Please help me help Dh with his awful mum

[Sparklydiplodocus]

Brief backstory: he has a very very strained relationship with her. She can’t get on with anybody- friends, neighbours, everyone. She picks fights with them all. She is also very self centred and manipulative. When he moved out of home in his mid 20s she bawled to him and said how can you leave me. When we moved 45 mins away for better schools she bawled again and said how can you leave me.

She makes his life a misery. She is blocked on his phone but she batters him with emails constantly. Every day. We rarely see her but she is constantly asking to see us.

So then Xmas came up. None of us want to suffer her presence and her narky little comments. So he said we wouldn’t go to her for Xmas day. She is now barraging him with emails saying how could you be so cruel, bringing up his deceased father saying what would he think of you, etc etc. Dh was up til the early hours upset.

He is adamant that if he tries to go NC she will just show up at our door. I’ve wondered if she would attempt suicide- which she did when a previous partner left her.

Please help me help him cope with it and deal with her. He is so upset today.

Block, ignore, go no contact if you have to. Encourage your partner to seek therapy to be able to detach.

People like her neither change their toxic behaviour. She made her bed by alienating everyone, tough luck if she now finds herself alone.

If she turns up at your door, get a restraining order.

The fact that someone is related to you does not mean you have to have them in your life and that you have to tolerate harmful behaviour.

Also the people who are saying that she is doing this because she is elderly and suggest compassion, read the OP's message again. This is life long behaviour not just the effect of loneliness in old age (not that this would excuse her behaviour anyway)...

Yes it’s lifelong behaviour but it’s often when they get old that they become too much trouble and contact dwindles.
Apologies for misreading some of the background but I do see a lot of this.

Ignore those posters who think that old people are allowed, because of their age, to treat the people around them like sh*t. As though age is some sort of excuse for abusive behaviour. It isn't. If you spend your life being vile to the people around you, you will be lonely in your old age. And it will be your own fault.

Not all old people are 'like that' at all. Some may be sensitive or unreasonable because of being lonely or confused or frightened (and that can be the case at any age of course). Many are decent, kind people. But like people of all ages, some - your MIL included - are unreasonable and unpleasant.

I wish I had good advice for you. But I have only this - you and your DH should not feel guilty. She's made him miserable his whole life. He doesn't owe her anything.

He has to cut contact. there is no middle ground with a narcissist.

She is already wearing her son down like she wore her ex down....

[quote Mufasa1118]@pointythings but what has the woman done that is so bad?
She cried when her son left her.
She was upset when her son wouldn't visit her for Christmas.

That is a she has done. They don't sound bad to me[/quote]
There's 'crying' and there's guilt-tripping'

I cried when each one of my DC left.
But they didn't know that. I did it in private/

[quote Mufasa1118]@Sparklydiplodocus you sound pretty snappy and aggressive yourself.

It's not guilt tripping when a child moves out. It is crying and being emotional when your child leaves! EVERY mother does that.

When my friend went to Canada for a year, her mother cried for months. She literally cried every day for the first month that her daughter was gone.[/quote]
Not in front of them, they don't!

And I hope you're friend's mum didn't keep telling her daughter how upset she was.
That's manipulative

@Mufasa1118

Also when I was 27, I went to a visit a friend. She lived in a house share with other peoole. A new flatmate moved in. He was 26. He was just moving out of home for the first time.

His mother came with him to the new house. I was there at the time. His mother burst out crying, and said "this is the first time my baby is moving out, so I will be back to visit him a lot". She was crying very heavily. And she was in bits

He was 26!

I have seen mother's do this a lot

Well I haven't.

So perhaps there is a cultural difference here?

Another vote for NC with this person (who definitely sounds BPD).

It's really difficult to understand this sort of parent if your own parenting has been 'good enough' it's really difficult to understand that abusive parenting (which this is), is a completely different thing and to provide the kind of support - even online - that adult children of those kinds of parents need.

I do think people should try to understand that though, given how many issues on this board are related to personality disorders of some kind.

Sparkly you might be better off at “OutOfTheFog” website. People are generally more supportive, and also usually read posts properly . MN is sometimes a goader paradise I’m afraid and though there are some great posters who do try to shed light and help, quite a few don’t and are here for egoistic and negative-goady reasons only. OOTF even has a special in-law section if I remember correctly.

Good luck

@mufasa I believe that I would have preferred mum to have hit me than use emotional abuse to control me

Of course you'll have to take my word for this. But I am speaking my truth

It took me years to work through and out of the way I was treated

However I will say this...she did the best she could with what she had within her

I have made my peace with her

In the same way he has blocked her on the phone, the emails need to be automatically deleted or even better move to a new email account and deactivate that one. The bile will not stop so he needs to stop receipt.
I spoke to someone last week whose mental health is shot to bits because of his relationship with similar mother. He was suicidal yet felt guilty about moving away. She followed same pattern of abuse as your MIL and then wailing about being lonely (nobody else bothers with her).
He needs to prioritise his mental health. He did not ask to be born. He owes her nothing.

Sounds like my MiL. We did finally manage to go NC, but there was a lot of medical and police involvement at the start. Now we get an occasional begging email, which DH ignores.

I agree with @EmmasMum12
A big part of the problem with psychologically manipulative parents is that it is difficult for a child to realise that it is their parents that have caused their pain and anxiety.
For me it was only after many decades that I truly learned to hate my mother for the destruction she wreaked in my life and I was then able to move forward with my life.
There's many books by Alice Miller which explain the trauma caused by toxic, manipulative parents.

I have a family member like this. It's taken me most of my life to realise it isn't me and that it is not something I can fix. In my case, she does go through phases of being ok but, I find, when she's not ok, she can say things that can really get under your skin. There's no arguing with her because she just changes tack and brings up something else the something else ad infinitum. It's usually some underlying stress that sets her off.

I have learnt that the less I engage the better though she makes it very difficult for you to ignore her. The barage of emails sounds very familiar and they are usually a lengthy character assassination and I just hit delete.

Eventually, she will calm down but never feels she has done anything wrong. If anything, she feels her problems and stresses entitle her to be irrational and it's a flaw on our part if we can't roll with the punches

@EvilShmeevil

I agree with *@EmmasMum12* A big part of the problem with psychologically manipulative parents is that it is difficult for a child to realise that it is their parents that have caused their pain and anxiety. For me it was only after many decades that I truly learned to hate my mother for the destruction she wreaked in my life and I was then able to move forward with my life. There's many books by Alice Miller which explain the trauma caused by toxic, manipulative parents.

And that's why it is doubly damaging to have people posting 'oh but she is just a lonely old woman. Be KIIIIIIINNNDDDDD'

Please stop with the sounds like bpd. I have bpd and I'm absolutely nothing like this. I have known several people who have a diagnosis of bpd who have not acted like OPs mil. Yes there are those with bpd who behave badly but then again there are many people without who also behave badly.

@fantasmasgoria1

Please stop with the sounds like bpd. I have bpd and I'm absolutely nothing like this. I have known several people who have a diagnosis of bpd who have not acted like OPs mil. Yes there are those with bpd who behave badly but then again there are many people without who also behave badly.

Of course. I don't think anyone is saying, 'people with BPD behave badly'. It's just that this kind of extremely emotionally unstable self-destructive behaviour is quite characteristic of the condition when it's not been diagnosed or managed in any way

I think my MIL has BPD/EUPD but she's not reflective enough to seek help or to try to manage it. Kudos to you for that - it must be difficult

OP encourage your dh to completely cut her out of his life.

He shouldn't have to appease her by pretending she morphed into a manipulative bitch as soon as she collected her pension.

What a ridiculous idea that someone can behave as they like because they are old and may have been abused as a child.

Total MN bollocks. The reason why so many children loose their lives is because society enables abusive parents.

[quote Mufasa1118]@ChargingBuck I do know a lot of elderly people like that. My own elderly mother can be a nightmare. She is angry all the time. I often come away from her house completely exhausted.

But I still go and care for her, because I know she had a terrible childhood herself, I know she raised me for 18 years, I know she is in pain all the time, and I know she is scared and lives alone.

No one is good or bad. A lot of people who we see as "bad" were abused themselves as children. I just could not leave my mother alone when I know that she is so physically weak now that she cant do a lot for herself.

I also have friends who struggle with their elderly parents. It is not easy to go and see them but we all still have compassion for them, as we know they are struggling[/quote]
This.

Well no. That for that person. But the OP is describing an abusive relationship and children shouldn't be encouraged to put up with abuse from their parents however old they are

My gran is 86 and she’s pleasant to have around. She does tell me that she’s lonely at times, but that’s understandable given she’s loved on her own through COVID and was a recent widow. My 90 odd great aunt on the other had can be seriously difficult and downright unpleasant, however she’s nice enough if I make more of an effort with her. I don’t think age is the problem in OP’s husband’s situation...

I don't see the problem, your husband has blocked her on his phone, you never visit her and you're definitely not going on Christmas Day or having her over.

She's pleaded to see her son at Christmas (how dare she, and even if she is a nightmare many mothers would probably ask for this)

I mean what do you want, I get you both don't want the emails so what's the prefered outcome, her death ?

He needs to stop hiding behind you and speak to her like an adult and tell her he no longer wants any contact, instead of ignoring her and hoping she will just go away.

By the way it sounds as though you hate her and are not just merely supporting your husband.

I also think your posts are incredibly defensive and angry towards anyone with an opposing view.

I enjoy going to see my elderly relations if they are nice. One is in her late 90s, in a wheelchair, lives alone- we laugh and joke. Her life is constricted, but she enjoys it. Another, younger and more mobile, greets the opening question of 'how are things?' with 'not great because....' Just saying

i also have friends who struggle with their elderly parents. It is not easy to go and see them but we all still have compassion for them, as we know they are struggling"

There's compassion and there's estrangement due to years of abuse. Toxic younger people grow into toxic older people; age isn't a mitigating factor.