Should I be the bigger person or cut off MIL?

[ThatCandidTraybake]

Me and my partner have been together nearly 8 years. He has always had a very ‘close’ relationship with his mum- not deep close as in purely surface level, she could not tell you the names of his friends, significant moments of his life, his favourite music/food, his deepest dreams and goals. Close purely in the talking every single day, upset if not responded to within minutes kind of clinginess.

I always felt like she never liked me from the offset because I didn’t reply to the 20+ texts in a row. She used to assert her dominance over him by randomly showing up at his house and entering (with her own key), walking in on me in bed and randomly decorating his house when we were not home. If I had left jewellery on the kitchen counter, it would be ‘missing’ when I returned home albeit to a clean kitchen. Notable occurrence was a taxidermy figure displayed in the hall when I arrived home one day.

When he worked away for a long period of time, she used to complain and hate when he would come home and want to see me or his friends instead of spending time with her - even though he was only home for 1.5 days then away again, very fleeting visits.

Covid was a blessing for us as we had a valid reason not to see her, since she always caused a huge stress, made passive aggressive comments and general headache. Over the years she has become significantly more dependent with age, however she gets around no problem but likes to ‘call upon’ her precious son to do tasks for her immediately. Doing it later when he was free was never an option

Fast forward to now, we have great jobs, our dream home - which they do NOT have a key to - a gorgeous little toddler and a few pets. LIFE IS GOOD. Except for the in-laws (MIL specifically!) There are times where we need their help with a few things and sometimes they come without strings but almost always there’s visits attached, which I oblige and sit and listen to their stories for hours. They are completely uninterested in anyone but themselves and generally spend most of the time complaining about the other family in their life. Because of this we rarely see them, maybe once every few weeks, as it takes a lot out of us who work full time and lead busy lives. This is not good enough for them and they always complain it’s not enough.

On the occasions where they have been in our company, she has made horribly insulting comments - about my 5 month old child’s weight, saying they are fat and need to wear dark colours to appear more slimming, shaming or showing next to no interest as they grow up and try to engage with their grandparents. ‘Oh they are nearly crawling’, ‘maybe they will start talking properly soon’. All the while my child is actively ahead for their age and happily trying to get their grandparents attention.

I would rather my child did not have to be in the presence of these harmful negative comments and people however they are still my partners parents.

Recently my MIL accidentally sent a voice note to my partner, where she is complaining about me and my family to random people in her community group, and saying that ‘her friend tells her that her son needs to get some balls and come to her house on his own with the grandchild more often’. This has obviously caused a lot of upset for my partner to hear, I always knew she had a nasty streak but masked it behind this ‘innocent little bird’ act. But it’s now clear as day the way she speaks about her family.

Part of me is not surprised but I’m in disbelief that she insists on sharing this cruel lies about her sons own family when they are invited around most weeks and choose not to come because they have more important things to do with their community group. They also couldn’t possibly believe their son doesn’t want to see them and it must all be me.

Where do I go from here? I’m torn between being the bigger person and not allowing her to make me look like the bad guy by refusing her any more access to my son without my presence. And just being done with the whole situation, it’s so horrible feeling this way and I feel so sorry for my partner growing up with such self absorbed parents. We are incredibly lucky to have an amazing support network in my family but how would you approach the MIL?

Really appreciate your advice x

Imo if you trust your dh to leave her home if she starts talking disrespectfully of you they should visit. If he won't agree she is out of order he can visit alone.
Then you can say you tried. .
Btw being nc with mil is fucking fabulous... 3

If you google 'enmeshed families' then her behaviour will make more sense. Parents who enmesh with their children aren't interested in their lives, their goal is not to help their kids become independent adults. Its possible she sent him the message 'accidentally on purpose'.
In your shoes right now I'd be the bigger person and focus on your relationship with your husband. He has to come to terms with the discovery, and consider breaking free from the enmeshed relationship. That takes time, and he may benefit from counselling while he goes through it so suggest he looks into it.

I'd do a phased approach which will require Dh to be onboard.

1 no invitations to your house, no presents bought for them by you.

2 Dh to organise his own visits to their house (when he thinks about it). He takes your child if he promises to leave if there are disparaging remarks about the family.

3 if they fail 2, Dh can go round on his own if he fancies it, again leave at negative remarks

4 wave if you see them in passing...

I might be misunderstanding here but it sounds like you've solved the overbearing problem (i.e. they don't have a key to your house any more) and now the issue is that you have to "endure" their visits when you want something from them? Oh and they make comments like "maybe he'll be crawling soon"?

I didn’t ever have a mother in law and I’m really sad that I didn’t ever get to meet her. My father in law was an horrid person who actively hated me. In the end I withdrew from seeing him but I didn’t ever seek to stop him from seeing my husband or our children because they were entitled to a relationship with him. In the end my father in law said some pretty appalling things about one of our children and my husband cut off contact with him. It took me years to get my husband to resume contact and I persevered because I love him and I didn’t want him to regret having lost his relationship with his dad and I especially didn’t want him to be able to blame me for not seeing his father.
I see such a lot of posts here which appear to me to be looking for encouragement to go non contact with in laws. Some people may have no choice but we only hear one side of the story here. Men are often a bit rubbish at keeping up social contacts but your husband does talk to his mum, perhaps he would prefer it if relations were more cordial?
It’s not a competition for who is the dominant female in your husband’s life, you have different roles. Could you talk to your mother in law in a spirit of kindness about how you are feeling and how she feels?
I have two daughters in law they are very different but I’m fond of them both and see both families regularly in fact I’m off on a short break with my younger son and family tomorrow. It can work beautifully, I know that my son’s wives and families are their top priority and my lovely daughters in law know my husband and I still hold an important place in our sons hearts and have valuable love for our grandchildren.
I hope you try at least because if nothing else if you ever have a son yourself you will be teaching him what his future relationship with you should look like once he has a partner of his own.

I feel for you being in this situation. Firstly, the notion of “being the bigger person” is bullshit, all it does is protect the toxic person and forces their victims, aka you and your family, to be subjected to their toxic behaviours. Her behaviour is abnormal, no normal, loving mother would treat her son like she is. A normal grandmother wouldn’t speak that way of her grandchild.

Secondly, I have personal experience of this type of relationship except it’s my mother. Presumably this is very hurtful for your husband and, possibly, confusing so I would recommend therapy for him. Growing up with a woman like that skews your view on what is normal from a parent and it can take a lot of unpicking to see the truth. Maybe your husband isn’t ready for therapy just yet so, in the meantime, I would suggest water tight boundaries with her. If she starts saying nasty things about your child you get up and leave, you do this as often as needed. Hopefully, she will learn to behave but in my experience it’s impossible for these types to change. Good luck with it all.

Thanks all for the messages. Appreciated your comment a lot, I do not want to go down that road just feel at a crossroads with being disrespected and the hurtful things said about my baby. Think ultimately it falls to my husband to set those boundaries and if she continues to say nasty things about our family then we will come to that bridge.

The whole situation just makes us both sad to hear her speaking like a completely different person to strangers 😔

to takealettermsjones, I understand how it can look unreasonable. I was being very vague and underplaying some of the things said about all of us, but I’m fully aware it’s a subjective and those who have been in a similar situation with toxic family members bashing them regularly may lean to this thread more so. Thank you for your comment though I appreciate hearing all sides

If your husband is just realising that he is in an enmeshed relationship with is mother, he needs support to come to terms with it, go through the grieving process, and work out how to move forwards.

You want their help- but you don’t want to have to see them when they provide this service for you?

Generally, if someone wants a favour, they are expected to be polite to the person giving it? It sounds like you’ve trained the IL to give you distance- but now when you invite them round because you need something they mistakenly take that as an invitation to see you- whereas what you actually want is for them to do the favour and fuck off?

No you can’t use your child as a weapon to punish your IL. You don’t sound very nice either

I think you need to stop asking them to help you every few weeks. It's not unreasonable that they expect to be able to see you then, and you find that contact unbearable, so get/pay someone else to help you, and you won't be obliged to see them anymore. Up to your husband what he wants to do then.

There are times where we need their help with a few things and sometimes they come without strings but almost always there’s visits attached,

what things?

Thanks for your reply, I understand the ‘helping out’ part comes across rude, that’s not what I meant at all. They offer to help with some things and of course we spend time with them when they do. As long as they are respectful of my child and do not say nasty things about myself or partner

Do you have any advice for spending time with people who speak about you negatively to others? I’m just trying to understand how to process the things she has said, do I forgive and forget and hope she doesn’t do it any more?

On the occasions where they have been in our company, she has made horribly insulting comments - about my 5 month old child’s weight, saying they are fat and need to wear dark colours to appear more slimming
This would be enough for me to show them the door. I would not want someone that calls a 5 month old baby fat anywhere near my child

Anything really - from borrowing a ladder, helping with the garden to very occasionally watching our pets for a few hours

im very appreciative of their help, it’s just sad when we can be having a nice time then they always end up becoming rude and saying hurtful things. Whether it’s about our child being behind developmentally, my partners weight, comments about mess in our house as a few examples

not sure if it’s a generational thing saying very blunt things that not acceptable now?

Don’t let your kids anywhere near people who criticise them. Is your partner okay with her fat shaming your 5 year old? What did he do?

Don’t ask for any help from these arseholes, that’s just asking for trouble.

Why do you need “help” with the garden? Just do it yourself.

You don’t like these people, stop asking them for help and then you won’t have to deal with them. But you can’t complain about them, when you are inviting them round to do your garden or look after your pets!!!

Very wise words.

I would add that my own DMiL was wonderful and I adored her. I believe my relationship with my own DDils is a reflection of this. Both my DDiil love me as much as I love them. However, I know I am just a DMIl!
Dsons do pickup on their DM's attitude so please think of this as your DS grows up.

These mil stories never cease to amaze me. Speaking from experience and I always say this these types of inlaws don't change. This woman has zero boundaries and is completely oblivious to how toxic she is, imagine to say such a thing about a child let alone your grandchild. Someone's going to have to have a real conversation with this woman and it does fall to her son. Really the voice note (if it wasn't the comment about the baby) is the perfect opportunity to start as you mean to continue so to speak. Take your chance now. If your partner doesn't speak up .. youre also more then in your rights to speak up. If you have had enough and you don't need us to tell she's obviously toxic then do something now. If she doesn't like it .. Well.. we all know what she can do... lol good luck x

Meanwhile in the real world…… 🙄

You lost me a bit at "there are times where we need their help with a few things" tbh. I don't think you can really deal with this effectively as long as you're asking them to do your garden, lend you things or "watch your pets", whatever that entails.

That said, if I had my time again, I would deal more directly with the problems I had with my PILs. When they made a silly fuss about nothing, I would tell them to stop being so dramatic. When they passively aggressively tried to manoeuvre things to their liking, I would ask them directly what their game was and what they were hoping to achieve. When they were rude, I would say, "Gosh, how rude you're being." And when they tried to undermine me as a mother, I think nowadays I would blow my stack and put an absolute stop to it before they had a chance to get started. I also would not rely on my partner to deal with any of their shenanigans, because he was ill equipped even to see it, never mind neutralise it. In my jaded, middle-aged opinion, the only way to deal with people like this is to refuse to allow them to operate under cover of social politeness, which is what they rely on.

I wouldn’t allow my kids to be around people like that if I were you because I already made that mistake. The fat comments are going to do some real damage. My partner cut of his grandparents because of racism and my dad did it to his mum. No regrets apparently and coming from former mummy’s boys/the golden child it really is something.

In the beginning, I worked really hard to make them have a good relationship as I felt “responsible” for my partner’s choices. I essentially made him go but it didn’t matter - the reason why he didn’t visit was because of me. He looked miserable because of how our relationship was draining him and not because he didn’t want to listen about his children’s noses and story 36483747 about Muslims. If they had been old enough to understand it would have given them a complex. You cannot win. The problem isn’t you and no matter what you decide you need to know that.

If they’ve had enough, they need to stop asking for favours 🤣. She can’t tell her MIL that enough is enough when she then wants her to pet sit or do the garden. Principals are expensive-OP can’t afford them

How old is your child OP? 5 years, 5 months or 15 months?

I absolutely agree. Anything like that would stop, I do not want to go down the negative route of cutting anyone off. It has been enlightening to hear others experiences with difficult in laws and how they have handled it.

Ultimately clear communication and boundaries need to be reiterated and maintained. If the relationship can be repaired I certainly won’t be asking for favours or help even if offered