stuff.

Ooof and now I am going to name change.

I have been in much the same position as you. Unfortunately my husband was also extremely controlling as was my MIL which made it harder to agree with his attitude towards my parents.

I am now in the final stages of divorcing STBXH and am NC with MIL. The way she treated our DD after I left her son was abhorrent and totally unforgivable. DD has chosen to let it blow over as she adores her GF and wants to keep in touch with her dad's side of the family. I wouldn't spit on the woman if she were on fire.

So we're living with my parents for the time being and it has opened my eyes to exactly how bad my mum's behaviour can be. The difference is, having found the courage to leave STBXH, who I was terrified of, I now have no compunction when it comes to dealing with her antics.

I'm not sure what to suggest but you have my sympathy as it really is a ghastly situation to be in, especially as an only child. I think whatever you decide you need to find some way to resolve the situation, ideally without it coming down to you retaining a relationship whilst your DH is NC, as it will have an impact on your marriage over the long term.

You mention that you've had counselling? Have you tried/heard of Transactional Analysis? I found it very helpful in devising methods to cope with my mum's behaviour.

Thanks threetoed

niggly diggy prod

Yes, exactly! That makes it so hard for you to call them on it. Obviously when someone says something outright rude it's easy to stand up and tell them off, but some people are adept at having a dig without saying anything you can easily identify as rude. DM very good at this though MIL is better

It's great that you have got to a point where you can not let the digs get to you. I have got a lot better at this over the years and less spiky but if I am tired/stressed whatever, or as a PP has said if it has been more than 2-3 days with them, my defences get weaker!

I have started to see that in trying to improve our relationship by talking about my problems or successes I actually have fed her need for drama. Whereas we get to a much more stable and calm place if I talk about very safe topics that are neither too positive or negative. Grey in other words!

Ouch Pandora, what an awful situation . So much worse to have had it from both sides and your STBX as well, glad you have at least got away from him and MIL.

No I hadn't heard of transactional analysis, but at quick glance it looks v interesting and I will read more, thank you for recommending.

Yes I have had about 5 or 6 courses of therapy in the last 15 years or so, 2 in the last year. Though I have a lot of issues so talking about DM was only part of it! I stopped as money became tight, but would like to go back and will find out if either of the recent therapists know about this method.

Quite sad today. I have just spoken to mum and she sounds so frail and broken. She's 93 now and has had some very small TIAs. The last one was about a month ago and she's not really any better. Her speech is much slower and she's struggling with her words, and indeed with her thought processes.
On the plus side she's much gentler and kinder at the mo. No diggy niggly prods.
How are you doing Stuck?

It is much easier for others to say go NC or LC but it is not so easy in real life.

When I first met OH 50 years ago he told me that I should not put up with my mother and should stand up to her. At first he could not understand that it was what she wanted. She was so articulate, So clever, and any remark I made would be taken apart and used as an excuse to make another 10 put downs. She called play the martyr so well to everyone around her.

Also, so much of what she did was so sly. She had a little stool in her sitting room and every birthday, Christmas and Mother's Day present that I bought her would sit on that stool all year, unopened and unused. Then E wry once in a while she would say, "I must get someone to take all that junk to the charity shop, I do t know where it came from".

I looked after her until she was 95, I never once stood up her. I really hope you can find a way to stop her coming between you and DH.

Petal that sounds awful. Completely agree that being called out on it is what they want. They feed on the drama. That's the only reason I can think of for DM attempting to start conversations about politics - she knows we will never agree but wants to have the fight!

Threetoed I'm sorry you had a hard weekend . It must be even sadder and harder the older they get. I saw both my parents go through that with their own DMs (both my DGMs were difficult women in their own ways) and of course the guilt increases as they get frailer. And even if they do get gentler, the wounds of the past are still there.

Update on this weekend - the DPs are visiting but only sat night/sun morning, and staying in a hotel. I told them truthfully that DD has a lot of activities on sat, and that we are doing family things for father's day sun lunchtime onwards. Feels like a solution everyone is happy with actually - the DPs don't find our house comfortable, we don't like them in our space too much, DDs are overjoyed at seeing them both. And DH is happy that we are not going to them, they are not staying with us, and they are not staying too long.

I did talk it over with DH - told him that if he did want to go NC that is ok, but also explained why I would find that hard. Basically DM will either go batshit and be horrible, or, possibly even worse, do everything she can to get back in his good books. Which means she will be wanting to call or visit all the time! We've talked about grey rock and think it's the best option for now, but will see how things go. This weekend is a test!

All your replies have made me too think about what I am willing to put up with from DM and what I'm not. I.e. where I will draw the line, irrespective of DDs relationship with them. E.g, if the favouritsm continues. The conversation with DF during that visit was a landmark. He may be an enabler but he has now said he doesn't want DM to come between us, or between him and DDs, or even ruin the relationship with DH. So he's at least willing to talk about it which is a big step forward. It means that if I do in the future go NC, I will at least have one reasonable person to explain it to. But hopefully it won't come to that.

Well done OP. It really sounds like this was a communication problem and that now you have had frank discussions you have, if not solved the problem, at the least contained it and reached a sensible compromise that everyone can live with.

Hi @Stuckbetweenrockandpita, I know this thread is sooo old but I posted last Christmas about such a similar scenario. So much of what you say resonates with me, and I wonder, if you are still around… how did things between your DH and your DM pan out in the end? How did you navigate things like Christmas if he wasn’t speaking to her?

Sending my very best wishes and I hope life has been kind to you ❤️

Tell DH that if he is refusing to see her again (which he's perfectly entitled to do) he needs to tell her. No reason you should have to. If he doesn't, you'll be asking her round again. Do you want to get into the dynamic with him that you have with her, where you always matter least and suck up person A's crap so that person B doesn't have to? To hell with that.

I think that you are absolutely wrong to accept the favouritism. It's emotionally harmful to both your dc, and they should be protected from that.

Now, that doesn't have to mean going nc, but you need to be supervising and advocating for your youngest. You need to let your dm know you won't tolerate it and she must stop.

I imagine that's hard if emotional abuse seems like a normal part of family life, but you have a chance to break this cycle.

But you love your mum too, right? And want her to love you, and so on. And your mum has taught you from birth that love means having to put up with abuse. That's the problem. It's not your fault that you find it hard to shake that off - the things we learn all our lives tend to stick. But if your DH doesn't believe that (which is healthy) and has decided he won't be putting up with it any more - well, good for him. And maybe, in the long term, it will be good for your DC to see that role-modelled.

Op, another thing stood out to me.

You say "if she keeps showing favouritism I will address it". Why not now? I imagine there's something about your relationship with your dm that makes it preferable to accept her harming your dc than to have to address it.

Honestly, if you can't address it now, you won't be able to address it when she (inevitably) continues to act in an abusive way.

The reason so many people choose to stop contact is because sometimes that's the easiest option than trying to get someone to change their behaviour.

ZOMBIE THREAD!