How to deal with a toxic mil...I have to call her today

[redhappy]

mil wan't to take children out today I have said no and she has been causing trouble with dp all day so I am going to ring her this evening.

Really need some advice on how to deal with her.

Basically she is very unbalanced. Has no sense of boundaries. In the past I have either let it go, or tried to politely explain why she has upset me, why I would prefer her to do things differently etc.

I thought we had reached a good point, where we respected each other had a right to an opinion, even if we didn't agree with it, and just leave it be. Turns out actually she just goes behind my back now.

Ds has some special needs. Yesterday I found some email she had sent to dp. She had attached articles that basically implied his special needs were down to me, and things I did when he was a baby. ( I didn't 'do' anything by the way, I am a normal mum, with a typical lifestyle eg. At home, have worked part time, not currently, do 3 meals a day, homecooking, healthy snacks, limit tv, lots of walks, seeing other kids etc. I have NOT damaged him!)

What I really need help with is how to constructively effect change! She simply does not get it, or refuses to. If anybody dares to question her she plays the victim, demands apologies, guilt trips her children and their partners.

My other greivance is that she made such a mess of being a mum how dare she interfere! She wil sometimes admit this, but only if she's playing the victim card at the time. Her reply is always 'I was only trying to help' and she plays ignorant to the fact that I have politely asked her not to.

What can I possibly say to her? I texted her earlier to say she couldn't have the kids today as she had broken my trust and I would contact her to discuss it.

It's not a question of you knowing everything or thinking you know everything, it's common fucking courtesy. This toxic bitch is blaming you for your DS's diagnosis and she has no right. Until she fully accepts that she is wrong, she needs to stay the fuck away. Her 'experience' of life does not give her the right to meddle in your life with her uneducated and vile comments. Keep her at arms length.

sayithowitis yes yes yes! How dare she try to tell me what is invading my dps privacy! he was logged in on my laptop, sent when i opened hotmail was already on his account. I was not snooping, and if I was not her problem! To me that shows she is upset that there is not a place where she has him to herself!

Well, I'm still not totally sure on my next move, but I feel a lot more confident now, thankyou all

oh, yes forgot to say Attila she definitely fits npd! Apparently her father was pretty awful to her, used to call her a witch when she was a little girl.

Funnily enough, they 'all' have asd it seems. She and bil both claim to be hfa so I have had to put up with a lot of people telling me about my son, and that I will never really understand him, they know him best.

I really appreciate what you are saying. At this point not possible to totally cut her out. But we are planning to move quite a distance away in a few years and that's when the big break will come for me I think.

In the meantime I am going to write down what I want to say and read it out to her. And be quite clear that it is not a negotiation, I am telling her what I am prepared to accept from her.
It is obviously time for a massive change. I have tried to keep the peace and it's just not working.

Hi redhappy,

Was not too surprised to read your first sentence; thought her parents were awful to her. (My deeply dysfunctional MIL had an authoritarian Edwardian disciplinarian type Dad).

Re your comment:-
In the meantime I am going to write down what I want to say and read it out to her. And be quite clear that it is not a negotiation, I am telling her what I am prepared to accept from her.

Do not do this, you will only feed her more if you do. It will not work and she won't listen to a word of what you have to say. She will turn it around on you if you try. You (and her son) are her supply. You need to disengage and not engage. Narcissists also can have the nastiest tongues on them, do not have anything to do with them.

Yep - she's undermining you and the more you engage in this crap the more she likes it. There are people who need low level conflict and they encourage it and come back for more.

Her texts are very long aren't they. You do NOT have to listen to her at all.

I live a shortish distance from my dysfunctional inlaws and I personally now have as little to do with them as humanely possible. They are both dysfunctional. I don't phone them at all or visit them without my DH in tow. Distance or lack of is not an obstacle to cutting them off.

You can and should limit all forms of contact with this MIL of yours for your own sake if not just for your child's.

ok I hear you!

Just not sure how to explain this to dp. There is an expectation I should do something about it, deal with the problem somehow. Will have to work it out somehow though...

Yes, apparently her mother was some sort of angel. Not sure if that's relevant.

Need to put laptop away now, dp back soon and I don't want him to see this. Thankyou for all your comments today though. I have been a bit all over the place and do feel a lot calmer now.

It is my family, they are my children, I do not have to answer to anyone.

I´m glad you´re going to do nothing, because she won´t listen!

Ignore, ignore, ignore & ignore some more!

If you "deal with it", "do something about it", you´re just engaging with her.

She won´t take any notice of any rules/boundaries that you try to put in place.

I think I will talk to dp, he can talk to her and set the boundaries. Then on the face of it has been 'addressed'.

The turning point needs to be that he sees it is not my issue with her that's causing the problem. He thinks just ignore her, or rather humour her.

I had a phone call a couple of hours ago asking me to go to a job interview tomorrow. He couldn't get away from work early to have the kids, so he pointed out that if I hadn't said anything to his mum we could have asked her. So he's not there yet!

No he's not is he!.

Redhappy, you need to realise that your DP will not be able to set any type of boundary with her either as he has been conditioned by her to accept her behaviours as normal (BTW Redhappy's DP you have seen at first hand what ignoring and or humouring her can do) and she will twist his spoken word to make her look like the innocent victim in all this. He has had no success whatsoever in any previous dealings with her to date.

Narcissists have no sense of humour and NO empathy for others. They honestly do not give a fig about anyone else except them.

Both of you need to stop engaging with her; engaging with her in any way only proves further that she is "right", also you're feeding her supply need. Stop feeding the old bat!.

My MIL and FIL are like this ... Everything - including my ds's autism and my dd's diabetes are down to my bad parenting ... apparently I caused both children unnecessary stress by running my own business and this has led them to be "troubled" ( note - not suffering with physical health problems - just emotionally damaged !!)

There is no reasoning with people like this .. My DH struggled to cope with the constant slagging off his parents gave me and I got very very upset.. We went to Relate in the end as it very nearly split us up ..

We spent six week at Relate and the counsellor explained a lot to both of us .. The upshot is that we moved away, to protect our family unit - and we have never looked back ..

Its hard for a man ( or anyone) to hear that his parents are toxic ..and from his wife its even harder to hear..
Watching the counsellors response when DH talked to her about his family told my hubby more than anything I have ever said to him ..

Might be worth a try if your dh would go ? It also helped me accept the I's for what they are and move on .. I have given up trying to fix or educate them !!

"he pointed out that if I hadn't said anything to his mum we could have asked her."

OMG-he´s blaming you!!!

Why would he even want the children to go to her after the way she has insulted you?

Oh she sounds like mine!
Down to the worshiping of her own mother.

I might differ in what I think - but I would write an exceedingly polite letter, maybe even say I'm sorry I might have behaved badly towards her - if you think you have, so you kill that particular issue and she won't have excuses to bring it up again, then set my boundaries and after that ignore. Ignore the stupid cow.

She thinks she has monopoly on worrying because she's the grandmother and you obviously don't, right? because you're only (!) the mother. What a stupid self-centered woman she is!