Realising your mum is toxic

[Sugarandshine]

I would say MIL is quite toxic and probably a narcissist. Obviously I’m in no position to diagnose her, but she meets all the criteria I’ve seen online, and it would explain a lot.

Whatever the label is, She’s very cruel to DH and all his siblings, constantly belittling and criticising them, playing them off against each other, she will make cruel jokes about their insecurities, comment on which siblings she likes best and least, and what she dislikes about each of them.
If Ive ever (politely) said anything, (just things like I don’t think that’s very nice to say about SIL, or BIL may find that hurtful) MIL will fly into a rage, swear, smash things around, cry, suggest I’m saying she’s a bad mum, or I’m picking on her (I promise I’m not!!) And I’m asked by DH and siblings to just keep quiet to keep the peace.

There are also small things that are all (in my opinion) part of this cycle of being cruel, then dangling a carrot of love/kindness, before being cruel again.
Because she’s sometimes ‘nice’ they think that’s the real her, and they excuse and minimise the bad. But the ‘nice’ version only ever comes when she’s getting exactly what she wants or she’s gone too far and someone is unhappy with her. No one seems to have noticed this pattern or they’re ignoring it.

They all say there’s no point talking to her (about any of her behaviour) as she doesn’t listen, and it only makes her worse.

Was there something that made you realise your mum wasn’t very nice? Do you think it would’ve been better to just not know?
I don’t want to just say ‘your mum is toxic!’ Because I don’t want to create a problem between us, or hurt him more by being mean about his mum.
I just feel so sad that his own mother is so cruel to him, and he must think he deserves to be treated that way since he allows it to happen? Or he just doesn’t want to rock the boat?

I think he is starting to see it more but it’s so difficult isn’t it!

I’d rather she just wasn’t in our lives, she adds nothing positive and only negative, but of course DH doesn’t want to NC his mum over ‘a few rude comments’ and I also wouldn’t want him to not have his DM around if he wants her around.
There just always seems to be a ‘reason’ to justify it, or just one nice thing she’s done that shows she’s actually lovely…

I have recently come to realise my mother likely has high narcissism and I had an emotionally abusive childhood.

She's boundary blind to the point she just does not get that im a separate human being and will do stuff like hide things in our house because she doesn't like them and one time she refused to leave so i had to physically (gently).frog March her out tye door.

You can't reason with Narcs. Rock hard boundaries all the way and follow through as they won't just say yes... that can mean No Contact until she backs down but I will not budge.

I had a nasty childhood and the one thing I find hard to accept is after a serious suicide attempt involving hospitalisation the first thing she said when seeing me was ' how could you do that to me'.

Selfish to the core... but she's literally incapable of seeing the world as more than just herself and her needs.

I've gone the full range from hate to despisement to pity. She's mellowed a little as she's aged , or maybe I've got better at dealing with her. She's not vindictive just emotionally disordered.

Raised by narcissists on Reddit is an excellent source OP

outofthefog.website/
🌺

@Sugarandshine no she hasn't so far. not to us anyway. I think that she probably does to SILs and/or FIL but I also think she's aware that direct bad behaviour will lose her contact for a while at least (we've never said this, but I think she's assumed it from my DHs behaviour last time she caused trouble in that he basically stopped talking to her for a long time) - what she usually does is causes DHs sisters to have a go at him, then acts all innocent like she had nothing to do with it. to be fair, it's easier for us because both of our families live hours away so she never really knows who is visiting when, haha.

sorry if I missed it but do you have a child or children? do they have contact with MIL? it's tricky, especially if they live nearby. but if you arent comfortable with leaving any children with her, I just wouldn't, you are allowed to have that boundary. I believe that if MIL had unsupervised contact with DS, she would start lies and emotionally harmful behaviour with him, and I am not willing to risk it. one way to perhaps help your DH is somehow getting him to see that how him and his siblings have been treated is not right or in their best interests (for my DH, it was abusive, but he'd rather not use that word, he still excuses it) and is that what he wants for his DC. if you don't have DC yet (assuming you want them) then perhaps his feelings will change when they are born.

also one other thing that helped DH was spending time with my family, especially at Christmas for some reason, he saw how a "normal" family worked and treated each other and things began to piece together in his head a bit more.

MIL goes on really daft about her favourite (adult) child's dog in front of us, only us, she doesn't do it in front of anyone else. shes all "I wuv you, yes I do, blah blah" - she has never told my DH she loves him, or DS, and doesn't engage with DS in a similar way. in fact, MIL and FIL both engage and play more with the dog than DS if they are both there together. the other sibling (who was most abused and the scapegoat) also has a dog and hers is banned from their house, MIL goes on and on about what a terrible dog it is (it isn't, a laid back dog really) while favourite child's dog is just amazing and so well trained (it isnt, jumps in people's faces, steals food, won't sit down and just stay there) - and my worry is she will do the same between grandchildren when they are all here!

No DC but TTC and have seen how she is with her other GC. Lots of ‘you love me more than your mummy don’t you’ type stuff and I just don’t want to get into all that.

Again so interesting about the dogs! With ours she gets annoyed if the dogs are happy to see anyone except her, she talks to us ‘through the dogs’ if that makes sense, (always criticising us) and shell tell anyone who will listen which dog she likes more and which dog is terrible and how and why that sibling is failing at dog ownership and how she would be a much better owner for said dog. again v worried about this being a snapshot of what I can expect when DC come along

I'd suspected for a while, but would excuse her behaviour as her being scared of my sibling and not wanting to upset her. I realised how low I was in her eyes last years. Despite seeing me absolutely sob my eyes out twice in three days, and being told I'd been crying every day in between I was not allowed to ask my sibling for help as "they might be upset".

I get that, once again, she was scared of sibling's reaction but couldn't understand why she'd not do anything in her power to lessen my pain.

(Sibling might have got pissed off, may have got cross with mum,but it was nothing to the hurt she was putting me through.)

I have a narc mother. 3 tips:

• draw rock solid boundaries (lots of books on narc mother’s out there that help with this). Realise your cannot change her emotional immaturity or ever make her happy
• encourage the siblings to talk to each other about what’s happening: this can validate their upset and sense that she’s ‘off’
• keep a v v close eye on how she interacts with your kids, and be wary of leaving them in her sole care as PPs have mentioned

@TimeIhadaSeasonalNameChange sorry you had to go through that, and to all pp with mums like this! It makes me so sad and anxious and it’s only MIL, I can’t imagine

@DespairingHomeownerthanks I’m working on the above. I’m worried that as DH doesn’t fully see what’s happening we’re going to have a lot of issues with me refusing to let his mother be unsupervised with DC, whilst my mum is able to.
It’s a while off anyway, but that’s part of my motivation to want to make him aware of what’s going on, how can he help me protect our children from it if he doesn’t even see it.

I wouldn't be having children with a man who's judgement is so off that he wants to be around this woman.

I wouldn't want to be with a man who forced me to be around his mother.

So you have big arguments about his family?

Your relationship sounds toxic.
His relationship with his family is toxic.

I would not be bringing children into this toxicity.

It's tough when it's your own mother as (a) you've literally been conditioned your entire life by them, and the guilt and obligation run deep, and (b) you only get one mother, the grieving process is really hard, and long.

I'm still in highly-boundaried contact with my mum and she's generally on good behaviour (not a narc but BPD), but I still feel guilty and sad with every interaction, and it's been 15 years since I realized there was something "not right" with our relationship. I've had a lot of therapy.

All that to say, you need to find out where your husband currently stands on this, and what he sees for the future. If you don't want her around your possible future children, you really need to be on the same page as him, because it isn't as simple as "she's toxic so let's just cut ties", it will he a journey for him and you need to know if he's even interested in going on that journey.

It will *be a journey for him.

The bitter fruit their parents ate, rotted the teeth of their children

Japanese proverb. Never a truer word

From my husbands experience he will realise himself. It all started when his dad passed away when he was 8, he found his dad suffering a brain haemorrhage but was sent away to his aunties. His mum then came back and told him his dad was dead, 3 months later a man moved in all traces of his dad were removed from the house. Years of mental abuse from his step dad while his mum did nothing. When he was 18 he was given inheritance from his dad but 5k was stolen by his mum. He thought it was all normal, I came along and I was in utter disgust and I voiced it. They hated me for it but my husband learnt that he was manipulated and abused for years. He told them a few years ago that he didn’t want them in his life and cut all contact. She has since tried to come back into his life, saying her husband is the problem etc etc. My husband told her she made her bed now she can lie in it. Be there for him but have hope in that he will realise and he will stand up for himself.

@MizzFizz
my understanding is that he finds her comments hurtful, rude, and her generally unpleasant to be around. But she isn’t always unpleasant, and she’s his mum - you only get one mum as you say. Any time she’s challenged she cries and says she was only doing it out of love, whatever it was. And he worries that may be the truth and he is the bad guy for thinking badly of her and her intentions.
He also doesn’t want to make things difficult or to be judged by his siblings. He has started trying to put boundaries in place, I predicted she would ignore them all, and each time he was sure she wouldn’t. Of course each time she did. That has been a huge leap forward in his understanding. His siblings also all got involved to tell us/him we were very unreasonable for setting the boundaries. Again in all other situations he loves and respects them and their opinions so this is hard to reconcile with his own feelings.

I think at this point it’s a lot of back and forth and he doesn’t really want to think the worst of her, which I understand.

@SusanHalf so awful for your husband, I’m glad you were able to help him. MIL isn’t as overt at this which I think is one of the things that make it hard to spot or that make him feel like he can’t say anything. After all, people are suffering like your Dh, how can he complain, when his mum is just Telling him every day how he could’ve done better at any given situation, out of love; he thinks that’s a bit insensitive of her rather than ‘abuse’ or ‘narcissism’ and it’s hard to dispute at this point when she insists she’s just being helpful

[quote Sugarandshine]@SusanHalf so awful for your husband, I’m glad you were able to help him. MIL isn’t as overt at this which I think is one of the things that make it hard to spot or that make him feel like he can’t say anything. After all, people are suffering like your Dh, how can he complain, when his mum is just Telling him every day how he could’ve done better at any given situation, out of love; he thinks that’s a bit insensitive of her rather than ‘abuse’ or ‘narcissism’ and it’s hard to dispute at this point when she insists she’s just being helpful[/quote]
I learnt to be outspoken and call them out on their behaviour. When his mum or step dad said something I would talk it though with my husband, he began to understand that they were abusing him. A lot of it was snide comments, telling him he was wrong etc. From experience manipulators know they can get away with it so it continues. Your husband needs to stand up for himself but it is hard because they believe it’s normal, just be there and keep questioning her behaviour.