AIBU to hate my mother-in-law after this?

[Sunshine231]

AIBU to hate my mother in law? She has always been fairly unpleasant to me and made it quite clear she does not like me. Early in the relationship my partner told me as much and that it was apparently out of character for her to not like anyone (something I later discovered to be untrue). She interferes with our relationship constantly, basically forcing DH to tell her every minor detail of our arguments but if I ever try to defend my side she says I am an awful person for “causing her stress”. Anyway I try to have as little to do with her as possible: I am civil and always make sure she has a gift from the kids on special occasions but that’s it. This weekend she arranged a “family” dinner and invited my husband and the kids but not me. DH and I decided together that they would not go and he politely declined. MIL then sent him a string of messages saying that I am coercing him and isolating him from his family. That he’s changed since meeting me (for the worse) and that she finds it “disgusting” that I would stop him coming for a “lovely” family dinner. When DH tried to defend me she got her other son to message him which culminated in him calling me the c word multiple times and DH having to block him. I now really want nothing to do with MIL and really feel she is a horrible self centred individual who I don’t really want around my kids. DH is very very close to her so he’s worried about damaging his relationship with her. AIBU?

Your MIL is a jealous fruit loop and wants your husband and child to herself. Cut the childcare, so you are not beholden to her, let your husband and child socialise with the family, if that is what they wish and you take yourself out of the equation. And you do not want to hear anything repeated that she says to your husband. You are not interested anymore. You need to break her control over you.

"Let him leave"? Does she physically restrain him? If he wants to leave, he can leave. He needs to practice some strategies for resisting such ridiculous and childish attempts at emotional manipulation. I mean, he presumably doesn't actually believe that not getting her own way will make her ill. If he wants to, he can tell her so, and leave. Like pp said, this is a husband problem. You are absolutely entitled to tell him that he must not discuss your marital issues with others.

Wow. She sounds absolutely awful. Of course yanbu to hate her. You'd be odd if you didn't!

Your DH needs to grow a back bone and stop seeing her so much. Why does he need to run to her after an argument? He obviously knows she is not ill from the stress your relationship apparently causes her.

I would be extremely pissed off with my DH if he didn't put up strong boundaries with her.

I hope you have some good friends to vent to about this!

Tell DH to stop sharing information with his mother for a start……that simply feeds her with ammunition to fire back at you.

It sounds like DH and his brother are both controlled by dear mummy to be honest and the sooner they man up the better.

This is a DH problem. It's lovely to be "family orientated" when your family love you and want what's best for you. DH"s family want him controlled, emasculated and unable to have a relationship with a woman who has thoughts, opinions and a life of her own, so that his mum can remain the most important woman in his life. Such a childlike, dependancy-focused existence would not at all be in his best interests. He is trying to live half a life of freedom and adulthood with you and also half a life of playing the dependent perpetual-child role to please his mother. It is not possible. He cannot do it.

Either he is committed to you as life partner or he isn't. If he wants to keep being controlled and manipulated by his mum then frankly you should divorce him. If he doesn't then the both of you need to decide together on what strategies you will use to keep her more distant and reduce her toxicity in your lives. She is a nasty person and the thing you have missed is that you do not need her good opinion, you do not need her to admit she is wrong and you do not need her to stop badmouthing you - it does not actually matter if she claims that you are "cutting DH off from his family" if you and DH know that the actions you take are mutually agreed, and decided in the best interests of your children and each other without reference to placating MIL. She will never be happy until you are either divorced or lobotomised/brainswapped into being someone meek and easy to command who isn't a threat to her dominance over a manchild son who doesn't dare to live his life without mummy's permission. If he isn't going to give her that outcome then DH needs to make peace with the fact that his mum will be unhappy and stop trying to avoid her unhappiness.

Oh wow !

the current set up is not working and something needs to change.

He definitely needs to stop giving details about any arguments you have had and just say he’s stressed with work or whatever it is.

I would also stop arranging gifts on special occasions for her and let your dh to sort that out from now on.

Does your dh tell her that he’s happy with you etc as he needs to keep doing that instead of fueling her hate

I can’t believe that she invited everyone but you to a family meal ! How did she word it to your dh that you weren’t invited ?!

So you do not have disagreements with your spouse? I don’t know any couples who don’t have minor disagreements probably once a month let’s say? But this woman twists normal disagreements into major drama. She exaggerates and makes stuff up based on the minor things DH tells her. DH’s brother has told him stuff MIL told him which allegedly we have done or said that simply have not happened. She told the brother for example that I “monitor” DH’s phone and that I reply to them pretending to be him. That is an outright lie, it’s almost comical because it’s so outrageous that she would make that up.

She sounds entirely awful, but he is outrageously passive about it and needs to stop making excuses about being "made" to do or say things by her. He needs to not share private information about your relationship with her or anyone! He should be on your side, no ambiguity.

She messaged him on Good Friday and said “we are hosting a family lunch tomorrow as your brother and partner are visiting, we would like it if you, child 1 and child 2 can come”. DH initially replied saying he wasn’t sure as child 1 had been under the weather. MIL responded “why can’t his maternal mother have him”. Whatever “maternal mother” means, I assume it is a dig at me to insinuate I’m not very maternal 🤷‍♀️

How old are your children? Assuming they are old enough to be part of a conversation, I'd be asking DH how does he think it makes them feel when his mother bad mouths you? And what if children look/act like you, will she shun them too??

She can't be a good grandma if she denegrates their mother, either directly or implicitly. Your kids love their mother and if she can't be civil to you, then she can't be trusted to put their best interests in front of her own. And your DH should be up front that this is his decision, that if she can't respect his wife and mother of his children then HE needs to step back. He might be close to his family, but are they supporting him or undermining the foundation of his married life?

Because it was odd to me that I was never invited to go visit his brother in London with him. There was only so long he could make excuses. I couldn’t understand how his brother could dislike me when we had never met. But it was because he had been fed stories from MIL about me

No they are 2 and 5 so far too young to be involved or understand. But of course they will one day. I can’t imagine I would be happy to go visit a grandma who openly hated my mother. Or an uncle who called my mum a c*nt. DH told her she will push the children away. She said it is me who will poison the children against her

@Sunshine231 I’ve read all your posts and sympathise. What would you like to happen?

I have an awful mother in law - she’s an extremely immature person. Following lots of upsetting drama about a decade ago, we are no longer in contact.

Even before the problems started, DH wouldn’t have gone to her to talk about our relationship. He was appalled at how his MIL treated me and told her as much. This lead to a period of no contact between them too.

Over time, DH tried to repair his relationship with her. I’ll be honest - at first this felt like something of a betrayal, but I had to swallow it and leave it up to him. Entirely unsurprisingly, MIL was difficult and annoying. They now speak on the phone occasionally and see each other rarely (less than once a year, I’d say). They barely know our lovely kids.

Point is, the way it all played out has nothing much to do with me now. It is up to DH to conduct his relationship with his mother, and it doesn’t impact us at all.

I’d insist he stops talking about your relationship with her (that’s totally fucked up) and I would perhaps reconsider the childcare - but other than that, I’d just step back as much as you possibly can! It makes for a far more peaceful life!

YANBU but your husband is a total pussy. He should have your back. Why does he run crying to his mammy when you have an argument anyway? He also sounds pathetic

Your husband needs some therapy to recognise how awful his mother is and how damaging she is your marriage. He seems to end up throwing you under the bus every time he speaks to his mum. He should shut her right down and if she continues, he should leave.

You have said:

'I am civil and always make sure she has a gift from the kids on special occasions but that’s it.'

Stop doing this. Why on earth would you buy gifts from your kids for such an unkind and unpleasant woman? She is a toxic influence on your husband and your children so it's time to completely drop the rope and stop doing any 'wife work' to help your husband.

A lot of this would be marriage ending for me as, ultimately, his loyalties seem to lie with his mum rather than with you.

Your husband sounds a bit wet innit.

A 5 year old is well capable of understanding these overheard comments and conversations, at nursery/school they are well taught in what is kind words and nice ways to speak/treat people. So this is a now problem, not a future problem.

And DH shouldn't be waiting for the kids to be "driven away" by her toxicity, he should be protecting them from it. Is he seriously expecting his children to make a choice between grandma and mummy when he can't do this himself? Do you see glass on the floor and wait for someone to cut their foot on it? No, you remove the glass before someone gets hurt.

Obviously you need to stop this arrangement of your MIL doing after school care for your youngest child. It is just another opportunity for her to create the narrative of doing a lot for you (which isn't true) and to blackmail you by threatening not to pick up your child from school at the last minute, which is an absolutely horrible thing to do.

Your husband is mired in the FOG (Fear, Obligation, Guilt) but you aren't and you need to put your foot down and end this nonsense. Don't let a malignant narcissist like your MIL have access to your children as she will try and use them to hurt you and to try and turn them against you.

Your mil is ot married to your DP.

I'm afraid in this situation I would tell her to grow up. She's modelling poor behaviour to your children.
As for the vulgar insults it's shows their level as a family. Rise above it and take no prisoners. Good luck.

I think it is completely unacceptable to exclude a daughter-in-law from a family dinner invitation. And I am not someone who believes that couples have to be together every time they see their own parents or that families shouldn't do things in multiple configurations, including holidays. But the principle of a family dinner is exactly that: everyone is included.

Whatever your DH says to her she twists and aim it all at you, he could go there in pain because he twisted his ankle at work but she has to make out it’s your fault.
That woman will dig at you every opportunity she gets as will BIL (he’s her flying monkey) to get under your skin and poison your relationship and will 100% use your kids against you.
I would tell him she is poisonous and you do not want your children involved in her malicious goading against you. She’s going to blame you regardless but your main responsibility is to protect your DC against toxicity because it will harm them mentally. Your MIL will eventually scapegoat one who is resistant to her manipulation and make the other the golden child.
Imagine when your DC are older and one comes back from his grandmother’s with dad and is upset, they tell you that she or uncle called you bad names. Not only will you be mad at DH for exposing them to this your DC will feel unsafe there or even start believing it to be true because after every visit when they come home you get very angry!

What's more important for your DH, that his kids have a strong relationship with his mother/parents (is there a FiL, as no mention has been made of him?), or that he has a strong relationship with you, his wife?

Your MiL sounds horrendous.

But so does your DH.

As is often the case, you have a huge DH problem here.

Your MiL hates you, bad mouths you, and tries to exclude you from extended family gatherings.

I would want nothing more to do with her, and I would be giving my DH an ultimatum - back me or we are done.

That's not you being coercive or controlling, that is you laying down your boundaries for how you are prepared to be treated.

Surely your DH can see that her behaviour is appalling?!

Why does he go to her after any argument and let her drag the details out of him? There's an easy solution to that one!

He probably needs therapy to understand the extent of her malignant control of him (and of his brother, and I expect the FIL too).

But however he does it, he needs to start standing up for you, and mean it. She will not change unless he does.

Good luck OP.

While she does sound bat shit, it also sounds like you have issues in your relationship independent of that (what are these rows about?), and that your DH is easily manipulated into sharing details of rows he has with you (whatever stories she makes up, he doesn't need to go across when he's upset, and he doesn't need to talk about his relationship, this is on him). We don't know the full picture but there certainly could be situations/events that if a mother heard about it could make her less receptive to her DIL (infidelity, abuse, etc). I'm not defending your MIL, I'm just saying that there is a bigger picture here with lots of missing pieces.

If your DH's initial response was that child 1 wasn't well rather than telling her that he and the children would not be attending without you, you have a massive DH problem.

You must realise that your MIL will badmouth you to your own children when you aren't there and your wet blanket of a husband won't do or say anything about it.

His behaviour would be marriage ending for most people. His ultimate loyalty lies with his mum and brother and he does absolutely nothing to shut down their awful lies and comments about you, which are said in front of your children.