I have a 11-month DD and work full time, though my hours are flexible so I can work long days half the week and short days the rest so I can be at home with DD. DH doesn't work at the moment, so we are completely dependent on my salary, but he's meant to be finishing his degree (though he's not doing much at the moment, partly because understandably it's really tough doing the bulk of looking after DD). I'm still breast feeding on demand and do all the night wakings because of this.
Since the start of the year I've been ill a lot (I have various health problems exacerbated by a bad birth) and haven't been able to take DD as much as I'd hoped on my "short" days. MIL has been coming round to help look after DD. I've been increasingly uncomfortable about this, but we have no other family help (my family are rubbish, but that's another story) and we can't afford paid childcare.
For a while now DH has been repeatedly verbally and emotionally abusive to me, sometimes giving me a shove or blocking my way, shouting at me and name calling - usually obscene or nasty names (mostly at night when I'm not dressed so can't easily get away). We are not getting on well at all - DH claims I don't do enough childcare so he can do his course work; I think he is making excuses (yes looking after DD is hard and he needs some downtime, but he spends it being isolated, making nasty comments at me and playing computer games - house is an absolute tip and food going off in the fridge all the time etc.) I accept that with young children relationships go through a hard time, but I don't pick at him or call him names and his behaviour is downright nasty and he starts shouting at me all the time for no reason, often when I'm holding DD or feeding her. I am very depressed because of it - I don't think it's normal to be called obscene names all the time. And lots of stuff about how I'm a crap mother because I don't do enough childcare for DD (even though I can't help going to work!)
I recently discovered that a lot of this nasty stuff is coming from his mother, who makes repeated poisonous comments about me the while time she is here and has been for months now. DH and I have been going to couples counselling and he to individual counselling as a lot of his anger issues stem from his upbringing - his mother is an extremely odd, difficult person who brought him up on her own in a chaotic and isolated way - think living in caravans, sleeping in cars, no clean bedding or clothes, chaotic eating habits (fast food and biscuits only), social interaction completely discouraged, being dragged from school to school because his mother always fell out with the teachers, and so on. She had access to a bit of family money which I think meant she was able to fly under the radar of SS a lot of the time and not be noticed but DH was quite neglected in many ways, though she is smothering in other ways - she even took him out of school a few times so that he was always at home with her to "keep her company". Both DH and I strongly suspect she has quite a severe undiagnosed ASD - her emotional life is a bit like a child's and she finds it impossible to understand other people's emotions, can't read tones of voice etc. and often gets quite basic things wrong - but she is his only mother and our only family around at the moment, and I wanted DD to have a relationship with her granny so I have been happy for her to come to play with DD (she wanted to and is always turning up at the house without asking anyway).
However, I discovered that a lot of the nasty things DH has been saying have been coming from her - lots of stuff about how I'm not a good mother because I work, DH should be "looked after", I have OCD (I don't - I just get frustrated when DH allows food to go mouldy and things in the house to get too filthy); I'm an evil person and so on. Amongst other things (flu, stomach bug, etc., I've had mastitis three times in the past four months. I'm dog tired and so depressed about being constantly told I'm a bitch and a cunt and I don't do enough by DH, then also told by MIL that I have a mental illness because I don't like to live in complete squalor!
We have a nice house and both strive to give DD home-cooked food, a good routine, bf, nice toys and lots of love - which MIL thinks is being "OCD".
Normally I'd just try not to let MIL bother me but this week she started saying stuff about how DH is not abusive and everything is my fault, all married people call each other nasty names and I am "worse than him as far as she can see" (I'm bloody not!), and I'm mentally ill and lots more rubbish. All the counsellors we have seen agree that DH's behaviour is abusive and he needs to stop it. He is verbally abusive partly because his mother brought him up to think that was okay (no proper boundaries), though of course it is his problem and it's him who is deciding to be abusive, so it's him I primarily hold responsible. But this week I was so upset at being told some of this poisonous stuff by MIL, I snapped and told MIL I wouldn't see her or have her in my house again and I wouldn't allow anyone around my daughter any more who said poisonous and malicious things about me. I was on the verge of throwing DH out too and still am. But I'm now feeling awful about MIL, who despite being a malicious person just isn't really capable of properly understanding adult emotions, and DD then can't see her granny...
I feel so isolated and alone! But I don't want someone around me who normalises and excuses abusive behaviour just as DH is starting to make changes. And it makes the childcare burden even greater for DH if his mum can't even come round for a few hours. But his behaviour does get a lot worse when she's been here.
Am I right to cut off contact with MIL? Any advice or support really appreciated :(