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)?

I was going to say that I think we're being played for fools as this post can't be real!
I think OP's wife is pulling all the strings here. She is controlling enough to only "allow" her husband to take the child for a visit to her grandmother for ONE AFTERNOON every two months!
He clearly IS putting his wife first

And I am still entertained by your opinion.

There is a difference in a MIL 'not being perfect' and a MIL with the behaviours demonstrated by the OP's mum, particularly the things she did to a newly post-partum mother.

I'm sure that the OP's wife will really appreciate her husband giving her a 'hard talking to' and will immediately welcome his mum with open arms. That's more likely to lead to the OP and his wife splitting up, something the OP is desperate to avoid.

The OP's mum is isolated, cut off, left out and desperate to see her grandchild due to her own behaviours. The OP wants his wife to compromise but doesn't mention his mother changing her behaviours or even apologising to his wife.

All good then!👍

The poster didn't say that older women are threatened by fertility. She said that some MILs choose the time post-partum when new mothers are feeling particularly vulnerable to ramp up controlling behaviours which undermine the new mum.

Yeah I agree with this. Your wife has decided she doesn’t want your mother in their life; so has your brother. You seem to only be trying to persuade your wife to take her back in, not your brother who she is related to.

I don’t think you should be trying to persuade either of them necessarily, but this irony struck me too.

Really, you could do with talking to a therapist about it all, help you work it all out in a safe and impartial place. Sounds like you had a tough time in your childhood. Does your mother have any friends?

Good luck, OP. You sound like a nice person trying to deal with a really tricky situation in life.

Funny that OP hasn't come back
I think he (or she) is having a game with us all

OP's wife hasn't told him that he isn't allowed to see his mother. Her restrictions relate to the relationship with their child and her presence in their own home, i.e. the OP can see her but his wife doesn't want to.

The OP hasn't come back because of the amount of abuse and insults directed his way when he's clearly trying to solve a complex issue in which - imo - no one is entirely to blame. OPs aren't here for your entertainment.

i don’t think that’s entirely clear either way. She has said the OP needs to support the boundaries.

In any case the child is as much the OP’s as hers and the home is both of theirs.

No...but something doesn't quite ring true

Where has the wife compromised and tried to meet in the middle? She's told her husband quite plainly that she wants the MIL nowhere near them at Christmas. The woman is going to be alone. Making vague noises about possibly seeing her sometime after Christmas is not a compromise. Accepting that her husband and child will visit the MIL for Christmas Eve, or Boxing Day, or for a couple of hours in Christmas Day is a compromise. Agreeing to have her at their home for Christmas Eve or Boxing Day, but not Christmas Day itself would be a compromise. Refusing to have her around at any point over the three days that are considered to be Christmas is not a compromise. It's getting your own way 100%.

Even if this doesn't ring true it's an interesting and useful discussion.
There's a bit of polarisation and projection going on. (On the one hand, "you deserve your arse handing to you for not unquestioningly supporting your wife", on the other hand, "Your poor mother will be alone at Christmas, your wife is a bully)".
There are some posts which are helpful because they are much more nuanced and acknowledge that family relationships are complex and very often people react against each other in a downward spiral.
In general terms the "toxic mother" trope has become a modern day witch hunt.
Feminism and the sisterhood doesn't appear to apply to anyone over 60. Common sense suggests that there are reasonable people and difficult people in every age group.
I have noticed a bit of a backlash recently. We don't need to return to the days of older people automatically being deferred to because age deserves respect but it's good to see more balance.

There is an old saying ' you reap what you sow ' it sounds like mother had it coming, good on the wife for sticking up for herself and her daughter.

This.

Relationships are complicated things. MILs no more deserve to be demonised as a group than any other group or age group.

Think I agree.
But either way , as a pp said , interesting thread.
And I'm team wife
Good self esteem and good role model for DD.
Without it a person is walked on and resentment builds.

This

A PP referred to a trend in discarding those over 60 and I don’t agree - the trend I see on here is infantilising over 60s. Too doddery or frail or old to be treated like adults and instead tolerated under sufferance for bad behaviour like toddlers, whilst their families wait for them to die ‘how many more years’. How that is more respectful is beyond me.

None of the people I know over 60 or even 70 would appreciate being treated like a child rather than respected as an autonomous adult who makes informed choices about what they say or do.

OP’s mum is who she has always been, nothing to do with being older. She’s just swapped the victim card from abandoned wife who needs her son to be her husband to abandoned granny being kept away from her grandchild by a nasty DIL.

OP hasn’t been back because no one has given him a definitive answer on how to grow up. He didn’t get unanimous agreement that his wife is the one who needs to change and those who were on his mums side were as offensive about his wife as his mum has been.

I think the "recent backlash" against toxic mothers over 60 is not so much a trope, but that there is much greater awareness of what constitutes unacceptable behaviour and abuse and that because someone is related to you, does not mean they must have your best interests at heart.

In the past women with abusive husbands were told "you've made your bed, now you have to lie in it" and told they just needed to work at their marriage.
Now, women would be supported to leave such marriages.

I think the same thing is happening with toxic parents. There is a realisation among adult children that they don't have to put up with this behaviour (I'm not talking of changing behaviour due to becoming older or potentially onset dementia, but parents who have always behaved like this). Although sadly, as this thread exists, the wider awareness that it's not healthy to be around such people is not as prevalent as it is with abused wives and these people experiencing it still face judgement.

Great post! This trend has been demonstrated on other threads recently, one where the OP didn't want her recently separated MIL to come for Christmas dinner but was happy to see her later in the day. Her MIL was only early 50s but hadn't worked, couldn't use the internet, make her own meals, do her own housework or cut her own toe nails (she got her heavily pregnant DIL to do that). Posters were berating the OP for being heartless and cruel.

Another one was where the OP's DH supported his mum financially using family money, took her out to dinner (which he paid for) every week and now wanted his mum to come on their family holiday (everything paid for by him, including her spending money) and he planned to take his mum out to dinner on their holiday, leaving his wife with the kids. Again the OP was called cruel and heartless and of course her son wanted to help his poor mum.

There is a point when difficult people reach a certain age, normally over 60 or state pension age, that they suddenly become hard done by saints. This is particularly noticeable with the treatment of benefit claimants who according to the right wing press are lazy drains on society until they reach the magic state pension age when they become poor pensioners deserving of everyone's sympathy.

100% agree with all of this.

Me too, and I'm more in the mum's age group.

I reach state pension age in a couple of months and I'm looking forward to receiving my halo along with my bus pass.

Not gonna lie OP, your mum does sound like hard work.

But on the other hand, I do think your wife is being rather hard-hearted about banning her from your house over Christmas, especially if it means your mum will be all by herself.

I'd also be keen to know a couple of things:

1. If anyone else is visiting you on Christmas Day (sorry if this has already been addressed, I haven't read through all 22 pages of the thread). If you're having anything more than a handful of people, I think your wife is being even more unreasonable in excluding her, as with a house full of people there's more opportunity for your wife and mother to simply avoid each other).
2. How is your wife generally? Is she usually fair, reasonable and accommodating when it comes to your child and family life? If so, I'd be more inclined to respect her boundary on this, and perhaps see your mum on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day instead. But if your wife has a tendency to be a bit controlling and/or insecure, I'd be pushing back. (The fact that she only allows your mum to see your child once every couple of months suggests to me that sadly, it might be the latter situation).

Is there any compromise you guys could come to? Would your wife be willing to extend an invite on the strict condition that you'll have a firm chat with your mum beforehand about not being overbearing or judgmental, and that if she kicks off on Christmas Day, you'll make her leave? Or could you set a firm time limit on her visit - eg only have her around for an hour or two?

Otherwise if your wife refuses to budge, if your mum lives close by I think you'd be justified in taking your child to visit her at some point on Christmas Day.

I do agree that there are two sides to the way in which ageism operates-the "witch hunt" side consisting of negative generalisations and the infantilisation side. Both are forms of othering.
I was not suggesting that older people should be excused for unacceptable behaviour-just that they should be treated the same as everyone else.
The infantilisation is also two sided. The "poor old mum" side and the "has she shown contrition" side.
If the wife had done something wrong I don't think we would be asking whether she had shown contrition and made amends.
As I said above relationships can be complex and people react to each other.