MIL is a narcissist and I have reached my limit

[5one5]

I am beginning to lose respect for DH because of what he lets MIL get away with. She has had a difficult life (extreme poverty, DV, lost youth) and it is used widely as an excuse in DH’s family for her incredibly rude and obnoxious behavior towards other people. She insults people to their faces – mostly women, because she’s a misogynist, but men get it as well. Because of her hard life she tends to think that she is entitled to luxury and special treatment, and DH and his siblings spend their time running around for her, buying her presents, plane tickets, holidays and going into debt paying for her extravagant life.

How does it affect me? She expects me to behave in the same way as DH: Cooking for her, cleaning for her, giving her the best of everything, telling her she’s beautiful, intelligent, well-loved. Nobody is allowed to tell a story at a family gathering unless she plays some starring role in it. She likes applause when she enters a room and toasts to her during meals. She likes to repeat stories of her youth where she was deemed “exceptionally beautiful” and things that were apparently said to her and fights that were apparently had over her. DH and her other children pretend they pander to her in a tongue-in-cheek way, but I can see that they all take it deadly seriously and that they all become like little minions when she is around. They are afraid of her.

DH excuses his and his siblings’ behavior around her by portraying her as a comical narcissist, as if everybody is in on the joke that she thinks very highly of herself, including her - but it really isn’t like that. There is no irony. She is a bona fide narcissist.

Our wedding day was about her. Our DC’s birthdays become about her. Christmas is about her Or she sits in a corner and sulks until enough people come up to her and ask if she is okay, at which point she will launch a scathing attack on the event, how it doesn’t cater to her at all, and her children including DH will spend the rest of the time with their tails between their legs, not enjoying themselves. Dh and his siblings are performing marionettes who will willingly make her the centre of anything and are constantly leaping around to measure the emotional barometer of the room she is in to avoid upsetting her.

She tries to teach her GC including our DC lines to recite like “I love you Grandma,” and “You are beautiful Grandma.” Sometimes they say it because she repeats it so much (so she likes these GC ) but the ones who won’t repeat it get the cold shoulder.

Anyway it’s all come to a head for me over something on facebook and I can’t look Dh in the eye anymore I am so angry:

There is a close friend of mine who doesn’t buy the applause and the toasting and the everything relating back to MIL, so MIL uniformly hates her. Today this friend looked after one of our DC and posted some pics of DC doing an activity on facebook with my permission. She tagged me in them, so the photos appeared on my timeline. MIL saw the pictures and wrote in a comment underneath how dare my friend have her DGC without her (MIL’s) permission and a series of other comments criticizing my friend and the activity she was doing with my DC. Criticisms completely unfounded and quite insulting.

Next thing I know DH has jumped on the comments tab too and has piled on with MIL against my friend., telling my friend that MIL is right, he agrees and she should be ashamed of herself. I was absolutely shocked

When I got home (an hour after this all happened on facebook) DH was waiting at the door with a guilty face on, ready to “manage” the situation. I was fuming. Dh went into full damage limitation, said he had texted MIL and told her not to post comments like that in the future, and proceeded to beg me to not post anything on facebook and not tell MIL off. He was like a desperate child.

I asked him why he posted in support of such a stupid comment from MIL and he said he wanted to “protect” her. I told him it was MIL attacking other people that was the problem. He said that he thought that MIL was provoking my friend by attacking her, and so he wanted to shut down any potential counterattack on MIL before there was one…

We were supposed to go out for dinner together tonight, the first night we haven’t had the DC for 9 months, but I have come home because I cannot sit across a table from him. I can’t even look him in the eye. He was sheepishly trying to get me to hug him and kiss him but I cannot even touch him for being such a fucking coward.

My life cannot be like this forever, but I don’t know what to do. (And yes I have spoken to my friend and apologized for MIL’s comments.) I am still considering commenting on the status but DH is begging me not to.

MIL is appearing to be loopy if she genuinely thinks you have to obtain her permission to let someone else look after YOUR kids. DH is loopy if he thinks this is not going to have enormous consequences.
You have to do something now this has been brought to a head or this will not be the last time and you will be pushed out of decisions involving your own children.

I'm amazed you're only 'starting' to lose respect. I wouldn't be able to look at the spineless little worm either. Contemptible, bullying someone to curry favour with Mummy.
If you think there is any way back, do an advanced search for a poster called Seoladair (I think). About the only person who ever seems to have managed to manoeuvre her husband out of the FOG. It took ages and ages, with loads of set backs. I'd have thrown the towel in long before!

Have you spoken to your friend?

If you don't deal with this eventually due to the actions of your MIL and the backing of your H you will lose these friends and no one will invite your DC anywhere. Yours and their lives will be limited to these nasty people.

You have a H problem. He may suck up and pander to his M but he was dammed right mean and nasty to your friend. There was fuck all reason for him to be such a nasty bastard to someone for a nice action. That isn't just pandering he was spiteful.

This isn't going to change or go away unless you bite the bullet.

I would block and delete her from FB

I would stay away and I would keep my kids away too.

Would you want your kids to be as much as arse kisser as your Dh?! I wouldn't

He must consume Chapstick by the bucketful when he's around her

Wow, this is one of the worst MIL stories I've heard on here. I would be raging with your DH.

I would just ignore and block- if you take a stand via Facebook it will play into your MILs hands. Your DH should delete his comments.

I'm not sure what to suggest. Has he offered to delete them or say anything to her? I'm so sorry op.

I wouldn't confront her on Facebook but instead just block her. Also cut her out of your life. My friend is in a similar situation and she told her husband that his parents were no longer welcome to their home and that she refuses to visit them or have any contact etc with them. Her husband still visits them and takes their kids with him but it's getting less and less. I think he's started to see what my friend sees too. Good luck!

Tell your DH to apologise toy our friend - with you there, I think he's saying what you want to hear rather than doing anything, learnt behaviour! - block MIL on FB

Toy our is obvs to your

Do you have any contact with the partners of the other kids? If you decide to take a stand, and I hope you do, because she sounds as toxic as plutonium, they may be useful allies.

Your DH is the problem

Don't comment, just block her, from facebook and the rest of your life.

Its your kids you have to stick up for now. Do you want them growing up like your dh? Scared to death of upsetting their grandmother?

Now is the time to draw a line in the sand and tell your H this cannot continue. He knew writing in FB would upset you but he did it anyway. He needs counselling on how to stand up to his mother.

I would comment on fb like a pp suggested.
"Take no notice of (mil) love, I don't know what she's on about. The kids had a ball, thank you so much for having them."

She sounds like a complete nightmare OP - and your dh... pathetic. I guess he's been trained to be such a gimp though so I have some sympathy for him as well.

Not that much sympathy mind you - he did join in with the hag didn't he? Your poor friend...how rude they are...so rude.

I wouldn't reply to MIL, but I wold post, "So grateful to Dfriend for taking my children to X and kindly taking pics so I didn't miss out"

Then sit your dh down and tell him he risks losing you and his dc because of his mother. He needs to work on changing and he needs to stand up for you and his children.

My paternal grandmother got such a shock the first time my dad told her she was wrong. She never tried to get him to side with her against his own family afterwards.

"Next thing I know DH has jumped on the comments tab too and has piled on with MIL against my friend., telling my friend that MIL is right, he agrees and she should be ashamed of herself. I was absolutely shocked.

I asked him why he posted in support of such a stupid comment from MIL and he said he wanted to “protect” her. I told him it was MIL attacking other people that was the problem. He said that he thought that MIL was provoking my friend by attacking her, and so he wanted to shut down any potential counterattack on MIL before there was one…"

I mean really....this is off the scale madness isn't it? Your dh has lost all perspective.

I friend your MIL on facebook or at the very least downgrade her friend status to 'acquaintance' and post all of your stories to 'friends not acquaintances' so she cannot see your posts.

Start to distance yourself from this woman as much as possible.

*unfriend

don't do fb...its playing right into her hands. Give her the number of a good therapist and withdraw.

Your H absolutely should apologise to your friend, no question. What a cuntish way to behave towards her when she'd looked after HIS child!

If you see any future in the marriage I would insist on therapy, extensive individual for him and couples. He appears to lack insight though, and will probably lack motivation to change which doesn't bode well but could be worth a shot?

Both my parents behave a bit like your MIL, and in the three years since I went NC with them I've realised how very toxic it all was.

If I were you I would say, very clearly, in public and on FB, that her behaviour with your friend was unacceptable, and that these are the ways things are going to be done from now on: for example, no questioning your parenting decisions, no criticising your family and friends. And that if such behaviour continues, these are the things you'll do to protect yourself and your children: limited or no contact, blocking on FB, and so on. Work out what is reasonable to ask for, and what is reasonable for you to do.

Say this once, in a way your babysitting friend and family members can see it.

And then say nothing more. But hold tight to those boundaries you've set.

If you don't say anything but stop seeing her, she can play the victim and claim you've just cut her out of your life for no reason. If you're clear and only ask for reasonable things then reasonable people won't criticise you for it. The unreasonable ones will, of course: but that gives you an easy way to work out who is your friend and who isn't.

As for your husband, he's had decades of training by this woman so it's not surprising he's struggling now. Tell him straight what you will and won't put up with, and what the consequences will be if he screws up, and then enforce those boundaries if and when he does.

You have my sympathy. Narcissists are so difficult to deal with, and will go out of their way to find ways to needle you. Set boundaries. Enforce them. Protect yourself and your children.

Support your friend publicly. Delete and block your bitch of a MIL.

I'd be very angry that my dh had told my friend she ought to be ashamed of herself.
And all to defend mummy from being rightly stood up to. He has been an absolute arsehole and needs to wake the fuck up to what he is doing.

Yep. Pompous twat. I think a little bit of mummy has rubbed off on your DH.

The relationship between your DH and his M is very involved isnt it?
Just how much time does he spend in her head?
He anticipates her needs - second guesses her motivations, works through counter strategies and additionally fallout and anticipates the reactions of others to these.
He is prepared to alienate his wife, her friends and offer up his children. There is so much wrong with this that I can find nothing sufficiently succinct to write.
FWIW check out histrionic personality disorder