My mother hates my husband (long)

[badtoworse]

I don't live in the UK. DH is from the country we live in. Mum came to live here (divorced and then later my father died) some years ago in a house a short drive away. Soon decided it was a big mistake and that she hated it, then to complicate matters then injured her back and became really unable to manage living alone. We sold my house and we moved in with her. All coinciding with me starting a new business venture and DH becoing unemployed. DH has bascially been unemployed (except for a couple of short contracts) since then. When we all moved in together DS was 20 months (now 4.5) and we've since had another child who's 1.5.

Before we all moved in together I was about to go back after mat leave and all set up (at her suggestion) for mum to have DS while I worked and DH at work. DH lost his job three days before I went back but mum said she still wanted to come up in the afternoons cos she wanted to see DS. She (much later) claimed DH had sat on the coputer and let her do it all. He said (we had a big row about it then) he only sat on the computer while DS napped.

My business has been slowly dying a death so I'm going to be WOH from Monday (previously ran busness from home). Yesterday I had meetings all day. DH supposed to be looking after DCs for the afternoon while I'm out.
I told him not to let my mum do too much, to imagine she was not there as it's too much for her. When I came home I asked mum (who I saw first on coming in) how things had been and she pulled a face and said tell you later.
Asked DH if he'd let DS just spend the whole afternoon with my mum and he said, only a bit while DD asleep..she slept for almost 2 hours. Then I ask mum and she says that he'd sat on the laptop and told DS he couldn't play as he'd wake the baby up and she'd felt bad so spent 2 hrs entertaining DS while DH sat on laptop.

I was really pissed off as I'd asked him specifically not to do this and we had a row.

He says she's exaggerating and that he can't believe I'm questioning his parenting abilities/calling him a neglectful parent and talking about him behind his back. He says DS wasn't with her the entire time, he was in and out and he didn't tell him he couldn't play, just that he had to be quiet as the baby was asleep.

She says he's a lazy git and it's the same old shit as all those years ago, she's had enough and would go back to the UK if she had the money. They've been avoiding each other all day and I feel totally caught in the middle.

I'm so angry that he did exactly what I asked him not to but I can't stand this atmosphere, it's like I'm being asked to choose, my husband or my mother.

She's 68. Yes, you're right. I think she's lit that boiler before. DH said she's probably lying and has lit it and anyway if she hasn't, she's a grown woman and will have to manage. He said she'll soon get fed up of cold showers and sort it out.

ah, thought 58, but still...

There'd be someone in the building to help... Don't worry about a thing.

I agree that you don't need to worry about her - she is and will be absolutely fine. And you will all be the better for her not being there.

Make your plans and get them rolling and building momentum so if/when (I think when) she does come back they will already be unstoppable.

I do have to say I can sort of see your Mum's point re childcare/DH only a tiny bit! as in your earlier posts you said that your children watch an hour of tv at breafast and 40 mins of tv at teatime. That's a LOT of tv for children their age - tv isn't recommended at all for children under two although I do think the odd 10-20 mins often has it's uses. But an hour and forty minutes a day is excessive according to current guidelines.

You also said that DH had been on his laptop for two hours in the afternoon, and again during the 40 minute teatime.

So the kids watch an 1hr 40 mins of tv a day, and in the afternoons when DH is looking after them he spends 2hrs 40 mins on his laptop - including a mealtime. IMO that is excessive tv and laptop using.

Recommendations also state that meal times should be tv free to allow for family communication and attention to what is actually being eaten to prevent over or under eating. I do find it very odd that rather than sit and engage with his children over a meal he sticks Octonauts on and they eat watching that, whilst he sits on his laptop. I can understand why your DM would sit and chat to DS in that situation - because that particular aspect is not good.

I am sure your DH is a great Dad - but family meal times and not having the tv on during meals is, in our house at least, massively important. My Mum would kick my ass if I stuck my DC in front of the tv to eat whilst I sat on my laptop - and my Mum rarely says anything is lovely. So in this I don't actually think your DM was wrong (just in every other way ever ever ever.)

Unread that differently Cool. I thought she said her husband only went on the computer because her mother was playing with the children.

The thing is Cool, that on its own regarding TV time, could be broached in a quiet way, like it would be in your house, it could be dealt with quite easily. From what I picked up, however, this woman appears to condone things one day, then they are the work of the devil the next. All designed to confuse the poor dad, who, apparently doesnt always pick up on everything, as he is not using his first language. For now, I would forget the TV/lLaptop,situation, which is probably nothing as bad as she claims......Hell what is? Get rid of the elephant in the room, THEN they can impose their own rules, agreed jointly, and hopefully peace will reign.

Oh and she`ll be fine with the boiler. I regulary stay in a lovely apartment in Southern Spain. The owner makes sure everything is spot on for me, but once when I was there, the boiler needed re-setting, and I had lovely people from the neighbouring apartments, falling over themselves to help me.

I do see what you're saying about the tv, they should probably watch less, but that's NOT what she's complaining about. What she does is sidelines DH and then says he's useless. She has sporadic outbursts when she has a go at him and then complains he's not very chatty (in, what is a foreign language for him to a woman who he knows thinks he's a waste of space...she's said as much more than once). For instance, the row about taking DS out while the people came to view my house. It was MY house that DH and I lived in. She was there as she supposedly couldn't live alone. She said DS should go out as it would be distracting (not sure why really now...he was a toddler at the time, but not badly behaved especially). DH said he'd wait til they arrived as people are often late or simply don't turn up for that kind of thing and where we lived there weren't really any parks, so would have been traipsing round really. She got really annoyed that he wouldn't do what she said (and I'm not sure really why it had to be her and me...it's all this pushing him out again) he wasn't rude but said he wouldn't be told what to do in his own house and she ended up screaming that it might not be her house but she was paying for it (the translation took about 3 months to build up, so I only had part time work so she helped me with the mortgage for 3 months). Ended up with more threats to leave and "finish with you forever" I cracked and ended up crying and DH got upset and told her he was sorry for upsetting her.

id like to make it clear about childcare. She does NOT do childcare.
In the afternoon, I go to work at 3pm and DD goes for a nap. She sleeps for about and hour and a half. DS often goes into DM's living room and sometimes she reads him stories, more often her plays with a dolls house she has in there or plays with toy cars. She lies on the sofa. They chat a bit. DH pops his head in from time to time and asks if they're OK, she always says yes. When this blew up in September I said, fine you think Dh doesn't lok after his own child, enough of this...DH is to play with him while DD naps. She says I'm taking her grandson away from her, taking away her only pleasure in life, punishing her.

Then, after about an hour and a half asleep DD gets up or is woken and 2 or 3 days a week dh takes the two of them off to ds's after school sports. If it's not a sports day they go for a long walk/to a park. They come back and have tea and watch some carefully selected programs in their minority language. The tv with satellite is in her room, so that's where they sit. The programs are in English, so not DH's language. DM likes to do "educational" chat during them..."what's that, is it a squid..would you like a squid for a pet?". What's DH to do? They're watching tv, she's talking to them, is he supposed to chat away in another language on top of that?

Then they go for a bath and bed and DM (at her insistence) sits upstairs and when DS comes out of the bath she helps him with his pjs (he can mostly do them himself..it's not toddler wrestling, he's nearly 5) and reads him a story. But apparently DH does that all wrong too because sometimes DS plays up a bit and cries.

The children are out in the morning too, from 9ish til 1.30 for DD and 1.50 for DS. DH does the shopping, cooking and the vast majority of the housework.

I am struggling with not contacting her, it all seems so final. But I don't know what to say if I were to contact her either.

And yes, he's on the laptop because DD is asleep and DS is playing with DM, if he offers to take DS away she says he's punishing her, DS is "no trouble" and she likes their time together. Then suddenly DH "leaves a physically disabled women to look after a child all afternoon with no help". He's been making a papier mache octonauts guppy with DS, over the weekend but said it felt like he should ask DM's permission.
It's like she wants to be the other parent with me and wants DH out of the way.

Every time you think about contacting her remind yourself of how she's trying to destroy your husband's confidence one parenting jab at a time. You don't want to be in contact with someone like that.

Don't blink. Keep on going like you are, remember how nice this morning was. She's waiting for you to give in and invite her back and then it'll be back to normal again.

Your DH sounds lovely!

Also re the laptop thing...I presume the poor guy is looking for work at least some of the time when he's online. I imagine, like many of her generation, your DM knows little about how one actually finds work these days (or maybe he's on the Spanish equivalent of Dadsnet posting AIBUs trying to keep sane?).

My DH constantly retreats to the laptop when faced with his DPs or mine or horrors both at once - it's like his comfort blanket.

Had a read through, she doesn't have all those traits and I'm not sure she has NPD, as I understand it's actually really rare as a personality disorder, but I think she has elements of what might be described as narcissistic traits and she's quite manipulative. There is quite a lot that could have been written about her though and the parts below in speech marks are things she says, word for word, which is quite freaky.

She will deliver slams in a sidelong way - for example she?ll complain about how ?no one? loves her, does anything for her, or cares about her, or she?ll complain that ?everyone? is so selfish, when you?re the only person in the room. As always, this combines criticism with deniability.

She makes you look crazy. If you try to confront her about something she?s done, she?ll tell you that you have *?a very vivid imagination?+

She didn?t do anything. She has no idea why you?re so irrationally angry with her. You?ve hurt her terribly. She thinks you may need psychotherapy. She loves you very much and would do anything to make you happy, but she just doesn?t know what to do. You keep pushing her away when all she wants to do is help you.

Narcissistic mothers infamously attempt to damage their children?s marriages and interfere in the upbringing of their grandchildren.

She spins what you said rather than makes something up wholesale.

Older narcissistic mothers often use the natural limitations of aging to manipulate dramas, often by neglecting their health or by doing things they know will make them ill. This gives them the opportunity to cash in on the investment they made when they trained you to wait on them as a child. Then they call you (or better still, get the neighbor or the nursing home administrator to call you) demanding your immediate attendance. You are to rush to her side, pat her hand, weep over her pain and listen sympathetically to her unending complaints about how hard and awful it is. (?Never get old!?) It?s almost never the case that you can actually do anything useful, and the causes of her disability may have been completely avoidable, but you?ve been put in an extremely difficult position.

Since narcissistic mothers often play the martyr this may take the form of wrenching, self-pitying dramas which she carefully produces, and in which she is the star performer. She sobs and wails that no one loves her and everyone is so selfish, and she doesn?t want to live, she wants to die! She wants to die! She will not seem to care how much the manipulation of their emotions and the self-pity repels other people

She is insanely defensive and is extremely sensitive to any criticism. If you criticize her or defy her she will explode with fury, threaten, storm, rage,

She?s infantile and petty. Narcissistic mothers are often simply childish. If you refuse to let her manipulate you into doing something, she will cry that you don?t love her because if you loved her you would do as she wanted. If you hurt her feelings she will aggressively whine to you that you?ll be sorry when she?s dead that you didn?t treat her better.

Above all, you were always her emotional caregiver which is one reason any defection from that role caused such enormous eruptions of rage

She is never wrong about anything. No matter what she?s done, she won?t ever genuinely apologize for anything. Instead, any time she feels she is being made to apologize she will sulk and pout, issue an insulting apology or negate the apology she has just made with justifications, qualifications or self pity: ?I?m sorry you felt that I humiliated you? ?I?m sorry if I made you feel bad? ?If I did that it was wrong? ?I?m sorry, but I there?s nothing I can do about it? ?I?m sorry I made you feel clumsy, stupid and disgusting? ?I?m sorry but it was just a joke. You?re so over-sensitive? ?I?m sorry that my own child feels she has to upset me and make me feel bad.? The last insulting apology is also an example of projection.

As a last resort she goes pathetic. When she?s confronted with unavoidable consequences for her own bad behavior, including your anger, she will melt into a soggy puddle of weepy helplessness. It?s all her fault. She can?t do anything right. She feels so bad. What she doesn?t do: own the responsibility for her bad conduct and make it right. Instead, as always, it?s all about her, and her helpless self-pitying weepiness dumps the responsibility for her consequences AND for her unhappiness about it on you. As so often with narcissists, it is also a manipulative behavior. If you fail to excuse her bad behavior and make her feel better, YOU are the bad person for being cold, heartless and unfeeling when your poor mother feels so awful.

Gah.

She texted about an hour ago, asking if there were any towels (they were all brought back here after the summer, or most of them, to be washed because I didn't have time to wash them all and dry them all before leaving the last time. The next person to go there was supposed to take them). Said I didn't know and asked if she had hot water.
She replied that no, she'd followed my instructions but no gas, it didn't matter as she couldn't step over the bath into the shower (she can when she's here) and she'd just boil a kettle and sponge bath so she could at least change her clothes.
I told her there were towelling robes in the bathroom, said it doesn't have to be like this, I love you.
No response.
She's still playing chicken.

See, look at her ailments changing! I bet she has hot water. Ignore ignore ignore. Sponge baths never killed anyone even if she hasn't got hot water.

How's your exit strategy going, OP?

I may be a bit too entrenched in my own baggage here, but I will say this: Please stop trying to make her 'forgive' you by reassuring her of your love and acceptance. You have not done anything wrong.

When you say things like that (regardless of how true they are) then you're just reaffirming the fact that she has got you on a very tight leash. Do you think she doesn't spot that? If you want her to realise that you're not all just going to return to the status quo then you need to break away from the status quo and stop giving her the standard reassurances of love and devotion.

Just don't say anything like that for a while and see what happens. Bet she steps it up a notch and becomes incredibly pathetic-sounding in an attempt to prod you into the 'correct' behaviour.

Why would she need to respond to your last text? She's got you where she wants you - emotionally hand-wringing.

Have just read your thread. I'm sorry you and your poor DH are having such a bloody awful time!
Please, STOP TEXTING. She knows there are towelling robes in the bathroom. She probably has hot water too. Stop replying to her texts. You are providing her with a forum to keep invoking your guilt (she's without adequate water, she's too debilitated to shower etc). At the moment, you should be avoiding contact (I love that she's had a huge strop and left, but is making sure you're still right there at the end of the phone when she 'needs' you to, um, find her a fricking towel.)
Expend your energies on finding alternative accomodation options, and solidifying plans to extricate your family from this awful situation. Next time she texts, either IGNORE IT, or reply 'I think it's best we leave it at the moment. We both need time to cool down. I'll be in touch at some point.' TAKE BACK YOUR POWER. As things stand, with you texting things like, 'I love you, it doesn't have to be this way', she knows she's holding all the power, as usual, and thus has you right where she wants you. She won't change. You need to be the one to signal 'Things are going to be different around here.'

You re all so right. It's so hard to break the habits of a lifetime. Will write exactly that 1charlie1. Have found out some info on flats in the village, looks like we could get somewhere for btw 400-500 euros. I earn 1100 euros after tax and have savings.

Not everyone has every trait of narciisim, and its hard to get a diagnosis simply because narcissists dont think they are wrong, so very very few would ever go to therapy.
And there is a sliding scale - my mother, for instance, can be lovely alot of the time. She wouldnt see herself as nasty at all. She helps out (if it doesnt inconvenience her) and she will say stuff which would have you questioning her narcissism. But she is, and it only shows when she hasnt got the attention she thinks she should have, is contradicted or criticised, someone answers back, she loses control of stuff or the upper hand, or her plans for what she wants to achieve are twarted. And then she reacts in a typical narcissistic style, probably without concious thought - its like her natural defence for being mentally backed into a corner - she comes out fighting in pure narcissistic style. But alot of it is the dynamics within the family, the way she parented, and the way her children feel as a result of her behaviour as a mother.
So, just because you dont recognise all the traits doesnt mean she isnt a narcissist. You highlighted a pretty big chunk of it. If it looks like a shark, smells like a shark and behaves like a shark, apart from the fact that it has a pretty hat on, its probably a pretty good bet that its still a shark disguising itself with a hat.
Try not to get too involved in these text exchanges. dont ask any questions. dont tell her you love her (its like you are desperate for her to tell you the same in return, it makes you look weak) dont expect replies. Dont reply straight away - it makes you look as if you are waiting for her texts.

I agree with ThreeTomatoes. Why are you sending 'I love you' texts? When I argue with my mum, or DH, I don't pepper it with lots of 'I love yous'. It's just not appropriate, unless it's in the context of APOLOGISING because I am in the wrong. Is this how you feel? That actually, you are in the wrong?

It's not how I see it, or how other posters on this thread see it. She is screwing with your marriage, and continually belittling your DH, OP. Among myriad other manipulations. You need to get a bit angrier.

I'm glad my dad rarely texts and phones me if he wants something. I'd stop putting emotional endings onto any texts. As its your brother's flat I'm not sure why she's texting you about it anyway. Remeber she is your mother not your daughter and stop fussing over her. You need to let her try to be more independant. She can always call a plumber, that's what people do when their hot water doesn't work.

You are right, OP. It IS hard to change behaviours to which we've been conditioned. But you CAN do it! Brilliant that you've found some affordable accommodation!