Husband's estranged Mother suddenly interested in his life now I am pregnant with our first child

[Nic1210]

My husband decided to cut contact with his Mother last year due to the emotional and sometimes physical abuse he has suffered his entire life. There are too many instances to count. Here are a few examples...

• When he was a child he was slapped around the head pretty much daily, one occasion kicked in the ribs.
• Was called a liar when he had a lung infection and was admitted to hospital later than he should have been.
• She threw away his passport and trashed his room when he did not clean the house because he was attending college that day (was an expectation for him to do jobs around the house, including washing his mums clothes first before he could wash his own).
• Made him leave the house for a couple nights where he had to sleep on the street after she got into an argument and threw a mug at him. She was worried he would retaliate (even though my husband is a gentle giant and was scared of her).

He moved away when he went to uni and could finally get independence. Since then, he had only seen her once or twice a year. The mind games never changed, the final straw came when he ran a Half Marathon for Dementia UK in memory of his Gran (her mother) and she refused to donate a penny, never wished him luck and made him feel ashamed for even contemplating running it. Part of me thinks he ran it to make her proud, which is upsetting.

For me personally, I have never felt welcome in her presence, tried to be polite but have felt her wrath a couple of times. But mainly just nasty off-hand comments. I am past caring about how I am treated. Just care about my Hubby.

To cut to the chase, the last contact my husband had with her was a out of the blue drunken text threating to cut him out of the will, not that he cares about that. This was before we told anybody I was pregnant.
I am now 19 weeks along, his sister has told his mum (which is fine) and we suddenly got an anniversary card and chocolates (late) through the post the other day saying "happy anniversary and congrats on the bundle of joy".

Personally, this is messing with my head and I have no guage as to whether this woman should have any contact once the baby is born, my head says "no fucking way" but my conscience and heart is "we are preventing a woman from seeing her grandchild/our child knowing their grandmother".
Honestly, I would allow her to see out child once or twice a year supervised. But my husband does not want anything to do with her or come to a resolution. She is blocked from both our phones. It would be easier if she just went away but just feels like my husband and I are burying our heads in the sand.

Sorry for the long post, just a lot to get out! What are people's thoughts on this?

This. Your husband has explicitly told you he wants nothing to do with his mother. Why are you even giving this any consideration???

You do not need to be worrying about this at this time
When somebody shows you who they are, believe them
You are uncomfortable in her company and that would be enough for me
If your husband wishes to engage with her and put up with her awful behaviour, tell him it will be without you and baby
Wishing you well, don't let this woman spoil your pregnancy memories

While it's not the same thing, my DM openly favours my sibling and I'm the black sheep - hey, used to it and it genuinely doesn't bother me any more. But when I saw it happen to our respective kids, with my DC being treated like me by default and the cousins lauded and celebrated, I knew I had to quietly ease off contact before DC was old enough to spot the marked difference.

It says a lot that DM hasn't even noticed.

The best analogy I can give is that going back to a trauma bond is like going back to an addiction. You think you are recovered, you think that this time will be different but people like your DH’s mother do not have the capacity to change. They lack key skills that needed to be developed in childhood that facilitate personal growth and development, empathy, ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes, ability to focus outside your own emotions and needs. She cannot do these things. She will repeat her patterns from the past and your DH will be pulled back into this very unhealthy dynamic which unless he has learned some very significant skills will damage him.

Exactly the same here @Turfwars ... my mother only shows interest in me and DS when my siblings and their kids are unavailable. And I am having none of it.

@Nic1210 you don't need to appease a woman like this, you just need to stay away from her. Your child won't miss what they've never known and your little family will be all the happier for it.

The pregnancy, the new baby, to her it's just another tool to hurt and abuse your husband with.
She doesn't care about the baby, it's just a possible avenue to cause him distress.
Validate your husband and his experience of abuse by agreeing to banish this abuser from all of your lives, think no more of her.

This 💯

"These messages are all spot on. Even when I read back my original post, I know I am too lenient on my MIL.
Definitely makes me and my husband know that going no contact and keeping her blocked is the right option at present".

It is the right option permanently, not just at present.

And you are correct, you have been way too lenient with regards to MIL. Not entirely your fault but you should know that not all relatives are nice and kind and many such types remain actively abusive. Your heart will catch up with your head given time.

Drop the rope she holds out to you here along with strengthening your own boundaries which appear weak in parts. Read "Toxic Inlaws" by Susan Forward, that will help you as well.

Such people like his mother do not change readily, if at all. Your MIL has seen your kind and caring nature here and will further use this against you to get back at both you and her son. Do not make the mistake of ever allowing her access to your child, it will be a sad day for your own family unit if you did. If your own parents are nice and importantly emotionally healthy (which they are) then concentrate your own efforts on them.

OP I'm sorry if I picked this up wrong from your post - it's unclear.

if your husband has said he doesn't want to have any contact with her and she hasn't explicitly asked to see you guys - where is the possibility of whether you should see her coming from? Is it from you only?

I say this with kindness and an appreciation that you are a good person with your family's wellbeing at heart - if your husband doesn't want to see his abuser, his opinion is the only one that matters and yours doesn't.

if your husband does want to see her then of course you get to have a say in how that will work to protect you and your baby but do not voice anything except your support when he says he doesn't want to see her.

you may think you're just evaluating, talking about pros/cons, head vs heart etc to him and that he knows you support him but he is a victim of childhood abuse and this may make him second guess his convictions because she prob made him question his reality as a child.

@OrangeRhymesWith you are 100% right, think posting here has helped, reading the comments has made me want to back my husband even more. We have talked extensively about what he has been through over the years since we have been together, more and more has come out the woodwork.

Think for us this is the final hurdle to get shot of his abusive mother, I am very proud he took the steps to do so last year.
Receiving the card yesterday was a knock to our resolve, I am glad that it does not change his view and all that matters is his voice with these experiences as I have only witnessed a handful of bad ones compared to his lifetime of experience with her.
I just need to drop the niceties, follow my husband's lead to support his decision.

If she apologised or acknowledged her behaviour it may be different, but without that apology and acknowledgement she doesn't deserve it.

Keep her blocked.

She will bring nothing but drama to your lives.

Tell his sister nothing either if she is still involved with her mother.

Support your husband in moving on.

Don't think too much into this.

Ignore the letter and presents, just stick by your husbands decision. Don't even let it worry you. Chuck.in the bin and get on with you life as though it didn't happen.

She sounds horrible, you're not preventing her, she already did that by being a cunt

Contact would be a hard no from me. All you would be depriving anyone of is the opportunity to attempt to control & abuse (grandma), & "depriving" your child of exposure to a toxic person. You would be protecting your child not depriving them. Just because they are related doesn't mean that a relationship would be beneficial, it sounds highly unlikely that she's going to be even basically nice never mind the sort of grandma your child needs/deserves/what most of us imagine when we think of a grandma.

Sadly this means that you will have to be selective with the info that SIL is told because she'll be passing info on.

100% agree with the PP who said ' presents should come with ribbons ; not strings'.

Also think @TomatoSandwiches is onto something - mil seems to almost have unfinished business with your dh. She either wants to rewrite/ erase the past or continue with her manipulative behaviour.

He has done his best and it was thrown in his face. Good luck 🤞 going forward !

@AttilaTheMeerkat

‘Gifts too should come with ribbons, not strings. ‘

what a wonderful and profound statement. You have clarified some issues which I have struggled with for years. Thank you.

I am now 19 weeks along, his sister has told his mum (which is fine)

No its not. None of this is fine. You need to cut both of them out of your lives. She hasn't even apologised to her son for the abuse she subjected him to so why are you considering her feelings over those of your DH?

When he tells you he was abused, how do you feel?

@Thelnebriati you are right, I should not give a crap about her feelings, pretty much don't anyway.

I feel nothing but extreme anger and heatbreak for how she has treated my husband. In the past, her behaviour when we first got engaged was despicable and I lost it. Which led to fracture our relationship (my husband was still trying to be accepted by her at this point).
Fortunately, since then, we resolved our issues before getting married and we are stronger than ever, my husband cut her out off his own accord, which was a relief!
I think I have always buried the extreme angry reactions for a long time and tried to be polite/numb about it until my husband made his own mind up.
Too much energy has been spent on this abuser. I do thank everyone for their comments as I need to be behind my husband 100% and not give a fuck about that horrid excuse for a woman.

"Gifts too should come with ribbons, not strings" is an amazing quote, definitely sums everything up!

No no no. Stay away from her.

I say this as someone who had an abusive grandmother. It's much easier to prevent abuse than it is to try to undo the effects of it years later.