Relationship with MiL recoverable?

[Thistledew]

I honestly don't know whether it is worth it to even try.

DH and I have been together 12 years, married for 8. No major conflicts in our relationship at all but admittedly with a now 5 yr old DC who has always been particularly demanding of attention and now a 17 month old we have let things slide so we are not as affectionate and emotionally close as we once were.

I did get on well with MiL to start with, but once DC1 came along we spent more time together as she (at her request) did help us out a lot with childcare, I found her company more and more uncomfortable.

I put a lot of it down to differences in communication- she is far more of an emotional communicator and my primary instinct is to focus on facts and logic. She communicates very frequently with statements rather than questions so by the time I've worked out what she really was intending to ask, the moment has moved on, she is put out because I've not responded in the way she was hoping and I'm left drained by having to second guess her. This is just by way of an illustration to try and convey why I constantly feel on edge in her presence. I also find her quite judgmental and resistant to seeing things from a different perspective.

Despite this I've done my best to welcome her as part of the family. My DC love her and she has this summer given us a lot of her time in childcare. I acknowledge that she doesn't have the relationship she would like with a DiL but I can't seem to change her expectations of me being someone that she can waffle on to about what her friends children have done on holiday.

It has now come to light that DH has felt that our relationship has not been good for some time. That there are things he feels are really not working well. He has been bottling these up, even when I have asked him directly what's wrong.

One of the reasons that he hasn't talked these out with me is that his mother has been dripping in his ear how emotionally unavailable I am, how everyone finds me cold and unfriendly, how I'm rude and ungrateful, how I don't have time for anyone but the children and myself. In the many times he has spoken to her about how he feels unhappy with certain aspects of our relationship she has not once suggested that he speak to me about them. Apparently, and in the absence of any evidence to suggest the fears are well founded, she, and then he, have been 'scared' to confront me about these issues.

I'm really hurt, and furious that she has been so poisonous in our relationship. I think DH and I will be ok but we do need to communicate better.

The only thing stopping me refusing to have any thing more to do with her is that she currently is not at all well, and is waiting for the outcome of investigations into ovarian cancer.

Apart from that, it is worth my while trying to recover any sort of relationship with her?

Honestly, I think they’re both emotionally immature “come to me” types, while you’re much more independent of thought and feeling. You recognize that your thoughts create your emotional state and take responsibility for that. They do not. They are convinced that they are helplessly bound by their emotional state, and that it doesn’t matter what anyone says or thinks (including them), they will have to act out until it’s out of their system. (Like toddlers do.)

What you currently have is like crap marriage counselling with your unwell MIL sitting in between the two of you.

What you need is good marriage counselling. End of.

Your unwell MIL’s care needs should get taken care of as a separate issue.

Another vote saying you need marriage counselling.

Your DH seems to have got into a pattern where when he is unhappy, he takes it to his mum, not you. She then only hears that you are horrible, the pair of them concoct a reality where you are impossible to talk to despite the fact that DH has never tried and you are none the wiser.

If she is now ill, she is going to need support and she is busy self-sabotaging as it seems it is actually you who do the day to day jobs of trying look after her.

Meanwhile for your marriage you and DH need to learn to talk to each other, DH especially that he has been having a load of conversations with his mum that he should have been having with his spouse.

Your DH shouldn't be using his mother's words to tell you how your marriage is crap. It's very cowardly tbh. Why does he need his mother to back him up? So you are outnumbered and know you must be wrong as you are in a minority? Honestly I would rip him a new one.
Your MIL just wants to be the most important woman in his life and is probably totally gleeful that she sees you may be on the way out. Both of them are idiots. You sound lovely OP.

@Thistledew

I'd be interested in what other children did in the holidays just as a point of connection with the person telling me and as ideas for my own children.

These are grown up children. I have no interest in what two adults that I have never met did in a part of the country I don't intend to visit, and especially when this is a conversation in the middle of my working day when my head is full of work issues.

I think there are a few things at play here, all competing.

1. Your style of communication is factual, logical and aimed at clarifying the situation. You get rewarded for this in your career and you don't seem to have any issues around how you feel about yourself ( no low self esteeem etc). So you are secure in your appraisal of yourself & how you communicate.

1. The familial syle you are married into is different. The patterm seems to be one of overstepping very fluid boundaries, oversharing and rumination on various scenarios. In complete contrast to your own style.

1. Your husband is not on board for your partnership. Either he stops being enmeshed with his mother and has an adult relationship or else you will find it very difficult to work with him on this relationship going forward.

I think you need to clear the air with your mother in law, mention your different styles of communicating, that she is less focussed on stating her needs than you are.
Your husband needs to be on your team not the sidelines of both games.
I would end the childcare arrangement - allowing that much contact in this situation is a difficult one. I would get paid childcare & see your mother in law socially and do enjoyable but short focus/ trips/ visits that don't allow any time for conversations other than in the moment. If your husband continues to converse with his mother as has been the case you can suggest they keep it amongst themselves. Triangulation can only happen when the third person takes part.

DH and I are going to have some marriage counselling - well, that's the plan. I asked him to find a counsellor- it remains to be seen whether he will actually take the initiative to make the booking.

I still don't have a proper sense of how serious a problem we have. At the weekend after the toxic dump from his mother he said things like "my mother says she feels sorry for me being married to someone who treats me the way you do and I agree", but since then has been really chirpy, upbeat and affectionate, as if this is just a minor blip that we can easily iron out.

My gut instinct is that this is actually relatively minor and fixable- so long as he doesn't get too much more poison dripped in his ear by his mother.

He still doesn't get the extent of the betrayal and jeopardy that they put our marriage in- with relation to me and his mother he said today that he doesn't see this as something that need to have a long term impact. I can see that I've got some work to do with him to get him to appreciate just how strictly I will have to draw up boundaries with MiL.

MiL herself has continued to send us chirpy messages on the joint WhatsApp conversation about how she is starting to feel better and is very appreciative of the help that both of us have given. She has given no indication of awareness that her outburst to DH and scathing critique of me would be like to have any repercussions.

billy1966, Justilou1 and Colin56

You are too kind. I hope I do live up to your assessment.

OP,
You are a better woman than me.

If my husband told me that that his mother felt sorry for him, as per what you have wriiten above, marriage counselling wouldn't be the top of my list!

You are indeed a very reasonable and tolerant woman.

Best of luck.

I find what’s happening here really hard to read. I feel like you need to take control back - your husband seems to think it’s ok to point out your faults and to use his mother’s confirmation as to these faults as well.
If my husband ever spoke to his mother about our marriage or anything personal about our lives that would be it for me. It became clear very early on in our relationship that my MIL would love any opportunity at all to have a go, tell him she was right all along about me, it would never last and so on. It was almost like she was looking and waiting for something and it never came. Interestingly my husbands sisters have made odd comments over the years which tell a story of my MIL saying things completely unfounded to them about me/DH/relationship. DH was really shocked at one comment and knew without doubt his mum had been gossiping and just making stuff up (his words).

So for me it’s definitely a DH problem and please please make sure he understands the complete and utter hurt you feel and that YOU are not sure about the future and that YOU need the opportunity of counselling to really understand what HE has done. It’s not counselling to talk about YOUR faults.

Sorry I am getting so angry at your DH and his behaviour.

perhaps it would be worth reflecting on how you can improve the relationship with your MIL, it sounds as if you are ok for her to look after the children and have a relationship with them but nothing more.

I find it hard to square women who dislike their MILs, but take advantage of them doing childcare for them. It seems so unfair to use them they way, and then sneer at them.

One of my friends is being treated that way. She knows her DIL doesn't like her, but she still looks after the DGDs because if she didn't, she knows she'd never see them, because her DIL will never come to their house or invite them there.
(Yes, she has a DS problem to a degree , but he works away a lot, so it's DIL that they have to communicate with about the kids)

It was MiL's request to look after the DC. When DS was small, I actually arranged my working practice into something sub-optimal for me to facilitate this. With DD, I suggested that she just come one day after school and a day at the weekend, but she was adamant that she wanted to do the week days again. I am grateful to her for that, but I believed she was doing it because she wanted to spend close time with her GC, not solely out of obligation to me and DH.

DH has just returned from a trip to the supermarket. Whilst he was out I saw a message from MIL pop up on his iPad asking him to call her. He is now pacing about the kitchen whispering to himself as he does when he is really stressed. I am starting to worry about the effect that this is having on him. After MiL's outburst to him at the weekend he came home in a foul mood and then slept for 4 hours. He then came out with a diatribe of all the accusations that MiL had fed him, many of which were so illogical that he looked genuinely abashed when I pointed them out.

Wow. This is very stressful for you too op not just your dh!!
Is there any scope for you to carefully say I feel I need to reiterate that I feel betrayed that you are more willing to talk about your marriage with your mum who tells you everything I do is malicious, when you know I’ve been trying hard to help. You need to cut back on that and talk to me, your wife. Counselling will help and we very much need you to book that. I daren’t even try to do something for your mum after last week, I can’t handle being spoken about like that again.
Just a reminder that it is not ok for her to unload about you to him .

Is DH normally so self-indulgent?

I think you were very kind to look after your MIL and that she was well out of order to lay into you about that. So I can sympathise that you are wanting to cut her out of your life. But you do sound as if you think you're superior to everyone else and you speak as if the way they behave is beneath you. If you're like that with your family, I can see that being quite wearing to live with. Sorry, I know that sounds mean of me but I guess you want honest opinions or you wouldn't have posted here. And that's how it comes across to me.

He then came out with a diatribe of all the accusations that MiL had fed him, many of which were so illogical that he looked genuinely abashed when I pointed them out.

Sorry just yo add to my above comment, this is what I mean. Comments were illogical...I pointed out...abashed. It comes across that your great intellect can show them the right way to think and they are really quite pathetic. The thing about feelings is that they sometimes are illogical. Sometimes they don't make sense, or there's nothing concrete about them. But they exist. You can't just point out they're illogical and people will go, "oh yes, you're right. I'll stop feeling that." Even if they say that to please you, they won't stop feeling it, and they'll end up resenting you for not taking them seriously. Even if your MIL did say say things to him, he must have had thoughts like that in his head for him to latch onto them so easily.

Honestly, if you do just keep pointing out how illogical your husbands feelings are, I don't think marriage counselling is really going to work for you.

@Earlydancing you don’t think a wife can defend herself against ridiculous allegations?
‘For gods sake I was trying to feed her because food is energy for healing and staying alive,not cooking her nice soup and shopping and turning up because I thought it a perfect opportunity to bully a sick woman.’ What human being wouldn’t say that?

@timeisnotaline. I was very clear that the op was kind to look after her MIL AND that her MIL was wrong to criticise her AND I could understand why she'd want to cut contact.

But her husband has been having negative thoughts for a while (not just about the op feeding her), and I don't think pointing out they're illogical is helpful. It comes across as being a bit superior. I'm sure not the ops intent but if my husband started to tell me that me being unhappy about something was illogical, it wouldn't make me feel better about him or our relationshop...which I'm thinking is the outcome the op would like.

I'm not attacking the op, I'm just talking about me personally and how her language comes across to me.

Send her some flowers and take her out for a coffee and a ginger biscuit - Caffé Nero used to do good ones, maybe they still do - and a chat about how you appreciate her help. Communicate. Talk about your different approaches.
I feel sorry for her - she sounds quite unwell.

my mother says she feels sorry for me being married to someone who treats me the way you do and I agree", but since then has been really chirpy

Wtf?! Sounds like you married your frenemy... You know, the one who tells you how shit you are, then makes out like they are helping you be a better person

Whilst he was out I saw a message from MIL pop up on his iPad asking him to call her. He is now pacing about the kitchen whispering to himself as he does when he is really stressed

On the back of these 2 comments I’d seriously look at individual counselling for myself. This doesn’t seem to be a simple case of DH oversharing his marital problems with his mum. There seems to be wider and deeper issues, you’d do well to seek the support and strength from individual counselling to see the bigger picture. Their relationship seems horribly dysfunctional, and you seem to be caught in the middle.

Honestly, if you do just keep pointing out how illogical your husbands feelings are, I don't think marriage counselling is really going to work for you.

What I was referring to as being illogical was the accusation that I am the one who is emotionally cold and unengaged, yet I asked him time and time again why he was unhappy or in a bad mood and he just shut me down with "It's nothing, I'm tired, it's work" etc. Yes, sometimes I dropped it there, but often I would suggest he should go for a walk, take a nap, go out on his bike - all things that usually help him deal with stress.

Another accusation was that I don't spend any time or attention dedicated to our relationship. Guess who does probably 85% of the organisation of little things like days out that we can all enjoy together?

Yes, maybe I need to dial down my logical approach when dealing with relationships, but can he not see how hurtful it is to make these accusations that if you look properly at how our relationship functions just aren't founded in fact.

I also found the accusation of being emotionally unsupportive particularly hurtful in light of the fact that when I was going through a work disciplinary (ultimately resolved in my favour) I asked him several times to read over the accusation and my reply and let me know whether he thought my approach was reasonable. He always said that he would read it, but not right now, when he had time to think properly etc. He never did.

So ok, there may be room for improvements on both sides, but to say that our relationship has problems because of me being emotionally unengaged is, I think, illogical, and it's not unfair of me to point this out.

To go from 'rubbing along pretty happily' to 'our relationship is at crisis point' without stopping one to say "Can we talk? There's a problem".

Yet I'm the one who is emotionally reserved?

Yes, I will call that out as illogical.

OP,

I think you are being gaslit by him.

I think he sounds truly awful.

I also think screw marriage counselling.

You need to see someone on your own.

Your husband and his mother have formed a lovely little bullying gang where they both agree you are awful.

How nice for them.

You need to find your anger.

He sounds truly awful.

Let him sort out his nother while you sort out a separation.

Protect yourself from their bullying.

Everything @billy1966 said. Everything.

The more you post, the worse it gets