Worried about Christmas, DM and MIL

[LewisMam]

A couple of years ago MIL did something truly awful to me. I went round to (politely) discuss it and took DM for support. MIL lost her temper, screamed at us and threw us out in the street.

Fast forward to today. I’m civil to MIL for DH’s sake. DM refuses to have anything to do with her. This is our baby DS’s first Christmas and our first Christmas in our new home, so DH wants to host dinner for DM, MIL and his siblings. DM refuses to come because MIL will be there.

Problem 1: I don’t want DM to miss DS’s first Christmas because of a bitch like MIL. If I have to put up with the cow then I don’t see why DM can’t. She needs to learn to cope with MIL because she can’t miss the baby’s birthday and every other event just to avoid MIL. And I don’t see why I should host Christmas in my own home but not have my own family there. Alternatively if we can only host one of them why is it automatically MIL? We’ve spent the past ten Christmases with MIL so surely we could spend a Christmas with DM for a change.

Problem 2: DM is retired and pops in most days to give the baby his lunch and give me a break for an hour. MIL works full time and goes out a lot with friends and online dating, she rarely visits and maybe sees the baby once every 3 months. DH is worried that the baby has a relationship with DM but not MIL. He giggles and interacts with DM and says Nan Nan to her, but blanks MIL because she’s a stranger. MIL is very huffy and DH is worried she’ll take the huff at Christmas when she sees the obvious warmth between DM and the baby.

So what do we do?

Your MIL is a nut job and your DH is a complete dick.

This

I’m afraid I’d have put my foot down weeks before the wedding whether she liked it or not, fucking ridiculous drama for no reason.

Tell your husband to grow the fuck up

Yep. He’s a twat, he’s enabling her awful behaviour and you’re letting him. Tell him he can spend Christmas with her if he wants to but you’ll be with family that actually love and respect you.

I can also understand why your DM can't bear to eat h you being treated like crap by these people

Fuck that. Have your Mam there. Do not have MIL. DH can go sit with her if he wants.

I think this kind of situation is impossible to understand until you’ve lived it. It’s not that I’m saying all the posters saying “I would just...I wouldn’t put up... I’d have...” aren’t right. It’s just that it can feel like an unfathomable chasm between where the OP is and the land of common sense and good boundaries. Or at least I’m guessing that because it’s taken me 3 years of therapy to get close to the other side.

I found this website out of the fog very useful; fog stands for fear obligation and guilt. It made so much sense of my dh’s family dynamic and why he made some of the awful throw-me-under-the-bus decisions when it came to his mother.

The relationships board might be a good place to chat about the wider dynamics. There are a lot of posters over there who have been through wonky relationships or grown up with fuzzy boundaries.

But in terms of Christmas you have options. Maybe the hard part is actually rocking the boat? Your dh is concerned about the “fairness” of your dm’s relationship with the baby. Fairness is great leverage. You could decide to spend every other Christmas with each family for instance and see the other gran on Stephen’s day. We don’t celebrate birthdays together: we visit each grandparents house and they make a fuss, and the dc have a party with friends but only major family events pull the two families together.

With relatives and rows every degree of separation makes a row harder to heal. Your DH is one degree from his dm so he forgives; you are two degrees away so you resent but get on with it; your dm is three degrees away and won’t speak to her. You can’t expect your dm to suck it up just because you do.

However, this situation again gives you leverage. Tell your DH that your dm won’t be in the same room as mil, and that they can’t both come for Christmas. And that it’s only fair to [insert solution]

I’m going to hazard a guess that you are instinctively protecting your DH from the extent of ill will towards his dm? Throwing it off a degree, so it’s coming from your mother might be easier to broach with him, and less painful for him too.

Ultimately owning your feelings and emotions is the goal but you have to start somewhere.