Excluded from family because we didn’t go for Xmas lunch

[Glenorma]

DH, his two sisters and his mother have a “Family” chat where they message each other with photos of the grandkids, info about what’s happening in their lives, plan meetups (when that was allowed) etc. They were always complaining that DH is crap and didn’t take any photos of the kids, didn’t respond when asked when he’d like to meet or which restaurant we should go to, etc. They would ask him repeatedly and then end up texting me because he wasn’t responding. So they added me to the conversation to make it easier. Several years passed.

At Christmas MIL wanted us all to come for lunch. It would have been allowed because we are 3 households plus a single mum who is bubbled with MIL so doesn’t count. But I didn’t feel comfortable mixing because I have an immune disorder so I asked DH to decline. He didn’t. Weeks passed.

In the end I messaged and said very sorry but we won’t be coming because of my health issues - we’d prefer to stay safe until I get vaccinated, hope we can meet by Easter.

MIL immediately removed herself from the conversation. Nobody else ever sent a single message in that conversation ever again. I found out from SIL that MIL was going nuts, sobbing because she wasn’t getting her family Christmas, she flung the Xmas decorations in the pond, was threatening to kill herself, etc. I texted and called her but got no reply.

A month has passed. My SILs have contacted me separately to pass on a few photos, ask me what DH would like for his birthday, usual stuff. They seem fine with me. MIL has never contacted me again. She needed to drop something off for DH while he was out so she sent her neighbour, presumably because she didn’t want to see me.

Today I saw a text pop up on DH’s phone and realised they have set up a new Family chat that doesn’t include me. DH is being his usual crap self and not bothering to reply or send any photos. So basically I’ve been excluded, but more importantly my kids have been excluded because they no longer get any photos or hear anything about them.

I actually find it very hurtful to be excluded from the family like this. I’m no longer getting regular photos of my nieces and nephews which I used to get every day or two. No updates on what people are doing. And they hear virtually nothing from us. I’m also wondering what will happen when we’re allowed to meet up again? Will I not be invited? Or is MIL expecting me to turn up and be civil after she’s treated me like this, and just pretend everything is normal?

@Yohoheaveho

If I had a mother-in-law like this I would have a lot of fun winding her up on purpose

I thought exactly the same thing. As my grandfather used to say, embrace the crazy and enjoy the spectacle. He had a crazy family, he knew he wasn’t going to change them, so found a way to derive some enjoyment from family gatherings.

Oh blimey OP! Resting your posts, I don't know whether to laugh or cry! She's truly truly truly unbelievable

But yes, OP, your husband needs to recognize she’s toxic.

It must be very difficult reading all the responses. There will be many more examples but the ones you have shared are truly shocking. I would see this as war. SIL are just as bad as MIL. You're the scapegoat. I would want no contact with any of them. You've now been shown how the land lies - there is no way back from this. Get your ducks in a row. Husband can go and live with his mum.

Threatening to kill herself?

Sounds like a personality disorder to me.

You NEVER give in to that. Let her throw her tantrum and ignore it- if you give in you will simply teach her that hysterical tantrums get her what she wants. Set up a WhatsApp group without her and just carry on with your life. She wants to exclude herself?- fine, let her reap the consequences of that.

Transactional analysis is a therapy that states we behave in the following ways in our interactions:

Child
Parent
Adult

Your MIL is behaving like child and hoping you will step into the parent role which is to cosset and pamper her. DONT. Stay in adult role and ignore her- treat her like an adult who is making her own stupid choices and let her deal with the consequences like a grown adult. DO NOT give in or you will be in for a world of hell. Trust me on this.

I would be grateful for the silence!

I'm not one for usually saying "show him this thread" But it might be worth a shot in this case because honestly your husband is a spineless, horrible, useless, worthless, nasty, prick of a husband and a man, he is a bad father and how your fanny hasn't shut like a clam around him I don't know, how can you possible sleep with him when he treats you like such shit? So showing him this thread might actually embarrass the prick.

I cannot believe you married him after the dress incident.

Now I need to follow my own username advice, this fucker really riled me up 😂

Oh my god, I can hardly bear to read your responses op, as this behaviour is so unbelievably unreasonable, it's making me stressed just thinking about it. I don't know how you have put up with it. Mil sounds an absolute nightmare, but your DHs behaviour is even worse! He needs to grow a pair and seek counselling and realise his mother's behaviour is completely unacceptable. He needs to have your back, and if he doesn't do that I would seriously be considering whether I could remain in a relationship with him. I'm sure he has had years of conditioning to put up and shut up, but that is no way to live, especially when it negatively affects his wife and kids. He needs to cop the fuck on and sort his attitude out. Blaming you for it? He can piss right off with that. You don't like his mum, boo hoo, fuck off mate, she is a spiteful cow who ruined your wedding and treats you like shit, why the heck WOULD you like her!? He needs to realise he's a grown man with a family of his own and stop trying to appease mummy

@Covidcovid
Well done to your Dh - and you. Must have been difficult.

She sounds like a nightmare. Here's what I would do:

• Go as LC with her as you can.
• Decline to ever interact with her again by choice (whether that's in person or via WhatsApp).
• Tell DH that you don't wish to speak about her again - either positive or negative. You don't want to hear her news, and you don't want to know if she contacts him or what she wants. You just want to forget she exists.
• Only see her on the very limited times when you can't keep DH from taking the DC to see her (or inviting her to your house). On those times be icily polite. Not friendly, but cooly polite so she/your DH have nothing tangible to complain about.
• If you want to continue a relationship with SILs/their kids, that's up to you. But it may not be possible if they're under your MIL's influence.

@CalmdownJanet

I'm not one for usually saying "show him this thread" But it might be worth a shot in this case because honestly your husband is a spineless, horrible, useless, worthless, nasty, prick of a husband and a man, he is a bad father and how your fanny hasn't shut like a clam around him I don't know, how can you possible sleep with him when he treats you like such shit? So showing him this thread might actually embarrass the prick.

I cannot believe you married him after the dress incident.

Now I need to follow my own username advice, this fucker really riled me up 😂

This post is spectacularly nasty even by the standards of this thread. Would you say the same about a woman who had grown up with a toxic, controlling mother and had developed a passive coping mechanism?

I absolutely would of it meant she treated her dh like shit. The woman walked down the aisle in a borrowed blue prom dress for fuck sake and her husband said nothing to his mammy, yup I stand by what I say 100%

Now is the time to go NC with her. Start telling it like it is. Call her out on every single thing she does wrong to your DH so he’s under no illusions that you think she’s cruel, batshit and manipulative. Basically don’t let him get away trying to explain her behaviour away. She sounds absolutely fucking pathetic and I think you need to call that out every time.

Woah and I though my ex-MIL was toxic. Well, she is but I cut her out of my life the first time she went nuts (moving to Australia helped with this massively ). You must have the patience of a saint with everything your MIL has done to you, especially the wedding .

It does sound like a personality disorder tbh, my DD has one and if she feels slighted all hell breaks lose and I do end up tiptoeing around her tbh, I don't currently have the emotional strength to deal with the fall-out, so I do have some empathy for your DH.

My GP has told me that I need to set boundaries with her, but that I would probably need a psychologist to help, as it's so very difficult to do - precisely because of their reaction and meltdowns and the viciousness of their behaviour [not putting all personality disorder sufferers in one basket, but this is my experience at least].

Assuming there is a personality disorder at play here, could this be a way forward for you and your DH?

I am absolutely at the wedding dress story.

I would have completely cut her out of my life after that. DH is welcome to visit her, but I would never set foot in a room with her again.

MIL is mentally ill. Your husband has been so damaged by being raised by a mentally ill mother than he does not know what normal is. He does not love you. He does not respect you. He does not care for your feelings. I would go so far as to say that he doesn't really care about your children's feelings if he's willing to foist them on an obviously unwilling grandmother. Children aren't stupid. Even toddlers know when they're not wanted. None of this is his fault, but you and your children cannot live this way. Your husband needs help. Intense therapy. As soon as the situation allows, please get him help.

I signed up today to respond to this, because I have been in a similar situation. My husband was raised the same way. We've been married 30 years and I spent many of those years deprogramming him. However, when push came to shove, early in our marriage, he told his mother that she would never see him, me or her grandchildren again if she didn't shape up. Why? Because he loved me, respected me and understood his responsibility to protect me and his children from her venom. She shaped up and we had no further problem.

Your MIL may be too far gone to shape up. But please, please stop trying to keep the peace in an untenable situation. That helps no one. It doesn't help you, DH, your children nor your MIL. In fact, all this desperate peacekeeping has only allowed her to continue to act out. You have to be your children's protector here because your DH is unable/unwilling to do so.

Bottom line: Your DH needs therapy that will help him see the situation for what it really is and stop enabling his mother's behavior. If he won't get therapy and work hard at it then you have some decisions to make. I'm in the US so I don't know UK law, but there is no US state that would require your children to be subjected to an obviously mentally ill woman. A good lawyer should be able to arrange that.

Some excellent advice especially from @Mycatismadeofstringcheese and @AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter

Transactional analysis and "games people play" would be excellent areas for you to look into op.

You don't mention your family op why? Estranged? Passed away? I feel like you expected your husbands family to be your surrogate family and that was never going to work. You may well have codependency issues.

Sadly the emotional abuse foisted on the dc by the Dh forcing them on the gran, Uk courts are still pretty shit when it comes to protecting kids from emotional abuse unfortunately.

You need to write down a list of as many times as possible that she has treated the dc badly and you/dh badly or has behaved in a frightening or worrying way in front of them - I suspect we're talking a novels worth of incidents!

Incidentally grandparents have few rights re contact with grandparents. While that is unfair in many cases, in others like this it's a good one.

When I went nc with all my lot their immediate reaction was to try and get legal recourse to have contact with dd. I had anticipated such a move and spoken with a lawyer myself and lodged with them (should the worst happen to me and her dad) that they were to have no contact with dd in such an event and the exact reasons why.

In my case there is also a history of physical and csa so I recorded that with the lawyer who assured me they wouldn't get near dd.

When I did get back in contact (on my terms) they told me about this and that they had been told by their lawyer they basically hadn't a leg to stand on

The main people to blame were less than honest with lawyer but one of them at least framed it as a query to him "she will claim x y z happened" to which the lawyer was clear that such allegations would likely lead to investigations that would reveal the truth - at this point they balked understandably and backed right off!

We need (as a society) for this to be the case with mental/emotional abuse too, the law and enforcement is still far too lax on this.

Imo the emotional abuse is far more insidious, damaging and with far more likely long term consequences than most forms of physical abuse. Not least because it's so hard to define and because victims are gaslit into believing they invited, even deserved it!

We also need a LOT more good therapists who understand this dynamic/issue.

I've been in therapy many times over a period of over 15 years and even supposedly highly qualified psychiatrists and psychologists are pretty crap on this!

My current therapist is only the 2nd one I've come across in that time who HASN'T pushed me to "reconnect" with people I am nc/lc with JUST because they are immediate family!

Yet I feel the dynamic is fairly common, I certainly know a fair few families in real life where it's the case to a greater or lesser extent.

You don't mention your family op why?
I don’t have any. My mum was 40 when she had me and my dad was nearly 60. So I have no siblings and my relatives except my mum died of old age a long time ago. I do have surviving cousins but we’re not close because we aren’t the same age (some of my cousins are older than my mum, by the time I was born they were already adults with their own children). So I don’t really have any family except my mum.

I suppose that’s led me to engage with the families of boyfriends as if they were my own. I dated my first serious boyfriend for three years and his brother was like my brother, his sister was like my sister. I lived with my second serious boyfriend and after five years his parents treated me like a daughter, his brother was like my brother and his SIL was my best friend, we went shopping and to the gym together, my mum used to go to the bingo with his mum.

I guess I just think of in-laws as family. Both of those breakups were hard on me because I felt like I was breaking up with the family. But obviously that’s not the case with DH’s family. MIL is a whack job and SILs moved away to university at 18 to escape the crazy and never came back. I’m very disappointed that MIL has never treated me like a daughter and has consistently been horrible to me, but I guess she’s not much nicer to her own children. SILs are friendly but not like sisters because they live further away. I thought we were friends though - the type of friends who chatted and exchanged photos and met up once every couple of months - obviously I was mistaken.

Do you gave many friends OP. You sound very isolated.

Not really. My mum has always wanted to spend a lot of time with me because I’m all she has since my dad died when I was a teenager. She’s nice and means well but she has monopolised me a bit. Of course nowadays that’s a benefit because it means I can hand DC to her and go up to the spare bedroom to get on with work.

I'm so sorry you've no family of your own except your mum, but I think this may be influencing your need to ingratiate your husbands family.

Your relationship with your mother doesn't sound particularly healthy either.

Being close to your mum is one thing, being close to the exclusion of making other connections is also dysfunctional.

You and your husband both, for different reasons really, need really good quality family relationship focused therapy.

I’ve read through your posts and a common theme is

‘Your mother did x and y’ -

You need to reframe your discussions with your DH. I’m upset because you didn’t speak to your mother about Christmas
I’m angry because I’m being ignored on WhatsApp
I feel uncomfortable about taking the children to visit
I’m hurt that you didn’t do x when I asked you too
I’m upset you didn’t realize how x and y happened

Change it to how you feel so that’s the communication rather than attacking him or his mother - it’s reverse physiology and it works.

You need to get your head in the game and take control of this situation.

Your SILs aren't your friends, clearly they dont give a shit about you.
Let them have a group chat without you, none of them care about your kids so dont worry about them not seeing pictures of them. Your kids aren't missing out.
Cut all emotional ties to his family, they dont care about you, so dont care about them.
If he invites his mum to your house then dont do a thing to help him, he can cook and clean and host. Focus on your kids, act as though she's not even there unless she says something to you or is inappropriate with the kids (eg. She says something nasty, speak directly to your kids "dont listen to that, it wasn't a nice thing to say" then refocus them on an activity with you). If she tries to start an argument just say "I'm not interested in arguing with you. If you cant respect me in my own home then feel free to leave." Firmly tell your husband that you wont be spoken to like that in your own home and that she's the one that chose to leave rather than be civil.
Your kids dont go to them unless you're invited. Maintain a calm but firm line with your husband "I'm not stopping the kids from going, your mum is by not inviting their mother and your wife."

Your husband is absolutely useless and is choosing to allow his mum to hurt you to save himself grief. Make sure he's aware you wont take it anymore, you won't let her treat you like shit to protect him when he isn't willing to protect you.

And for God's sake woman, stand up for yourself! You've taken some ridiculous shit off the lot of them, enough is enough.

You are looking to your mil to fill that motherly role. That's unfair of you. Give n she doesn't treat her own children well, do you really expect her to treat you better than them?
I think you are well rid off her, stop chasing her and leave her be.
Communicate separately with your sil if you have to. Your own dh seems unbothered but he is also probably affected by his mother and his upbringing. Dont make this an issue for him. His own distant stance should tell you something. I don't think you should make any demands of him to address this with her when in the first place he didn't even want to see her.

I have said YABU as you should be bloody relieved and grateful that you are now excluded from this pile of shite.

Celebrate!