This is going to be long, and MIL related. Sorry. I just don’t know what to do, and I don’t want to dripfeed. This is so identifying to anyone who knows me but I don’t even care anymore.
I’ve been with my DH since we were 18 (we met at uni), and we married this year. We are in our late twenties. We relocated earlier this year for his job to the US. Our relationship is mostly great and we are very happy together. There’s one problem, my MIL. We are now completely estranged and its breaking my DH’s heart. We are due to go home for Christmas and I have no idea what we’re going to do.
I’ve always felt that MIL has disapproved of me, and we have clashed over the years when I have refused to toe the party line like the rest of the family. Everyone does what she says, because if they don’t she cries, or is ill, or starts an almighty row. I’m not used to such a manipulative dynamic in my own family, and it made me very wary of her.
Whatever we did wasn’t the right thing. Jobs, where we chose to live, the fact we hadn’t bought a property by 25, our friends, the fact that I have had MH problems and have had some time out of work over the last few years due to ill health.
When I was 19 and disclosed that I had been abused she asked whether I had been tested for STIs, as she didn’t want me to pass anything on to her son. I was going through the ordeal of seeing the case go to trial, giving evidence in court and watching it be plastered all over the national news at the time. It made me feel so ashamed and dirty and I have never forgotten it. She tried to persuade my DH to leave me at the time, something he let slip. I let it go then, as I was grateful she hadn’t thrown me out of their home for my disclosure. I have come a long way since then.
Over the years, I veered between avoiding her and trying to be accepting of her personality, out of love for my then DP. There were times when we got on better, even though I still felt the underlying disapproval. So, last year we got engaged and planned a wedding very quickly as we wanted to move to the US. We would have got married in the following 18 months-2 years, but we had been given this opportunity of a lifetime and to be together needed to be married. And that’s where the trouble began.
She ruined our engagement party by crying and storming off when she found out we weren’t going to be married in church. She continually made digs about this, even though she knew I had been abused in a church setting and this was really triggering for me, which I explained to her. She goaded me into screaming at her and getting completely hysterical when we went round there by constant little digs about how what we were planning wasn’t good enough, because she didn’t have enough involvement. I tried to involve her in the beginning, but she wanted to entirely take over so I drew back.
In the interests of full disclosure, we asked her to make the cake as this is something she does as a hobby and is very good at. I thought it would be a good way to make her feel involved, but I think this was a mistake. They also offered money, which we accepted. This was also not a good idea - we were able to pay for the wedding but I think DH didn’t know how to not accept their offer. I did meet her and forgive her for the above, before Christmas. I made some compromises to try and make her happy – not having the humanist ceremony we really wanted and we tried to accommodate them with the food.
My DH left for the US in January a few months before the wedding, so on the whole I had to plan it without him, but was running everything past him over Skype. I met her for coffee with my DMum, as I had a feeling she was going to create a scene or try and manipulate me, which is exactly what happened. What was meant to be a talk about wedding plans turned into her screaming that the wedding would be a shambles, it wouldn’t be real as it wasn’t a church wedding and that she wasn’t coming. In a shopping centre. It was so embarrassing and I was very upset. We tried to cut the scene short, and walked away. She followed, shouting at us. This is because I told her we would be getting married in another room than originally planned, because the guest list had gone up. She then sent me a very malicious text after. My DP was in the US, absolutely heartbroken and bewildered that she had said she wasn’t going to come.
To cut a very long story short, she came to the wedding and we managed to keep it civil. This was through various people in the DH’s family putting pressure on me to meet her and talk about it. Everyone is desperate to placate her all the time. After the wedding, I discovered she had tried to manipulate the wedding planner into changing the room, been horrible to my bridesmaids when they changed their dresses in the evening, ran our wedding down to anyone who would listen and had a massive row with her DSis because I met her for lunch. As far as I know, they still aren’t speaking.
After this, I decided I could have no contact with her. She made the run up to our wedding the most miserable time of my life, when it should have been happy. She does not understand why I won’t have anything to do with her, even though she has had it explained by various family members. My DP is desperate to have us in the same room at Christmas- we are both homesick and he is so sad that we are estranged, even though he is completely on the same page that what she has done is awful. She is still his Mum and he loves her, even though he doesn’t like her behaviour. I hate seeing him cry about this, but I’m still so angry with her I think meeting her would make it worse. I feel such hatred and bitterness towards her for everything that has happened over the years and I don't want to inflame the situation further by losing my temper.
So – does anyone have any idea where to go from here? If you got to the end of this congrats, it was long.