Husband and Mother

[Renaissance18]

In a nutshell; they don’t get on.

She doesn’t think he’s good enough (I earn more and have a degree) and he thinks she is a snob (she has spent her life trying to give my siblings and I the start she never had).

She is beyond rude to him when we visit, to the point he’s terrified to even boil the kettle in case she makes comment, she then in turn says he is useless and doesn’t do anything.

I’ve spoken to her on numerous occasions about her lack of respect towards him. He in turn is fed up of trying to get her to like him. But it got to a ridiculous level this weekend at a family event when he was upset to the point of tears at the way she is with him. He wanted to know why he wasn’t good enough etc, I know this makes him sound dead soft but it was totally heartbreaking.

This is obviously very upsetting and stressful for me. I am incredibly close to my mum, I partly try and empathise with her feelings (she was abandoned by my father and had a real struggle to bring us all up; never married or went on dates = all men are scum etc), but her lack of respect for my decision in who I decided to marry and her behaviour towards someone that I love is just awful.

I’ve come to the sad conclusion that it’s best for all concerned that I keep them separate. But it makes me sad for Christmas, Birthdays etc and this is before we have children!

Would really appreciate anyone’s advice or experiences of this?!

Have you actually told her that she is behaving terribly?

Do you stick up for your DH?

Or do you defend/excuse her behaviour with the whole 'oh it's because my Dad abandoned' rubbish?

She sounds like a psycho to be honest. Has she had any therapy? What do the rest of your family think?

If you won’t stand up for your husband at least protect your children. If you let your children witness this there is a risk they will lose respect for your husband and or believe it’s acceptable to be abusive, which is what her behaviour is.

When your parent disrespects your spouse continuously and you happily maintain a relationship with them ... you're basically telling them it's okay to do so.

Do you want your husband to get broken by your mum's nastiness? You can see what it's doing to him.

By disrespecting your husband...your mother is telling you ... you aren't capable of chosing a good man. If she truly loved you, she wouldn't disrespect the man you love like this.

The fact that you speak to your mother numerous times and nothing changes and you don't implement consequences for her actions ...is telling her that's okay.

Why would she stop doing it when her relationship with you carries on regardless of her abuse to your husband.

If you tell a child to stop doing something, but never follow up with any consequences.... they'll carry on doing it. There's no deterrent.

Your mum is behaving like a child and needs to be treated ad one... with suitable consequences.

You can let her carry on and drive your DH to therapy, where he'll learn about himself and you.

That you aren't protecting him from your mum and risk him realising he deserves better than a wife who hasn't got his back... so he decides he won't live the rest of his life this way and thinks about moving on from the marriage.

Do the right thing.

Sounds like a very nasty woman. Not sure why you’d want to be around her, let alone your husband.

Totally agree. You obviously don't love your husband enough to put a stop to this. Do you agree with her to some extent?

My sister married a lovely man, kind, thoughtful, loving, but for some reason our mother hated him, despised him, and treated him the way your mother treats your husband. My BIL took it for as long as he could, tried to get DS to speak to mum, tried everything to keep the peace, keep mum happy, keep out of her way, nothing worked. She was a spiteful, nasty piece of work.
Then one day he just told DS, I'm done. I can't live like this. There have been so many ultimatums and tears and promises from DS. Eventually he decided he deserved better and he left. And he never came back. DS was destroyed. Mum was jubilant. Don't let that happen here.

@CowesTwo

Then one day he just told DS, I'm done. I can't live like this. There have been so many ultimatums and tears and promises from DS. Eventually he decided he deserved better and he left. And he never came back.

^ Below is pretty much exactly what I said just before you said that.

realising he deserves better than a wife who hasn't got his back... so he decides he won't live the rest of his life this way and thinks about moving on from the marriage.

Here on MN we mainly see women posting about their MILS...but I'm sure many men are in a similar position ... they just don't post as much about that kind of stuff because it can make them feel weak.

That's another woman's child she's being so nasty to. He's a human being with feelings....Not scum of the earth.

How would you feel if you had a son who was treated like this by his MIL in the future? ...Because I'd be furious...and I'd encourage my son to leave if his wife didn't value or love him enough to stand up to her mother.

Are you scared of your mum OP?

I'm also getting the impression you agree with her at least a little.

You say you're close and that she's "spent her life" on providing for you and your siblings, had no relationships after your father but that doesn't sound at all healthy to me.

In fact she sounds very professional martyr. I'll bet she says things like she'll die alone, nobody cares about her etc plus the huge misandry - any of your siblings brothers? If so I dread to think how they feel about themselves having been raised by her.

How often do you see/speak to her?

I also agree you need to make a choice - mum or husband. And recognise SHE is the one forcing that choice on you.

I wouldn't want my children anywhere near her, especially in your husbands position. She'd be telling them how crap your husband is!

Exactly HOW have you spoken to her and what have you said?

Because if it's "please be nice to dh, it's very upsetting to him how you behave" that's not really going to cut it is it?

Needs to be more of a "cut the crap or else" talk

Also meant to say you may find this site

Outofthefog.website

Useful

outofthefog.website

Agree with everyone else. From what you've posted, it sounds like your mum is totally in the wrong here and you need to stick up for your DH more.

You need to put up some boundaries with your Mum.

Treat my husband with respect or we will stop seeing each other. The moment she steps out of line, get up and leave.

You poor dh will eventually leave you if you continue to allow her to treat him like this.

Look at every bad Mil thread and the ultimate answer is that the poster doesn’t have a MIL problem, they have a dh problem.

In this case, your dh doesn’t have MIL problem, he has a wife problem.

She can do, say what she likes. The fact that you sit and passively allow it without any repercussions means you are the problem.

you need to stand up for your husband against this woman, otherwise he will either walk out on you or he will become a different man to the one you married because she has "beaten" the life out of him. Good luck op

Do YOU love/m your H and see a long term future with him, including if he remains lower earning? Is he good to you?

If so, you want to remain married, and your mum won’t drastically alter her behaviour, then low contact is probably a sensible solution, continuing if you have DC.

It needs sorting before you have children, you can't guarantee she won't bad mouth their father with their relationship the way it is now.

.

Should you have DC it would not be OK, for example, for you and the DC to spend lots of time with her (without him there) when she treats your H this way.

Your poor Husband having to endure... whilst you have 'yet another word' with your poisonous Mother.... you need to tell her straight that you wont be there if she continues to treat him so appallingly....

It was thanks to the glorious power of MN that I was able to understand what had happened to my family, and this thread chimes so much.

TL;DR is that my MiL was batshit crazy - had a clever MO of telling me secrets not to be shared with DW (in case it upsets her) while playing the opposite game with her. The worst case was when DW had a hospital appointment (lots of those ) and insisted she'd be fine on her own.

Then MiL would call and tell me how DW was really hoping I'd go with her, but was too afraid to ask. So I'd insist on going.

So when DW expressed surprised to MiL, she was told it was because I was controlling, and not a good sign etc, etc.

She also planted money, and our personal belongings in our DS room, to provoke me into punishing him (we made the fatal mistake of letting her have a key).

It was only having crystal communication with my DW that protected us.

Eventually it all came to a head when I stood up to her. Finally. She raced around to confront me, and assaulted me with DS screaming in terror.

It'll come as no surprise DW and I are totally NC with her - and DWs sister who seemed to think we should have "dropped it" instead of (and so pleased I did this) calling the police.

My mother was like this. She went too far one day for my husbsnd’s long fuse. He really lost his temper with her and told her to apologise and never to speak to him like that again. She did (sort of) apologise, and there has been an uneasy truce ever since. But since then, she has at least been polite.

You have to be more firm with you mother. Your DP is your family now and while I understand you are close to your mum, she needs to understand that she must treat him with respect. And if she can't do that then you will not be able to attend family things anymore. Believe me she will soon come around if you threaten to stay away with him. I had this same problem with my mum and partner and she accused him of stealing something from her (this was a false accusation and literally was impossible) so I backed him all the way and said that I didn't want to see her and if she couldn't apologise then me and my son wouldn't be seeing her. She lasted 10 weeks and apologised.
If you can't back your DP then you need to think about why? Is he not worth it? Because the person you are with should be worth standing up for, whatever the cost. Not that he should be the be all and end all but if he has never done anything to warrant this behaviour from your mum then you should be willing to make her see she's acting disgustingly towards the person you love and who loves you how he should. X

Has it no occured to you your mum thinks your a bit of a looser being with your DH ? You may be very close but she doesnt think a lot of you to be honest.