Psycho MIL - take 2

[LolaL]

Hi everyone, I posted this --

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3249894-MIL-from-hell-bring-popcorn-wtf-do-I-do-with-her?pg=14

-- a few weeks ago. Since then, things have been quite good. We've had a few issues (her slagging me off to my mum, she's super super manipulative and it sparked a massive argument between my mum and I). I had a text from her re the hairdresser for the wedding and I text her on the morning of a hospital scan to wish her good luck - but otherwise had absolutely no contact at all.

DP has been the happiest he's been. He has had an occasional phone call with her and popped into the house to ask his dad for some help with the car, but aside from that, that's it.

Weekend just gone was his stag. A really lovely weekend was organised for him (just what he needed!) and he came home yesterday pm bouncing, despite his hangover lol. Showing me photos/videos, telling me what they got up to etc. Really happy.

I met up with SIL over the weekend and she told me that she too has had no contact, bar one phonecall to discuss seeing grandkids (initiated by SIL). Throughout the whole phonecall, MIL repeatedly slagged off the whole family, mainly me. SIL sounded like she did a great job in trying to keep on topic and discuss the kids however it eventually ended with SIL saying that she would not tolerate listening to this and put the phone down. SIL told me about this conversation and I decided not to share with DP, not to upset him.

This morning, DP called MIL on his way into work, just to check in. I think the child in him wanted to share what a lovely weekend he'd had. She told him that she was so glad that he'd had a lovely weekend because she was now on anti-d's and wanted to kill herself all weekend, how lonely she was.... (FIL didn't go on stag so she wasn't alone...) and how upset she was that I didn't reach out to her over the weekend and plan something with her.

Aside from seeing SIL, I had a lovely, very busy weekend spent with my friends and hobby.

DP then called me, really upset, saying how he felt so sorry for her and that he was sad that I'd not reached out to her this weekend. I pointed out that I didn't understand why this weekend was an exception, how was I to know she was feeling lonely, she had FIL, absolutely no difference to any other weekend and even if I wanted to, I had hobby commitments so would have struggled for time.

He ended up getting angry saying how he can't cope that I hate his mum, I started crying, completely out of the blue, I was sat on the sofa catching up with work emails. Ended the call. 10 mins later he text saying he loved me and was sorry, I didn't reply, was upset.

I replied half an hour later saying I loved him but this is really getting me down, our wedding is 4 weeks away and he cannot let his mum manipulate him, or interfere in our relationship. He said she isn't and loves me like a daughter?? I said very hard to believe when she's said some v nasty stuff about me to SIL and told him what was said. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but if I had heard someone talk about DP like that, I would be straight on the phone, asking why they'd said this. Anyway, his response was "take it with a pinch of salt."

I then got v v angry that he couldn't back me and was again letting her control and interfere. I completely saw red and did call her a "psycho controlling bitch" which was probably the most PG thing I had in my head!!!

Anyway, this has continued back and forth all day, him saying he feels unsupportive me hating his mum, me thinking wtf he is letting her control and ruin our relationship. BIL has had a chat with him and agreed that he thinks she's trying to ruin the wedding.

Absolute mess. I don't know what to do. My head is saying run, my heart is staying stick with him.

This sounds pathetic and that I'm overreacting but I really do feel like this is the final nail in the coffin.

Do not marry him. It will only get worse.

Oh god no. Like others have said, this is only going to get worse. There's the immediate problem that your MIL is a master manipulator and your DF jumps to her every command, but then further back, in your previous thread you talked about DF kicking off at you because of some stress at work. IDK what form that took - being short with you, sulking or whatever - but that is also a red flag IMO, because emotionally healthy people don't take their work stress or anything else out on their family, they don't make other people responsible for their emotions, healthy people are able to talk in a friendly way about how they are feeling and ask for help. I wouldn't be at all surprised if your DF eventually ended up as bad as his mother and be prepared for him (and her) to get significantly worse after you're married.

Your DF needs to realise his mum is the trouble maker and manipulating one, can you and DF discuss a strategy with your SIL and BIL?
Also stop arguing with people over things she's doing/saying - just turn it around 'ahh so she's been stirring again .... ok let's break this down into what she's up to then shall we ... and such like - she's getting her way if you're spoiling relationships because if her

She dies sound like a bloody psycho. People like her usually just don't have enough to do in their lives - she needs a busy job !!

I hope not coming back on here means you spent yesterday talking or sorting this difficult situation out in some way.

Follow your head on this one. Cancel the wedding. Youve a lifetime of this. He never support you against mil. Get out whilst you can.

I have not read your previous thread, however this cannot work unless your DF is 100% behind you and he is not. You have already started to tread carefully when you make a conscious decision not mention his mother because you do not want to upset him. The child in him wanted to check in with his mother, and he then behaves like a child blaming you, he feels unsupported, really? What about you?

Don't make this into a competition between you and his toxic mother, you will exhaust yourself and your DF will not step up. My MIL went missing on the day my DP moved in with me as a final attempt to sabotage our relationship, she believed he would look for her rather than move in with me. Previously to this she had tried many tactics to drive a wedge.

The difference is that my DP has had my back all the way, he would go NC with her if she continued to insult me. In fact once she realised that she could not manipulate him she became more wary of me.

A huge part of your problem is your DF and you are in danger of treating him like a child just as his DM does, protecting him, blaming her for his lack of support when really he needs to take responsibility. And you need to accept that he may never do this, not because he is weak but because he has been manipulated all of his life and knows no different.

Your heart may want to love and save him but your head should tell you to cancel or postpone this wedding Your MIL can only affect your relationship as much as your DF allows it.

Just read your previous thread
She sounds insane!

Your DP sounds lovely but if he’s not going to stick up for you then I think it’s a sign of things to come. You haven’t done anything wrong yet she’s able to manipulate him into believing it’s all your fault.
You’re going to have this until she dies and it will only amplify when you have children as she’ll use it as an excuse to shoehorn her way into your life at every opportunity.

Are you sure you want to live like this? I know you love your DP but take a long pause and really imagine what you’d future looks like with a husband who is so easily manipulated by his narcissistic mother.

I guarantee if you move then she will too. She’ll suddenly find a reason why she wants to live in X town, and she’s “always wanted to live there”. She is not going to let go of her deathly tight grip on her baby boy.

Actually, I don't think he's taken her side at all, he's trying to diffuse the situation and you're inflaming it more by making him choose.
She sounds to me like she's got mental health issues, which neither of you can change. I agree, you should take her with a pinch of salt!
Remain polite in your dealings with her. Don't expect him to choose sides- that way will end in resentment.
To even consider calling off the wedding because you don't like your MiL is nonsense. As a mother of the bridegroom, it's really hard to not interfere, which she won't actually see as interfering, rather that she's offering suggestions.
It's an emotional time for all of you. Try to be the bigger person!

Your DP may well be a keeper, but it sounds like he has alot of stuff to work through, and maybe this is not the best time to be getting married.

He has recently diagnosed anxiety, and is also now having to face the implications of the very ingrained family dynamic that he has been immersed in.

It is possible that he will find the strength to break free like BiL has, he may find a way to put your needs as his partner and your life as a couple above the bat shit demands of his mum, but I can't help thinking that the pressure of a wedding, plus recently diagnosed anxiety is probably not the best conditions for him to tackle such thorny and deeply ingrained issues.

It is also possible that he will never find the strength to break free and you will find yourself in a hellish groundhog Day, having the same arguments over and over, your love for him dying just a little bit every time he chooses his mum over you.

If I was in your shoes I wouldn't press the eject button just yet, but I would not marry him until these issues were properly resolved, and by that I mean some clear and firm boundaries in place and working well enough to withstand a full frontal attack from MIL.

Sorry to read she is still up to her usual shenanigans.

Personally I would either put the wedding on hold or cancel it no matter how much you love your partner, unless he is 100% behind you there is no way you are going to have a good marriage because the drama lama is always going to be there to cause friction between the two of you.

Bezm have you read the other thread where the future MIL phone OP's mother to tell her the wedding was off?

Oh dear, your mother-in-law is obviously a difficult and manipulative woman BUT feelings run very high before a wedding. Things which under normal circumstances can be glossed over take on monumental proportions in the pre-wedding run up. Even in the most close families there can be rows and histrionics beforehand, when emotions are raw. I haven't read your previous thread, but I appreciate that there is 'history' of bad behaviour on mother-in-law's part. Marriage is always a 'work in progress', in your situation I wouldn't give in and let her win. There's no way BIL's prediction that she is trying to ruin the wedding can come to pass, unless you let her. You are the one with the power, not her - don't let her finish your relationship. Do you have a Mum you can talk to to get her perspective on this? You say it's four weeks to go before your wedding, I would use this time to focus on you and your future husband and try and minimise contact with future mother-in-law. I repeat, please don't fall for her manipulations - if you call off the wedding that's exactly what she wants. The family dynamics will probably settle down after the wedding anyway - she will just have to get used to the new reality.

She's highly manipulative; she's not lonely - she's got her husband. You could understand it maybe if she was an isolated widow.
Unfortunately it looks like he's always going to be taking her side; if it was me I wouldn't take the risk...

Apart from his mother issues - is he worth fighting for - does he rock your world?

If not, walk...

If yes, then some serious talking needs to be done. Get some physical distance between you both and his mother.

Agree with most other pps. He needs to prove he's got your back and four weeks isn't enough time to accurately gauge this, especially given his recent 'lapse'.

Imagine having DC. Imagine the enormous guilt that your DP will feel about doing the basics to protect them from this toxic woman. He will almost certainly fail. And if you divorce after having DC? Then on his access days she'll have free rein over them all. If that isn't enough to chill your blood I don't know what is.

This will be your life until they screw down the lid on the vampire's coffin.

bezm she’s not offering up suggestions on colour schemes and seating plans, she’s saying she’s going to kill herself numerous times and outright lying to and manipulating all those around her.

How can she really take all of this with a pinch of salt?

Honestly OP i had some serious MIL issues before our wedding. Like really awful ones. And in the beginning DH just didn’t get it and I was not going to go through with it because a lifetime of having someone treat me like shit and have DH being controlled and manipulated and not standing by me would have been unbearable. The marriage wouldn’t have worked. Thankfully he realised fairly quickly that the woman he had thought was so brilliant was a fucking pyscho, and because of this I agreed to go through with the wedding. You really need this to happen BEFORE walking down the aisle. Even now, when anything happens and I get nervous about DH getting back in touch with her or what she might do I need constant reassurance. If she had been allowed to rear her ugly head throughout my pregnancy I would not have been able to cope. This isn’t just a MIL not liking you as one PP said - her behaviour is fucking insane and your fiancé is not shutting it down. Which means it will continue forever!

You have to sort out your DH problems before you can tackle MIL.

Really sorry this is happening to you. Please get some support in RL too.

NO woman will be good enough for her son. She wants him all to herself, that's why she's doing this, and she's ramping up the behaviour as the wedding gets closer. In her mind she must stop the wedding and will do whatever it takes to do that (short of murdering OP, for self preservation reasons).

Because of that, I'm conflicted on the advice I'd give OP. If the wedding is cancelled, that nasty manipulative bitch wins, and she'll be sitting there, glowing in her victory, knowing just how much power she has over her son, and any woman he hooks up with.

I do wonder if OP should still go ahead with the wedding, and get the house move underway immediately after, to get some distance between them. Then her partner can continue with his therapy and hopefully break his conditioning.
OP must be VERY careful not to fall pregnant until he's cut the apron strings.

However, I'm not sure that it's possible for her partner to do what needs to be done (NC) and like everyone else (well, apart from a couple of posters, who obviously don't understand how manipulative the MIL is, and how serious it is) think that if OP marries him, she's signing herself up to a lifetime of pain. Unless OP and her partner go NC with MIL, and don't let her know where they live, this is just going to keep carrying on, but her partner is not ready for that step and may never be, so the wedding should be cancelled, and OP should get the fuck out of Dodge.

I don't think OP will cancel the wedding though, so all I can say is good luck, you're going to need it. But at least make sure you don't have any children until/if this is sorted, and move away from her as fast as possible.

I hope your absence from this thread is because you've been away dealing with this positively, whether the outcome is that you are running/cancelling the wedding/just working it through with him.

If you are thinking of working it through with him, PPs advice to reframe his accusations is a good one. Whenever he accuses you of something ask him how he would react if your father was doing it to him.

Also its probably a good thing to empathise with how hard is must be to listen to his mother make suicide threats. But hold firm that if she does this, then the appropriate reaction should not be to have a go at you, but to get her professional help.
www.rethink.org/carers-family-friends/what-you-need-to-know/suicidal-thoughts-how-to-support-someone/services

I'm surprised at this thread. Over the years there have been many threads of this sort. Sometimes it's actually worked out, sometimes it hasn't. If it works out, then it takes a long time and it's very, very hard work but people have reached the clam waters beyond the storm.

It the OP wants to take this (huge) challenge on, it's not hopeless. Her husband has seen the problems and he got angry. I can't help thinking that that indicates he's got some independence of thought and some backbone.

Steps backward are going to happen when someone is inching their way out of the FOG. As long as the overall progress is forward, it's not so disastrous, though very difficult at the time.

There are no guarentees that he will break free. But there isn't a guarentee that he won't, either.

Wow, so much response.... thank you all!!!!

I just wrote this to vent yesterday and felt a lot better, I certainly wasn't expecting so many replies.

Yes, we have been trying to work this all through positively. We had a really good, long conversation last night about boundaries and how I'm feeling so frustrated that nothing is changing and she is continuing to poison our lives. This should be the happiest time of our lives and I've cried more in the past 6 weeks than I ever had. DP apologised profusely for making me feel guilty for not contacting her over the weekend, he too is frustrated and cannot help but worry and was very sorry for taking his hurt out on me. I also apologised for blowing up and shouting at him.
He is a very empathetic person and totally understands where I'm coming from.
He has agreed that she is out of control, he is trying to justify her behaviour which I don't like, however I think it's his way of coping with this. He also divulged that, although not to this extent, his mum has had a key part to play in the break up of previous relationships, something that he's previously kept to himself. These were many years ago.
He is aware that unless things change, the marriage won't work. He is also very concerned that I'm not going to fall pregnant with this level of stress and it could be something that could be harmful during pregnancy - there will 110% not be any pregnancies whatsoever until this is sorted but it's great that he's thinking like this.
Moving forwards he's tried to call his mum this morning to speak to her regarding boundaries and to tell her that if she continues to slate me, she will not be welcome at the wedding.
SIL has been great, checking in with me this morning and BIL checked in with DP last night.
DP has continued to reassure me that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and to apologise, and to let me know that he has my back....
As pp's have asked, he is a good egg, actually the best egg I could wish for despite how he may have come across in these threads, and I genuinely feel sorry for him as he hasn't asked for any of this.

Thanks for posting, I've been thinking about you. I'm glad he can see your side.
Would putting things down on paper help, just so he has something to think about when she kicks off.

Does your dp realise that it's really bizarre/not usual protocol for a daughter in law to be, to be expected to 'reach out to' or spend time with the mil during the stag weekend? Why on earth would she need to be 'reached out to' just because her son is on a stag weekend? Your partner needs to open his eyes to the fact that his mother is a narcissistic who wants everything to revolve around her and her feelings, and that he is being controlled by guilt. You should think very carefully about whether he can change, if you think he can't, then leave.