Christmas season MIL mess!!!
My Mother In Law has always been a toxic person to be involved with, as she regularly goes between family members, complaining about the other person and attempting to stir the pot. She also only seems to be insistent on pitching me and my husband and my Brother In Law and his wife against each other. She will often be passive aggressive or openly ‘off’ with me and it will quite literally appear and disappear overnight, never with any understanding as to why.
Recently my mother in law said that she wouldn’t be helping with any childcare in any way (school pick ups etc) anymore from now on. We’ve accepted this calmly/peacefully, but aware of the fact that this probably means that we’ll never see her, because she doesn’t attempt to arrange contact since she’s had a new relationship. I’ve made an effort to keep that contact in place so that the kids can still see their nan etc. For the last few weeks, I’ve text her to ask if she needed anything, attempted to call to catch up, asked when she’s free for us to see her etc. Each time she’s been busy or off to bed etc. On Saturday night I text her to ask if we could give her her Christmas presents and she said only quickly the following morning, because she was busy.
That night we bumped into my sis/brother in law and they mentioned that my MIL was at their house. They asked if we wanted to go over to theirs too. We arrived and my MIL was dismissive. Didn’t say hello to me, wouldn’t look up. Looked generally fuming at my presence! As the night went on, she would flick between blanking me/acting as though I were invisible, glaring at me or then suddenly asking me passive aggressive questions. Then at one point she suddenly asked me I was eating for Christmas Dinner this year. Another family member said something about it being obvious wasn’t it. She said “Well, she likes her food doesn’t she?” She did it with a sneer. Everyone paused uncomfortably. Then she said “What? She does. She loves her food.”
I said nothing and remained polite to her until we left a little while after. When we left I tried to give her a cuddle and she moved away and completely blanked/dismissed me. I said “Oh, ok.” I left and felt just completely bewildered about where that hatred of me had come from. Also upset because I had recently confided in my MIL that I was feeling low and had comfort eaten and put on weight.
We were due to spend Boxing Day with her and I needed to put that barrier in place for future. I write a non confrontational text to calmly say that I’d noticed some tension and the comment about food, not wanting to hug/say goodbye at the end. I asked if I’d done anything to upset or offend her and asked if there was anything I could do to help repair things if there was.
She phoned my husband screaming down the phone about how she’s done nothing wrong. Then hung up on him. Then she phoned my SIL who didn’t pick up. My sis in law had messaged me to ask if I was ok because shed seen how I’d been treated. Then she phoned my BIL.
A little later, she phoned me to say that my BIL had told her everything from my texts to my SIL (my responses to say that I was sad and baffled when she’d asked if I was ok). She screamed about how evil I was, how I’d hurt her feelings, wrecked her Christmas, done this on purpose, the problem was with me etc etc. She ended by saying that she didn’t want to see me again and then the line went dead.
Where they hell do I go from here?!