Met DP's mother...She's "difficult". How do I play this?

[kistanbul]

My DP, who is an only child, and I have been together for 6 months and I really want the relationship to work. The main potential problem is his mother.

I, like every women he's been with, am only after his inheritance (her semi in a not nice part of Surrey), but he's too stupid to see it. She threatens to kill herself because she's lonely and no one cares. She cried when she found out I'd stayed the night at his home - a neighbour saw me leave. She makes comments about my appearance (ugly), education (poor), family (common) and has started talking about writing him out of her will. He used to be so kind before he met me, but now she's ashamed of his (unspecified) cruelty to her.

She also has keys to his house, which he gave her when he was having work done, and lets herself in when he's at work; he has asked for them back, but the suicide threats start again, which distract him from the task at hand.

DP moved back to his home town when his father, who died two years ago, became very ill. He sees his mother twice a week and calls everyday.

She's an intelligent, capable women in excellent health, who appears to have lots of friends. I hate that this is relevant, so please don't hate me for saying it, but I own my own place and my family are "posher" and richer than hers.

She is very open about the fact that he ruined her life and career when he was born, so he owes her.

Does anyone have any advice on dealing with her? How should I expect him to behave if we're going to have a successful relationship? Is it even possible to have a successful relationship with someone like that in the background?

[GetOrfMoiLand]

Oh, sod him. Get out of it and meet someone normal. Plenty more fish in the sea and all that.

Because he is not a passive bystander in this and how it is making yo so unhappy. It may seem so but it is an active passiveness. He will spend the rest of the time placating her and ignoring you.

Leave them to it and find someone who doesn't have a family that can make you feel so miserable after six short months. Don't bother trying to fix this family. They don't wan to be fixed. Find a non-broken one to join and one where they will welcome you.

[pictish]

And so say all of us!

[deedotty]

What GetOrfMoiLand said, last paragraph.

I've just stopped being interested in a very attractive man as his situation hints at being slightly similar. Back on internet dating, no harm done and a few notches on the bedpost....From past experience, even another year of singledom would be fine compared to the horror of Clingy MIL type.

Fact is, by a certain age, if a man hasn't made the decision to stop being Norman fucking Bates, you can't fix it without throwing your own emotions and sanity under a bus. Don't waste your time!

[GetOrfMoiLand]

You could find someone with a lovely family. I know the horrible mother in law thing is a popular theme but you could end up with a lovely set of in laws who you could really cherish. Life is hard enough some times without marrying into guaranteed years of strife and heartache.

[Minifingers]

Can I just say that for the first two years following my father's death my mother was an absolute nightmare. She was judgemental, angry, self pitying and just really, really difficult. I can't imagine what it would have been like if I'd been an only child.

2 years is nothing in terms of a major bereavement. My mum was a different person before my dad died. Slowly she's getting some sort of life back now, 3 years on, but it's hard for her. She is old and lonely and frightened. She knows her behaviour alienates us but she can't stop herself doing it.

My advice to you would be to put yourself in her shoes. She is afraid and probably very sad still.

[2rebecca]

I would end it. He is too close to his mother and should never have moved back to live near her. The only way to deal with manipulative parents is to move away and see less of them. He is unwilling to do that and not even willing to change the locks on his house to keep that private. Grief isn't an excuse for nasty manipulative behaviour 2 years down the line. I suspect if you ask him she was always like that and has just got worse recently.

[2rebecca]

My father's personality hardly changed. he was quieter and sadder for a while but not nasty and threatening suicide.

[deedotty]

@LifeOfPo



OP, looks like we're "ganging up and telling you to break up" but I think a lot of us are posting from the "we STARTED with good intentions but realised it really REALLY wasn't fucking worth it" perspective?

Maybe its related to my own mother issues (OH YES, IF I MANAGE TO DEAL WITH HER IT WILL REDEEM MY OWN DIFFICULT MOTHER SITUATION) but I thought I could pacify or be nice or manage it would all be fine and I'd win her approval... - I was young then...

But the woman was just like an emotional black hole who hated the person she had become, thought of her son as her surrogate husband, there was NO solution to be had apart from getting away.

[Hissy]

"Fact is, by a certain age, if a man hasn't made the decision to stop being Norman fucking Bates, you can't fix it without throwing your own emotions and sanity under a bus. Don't waste your time!"

Jumps up and down on the button.

[AlwaysWashing]

Run for the bloody hills.

[Darkesteyes]

OP RUN

RUN silent
RUN fast
RUN hard.
RUN deep.

But the keyword here is ......RUN!

[WafflyVersatile]

Christ so much sympathy for women who struggle to get over ingrained though processes from being in abusive relationships and so little sympathy for someone struggling to get over ingrained thought processes when they come from his mum from childhood.

OP if you can't quite get him to counselling in a timely fashion why not look into some books for him to read of the 'stop walking on eggshells' 'toxic parents' variety to get him started.

[Cerisier]

Great posts from Carpe. Very depressing though.

[Darkesteyes]

Juniper many thanks for the link you put on this thread. A lot of the stuff on the Lighthouse fits my DM.

[SquinkiesRule]

OP if you do dump him, be kind and let him know why. Maybe he'll take it to heart and put her in her place and stop her from ruining his life and chances at a future wife and family.
Not sure how you'd tell someone "I'm dumping you because you Mum is a psycho bitch from hell" but I'm sure you can put it better. She's turning him into Norm Bates all they need is a Motel, or maybe a B&B

[rootypig]

I have a difficult MIL, though not nearly so bad as this - she has been welcoming in her own batshit way. DH is her only child.

I consider myself fairly emotionally literate but I never could have dreamed how she would test my sanity and my marriage in the short time that DH and I have been together.

OP, I urge you to walk away.

[rootypig]

beautiful post Carpe

[CheerfulYank]

I would suggest, as someone else did, that he move in with you and rent his place out.

Then she ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT get keys to yours.

If he's not willing, there you go.

[CarpeVinum]

What is with all the "Norman Bates" and other negative adjective victim shaming bollocks ?

By and large in these sorts of situations you are looking at the adults who were trained from infancy to defer to their "difficult" parent regardless of reasonableness, regardless of personal cost. They typically never got to be the centre of their own universe, because from the get go they have always been extras or supporting actors in the soap opera of the protagonists making.

If I took you right now and told you that everything you knew and understood in personal relationships was wrong, black is white, white is black and change your thinking, emotional reactions and coping strategies right this minute...could you ? Could you really undo a lifetime of training, learning and fully formed ingrained habits in a matter of months on somebody else's' say so?

I am not saying the reality of how these children of the "difficult" is reason to hurl oneself under a bus in the name of being nice. However a little compassion for how people grew up and became the mother/father appeasing at all costs adults they are in the now wouldn't go amiss.

Nobody here (I hope) would cast aspersions on a woman who had her reactions, thinking and self imaged altered by years of emotional abuse.

Yet a former child who grew under a cloud of emotional abuse and yes, it may not be deliberate, but that is exactly what it is, is fair game ?

WTF?


And OP for the love of God please don't take that as a reason why you should stick it out to "heal" him. Any healing will come with time, so much of it that you couldmrun out of lifetime, let alone patience and energy, before you get to a point where the bandages can come off.

It is likely that you are not in love with a man who "just" needs to handle his mum's demands and hysteronics better, but the adult form of a child who has been emotionally abused for his entire lifetime. And that is a massive undertaking. You absolutly shouldn't go into this unless you can do it knowing that changes, even small changes are far far from guarenteed and you could end up walking away utterly defeated (through no fault of your own having given a 100% to make it work) after ten years feeling like you just hurled a decade of your life down the toilet.

It won't be your fault if it fails, nor his. It won't even be his mother's if she has little to no control over the way she is. Unfortunatly the lack of blame available is no help at all when picking your way through the rubble of the aftermath.

[CarpeVinum]

edit

Nobody here (I hope) would cast aspersions on a woman who had her reactions, thinking and self imaged altered by years of spousal emotional abuse.

[wonderingagain]

This is why a no contact period might help. It would force her to either find an alternative crutch or victim or if possible to take a good hard look at herself and gain some self respect and independence. I wonder if she lets go of him he will be able to recover?

[Juniperdewdropofbrandy]

Darkesteyes you're welcome. Sorry your DM is like this though.

[WafflyVersatile]

Well said carpe

[goonyagoodthing]

Carpe I like you

OP my story is something similar, although not quite as severe, as your own. I stuck with "Norman Bates" and it was very, very hard going. 11 years later things are good. I quietly fought my corner. And I won. It took a bloody long time. And there were loads of rows and arguments but we are fairly solid now and the shit behavior from MIL has mostly stopped.

This is probably the most coined phrase on MN but get yourself a copy of the book Toxic In Laws. When I read it I laid off my DH a bit because it shows you that this is ingrained into them since the day they were born. This behavior, while to you and the rest of the world is crazy, to him is normal. He knows no better. Now there does come a time where he has to step up and be a husband as well as being a son.

It is not an easy road OP and there were times I regretted the day I ever met them but the good times now outweigh the bad.

There was an incident on our wedding day from MIL that changed my outlook on things. I won't go into it all now but the following morning I got up and thought to myself "She might have won the battle but I will win the war". And I did.

The very best of luck. If you think he is worth it, give him a chance. I hope it turns out well for you.

[CarpeVinum]

Carpe I like you

Why thank you, we can form a DIL's surviving not all that well balanced MILs mutual admiration society I dibs being tea maker and cheif bottle washer.

If we are giving out book recommendations can I also chuck out Emotional Vampires

It is hardly a definitive academic text, but the oft aserbic tone does give some peace in reconciling understandable anger and the knowledge that somebody is not particularly well emotionally or mentally, and the guilty feeling that their ills should always come before one's own need to not be sent quietly (well, rather noisely in my case) into a tailspin of involantary misery and self sacrifice.