My extremely jealous mother is tearing my family apart!

[WinterForest]

I am having problems with my mom right now. Basically she said she is angry with me and depressed because in her words, "I feel like you never want me to babysit your son. It's always your husband's mother who gets to see him. If you don't want me in your son's life then let me know so I can get over it." She basically is saying that she can't see her grandson because of me. She lives 2 hours away in the United States while I am in Canada. I can't go see her, with my son because she lives with a total creep (he is a registered sex offender) and I despise him and will not any any conditions EVER bring my son over there. Not ever.

I let her know this (in a polite way) even before I gave birth to my son who is now 10 months old. So the only option is for her to come here. We offered every possible means of her being able to visit. We said we could meet her at the border of U.S. and Canada to drive her here, anytime she wants. She can stay however long she wants. We even said she can live with us for free if she likes. We asked her (literally) 100 times in the last ten months whether she'd like to come visit. She made plans and said yes, but always cancelled them last minute because she gets panic attacks (I know what panic attacks are so I don't pressure her to come over if she feels like she is getting panic attacks). The thing is...every time she asked to come over I said a big YES, and was super excited to see her. I asked her many times if she wanted to come see our son.

Now she's really upset with me saying that I don't get to see her son. She is jealous that my husband's mom gets to see him. She has always been this way with "other parents" in the past whenever I had friends at school. She just hated them. She felt threatened by them like they were "better moms" or something. I think she is like this because she grew up in an abusive home, so she has some problems. I didn't grow up in an abusive home, and she was an amazing mom to me and my brother.

She basically doesn't want me to have ANY contact with my son's other 2 grandparents. She is jealous of them...but she won't come and visit us. She cancels EVERY single time for random reasons, which I think are panic attacks. Does anyone have any advice on this?

I even offered her panic attack meds for the trip over (the ones I have, which I never really need.) but she still won't budge and is now angry with me. This has been going on for the last 10 months. She blocked and deleted my husband's parents and finds it sickening that I even talk to them (which is really stressful to me because I can't stop my husband from letting our son see his other grandparents and I see no need for him not to.)

Ideally I want her to accept the fact that I have a husband and a baby now. There are other people in my life now (other than just her) and she will not accept this. If she had it her way she'd have me not talk to anybody (only her) break up with my husband and go live with her with the sex offender she is married to. Not going to happen! She is extremely jealous of everything in my life right now....how can I make her stop being this way and accept me. How can I get her to come visit.

I am kind of scared of her because last time I visited her (the christmas when I was pregnant) she actually phoned the cops on me (I've never been in trouble with the cops in my life). One night she just knocked on my door on Christmas Eve and said "all you want to do is be around your husband! Get out!" It was shocking. She got SO jealous that I had someone else in my life. I don't know what to do. I love her but she is making my life confusing and stressful right now. I don't want to cut her out of my life, I want her to accept that I have a husband, a baby, and other people around in my life now, and I want her to step up and be the grandmother I know she can be and stop blaming me for something I really can't control. Her fear of coming over and her anger towards pretty much anybody in my life that isn't her.

She lives with a sex offender sorry but she is sick and toxic. You need to separate her being your mother for a second and think what contact you would have with someone like this unrelated to you.
Ask her if someone had to sexually abuse your son how would she feel, then ask her what it makes her if she accepts it? Sorry it sounds harsh, but that's something you should never accept just because someone is related to you.

I think her dh, the sex offender, is driving her irrationality. However, that is NOT something you are able to mend or help with. So keep well out of it, as you'll end up doing more harm than good inadvertently, as well as messing up your own life even more.

Honeybadger's letter would be awesome. Just writing it could be very cathartic for you. Maybe write several drafts. Once you've written the final draft and sent it make that the end of your involvement. Remind yourself that that is everything you can do, there is nothing more.

I also think that mummytime's post is spot on.

Find a counsellor for yourself. Don't be scared - there will be times when it's tough, but you'll get through them.

There is nothing to feel guilty about, spending time with your in-laws. Enjoy being part of a normal family, show your son that he can be happy with them, accept the love they want you all to have.

I think she's trained you all your life to provide her with her emotional needs, which it's why it's hard for you to see the "we were best friends" thing as a bad thing. She's brought you up to see that as a good thing and something you should be happy about. Now you're realising how uncomfortable you are with it, and she's pulling out the emotional blackmail, manipulation and dishonesty. She can be "lovely" as long as you are playing the part of always putting her feelings and needs first.

It also explains why cutting off contact made you feel so awful – the guilt and horror that you are walking away from everything you are supposed to be to her - but that is according to her and how she's rained you to think.

(I'm not saying consciously and deliberately trained you – but by virtue of what she's like.)

I have had a similar relationship with my mum except I think I'm a bit older than you and went through a long time of gradually withdrawing and facing up to what she was really like, before cutting off contact this year. When I did I wasn't upset – I can honestly say I've been very happy about it ever since – so I don't think being upset is inevitable but you have to separate yourself emotionally.

I do think by being 100% firm about never having your son (or yourself) anywhere near the sex offender husband, you are setting a very good baseline – showing her you and your son's safety come first, no ifs, no buts, no nothing. Build on that attitude in yourself because it is the right one.

How much is she being controlled by her partner? abused people often choose partners who repeat the relationships from their childhood's. He may well be stopping her from visiting you, especially if her excuses for not coming are so blatantly made up.

He may well be messing with her head telling her that you prefer your DH's parents to her etc. in order to exert control over her by playing into her fears about being excluded. (she was excluded as a child from her father's fucked up attentions towards her siblings.)

It sound's very toxic. You should never need to play down the role of your Dh's familly in your life and you can't protect her from her past or her present choice of relationship by doing so.

It sounds like she needs your love, support and ecouragemnet to seek counselling and leave her current partner although unltimately only she can choose to do this.

The rest of it , her accusations etc. IMO are just hiding the real issues here.

Agree with Diesel here. I too, can't help wondering whether her partner might be behind the constant sudden cancellation of her visits. Their relationship doesn't sound 'normal', and I think that there is a possibility that she may be suffering from emotional and/or physical abuse, and that this could be behind her somewhat irrational behaviour with you.

I also said that when my son goes to visits his other grandparents that it really hasn't anything to do with me. My husband takes him there to see them.

Wow. Way to choose sides against your DH. Did you tell him you had said this?

Agree so much with this. OP don't let her come between you like this. Even if it's just words and excuses that's how it starts.

I totally agree with Dollius. The dynamic between your mother and her husband is extremely disturbing in the way she's playing out her relationship with her father who didn't find her attractive enough to rape her, so she's reworking that relationship into a sexual one now. Given all that she went through and the choices that she's since made I really doubt that you've made it through unscathed.

You are doing a good job of protecting your son and you have done really well with your own life but you do need some help to see that you shouldn't feel guilty and compromised for this.

Don't be sidetracked though, by worrying about your mother's motivations. The most important thing here is keeping yourself and your child safe, breaking the cycle, and making a happy healthy family with your dh for your own children to grow up in.

From what you have said, when you do see your mum, it often or usually ends badly with you stressed to buggery and feeling gullty as sin.
This sort of state does not enhance family life.
Therefore do not see your mother until you can be pretty sure that you can do so without becoming stressed and feeling guilty.

In order to achieve that state of 'Nirvana' ( ) I believe you would need the help of a counsellor.

I also think seeing a counsellor would help you even if you never saw nor spoke to your mother again. I do agree with others that it is unlikely that you have grown up completely unscathed by your background - no one does - though you do deserve a medal for the degree to which you have evaded it.