A year on from NC with MIL

[RustyPaperclips]

I posted about a year ago (but probably under a different username) about my MIL treating myself and her son so badly, which culminated in abusive messages from her and my BIL. My DH made the decision that he wanted to go NC I struggled because I hated seeing my DH suffering so much and tried to reach out to my MIL but only received hateful messages back. I received really good and supportive advice on here but now I’m really at the end of my tether

DH received the occasional card on birthdays and at Christmas, even our anniversary as if nothing had happened but refusing to acknowledge my existence. Now she has started leaving voicemails on his phone. He doesn’t want any contact with her due to emotional and very occasional physical abuse when he was growing up, along with the way she and her other son have treated us. I contacted her stating that we did not want any further communication from her. I have had multiple messages back from her stating that I have ruined her relationship with her sonThen the guilt trip about how we will be sorry when she is dead and I am to blame for ruining everything.

She says that the only way she will leave us alone is if DH phones or meets with her to say he doesn’t want contact. The text message he sent doesn’t count apparently because I clearly must have stolen his phone and sent it behind his back.

DH and I want nothing more to do with her but how can we convince her to leave us alone if he won’t tell her? I am doing my best to support him but the constant character assassination is wearing me down and leaving me incredibly depressed. I am at my wit’s end and dread her turning up on our doorstep. I am yet again feeling like a scapegoat and the worst person in the world when all I want is to live in peace with DH

Every time you contact her she sees it as a victory and knows she can continue. She knows that after a certain length of time she can expect a reaction. She will continue her messaging, letters etc for at least as long again expecting another reaction. If you want her to give up, just ignore her, though it will now take much longer because you contacted her again.

Block her number. Or get a new phone and number. Shred any post or cards. Easy.

@happypoobum I posted on here as I needed advice how to support my husband and distance ourselves from his toxic family. The accusations you have put to me are deeply hurtful. I would do anything for my husband, that is why I have tried to protect him from the abuse from his family. I admit now that I was wrong to engage with her again but i stupidly thought she might back off. No one is perfect

I posted on here because I didn’t want him to know how low I was feeling and how I felt like I was beginning to believe that I was to blame for all the pain he is experiencing. Many times over the years she has accused me of being a bad person and that DH would be better without me, cheers for fueling that feeling

I’ve never encountered anyone like her before so I probably have got it all wrong. I have promised my husband that I will never have any contact with her or her wiser family ever again and I have no intention of breaking that promise. Luckily we have a really good relationship with my FIL and his side of the family

You might not realise it, but you're encouraging her by responding to any of her messages. Your husband has the right idea: don't engage on any level.

Block her number. If she leaves a voicemail message, don't listen to it. If she sends a card, throw it away unopened.

She'll eventually get tired of it if she isn't getting a response, and will stop.

Support your husband. Stop all contact, and you'll find things a lot easier.

You must recognise her writing? All cars should be marked eturn to sender unopened and put back in the post.

Yep I agree with PP. You even tesointin to tell her to get lost is encouraging her.

Just keep on ignoring . Don't bite the bait

Responding to her at all was a mistake and a lesson that you have now hopefully taken on board. Do not get sucked by in by hoovering behaviours or the flying monkeys that may well now descend.

You likely come from a nice emotionally healthy family and thought that you could somehow get through to her. Unfortunately as you have seen all too clearly she is abusive and the rule book gets thrown out when it comes to such dysfunctional families. She saw your kindness as weakness and naivety to further exploit you and make you feel bad.

If his dad and that side of the family are nice then concentrate on them.

I would read "Toxic Inlaws" by Susan Forward to further understand the power and control dynamics that goes on.

Its not your fault nor her son's that his mother is the ways she is; you did not make her that way. Her own family of origin did that to her; you did not. She was not a good parent to your DH either when he was growing up.

You seem overly sensitive to criticism Rusty

Happy is saying it as she sees it, which is what happens on an open forum - people have the right to disagree with you, and also to try to point out to you aspects of your situation that you may not be aware of yourself (none of us see how we may be contributing to our own problems without realising).

Do as your DH and other posters have suggested. Block. Ignore. Don't open ANY correspondence from her. DO NOT GIVE HER THE CHANCE TO HURT YOU>

Get on with your life.

I agree with Happy too - this is not a game. Being NC means not engaging in any way. If she can't contact you, she can't say anything nasty - so you will have no need to keep a log.
Ignore MIL and focus on your DH - it's your job to support him. It's not your job to still be playing games with MIL.

We are also nearly a year from when we went NC with MIL/SFIL. It's a little bit different because my dh still has occasional contact with her (so for him it's more LC than NC). But it's NC for me and our dd. Honestly, what it took was him being really assertive and telling her. I think since it's mostly about him and his wishes (he was the one who was abused), then it needs to be driven by him. You need to take a backseat. Our situation is slightly different as the reason we went NC was because SFIL is a paedophile and she supports and enables him and won't respect our boundaries in terms of our dd. So it is much more about her, but I'm her spokesperson (my dh is largely just heartbroken by it all, but I've done much but not all of the communicating because I'm able to be a bit more objective about it).

But if this is about him and his wishes, he needs to be the one who does the talking. Has he ever engaged with her about this? Written her a letter in the past? I don't think he should meet up with her. Contact should be kept minimal. You don't meet up for lunch with someone you intend to have no contact with in the future. That's just her manipulating the situation. If he hasn't already written to her, in his own voice and handwriting, I think he probably needs to do that. Put some closure on it and close the book, then block her and tell her that any further contact will be deemed harassment and he will be contacting the police.

I also refuse to meet up in person to discuss anything (I'm mostly afraid I might punch her in the face, and I don't want to put myself in that situation, never mind the childcare issues involved in that). Ours was quite resistant to doing anything in writing because she's crazy and paranoid. But if you repeat the same things enough times, it does eventually sink in. It has to come from your dh though. You can support him. You can help him write the letter. You can talk through it together, but he should do it. And you should try to stay out of it. Otherwise it just fuels the fire. It really took my dh repeating exactly what I had already said about 3 times for the message to get across. We still unfortunately get cards on holidays, but they go straight in the bin now. She has (god, I hope, we'll find out at christmas) stopped sending things to our dd after the last gift went right back in the post marked 'return to sender.' We've not had to go as far as making a report of harassment, but you may find it takes that. But I think you need to have your dh notify her first if you're going to go that route so she has an opportunity to stop before it's reported.

I disagree with PP's advice to have DH contact her, she already believes that you are behind all of this and she will also believe you forced him to write the letter/make the call etc. In her head it will always be your fault.

When she no longer gets a response from either of you, she is likely to get someone else to contact you (flying monkey) It can be difficult to ignore these people as they have had their heads filled with lies and believe they are doing a good thing and it is tempting to get your side of the story across. These people are best ignored too..

I'm sorry you are going through this, it's a really shitty thing to experience and there really are no winners, everyone is a loser. The only way I would recommend ever having contact is if an appology was given and she recognised her behaviour, it does happen but sadly not very often.

Yeah the cards don't acknowledge you but is it that surprising? The family is toxic, so much so your poor DH has gone NC so why even bother to acknowledge them or their behaviour? Just block them and move on.

I have never at all seen this situation as a game and yes I am sensitive to criticism that suggests I see it as such and that I enjoy the pain it has caused my DH along with other family members.

I accept that I was in the wrong to contact her to tell her to leave us alone. And you are all correct that it just seems to have fueled the abuse.

I have followed the advice on here and we have blocked every way for her to contact us

@AttilaTheMeerkat sadly I don’t come from an emotionally healthy family. I have wonderful parents but my wider family are very dysfunctional but in a very passive way. Perhaps that influenced my behaviour as I would rather everything be out in the open rather than continually chipping away at relatives over decades with a false smile on your face

Part of the reason I am so sensitive to criticism is that she has spent the last decade or so blaming me for every problem in their relationship, to the extent that at one point I thought he would be better off without me in his life.

I just can’t do it anymore. I have taken so much abuse to try and support our marriage I have run out of energy

Rusty - NC is the final option for an abusive relationship. It is not an easy or pain free choice. You will all have gone through so much to get to the point where it is the only way forwards.
I'm not surprised you feel exhausted.
But this is where your life changes. You are now free of their toxic influence and can start to heal. It will take time but you are on the right track.

I just can’t do it anymore. I have taken so much abuse to try and support our marriage I have run out of energy

Don't do it anymore. Do not let another word from her make it as far as your ears or eyes. Block her.

With true NC you can channel that energy into getting yourself back to recognising the real rational truth about the rest of your life without her nonsense messing with your perception of reality.

I agree that is why you need to go proper NC - block everything down completely. No-one deserves to be subjected to that abuse. It doesn’t matter they blame you as their opinions are twisted and WRONG!

Please get yourself some counselling as clearly this has taken a deep toll on you