This will be a long thread but I’d e grateful if anyone is able to offer any advice!
Been with OH 10yrs, always had quite a tricky relationship with In-laws. So as not to drip feed, OH had a pretty horrible childhood highlights of which include his mum leaving with his siblings (but leaving him behind), allowing her boyfriend to push him around, his siblings got into drugs/left school at about 13 to be “home schooled” (except they weren’t, they were doing drugs who knows where) lots of general instability and moving between his mums house, his dads house, his grans etc, all pretty dire
On the back of all this I’ve never had a great opinion of her but always tried to get on with her when I saw her. I did start to get a flavour of how awful she could be when a few years ago she started telling various members of OH’s family that he had a serious illness (he doesn’t). She has a tendency to dramatise things so much they become a completely different story to the actual truth. She has a well known history of playing people off against each other, running from house to house spreading falsehoods and planting seeds in peoples minds to make them mistrust each other.
If she has ever been questioned, right on cue she will burst into tears and everyone backs off and whoever has accused her is seen as a bully.
Throughout my pregnancy, she was slating me. She kept trying to force her way in, and when I politely held back, she would bleat to anyone who would give her 5mins how awful I was.
When I gave birth to DD, despite being told clearly we weren’t ready fo visitors after a traumatic delivery and having had no time alone as a new family/I wasn’t dressed etc, she still burst into my cubicle bold as brass.
There was the stereotypical unwelcome MIL behaviour of taking baby off me every chance she got for cuddles and refusing to return her when she cried, which I hated, she would constantly (as in daily) text/call, constantly try to muscle in on absolutely everything I was doing with DD, and if the answer was no she would get other members of the family to put pressure on me to agree. She would ask questions like whether OH was on the birth certificate, when OH told her I had PND she would turn up at the door and whisper if I was in or if I’d “been taken into hospital” insinuating I was mental.
At any family gathering there would be constant put downs, constant passive aggression, people looked at me like I had two heads and would make comments based on untrue things she had said. I literally couldn’t stand it any more.
The straw that broke the camels back was FIL (her ex husband who for reasons unknown is still her loyal servant despite her many affairs) referring to DD as “it” and questioning her paternity, on the back of poison MIL had been dripping in his ear.
I suffered from horrendous PND and I’m sure at least some of it was due to her behaviour. She made me feel like I wasn’t DD’s mum, and like I had no right to assert myself in any way. I constantly worry that if I allow her contact with DD, she will turn her against me too.
I’ve been no contact with her for 6 months, and she refuses to accept it. I’ve blocked her from my phone, so she sends cards and parcels. It’s like she’s trying to force me to have contact with her.
This isn’t a decision I’ve taken lightly. I genuinely can’t take another day of this woman’s games and the effect it’s had on my mental health has been enormous.
I guess I’m just looking for some sort of reassurance I’ve done the right thing?!