AIBU to wait for an apology from MIL

[Riversideview]

I put up with MIL and her nasty behaviour for over twenty years. I posted here about her a few times and the overwhelming opinion was to have no contact with her. In a nutshell it was stealing, lying, threats and underhand behaviour towards me and others. She started on my son about five years ago and I cut contact.

DH hasn’t seen or spoken to her in all this time either. His choice. In fact he has seen no one from his family as they all seem to have cut him off. They all live near MIL and I think she may have had something to do with this as she did threaten to turn them against us if we didn’t speak to her.

DH remarked the other day that maybe it was time for me to “let it go”. My stance is that she owes me an apology. For what she did originally and for setting family against us. She will never apologise, she told me that five years ago. For the previous twenty years she never apologised and I “let it go”. She never. Hanged because she got away with everything. In fact it emboldened her to become worse.

DH is free to let it go. I am not going to speak to the women, now in her 70s, until she apologises. Time does not wipe out bad acts.

When I first stopped replying to her emails she wrote and said she didn’t know what she had done. So I told her. She asked again saying she didn’t know what she had done. I replied again and put details. FIL wrote to DH and said they didn’t know what they had done...

They know, they are gaslighting. They wanted us not to reply so they could say they had asked and we never replied I think. Whatever, they have not changed or they would apologise. (FIL wasn’t part of the original theft and lies and row but took MIL’s side and became threatening at the time.)

I don’t like MIl. I don’t want her in my life but I would be the bigger person, compromise, if she apologised. She is not going to apologise. Why should I compromise any further and basically let her off what she did?

She is still nasty, she is still lying saying she didn’t do anything.

I think you need to gently speak to your son, don’t ask directly

I’m disappointed in your DH. My tactic would to grey rock him on this issue. Pick your line and repeat it “I won’t let abusive people harm me or my son ever again.”
End of conversation.

If that doesn’t work do you still have the threatening emails? Or any other evidence of their bad behaviour? I’d print it out and the next time he raises the issue remind him of how they’ve treated you even since you’ve gone NC.

Oh, and have a chat with your son about their trip.

I think your DH has, at the very least, been on the phone with his parents.

“I won’t let abusive people harm me or my son ever again.”

Thank you adreamofspring.

I have most of the emails sent to me. Some of the ones sent to DH. Unfortunately the answerphone messages got deleted and an email account where I sent everything in the early days of cutoff was lost. (It was a freebie account and the company folded. I had a weeks notice and I moved everything to a different account that I can’t get into because I did it in a panic and have forgotten the details.)

About a year ago I thought some mails had gone missing from my normal account. These were screengrabs of the ILs talking about me on Facebook. They’ve disappeared. Whether that was DH or not I don’t know. I will try again to get into the locked account. Unfortunately I started it with fake details and can’t remember what they were so can’t recover it.

About a year ago I thought some mails had gone missing from my normal account. These were screengrabs of the ILs talking about me on Facebook. They’ve disappeared. Whether that was DH or not I don’t know

Well who else has access to your account details?
Have you changed your password?
It's beginning to sound like your husband was always planning on keeping them in your lives....stealing 'evidence' so you can't use that as proof of their behaviour.
What are you then left with? Your memories of the events/incidents....which he is now gaslighting you about and trying to make you believe that YOU were in the wrong the whole time.

Seems like he's been building a case against you the whole time.
He's probably secretly in touch with them and has been for a while.
They may be using their age/health and any possible inheritance to further manipulate him.

I have some emails threatening various things if we don’t get in touch. I have emails they have sent to me after I asked them not to. I have a list of the missing stuff, what I could remember. I have photographs of the screen of the threats they sent to DH. One of the worst is missing where they are telling DH to leave me etc. but I know the date and roughly what was in it.

@Riversideview, I'm sorry this is happening to you. Check out DARVO (Deny, attack, reverse victim and offender).

This pattern is emerging loudly and clearly in the behaviour of your DH. Your PiL are not the major issue here. You are NC with them, you've left them no chink in your armour through which to stick the knife, ergo there's no way for them to get to you. Your DH is causing the problem.

The 'reverse victim and offender' bit is a particular worry here, as it's a very insidious form of gaslighting. The disappearance of the email is especially concerning. Are you sure there's no way you could have accidentally deleted this yourself? Seems unlikely I know, since just by happy 'coincidence it's the worst of the offending emails that's been removed.

As a former victim of abuse myself I recognise that about the worst form of psychological torture is to make someone else question their own reality, even their sanity, and to replace it with their own narrative. I'd be very worried indeed about living with a man who is capable of something like this. In your position I'd be inclined to let my DH know that you're onto precisely what he's up to, have grave concerns about it, and tell him in no uncertain terms how seriously you view this behaviour. (And I'd upload my evidence into a cloud somewhere, and password protect it). If this kind of thing continued, I'm afraid to say that for me it would be a dealbreaker.

Your DH's suggestion that your staying out of contact with your PiL for years suddenly and mysteriously makes you culpable for their behaviour is horseshit. Your DH needs to understand unequivocally that NC is a permanent status. Do not, under any circumstances, internalize his parents' appalling behaviour as your problem or take any of their actions (and their consequences) upon yourself. This whole baggage of BS needs leaving squarely at the door of those who own it. It's not yours; it doesn't belong to you. Don't allow your DH to dump it on you.

You're being a good mother in protecting your DC from this toxic dynamic. You don't even need anyone else to advise you not to capitulate.

Hope your DH wakes up.

He then said if I didn’t mention his parents again he would take it back

Is he losing his marbles? He was the one who started all this in the first place. I'm sure you would have preferred never to hear mention of his parents again after 5 blissful years of NC, so why on earth is he now telling you not to mention them

drum that’s why I think something has happened.

He wants me to sign a piece of paper saying we are not to talk about his parents. I don’t want to talk about his parents! I said I would as long as it said that if he brought them up, or they contacted me in any way, or the police, as etc were involved because of them, I would be allowed to mention them.

Because I am worriedbtheyvare going to try something and I’llbhave said I won’t mention them.

He said ok.

That means they have done something I think.

MarieIVanArkleStinksa

Thank you. I have definitely been turned into the bad guy by everyone.

He’s saying now if I never mention them again, he won’t. But he brought them up. I mention them when They have contacted me.

He’s just said that he wants ds to see his parents and he’ll speak to me about it in the future. I feel sick.

What would his response be if you said “no, he won’t be seeing them and I’ll be divorcing you if you push it”?

He wants you to sign a bit of paper?? That's bonkers. It also suggests something significant is about to happen, because he wants you to promise not to talk about them, meaning when it kicks off he'll try to hold you to that - ie, you must shut up and put up, because you signed something.

I'm not surprised you feel sick. I would be concerned about your relationship with your DH. He's hiding his feelings from you and I'll bet anything he's in contact with his parents and has been for some time and they've twisted it so he's starting to think this is all your fault.

Just seen your last comment. Unless you're prepared to compromise and allow this to happen, which clearly you don't feel able to, with good reason, I can't see how you and your DH are going to survive this. I'm so sorry, OP.

What were the threats and nasty things she said to your son, some context would be good. Could it be that they haven't done much wrong but they are just hard to get on with.
Apologies, if I'm wrong.

whoops, sorry OP, missed a page no idea how. x

Sounds like he's getting his ducks in a row, I think he's been in contact with them all along. I hope I'm wrong but could he be leaving and trying to take ds to them?

He wants me to sign a piece of paper saying we are not to talk about his parents
He's being devious and has no doubt been primed by them on what to say/do.

Do NOT sign anything unless it's divorce papers.
Signing to anything automatically implies that YOU are complicit/partially responsible for the situation.
It sounds like he's been planning on 'proving' you to be the wrong 'un for a long time and has been taking steps to wipe any evidence of their crimes.

I think he deliberately deleted that particular email where they tell him to leave you.
If he IS planning on leaving you, then it sounds like he's setting you up - "Your honour - my wife caused a lot of problems with my parents and alienated my son and I from having a relationship with them. Look, i have evidence of her unreasonable behavior - we even had to get her to sign a letter promising to behave. She's gone back on her promise and continues to alienate my son from his grandparents. This is why i think i should have residency of my son and she only gets court arranged contact with him"
Without that particular email (written evidence) you have no way of proving that THEY are the ones creating and causing the issues...and that you are actually protecting your child from toxicity as opposed to alienating him from 'loving' grandparents.

My gut says he's gearing up for something like this.
There obviously IS some form of trauma bonding going on here between him and his parents....but i take back any sentiment i had about him being an unwitting/willing victim.
His underhand and sneaky behaviour points to someone who knows exactly what he's doing and is prepared to play the long game to get the outcome that HE wants.

Be extra careful OP.

ohfourfoxache

I did say that. He just walked off.

OP your story sounds so much like what I have been through with in laws, no apology and they never will. They made me ill and I have never healed from the abuse, developed severe anxiety and had to get police involved.

I know it’s hard but you must fight your OH on this, personally if my OH ever did this I would be taking my son and I would be divorcing him. No one should ever be forced to go back to an abusive relationship, and especially subjecting your son to it. Get some legal advice, do you have reference numbers from police involvement?

Auramigraine so sorry that happened to you. When did you get the police involved?

I’ve seen a solicitor, so there will be a record there, but thought it had all gone quiet until now.

Husband is now saying that I am threatening him by saying I’ll take my son and go if he tries to make us see his parents. It’s him making threats but I am blamed.

This is escalating so quickly between you and your DH. As I said earlier in the thread, if you leave him you will share custody of your son and your ex can take DS to see his parents on his days, unless you can prove your son is in danger of being physically or emotionally harmed by these people, which will be hard to prove. You'd be looking at dragging your child through a court battle. I'm not saying you've got to roll over to your DH's demands, but keep a clear head and don't do anything rash yet.

What will happen if I leave? He’ll have access to my son and he’ll take him to see them won’t he?

Can I stop him taking him to them?

I feel really sorry for you OP, it all sounds like it's going to get really messy, so to be on the safe side, even though he's obviously managed to delete the worst of the messages they sent, might I suggest that you either email those left or print them off and give to a friend to look after.

Can I ask how old your DS is please?