I've been writing this post for weeks now. I seem to write a book but never post as it ends as a rant but I actually want/need advice on how to deal with this.
MIL is a narcissist. I did list around 10 big bullet points of her being unreasonable/controlling, but I know she's unreasonable but how do I stop her occupying my headspace? I've given her a lot of free passes and spent months trying to think of things from her perspective to understand why she's acting the way she is but there's no other reason apart from being narcissist/toxic/manipulative/unable to think of others apart from herself.
DP gets upset, the last few months he's been reduced to tears at least once a month by her. She's not accepting that DP has decided to move in with me and we're not prepared to move back to his home town. After months of her guilting us she turned up the heat by telling DP if he's brother (who's had shitty mental health for years) commits suicide it will all be his fault and 'will you be able to live with that on your conscious' as apparently living 90 minutes away is abandoning the family...
Luckily I don't have a DP problem (I've done a LOT of traipsing on previous MIL threads) but he deals with her in a way I can't. He unconsciously uses the grey rock method and uses customer service complaint resolution training on her. Then everything she says after he's collected his tears is 'water of a ducks back' and forgotten the next day.
Her manipulation tactic is to cry, 'I'm just letting you know how unhappy you're making me.....' (when either of us politely refuse her unreasonable demands). She doesn't see reason, care about our happiness/lives, she's extremely nosey, acts the victim, always making a dig, has zero social etiquette, half the time she doesn't even have a point but just wants to be in control. I'm still mad about what she said months ago, and everything just builds, I actually despise her.
Unless I start doing some voodoo she's going to be in our lives for years to come. She's not the kind of person we could get away with speaking to her once a week on the phone and visiting twice a year. I'm also not going to give DP an ultimatum just because she really pisses me off (DP will always defend me and prioritise me/us).
How on earth can I get her out of my headspace, even if i'm not directly communicating with her she still upsets me when she upsets DP or just generally being unreasonable. How do I manage to remain civil around her as surely that's the best approach?