For context, DP & I have been together 5 years, we live together & have 2 year old. Never had any issues with MIL up until DS was born, she was unhappy to hear I was pregnant, refused to look at the scan photo, she claimed I had ‘planned’ our pregnancy announcement deliberately on the week of her birthday to ‘steal her thunder’, then told me I was uninvited from her birthday dinner. went no contact up until I gave birth & she got back in touch to congratulate us (no apology for her behaviour previous). Herself & FIL turned up unannounced the same day we arrived home from hospital when DS was born after we specifically told her no visitors at least for the first week (same rule for all our family & friends). She then started crying when DP tried sending them home, said we were being ‘cruel’, I was too exhausted to debate it so just gave in & told DP to let them in. Then FIL insisted he didn’t want to hold DS as he was ‘in his best clothes’. They’ll contact DP asking to visit then cancel last minute, say that something els has come up or just don’t show up at all & ignore our calls or texts. They have a habit of saying they can’t visit or attend things like birthdays cause they are working but we always find out later on that they weren’t working they had just made other plans. For example, they missed DS’s first birthday due to them both ‘working that day & couldn’t book it off’ then I find out later from other family members & photos plastered all over Facebook that they weren’t working & had went out for drinks with MIL’s sister & brother in law. There has been several instances like such where we have caught them out in a lie but when we ask about it MIL acts as if she ‘doesn’t remember’ or she’ll just deny it all together.
Given how many times shes let us down & blatantly lied to us & gaslighted us I’m officially at my wits end, I have ignored a lot of it & let a lot go for the sake of DP & DS’s relationship with her but all came to a head a few nights ago. MIL, FIL & brother in law are going away for Christmas so she messaged DP & asked if we could arrange a day before they go away to exchange gifts, give them chance to see DP & DS etc, DP suggested Friday & MIL said she was unavailable any other day but Saturday, DP then contacted work & asked to swap his shift so he would be free Saturday to see his mom, he tells his mom he can do Saturday, she says that’s fine, then FIL messages DP & says it will have to be in the evening as he has things to do in the morning, DP says “no problem half 6 okay?” FIL says yes. 6pm comes & DP tells both MIL & FIL he’ll set out soon so we’ll be there for half 6, FIL then replies back ‘we’ve only just got to your nans, we’ll tell you once we’re back to start out’. DP waits despite being mildly annoyed they’ve changed their plans with us yet again (they do this A LOT), gets to 8pm & he messages both MIL & FIL asking “how long will you be? Would it be best to do it another day?” No response from MIL but FIL writes back “I don’t know son, call your mom and stop rushing us” at this point I was annoyed too given DS would be ready to go to bed soon & we were sick of waiting around, DP calls his mom, soon as she answers she says “son I’ll have to call you back I’m just booking something right now” DP says “dads just told me to phone you, what’s going on?” She says “son you’ll just have to wait” so I jump in (admittedly maybe I shouldn’t of) & said “we HAVE been waiting for nearly 2 hours now, we just want to know should we leave it & schedule another day when your ACTUALLY free?” she blows up & tells me quote “I suggest you drop the attitude mrs”, then proceeds to go on to say we can either wait till they are home or stuff it cause we can’t ‘dictate’ when they should be home, I responded “but you seem to forget we had already made plans, if you knew you weren’t going to be home at half 6 you should of told us that before your son took the night off work to visit you at YOUR request” she then goes on to say to DP “son tell the dog to stop barking back”, I’m not going to lie I snapped, lost my temper & said she was being incredibly awkward & unreliable, I pointed out that she has done this multiple times already & myself & DP had enough. She then tried gaslighting DP into thinking it was HIS fault??? She said “I’m telling you there is no issues our end, the issues seem to be on your end, its you that’s being awkward” when THEY were the ones that had gone out when they KNEW we had planned to visit at that time meanwhile we were the ones at home waiting for them to give us the all clear to set out. I said “how is the issue on our end? Our schedule is clear, we’re still home, we’re the ones waiting on YOU.” Then she kept repeating the same phrase to DP along the lines of “keep your dog quiet, put a muzzle on it, tell your dog to stop barking, tell your dog to shut up” blatantly ignoring anything I had to say because she refuses to admit she’s wrong, whenever I tried to get a word in she kept attempting to shush me because I wasn’t letting her gaslight DP into thinking he was at fault. DP isn’t the most confrontational, specially when it comes to his mom, he’s learnt it’s either her way or the high way, she can never be wrong & will argue for hours till eventually DP gets sick of hearing it so he’ll just take the blame to essentially just shut her up (even when he knows she’s wrong). Iv seen this happen a lot over the years even before DS was born & I was refusing to let that happen this time, I wasn’t going to pacify & pander to her like everyone els does & because of that she then hung up & hasn’t said anything since. I’m just wondering if I’m being unreasonable if I chose to cut her off but continue to let DP have a relationship with her if he wants to? (As of right now he wants nothing to do with her but that may change given it is his mother). Can the relationship between DP & myself work if I separate myself from his family? Has anyone els been in a similar situation & managed to come back from it & reconcile? Any advice would be highly appreciated.