I believed that ignoring and rising above is the best answer but indeed that wasn’t and it caused things to ramp up like a pp said.
I often don’t understand that advice. Being dismissive doesn’t work with everyone I think. Unless you will follow it with some sort of consequence ?
In some situations we aren’t able to limit contact (are you ?) to protect ourselves and so we need to challenge the toxic person to make it difficult for them to increase.
I would say it really depends on few factors, ur context and relationship how you deal with her.
There are multiple options which work for different people but not all of them work for the same person:
For me as long as you choose a response where you are in control of the response and not being reactive/emotive then you are fine.. by that I mean, it’s a response based on what you logically believe is the best way to handle things and not something you come up with while upset at the moment to make yourself feel better.. because while justified, but putting you in a position to defend yourself and act on emotions is exactly how she might be feeding this power imbalance. Maintaining your logic and responding does not aim to change the persons behaviour but to outline how you accept to be treated. Whether it’s from DH or from MIL in this situation.
If DH is the one that is the missing link and causing stress to the relationship because he is enabling his mother, then choose a response that will tackle exactly that...
1- call her out politely in front of him then speak to him in private about what is acceptable to u and what’s not
2- involve him in the discussion “oh darling, haha, your mum thinks our daughter’s favourite is the nanny, tell her how much our daughter loves her mummy”.
3- highlight how your DH is on your side and get him to confirm it “oh MIL, DH tells me all the time how the bond I have with our daughter is soo special, so you’re mistaken. Don’t you agree DH?”
4- use humour, “OH DH, mother in law believes your daughter prefers the nanny over you and me, hahaha in her dreams”..
All this in front of her. In this case MIL only cares about competing for her sons attention by undermining you and so give her the trophy of directing her sons positive attention unto you so that HE dismisses her attempt of undermining you. If your DH is conflict avoidant and would blame you for rising to his mums bait, mainly because he can’t handle it.. then don’t rise to her bait... BUT, also, don’t give him the satisfaction of not sharing that burden with you.
If DH isn’t the issue, and he is mildly supportive behind the scenes then try Agree on an approach toeggehr
1- ignoring her comments and not giving her attention that she craves, but then limiting contact
2- politely making her answer to you about what she is saying by asking her to confirm if you heard correctly.. loudly and slowly so that everyone can hear and she doesn’t get to play innocent lamb. Perhaps asking her “where do you think I fall in my daughters list of favourites mother in law hahaha ?”. Don’t be confrontational in public as people are not comfortable picking sides usually and especially if it’s THE matriarch who mastered the art of guilt tripping them for YEARs. But give room to the surrounding people to handle conflict in a way that they see fit to their relationship with her. So, stay polite but make her answer to you and mainly to everyone that can hear.. because those toxic people hide behind their masks of niceties and need it for survival and she will be forced to say something polite and retract what she said.. slowly making her realise it will make her lose authority in the eyes of those around her and so she needs to stop targeting you. If she has to choose between her inflated sense of authority and her need to pretend to be nice and victim so that everyone stays on her side , then she will struggle. Let her bloody struggle.
3- if she is surrounded by people that will tell her she is wrong (unlikely as otherwise she wouldn’t be too comfortable in her attitude), then you can firmly lay out the boundaries to her about how you don’t accept to be spoken to this way. But this is unlikely to work as she will have half a dozen people singing to her fake tune as these passive aggressive people mastered it
4- ....
Anyway there are multiple approaches.
Just first realise you don’t need to be a victim. You aren’t in need to react and defend yourself. You are in a relationship with her WILLINGLY and so can set your own boundaries whether with her enabling son- if he is, or with her directly.
Just do so in a way that’s appropriate for your desired outcome and so define what boundaries you want to accept for yourself and work around that.