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)?

Your mother sounds like a classic narcissistic. You are the golden child, brother the scape goat.. neither is a great position to be in but at least he's been able to escape. You sound enmeshed ai would recommend reading about mother enmeshment and getting some therapy for yourself to help you distance yourself and set up more effective boundaries.

@italianlondongirl we can't ever know the full story of what goes on. But as others have well remarked- one growing up under a toxic mother often doesn't realise what their own mother is.

We have another son no contact. The wife has reacted very strongly and this combined with what OP has said really does paint a picture.

Yes people are human with faults but it takes alot to go NC with immediate family. I suspect there will be significantly more to the brothers story, and more to the wife's. OP has possibly been spared having to face the facts ref his mum as he has had preferential treatment due to being the accomodating one in the family.

I have grown up in a family like this, I would have said the same about my own parent as OP did, as the pleasing , accommodating one, until I started to see reality.

Of course there may be other interpretations. OPs wife could be exceptionally controlling, even abusive perhaps and granny is simply the victim of all this. Maybe brother is obese and just didn't want to stop gorging on Maccy Ds. Who knows 🤷‍♀️

So a loving & attentive mother to her children suddenly turns into a narcissist the minute her children leave home. An interesting pov to say the least 🤔 Perhaps all mothers of sons should just wave them goodbye at age 18 & tell them we're done. I presume the fact the vast majority of mothers would still lay down their life for their sons & daughters at every stage of their lives is neither here nor there.

@Twobigbabies I'm with you 100% on this. And how funny how people just can't believe that a MIL could do this and it must be those horrible horrible children.

This stuff is so formulaic it's unbelievable.

Eeek! This sounds lie a difficult family dynamic. I can't understand (and if I were you I would diregard) the comments of anyone who is stridently on one side or the other. As others have pointed out, YOU have the best idea of who is being the most unreasonable, as a witness to the situation. Although it is true that people exposed to toxic personalities do become 'immune' to it, I've experienced this myself. With that in mind, I would recommend you get some therapy yourself to unpick your mother/son relationship and how disfunctional it is and also to address your 'people pleasing' tendencies. Try to find a therapist familiar with toxic family dynamics. If you feel you can move forward with your Mother after that (I think you might find it quite eye opening), why not suggest family therapy to both parties. Their reactions to this suggestion alone might shed some light on who IBU.

Some posters on this thread seem unable to grasp that a son can still love his mother after he gets married.

Your wife is compromising. She’s seeing your mum every couple of months even though you yourself have admitted that your mum’s behaviour toward her is very poor.

That’s the compromise.

There’s no way I’d want to host her on Christmas Day either. She’s compromising by seeing her later in the month.

I get that it’s difficult being in the middle and I understand that you love your mum regardless. That’s all fine. But your wife doesn’t have to. She doesn’t have that unconditional love bond. And she isn’t ever going to develop one because your mum crossed too many boundaries.

You need to tell your mum that Christmas Day is going to be a quiet one for you this year. And you need to tell your wife to stop giving ultimatums because you hear her and you have her back.

Not in this case - the mother has turned her son into her surrogate partner/confidante. “The only key to get happiness” and

The OP’s own take is:
I resent the fact she never made more effort to move on from my dad and I am effectively her emotional support. Perhaps I have enabled this but it's just kind of happened since I was too young to know not to

The OP’s wife identified this unhealthy dynamic too.

It's fascinating reading all the different points of view. Personally I'd be horrified if my DH distanced himself from his mother on account of me not getting along with her. She adores her children & grandchildren although admittedly she has never been the easiest of characters to deal with for any of her family. She would have to be evil for me to go no contact or pull her son away from regular contact with her. A few irritating comments or judgements would upset me but I'd deal with it & try to understand her pain at the time then move on.

Some of the behaviors OP posted about his mom could be mild annoyances, but some are toxic. The way he describes her relationship with him is toxic. The way he feels the need to explain what he thinks his mom meant every time she has insulted his wife is patronizing and gaslighting to his wife. OP has had years to fix things, but has waited until his wife is no longer interested in trying to have a relationship with his mom to do anything.

I think individual therapy for OP, DW and Mum will be necessary to fix this. OP and DW also need couples counseling, after they have each had some individual therapy. I doubt the relationships will be mended enough to spend Christmas Day together, but it could help make their visit later in December pleasant.

I can’t recommend OP or DW do family therapy with Mum until they have some concrete proof, through Mum’s changed behavior, that she is willing to stop the toxicity. Therapy is supposed to be a safe place to be vulnerable and you can’t do that with someone who will manipulate your vulnerabilities.

Posters are seeing this through their own biases and experiences. Those with mostly healthy relationships with family and in-laws generally see things as annoying but tolerable. Those of us with toxic family and in-laws see the signs of what we’ve experienced and are reading things as toxic. Those who have had abusive and controlling spouses see the signs for that in DW. We have no way of knowing which of us are correct or if it is somewhere in the middle. The sensible thing, in my opinion, is for everyone to get therapy, work through their individual issues and then have the therapist help them to see what the best way forward is for all of them, especially the DC.

You totally come to the wrong place for any type of support, being the husband makes you enemy number one, does your wife see her mum regularly.

What a weird conclusion! Lots of us have supported him and his wife! That is what is best for the marriage.

Telling your son and his wife that she's just temporary but he'll always be your son is an excellent way to ruin that relationship 👌

Have some respect for the relationship and accept she and his new family are his main priority and you'll be fine

OP's mother used him as an emotional crutch since he was a young child. So, no, she didn't turn into a narcissist the moment he left home - she was always one.

OP has no frame of reference to judge his mother's behaviour. She probably was loving to him, and as a child, he would have thought being responsible for her problems was exciting and made him important. Not how damaging it was for a child to take this one.

Just about every post on MN from a women being abused by a partner says that he is a loving father and also loves her.

Your point about mother laying down their lives for their sons at every stage of their lives is an interesting one. Here, the mother is not being asked to lay down her life but merely to respect some reasonable boundaries and not to make tactless, mean remarks. And yet, somehow she is unable to do this, and wife is just expected to put up with it (per the majority of the pro-mum posts on this thread).

Oh thank you for the parenting advice, random person I don’t know! 🙄
When did I ever say I don’t want my son to have a healthy marriage/partnership- all I’m saying is think of everyone and try to be as sensitive and understanding of everyone!

You need to grow a back bone! Your mum is destroying your family being bitchy to your wife then crying to you about it.. sounds exactly like my mil, who I cut out for a few years, due to her behaviour around me and her attitude about me to my kids. She used to call herself mum to my oldest when she was a baby and toddler, I would cry to my DH about it, but his mum had already got there first and would cry about how I was lying that she would never call herself mum to our kids.. I got sick of this so I caught her in camera! Showed DH and he agreed she had been manipulating the situation. Before that point we nearly split up due to his mums behaviour. I never have forgiven her for her behaviour especially when I had DH and my first child. She was horrible to me, I had HG (basically like having food poisoning for 9 months, was in hospital every 2 weeks for sever dehydration and to get a anti sickness meds that was for radiation sickness as it was only think that would stop me vomiting. MIL would call me up to call me a whimp, and that I should be working (I left my job due to being so ill and being threatened I’d be fired so i quit after the 3rd time of being in for 2 weeks in hospital.) I was extremely depressed and distressed at the time and everytime she spoke to me during my pregnancy I needed up in hospital due to the stress it would trigger a vomiting cycle, I was 9.5 stone pre pregnancy and 5.5 stone when I have birth, I was really really unwell. I was repeatedly asked by hospital to have an abortion while I was getting harassed from MIL about shit like why I hadn’t made the effort to see her! When I had been in and out of hospital. When my DD was born, she would snatch my baby out of my arms and tell me I shouldn’t be holding her as much as would refuse to give her back to be fed (she was breastfed) she would laugh when I said I am the mum these are my choices and not yours. You are the gran. She would at every opportunity call herself mum she would strip my child down in middle of supermarket to change her clothes because she didn’t like what I’d dressed my daughter in.. and I’m not even exaggerating. Any boundaries I put in place she would go out of her way to go against it. So I cut her and sadly FIL (he was lovely and just wanted to be a papa, but they came as a duo) I needed away from her, she was horrible to me, and overstepped too many times. Any time anything was brought up to her the water works would come on… she is extremely manipulative. Tbh you mum is manipulating you by calling you crying and making out your wife is the problem when it is clearly her! You need to set clear boundaries with your mum! If she hadn’t wanted to spend Xmas on her own then she should have thought about her actions your mum is a fully grown adult! Not a small child! You are causing the problems by pacifying your mum when your loyalty should be with your wife and child! Stop it you will destroy you marriage for your mother, you are treating this like your mum is the other woman your wife is quite right!

Honestly your compromise is this. Christmas day is for you, your wife and daughter. Why? Because your wife and daughter are YOUR family. Your mother COULD be part of that if she wasn't a nasty person. Your mother needs to apologise to your wife AND she needs to change her behaviour. YOU need to make your peace with the fact she WONT change her behaviour as evidenced by the fact that your brother has also cut her off so this is clearly not a wife problem, it is a mother problem. You trying to force your wife to compromise is going to result in your wife leaving you. Keep your mother and wife seperate. You can however facilitate a relationship with your mum and daughter by taking your daughter to see your mum on your own. Your wife doesn't need to deal with your mother. You don't need to referee your wife and mum. Your mum starts her nonsense- you take your daughter and leave. Your mother will either learn the boundary and woman the heck up so she can have the relationship or she gets cut off from you and your daughter. End of the day, that's her choice just as it's your choice to placate your mother and lose your family or keep your family and let your mother learn the consequences of her actions. Good luck because it sounds like your wife is close to breaking point.

You clearly and your brother know your mum is the problem! Its your mum who needs to change/shut her mouth/relise you are not a sub for your dad/she has to make her own life as well/she needs to apologise properly to your wife!/ and she has to stop demanding of you to be in the middle when she is the one who is putting you middle get real and look at what you have written… who do you think is in the wrong 🤦‍♀️

You’re not the OP so what are you getting your knickers in a twist ain’t nobody talking to you!

OP says she was a loving mother to him when he was growing up. However, he also says that she relied on him for her emotional wellbeing once his father had left and continues to tell him that only he can make her happy. This is a huge burden for OP, but particularly when he was a child.

There is obviously a 'golden child/scapgoat' dynamic going on with OP and his brother. His brother has gone no contact with this 'loving' mother, due to comments about his weight and 'many other things'.

You express incredulity that loving mothers can suddently turn into narcissists the minute their children leave home. As other posters have said, she did not demonstrate healthy behaviours during their childhood. It is also interesting that the OP doesn't say that she is devastated that her other son no longer has contact with her and he doesn't appear to want to try and fix the issues between his mum and his brother that would hopefully remove some of the burden and guilt from his shoulders. He is relying on his wife to make all the compromises.

Well clearly something changed in her considering her own son has gone no contact with her. I struggle to see how any child would go NC with a loving and attentive mother over weight comments. There is far more to the story and it also completely unrelated to OP's wife. So there is very clearly something wrong with the mothers behaviour.

I don't think women should expect to wave their son off, but when they get married, start a family they have to understand they are no longer the mum of the family and they are no longer the decision maker they once were. Daughters and mothers often have been complex relationships over years, lifetimes. I have had horrendous arguments with my mum and periods of low contact but that has meant that we are now in a place were we understand each other well. Those foundations, history, years of arguments and understanding of one another does not exist between MIL and DIL.

In my experience sons just don't have the same ups and downs or confrontational aspect to their relationship. My brothers never argued with my mum to same level I did. In fact all of them have had their most heated arguments since getting married. Largely as my mums opinion, thoughts are just not a factor in their decision making/choices. Luckily my mum listened and reflected and stopped being so opinionated and pushy which has led to very healthy relationships with all her daughter in laws who happily seek her advice.

It's not a question of taking that relationship from MiL, or of what she perceives her rights or entitlement to be.

It's about the right of the child to have a relationship with her grandparents. I, for one, would not want to be the mother responsible for taking this away from my child. If MiL really is as impossible as the wife believes - and has apparently lost contact with her other son for similar reasons - then the child will one day find out for herself. If this comes as a disappointment then that, sadly, is part of life.

If parental alienation or some real toxicity were to cause harm to the child, then I'd reconsider. Otherwise, it would be completely up to the father to facilitate the relationship between his children and his mother.

On her own account, the wife is entitled to step back.

Well clearly something changed in her considering her own son has gone no contact with her. I struggle to see how any child would go NC with a loving and attentive mother over weight comments.

Well, exactly. And, despite what some posters suggest on this thread, most people don't go NC over one tactless comment either - they do try to forgive and forget or move on. It's most likely a culmination of things over a longer period of time and this was the final straw. OP does allude to other things.

I think the trouble with these threads is that if you start giving examples people say "well, that's not that bad" but in a lot of cases it's not that individual examples are that bad, but that there are a lot of them. It's "death by a thousand paper cuts". OP's post with examples was quite long. However I do suspect they are not the only examples, but simply the first that came into his head.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I don't think the OP should do anything to change his own relationship with his mum. Visit as much as he wants, and also take his daughter. I just don't agree that his wife always has to join him. If she sees her mil 6 times a year, and one of those times is around Christmas but not Christmas Day, that suits her. If he sees his mum whenever he wants, that suits him.

I guess I don't subscribe to this 'my mum is now your mum and we must always visit together and you must love her as much as I do' thing that many families fall into. It's obviously fine if it works for you, and you do indeed adore your mil, but I don't think it has to be the only way. If his wife doesn't like his mum, then he has to work out how important that his to him. If it was just because his wife was being a bitch and his mum was perfectly lovely, then maybe it says something to her character that he shouldn't put up with, but he admits himself that his mum has and does overstep boundaries.

To get the easy life he wants, he needs to accept that they're not going to be bezzies and work around it.

My husband absolutely adores his mum. I think she's perfectly lovely. But I don't visit every time he does. He'd like me to. But then he gets to sit on his phone in her living room for 3 hours while I visit his mum. I have my own people that I want to catch up with. Life is busy. So I don't go along every time. He doesn't see my parents with me every time. They don't mind. It's not something that's a problem in our marriage, it's just fine.

My mil would love to come for Christmas this year, though hasn't asked. However, I know she'd love to. But even my husband wants to keep that day quiet with our son. So she isn't. She's coming over the day just after Christmas. She's absolutely fine with that, and really excited, and so are we. It's an extra party day. No one is pouting, we're just sorting out what works for us at Christmas.

The problem in the OP's situation is his mum's demands and his own inability to maintain any boundaries. It's cool that you'd get past hurtful things said by your husband's mum. I also think it's cool that the OP's wife hasn't.

I quite agree with this post and those of other posters such a @the7Vabo - especially the comments about mummy boy posts and “ manning up” by telling his mum to get lost, he has a “new” family now ( sentiments you see a lot on MN). It is in no sense a normal or natural thing that a man grows up to devour his mother like some sort of brutal insect when she ceases to be of use to him and spits her at the feet of his wife as some kind of demonstration of manly devotion. When I’ve seen men do this, far from being a manly gesture, it has usually been the capitulation of a spineless, hen-pecked DH who lacks the emotional wherewithal to grapple with the situation and is being puppeteered by a wife who often manifests many of the traits she accuses the MIL of .

Relationships do take work and a degree of tolerance in the true sense ( not in the currently popular sense of a one-sided concept). Mothers and wives are not in competition and all this rhetoric about mothers who see the wife as competition is something that makes me think those espousing it need to look quite hard at themselves. Mothers naturally want continued involvement in their children’s lives and the suggestion that it is somehow narcissistic or controlling or envious or prurient is a symptom of the emotional sickness and self-centredness of our generation more than anything else.

I commend the OP for trying to balance his loyalties to the people who are meaningful in his life. It can be difficult, but the current trend for simply casting people off is not always, ( and not often), the answer ( actual abuse is obviously a different scenario). I can see both the mil and his wife have put him in a difficult position.

The op gave a helpful list of the issues. The bit about the breast-feeding was annoying I’m sure; but honestly, people have to get over these things. If she were still trying and failing to breastfeed then yes, I could see it might impact the wife’s Mh. But I presume she has either stopped or resolved it (?), so to pretend to op that being a woman and enduring childbirth is such a destabilising process that it somehow continues to do so is manipulating you as a male op.

The bit about the brother is actually none of the wife’s businesses and is clearly adduced as extraneous character assassination. The brother could be entirely the problem - or just part of the problem, because in fact that’s usually the reality in these types of family dynamics. None of us are perfect.

The bit about the rant in the car? She had an opinion about something that was ( understandably) disappointing to her. People express emotion. Move on. That’s family life.

The bullets about the child are, I can see, a very valid concern for your wife. However, rather than banishing mil from the kingdom, as it were, all that this calls for is not leaving the child alone with her again. End of.

And as another thought, people do get hurt by things like being left by a spouse, they can and do develop coping mechanisms that can include drawing emotional support from others, including their children. Obviously, where op himself finds this an issue he is entitled, and should, gently explain it. But again, it’s a case of relationships being a work in progress and not some kind of justification to bin his mother like faulty merchandise or old fish past it’s use by date. It’s that latter approach to relationships that has led society to the confused and broken point it is at. As @Whatado has pointed out, we have simply swung on a pendulum from one kind of assault on boundaries and MH to another.