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)?

One son has cut her off because of her behaviour. The other son, who still sees her, says she’s ‘selfish and inconsiderate and isn't willing to back off when asked’ and that she’s made him feel responsible for her happiness from childhood. Her DIL doesn’t want to be around her because of her behaviour. It’s almost as if there’s a pattern here …

I think it’s very telling that your brother (her own son) doesn’t see her now and you can see that she overstepped when your DD was born, a very vulnerable time for your wife. This, along with the other examples you give, suggest that your wife has a point.

Does your wife see your mother at all? Could you and your wife sit down and come to some arrangement that suits both you and her (not your mother) for visits. Either you taking your daughter to see her Grandmother or all of you meeting her out somewhere. I definitely don’t think you should insist on her coming on Christmas Day.

My Mil was lovely but my sisters Mil is very difficult. Fortunately my DBil can see this and has my sisters back. My Dsis is the only Dil still speaking to her and that’s only because they have made arrangements for visiting and visits that suit them and she lives a good distance away. All the (adult) grandchildren, despite knowing exactly what she’s like, all manage to have a good relationship with their Granny.

Thats really not true. It costs a lot if you let selfish, controlling, people into your life. Now ots “just christmas” but afterbit will be @just this” or “jjst that.” OP has described a woman who has systematically forced every normal oersonal connection out of her life—including her own son. She has poor boundaries and is greedy(she faulted him repeatedly for moving away for his family). She won’t be appeased with just Christmas day. She will use it as a wedge to ory mire from OP and his wife.

In addition this MIL is definitely abusive and manipulative. If she once gets her hooks in the grandchild OP is setting his own daughter up for the same greedy enmeshment he has suffered .

I second the recommendation that OP read Ourt Of The Fog (or google and read the website), Susan Forward’s book on toxic families, and also a book on adult children of emotionally immature parents. It will be eye opening.

l get that you feel you have responsibility to your Mum OP but you have to listen to your wife over this as I suspect your Mum is reaping what she has sown.

I would not want her there on Christmas Day as CD is special and she would ruin it for me.

Also, likely, if you say yes, this will be expected every year.

It would be a hard no from me too.

Based on your update, I would accept that your wife doesn’t want your mother to visit on Christmas Day. I would suggest taking your daughter to visit your mother on Boxing Day or something.

Going forward, I would explain to your mother and your wife that there needs to be a reset, and an attempt to create respectful relationships between everyone.

I also wonder what happened to people making allowances for other people?
Holding grudges for years because someone said an unkind remark once isn't usual nowadays, but even if you do have valid reason to dislike someone, expecting others, who see both sides of the argument (even spouses) to agree, is controlling behaviour, imo.

So many people willing to assume that despite even the golden child son, who is willing to excuse anything, admitting the mother’s behaviour is bad, and another child going NC, the mother must be a hapless victim of a ‘cow’ ‘maniac’ ‘cold’ DIL who everyone else must ‘be kind’ to.

I am a neutral position as far as MILs are concerned and I don’t see the ‘all MILs are evil’ tropes that are trotted out here every time someone posts an issue about an MIL behaving badly. I do see people tie themselves in knots to excuse their bad behaviour either because they are as helpless in their own lives or as badly behaved. Certainly the ones throwing names at OP’s wife are likely to be making their own wider families lives hell with their insistence bad behaviour should be rewarded.

And ‘be kind’ is only ever used by people who think bad behaviour being excused is either their right or that martyring themselves by tolerating it makes them superior. It doesn’t.

Your mother sounds completely intolerable. I wouldn’t want her anywhere near my child. Your blindness in how badly this has affected your wife and your fence sitting is damaging your marriage. Can you not see the pattern in that everyone has disowned your mother apart from you? She has nobody and it’s clear to see why.
Why do you want your child to spend any time with this woman? Purely because she’s a relative? That’s not a good enough reason. My child has zero contact with one of my parents and low contact with the other. This is my decision based on them as people and how damaging I think their influence would be. Being related isn’t an automatic ticket to being present in a child’s life. You’re doing your child a disservice by not being thorough about this.

To be fair, I'd not like it if my MIL taught my kids to say 'ta' instead of speaking properly 😅

Surely your MIL was completely heartless by doing those terrible things you refer to? Maybe if she experienced some consequences for her behaviour, i.e. not being invited on Christmas Day, she might have changed her behaviour. It doesn't sound as though your MIL was ever kind so why bend over backwards to show kindness to her when it will never be reciprocated?

Yes, this.
Unfortunately OP you’ve have entered the world of Mumsnet and the MIL haters, the most popular thing on here is to hate your mother in law, they can’t bear to think that their husband is capable of loving and caring for another female, their jealousy will find any opportunity to drive a wedge.
You sound like such a nice chap, your wife to me sounds utterly selfish. I hope she realises that one day she will be MIL and if justice was done she would be treated in the same way she has treated your mother.
You don’t have to like people to be kind, considerate and compassionate, but she obviously has no understanding of these words.
You are stuck between a rock and a hard place, no doubt your wife will ‘win’ hopefully you can engineer some time to enjoy with your mother and her grandchildren, but I suspect it won’t be Christmas Day.
Good Luck.

That's not what's happening here though is it? We're not talking about a sweet but misunderstood old lady, but a toxic person who's driven everyone out of her life except for one son that she's controlled by making him solely responsible for her happiness since childhood.

'Being kind' doesn't mean exposing yourself to bullies. And why should the OP's wife and daughter's Christmas Days be ruined to appease someone deeply unpleasant who won't even be grateful?

Ex mil was so over bearing and suffocating. She even accused me of seeing someone else. She even suggested I change the way DD walked. She expected to be involved in absolutely everything. Exdh even discussed our intimate relationship with her.

She was part of the reason for our break up as exdh couldn't understand that there should be boundaries

Did you read the OP's update?

There are probably more MILs than DILs on MN these days, given how long the site has been around. It can be ageist, but no more than anywhere else.

You may have answered this already but why does your mum want to be part of your Christmas Day this year? What has she done in the past?

I know people will say "it's only one day" but it's an important day for your immediate family and how you share that time with other relatives is up to the both of you. See your mum sometime close to Xmas but not the day itself - it has too much meaning and I'm not sure your mother can be trusted not to ruin it!

Hard agree!

Nope. No longer interested in making nice with people who just don't like me.
Getting too old for that.

It’s a known cause of elder abuse where people have been under the thumb of their parents their whole life then when the power shifts and the parent is vulnerable, the adult child returns the favour…not all families are sweetness and light and not all elderly people are nice !

I think your wife is being totally unfair and unreasonable re xmas day.
Your wife seems very negative and critical of your mum which is unfair in itself.
It would be interesting to find out what your wife meant by your mum trying to take over after your daughter was born. Paternal grandmas are in a very vulnerable position at the best of times, treading a fine line between being interested and caring to intruding and overstepping!
Either way, I think your wife is being unkind and unreasonable and manipulative in saying that you are choosing your mum over her

After your update where you’ve spelt out all your DM has done wrong you are still expecting your DW to bend and accept your mothers failings. Why should she?

Your Christmas Days sound awful. Would you allow a child to behave so horribly with absolutely no consequences for their actions?

That was obviously your choice, but I'm appalled that you are telling the OP to stand up to his wife and insist on having his mum on Christmas Day. If his wife's MIL is anything like yours, her Christmas Day will be ruined by her presence.

If two people fall out, sometimes you think they each have some part in that.
If more than one person falls out with the same other person, you start to think that the other person and their behaviour is the issue.

You and your daughter visiting your mum, maybe on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day, or the weekend either side, seems reasonable to me. I am glad my mum has never behaved like yours.

I was talking generally about not making allowances and holding grudges, people do seem to be far more ready to turn a disagreement into a big hurt nowadays.

I answered the OP's post previously. I don't expect the wife to ruin her Christmas day by inviting her MIL round. I think she has the right to not even communicate with the woman if she so wishes.

To compromise would be to accept her husband and daughter visit the MIL for a couple of hours on Christmas day, which unless she is bad mouthing her MIL in daughters earshot, the child would also benefit from.

That’s completely unrealistic.

Not many people who have gone LC or NC would be able to “reset” because someone else wants them too. There’s too much water under the bridge. She hasn’t even got a respectful relationship with her other son.

OP sounds a lot like my husband. His mum turned to him when his Dad left, too. He carried a lot of the emotional weight, and MIL still tells him that he’s her everything and he carries the key to her happiness. It’s emotional manipulation. Thankfully DH mostly sees through it; and can be guided when he gets stuck in it - but a reset is out of the question now. If OP & DH had done more to protect their wives to start with, and stand up to their mums, perhaps it wouldn’t have come to this - but it has.

This thread isn't about 'holding grudges' though. Choosing to go low contact with someone who has systematically undermined and disrespected you, while treating both her sons inappropriately, is not 'holding a grudge'. That's minimising what has happened here.

I'd also question whether it's really important for kids to have toxic people in their lives just because they are blood relatives.