Wife wont let mum come round at Christmas

[Unjeffeson]

Background:
My m(41) wife hates my mum. There wasn't one incident but she just thinks shes selfish and manipulative and just wants everything on her own terms, including spending time with pur daughter. She feels my mum tried to dominate when our daughter was born and has never considered her feelings, and is rude and catty to her. My wife also thinks I take my mums side too much when i try and explain her point of view or try and create compromises. This has led my wife to feeling like my mother is ‘the other woman’, and she sees red almost every time we discuss her.

Things have been stable if unpleasant for a while, with my wife agreeing for my mum to see our daughter every couple of months for an afternoon. In the meantime my mum is on the phone to me regularly about how depressed its all making her.

Whats happened:
My mum has asked if she can see us on Christmas day, so she doesnt have to be by herself. My wife has said hard no, she doesnt want her anywhere near us at xmas. Mum can see us at some point around the end of December but not on Christmas day. Wife says we need to maintain a united front to set boundaries with my mum on this.

Ive been managing my mum’s feelings on all this for two years now as well as putting my wife’s desires first. It is important to me that my daughter knows her grandmother and that she doesnt get dragged into it. When we argue about it my wife makes ‘it’s me or her’ noises and i refuse to break up my family for what my mother wants. But dealing with mums misery on the whole thing is very hard.

What should I do? Is it okay to say no to mum at xmas so long as we have another date lined up?

And i guess more importantly - had anyone here had a mother in law you feel is so unpleasant that you prevent them visiting, keep them away at xmas etc, in spite of the difficulty it causes your SO? Where’s the line of tolerance (if there even is one)?

Sorry, the whole thing reads as though you agree with your mother and your wife is wrong. This is what you wife is picking up on. So your mother tried to dominate your wife as a new mother and you think this is ok? I’m on team wife

My exs mother sounds exactly like yours and you sound exactly like him - deluded as to how unbearable she is.

I ended the relationship over it it just wasn’t worth it. Maybe if your mother tries to be a nicer person you won’t have this issue.

Is your mother as unpleasant to be around as your wife thinks? What’s your opinion?
It’s hard to know who’s being unreasonable at the moment. Is it just misunderstandings or cultural differences or personality clashes or has your mother really been so nasty that she deserves your wife’s hatred?

Could you take your daughter to your mum's for a couple of hours and come back home. I think it's reasonable not to want to spend Christmas day with someone you can't stand.

my mum tried to dominate when our daughter was born and has never considered her feelings, and is rude and catty to her. My wife also thinks I take my mums side

Where is you and your mother's tolerance? Has the woman apologised for her vile behaviour choices? Why would you want such a person around your wife? Your wife should be your number one, you're meant to cherish her and have her back, do you?

Your post reads like you are going along with an irrational demand to keep the peace.

I doubt your wife loathes your mother out of nowhere. Why not listen to her and try to understand why she’s so upset and angry with your mum?

Your poor mum! I would hate to think of my mum alone on Christmas day, and it would be a huge issue for me if my husband tried to drive a wedge between me and my mum.

@PicturePlace sounds like the OPs mother has chosen to behave in an unpleasant manner to her DIL and as such, has made herself unlikeable 💁🏻‍♀️

If your wife posted here, she would be told, quite rightly, that she has a DH problem. Your mother is clearly as overbearing with you as with your wife but your response is to capitulate and negotiate, rather than set boundaries.

Your child will still have a relationship with their grandmother if you get together on the 27th, instead of the 25th.

It's hard to see what your mum has done wrong. Could you post that from your wife's POV so that we can understand? It's hard to know whether you're married to someone awful or whether your mum is awful.

Otherwise why don't you take your child on regular visits to your mum?

Ah come on…you’ve quoted that out of context.
OP wrote
‘she feels my mum tried to dominate when our daughter was born and has never considered her feelings, and is rude and catty to her. My wife also thinks I take my mums side’
You presented the MILs behaviour as fact, not one person’s opinion. OP may not agree with his/her wife’s analysis.

I doubt the wife magically just dreamt up being dominated, catty remarks, rudeness and inconsiderate behaviour.

Put your kid in the car and take her to visit your own mother.
Stop the helpless handwringing and whining and take action yourself.
Your wife has set boundaries for herself. You are your daughters parent too, so strap her into your car and drive her to visit your mother. It's not difficult.

You agree with your mum and youre managing your mums feelings which is crazy, she’s a grown woman why is her son in charge of managing her feelings.
you take call after call about how depressed your mum is …but has she considered not being rude to your wife as a solution?

why should your wife have to put up with someone being rude to her all day just so your mums not alone
who does she normally spend Christmas with and why can’t she go there this year

My mother in law was an extremely difficult woman and did some terrible things during the 45 years I knew her. I couldn't stand her but I could never ever have left her on her own on Christmas Day. I think that would have been completely heartless, and we just used to grit our teeth and make the most of it. It's just one day in the year, but if you're alone and don't want to be, it must be horrible to know that your family won't make just a little bit of an affront to be kind.

Your mother may be everything your wife says she is, but you decide what relationship you will have with a mother and you make that work.

You can take some responsibility here for yours and your daughter's relationship with your mom. In doing so, you go and visit your mom regularly and take your daughter with you. Unless she is unsafe, no-one is telling me my mother can only see my daughter every few months 😒.

The same at Christmas. You arrange a suitable time around Christmas where you take your daughter to spend time with her grandmother. That way your wife needs to spend zero time in her company.

You sound awfully passive.

It's impossible to tell from your OP whether or not your mother is the MIL from hell or your wife is the DIL from hell. Can you give specific examples of things your wife is/was unhappy about and what you/your mother thought were happening in those moments? It's pretty obvious you think your wife is the problem.

As a rule, I am of the view that DIL/MIL issues can be the fault of either or both, so this context is important.

There could be cultural differences at play and no intention to offend.
Some people are very sensitive to every nuance of behaviour and sees slights where none are intended.
We simply don’t know at this stage.

Sorry, that should have been effort not affront!

I feel bad for your Mum. What about your wife acting like a grown up and having a conversation with your Mum about how she’s feeling. Cutting family out of your life should be a last resort, not taken as the easy option.

Your Mum clearly means a lot to you, and your wife should respect that.
Shes putting you firmly in the middle, and that’s not fair.

Relationships need to be worked on.
I think your wife is being very unreasonable.

In the meantime my mum is on the phone to me regularly about how depressed it's all making her.

Ive been managing my mum’s feelings on all this for two years now

But dealing with mums misery on the whole thing is very hard.

Neenah Neenah problem mother alert!
Your mum sounds unbelievably manipulative. Okay I might be projecting as my MIL was incredibly difficult, but this is the bullshit my MIL would pull, and my effing SIL pulls, causing rifts between dh and myself.
My MIL would constantly make Dh feel guilty for not seeing her, but she made it so bloody difficult, and I'm easy going!
Couple of examples; my MIL rang us on our honeymoon and said she felt suicidal because she had lost her son...WTF?
MIL would ignore me every time we went to see her, she'd make Dh a cup of tea, but often 'forget' to ask would I like one!
Once we had kids, she'd criticise my parenting to Dh and one particularly rememberable Christmas (when I was ill so didn't go) criticised my children's behaviour blaming me for raising spoilt brats...errr no, I wasn't there, if they were behaving badly it was up to DH to correct unacceptable behaviour!
Dh came back and them lambasted me for not bringing the kids up well enough!!

Your mother, quite frankly, sounds like a PITA! She shouldn't be making you feel guilty! She's causing a deliberate rift between you and your wife, but emotionally manipulating you!
Sure, I'm sure she'd love to see more of you, but she shouldn't be pulling at you, you know much the same way, as an ex should never bad mouth the other parent to their child, same principle applies.
I mean your wife might be controlling and vial, who knows, but she's not saying no to seeing your mother, she's saying no to having Christmas Day potentially ruined by a manipulative 🦇!

Hi OP.

Can you give some examples of why your wife thinks your mother is unpleasant?

It's hard to judge this situation without knowing more about it.

So there are 2 scenarios

1. OP's mum is a nasty, controlling, potentially abusive person but OP is so accustomed to this (and it's his mum) that he makes excuses for her and minimises this (which is what he's been conditioned to do, absolutely no judgement, these dynamics take years to unpick)
2. OP's wife dislikes her MIL for no particular good reason and is enforcing unnecessarily strong boundaries.

Unfortunately only OP will know and he's potentially too intertwined in the situation to be be objective.

However, the part about OP managing his mum's feelings jumped out. He is not responsible for managing her feelings. That's for her to do.

OP - it would help if you could give specific examples of the behaviour that your wife dislikes? If it helps we had a similar boundary round my mother and visiting at Christmas (too strong a possibility she would ruin the day).

You've written this so neutrally that nobody can help, because nobody can tell who is being unreasonable, or who has already had their tolerance abused.

If that's a reflection of how you've dealt with this all the way through, I can see why your wife is done with it.

I don't see my MIL, she's a horrible person, she ruined the early months of my child's life with her overbearing and horrid behaviour and only got worse from there. It was the biggest relief I have ever known in my life when I stopped seeing her. She also does the "woe is me" text routine to DH, who largely ignores it, because we all know that she's very manipulative and just wants to get her own way. She wouldn't be welcome around at Christmas, or any other time of the year. She made her bed.

Nobody can say if that's fair for your mother, but you can't be a passive partner just trying to constantly make peace between the two. If that's how you've behaved, it's no wonder that your wife is fed up and has drawn her own hard boundaries, and your mum has learnt to whinge at you until you give in.

It sounds like your mum needs to find some new Christmas plans. She's presumably had some for the last two years? If nobody is inviting her back, that says something by itself.

Your wife's "tolerance" could very well be being used to see her every few months.

The issue is that you are still trying to get your mother to dominate - you aren’t listening to what you wife is saying and language of her desires make it sound as if you don’t believe her

but rather than solving it you are trying to manage it all aren’t you and hope that your wife will concede for you