Last year I posted about MIL and was ripped a new one by the lovely vipers on Mumsnet. (Here -www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2970316-A-MIL-one)
I am sorry, but this will be long, but I am going to try and avoid drip-feeding.
I will start by explaining prior to my eldest daughter's bday last year, she had stayed with us for nearly a month, and seemed to want us to "rescue" her from the place she was living and come and live with us. (Because it is a tiny country town in the middle of the desert with nothing to do and she is bored.) It was obvious that it was not viable and she became more and more resentful while she was here. (She has form for this - she moved in with us when we were first married and kept getting back together with her violent, drunken boyfriend du jour and moving out and back in with us until we had to tell her that we wouldn't be rescuing her again.) I welcomed her into my home, I tolerated her bitchy digs about me - until she was being nasty about my eldest daughter whose room she had taken over for a month, and whose things she had gone through and commented on, etc, and asked my husband to speak to her - which he did....
So - since then....
She gave my other two fabulous birthday presents as well - My son got a tiny box of fake Lego and $5 in a card, and his twin sister (who she keeps saying is just the image of herself - she isn't, btw) a silver bracelet and $40 in a card. My son was heartbroken at the disparity. (Which I evened out, of course.)
At Christmas it was the same thing again - tourist souvenir tat for the eldest and my son, a special necklace for my younger daughter and $5 each for the first two and $50 for the younger daughter.
I think she has been doing this because she is cruising for a confrontation from me (to cause division between my husband and myself) which she is not going to get. Instead, I equalled out the presents and told the kids that she meant well, but is just bad at presents - and made them ring her and thank her. (Being the bigger person, etc...)
She has been playing games like this with my BIL and his wife (I love them....) and is bitchy and competitive, and changes stories to make her look like the victim when she has flaked out and not bothered to come and see their kids when something better has come up.
My BIL has told me that she has always been like this and that my husband was always the adult one in the family and practically raised him from his teen years when both of his parents "checked out". My husband is a romantic soul that loves his mother and has kept justifying her behaviour until lately.
He has been under a lot of stress - we moved back to Oz from overseas, he lost his job here, we are paying ridiculous rent from our savings (my savings - not that MIL seems to remember), we had just been told that I had a brain tumour - (I didn't - it was just weird neurological changes from migraines, but at this stage we didn't know that.) and he had just accepted a job on 1/3 what his previous job paid. Two days before that started, he was in another town, sorting through a giant storage locker, to get all the stuff from Mum's estate to us - dealing with my brother who was standing with his hands on his hips, talking at him the whole time, preparing for the removalists who were just about to turn up, when she rang him, insisting on complaining about me. (I hadn't actually spoken to her for nearly a year by this time - except to point out that she was on speaker phone when the kids were calling to thank her for her presents and she said something really bitchy about me to them.). He told her that he was busy trying to get shit sorted for the removalists and he didn't have time for this conversation, and she kept going and kept going so he hung up on her. She kept trying to call him back, so he sent her a text telling her that she had done this with his brother and his wife, she was being divisive with us and she had brought this upon herself and not to call him again for a very, very long time.
She has tried bitching about me to BIL & SIL who told her to can it and repeated what my husband had said, and that she was going to be a lonely, bitter old woman if she kept this shit up, so I know it's not just me being ridiculous.
Now, I know my husband is hurt and I feel terrible. I know that I have done nothing wrong here. My husband is a lovely, kind, warm man who needs to think the best of everyone and now she has done this. I am fairly sure his image of his mother has been burst and he misses her. I don't know what to do or say (about this situation) to help him feel better. I am tempted to write her a letter, but don't even know where to begin - also know that it would no doubt end up making things worse.
Any advice would be lovely.