Husband lied and back in contact with mil after no contact

[FunOchreTurtle]

hi, first time positing here as I’m at a loss
my husband and I have been married 5 years, together 8
I’ve just had a baby, 4 month old. And we have 2 young children. We have 3 under 4.
anyway his family have been toxic from the day we got married. We asked for no photography during the ceremony- rules apparently didn’t apply to her.
long list of more toxic behaviours which we tried to work past but she continued to carry on. His brother threatened to “leave my children fatherless”. Along with other disgusting things he said about myself and also my side of the family.
fast forward we decided to cut contact 3 years ago.
*my problem
last December my husband had a breakdown ; he was wanted to end the marriage suddenly out of no where. He walked out on me a the kids (while I was pregnant) and stayed at his mum’s house. - this is the first time of contact I know about he’s had with them.
he came back , we sorted things out (although I do find it hard how he treated me while pregnant), he said his mum didn’t want anything to do with him and he just stayed there to think.
I’ve just found out that all that was a lie. He’s been in contact with his family. Ringing her everyday, long phone calls whenever he’s out of the house in the car etc. He’s lied and hid all this from me but also he now is saying to me he wants contact with them
I honestly don’t know what to do. I can’t believe he’s forgiven the way they’ve treated me and the family, and I feel pushed to the side now
I know she is toxic and will gossip to him, end up getting inside his head and telling him to leave me because I’m the problem?

Photos at the wedding is more of an irritation than toxicity. If there is so much more, why would you use that one example?

How is the op trying to alienate him from his family?. It’s he who turned tail and ran back to the fold all too easily when the going got tough for him. He can neither stand up for his own self or his own family unit.

He’s lied and repeatedly so in an attempt to get out of trouble with the OP. But its backfired.

OP asking for no photography during the ceremony is not she (or her H who presumably also agreed to that) being controlling. Some families really do behave like this even though your family and in-laws do not.

Poor bloke. He was the product of this godawful family, probably damaged from childhood. He is what she made him and his brother.

He won't change. They have more of a good over him than being a husband and father does.

You have the chance now to stop this generational damage and to protect your children from that.

You can be no contact with his family if you want to be. You can't force that on your husband though, and it does read as though you probably have, intentionally or not.

He clearly wants to have some contact with his parents. After all, they are his parents. Going no contact is a much more drastic option than many on MN would have you believe.

You manage relationships with your side of the family. He can manage his. You don't have to be there when he sees them. Nor do the children.

There must be more to this.

The bar for either DH or I to go NC with our mothers would have to be very high. Your example is not enough. Is there more?

The generational damage of unauthorised photography?

This sounds to me as if the only one who thinks your husband's mother is toxic is you. I think he's felt caught between a rock and a hard place and only went no contact because you demanded it, while not feeling 100% comfortable with it himself. Maybe he knows his family are not perfect but he thinks that the tensions between you are always six of one and half a dozen of the other. Maybe he's felt pressured and manipulated by you to cut them off to show solidarity to you, whether you are actually in the right or not. That must be a horrible situation to find himself in. He's probably just done what he had to for an easy life, but always felt conflicted over it. No wonder he had a breakdown.

It's up to you how you proceed. If you love him and want to keep your family together then you can either consider agreeing a truce with his family, or you can accept that they will be a part of his life, and perhaps a part of your children's lives, while continuing to keep away from them yourself. But you'll need to learn to stop banging on about it, making it an obsession and seeing it as a battle to be won between you and her for his affections. Just learn to accept that he sees them and don't let it grind you down.

If you don't think you can do either of those things for the sake of your marriage then you should ask him to leave. Because I don't think he is ever going to do exactly what you want here, and he shouldn't have to. It's his family. You might hate them, but he clearly doesn't.

It’s also not OP’s first post about this, exact same phrasing, and clearly OP wasn’t happy about the responses last time so was hoping for different!

There was never going to be any working past this at all given her behaviour at your wedding ceremony

???? From OP this ‘behaviour’ was taking some photos. Unless OP is going to come back and add that MIL grabbed the mic, screamed obscenities about OP and pissed in the chocolate fountain?

I’m placing bets on the following:
OP to DH - absolutely no photography whatsoever at the wedding.
DH to OP - okay, whatever.
MIL to DH - oh no, but I’d love to have a photo or two of you on your special day, can I just take a few?
DH to MIL - okay, whatever.
Then OP goes ballistic over the photos claiming wedding day was ruined by MIL.

Someone talking photos of your wedding ceremony warrants a Paddington stare and a brief rebuke afterwards at most, not indefinite no contact. You aren’t no contact anyway, he’s lied about that. If you hear hoof beats think horses - not zebras - and on that principal he wants a relationship with his family and doesn’t want to talk about it with you because YABU. I’d put money on you making a demand that he goes no contact and him being stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea which has sent him over the edge. Normal people don’t end a relationship with their own mother because they took a photo at a wedding.

Not sure why people are being weird about OP requesting no photos at the ceremony. That's a really common request because people then aren't actually paying attention to the ceremony and are getting in the way of the paid photographer trying to get their own shots.

Anyway, what is he actually proposing? If he wants a relationship thats seperate then that can work. Make a set of rules together. He can have a relationship but he does not involve you and does not take the kids to meet them. He doesn't give them personal information about you or the kids, can tell them what he likes about himself. That relationship doesn't take priority over important family time - so he doesn't go to them on Christmas day etc. He can send presents (out of his own money) go see them before/after but the main days are for spending with you and kids.

And couples/ individual counselling isn't a bad idea.

Your husband is looking for support outside your marriage. So instead of focusing on what he is doing, focus on why. Why is he so unhappy. What part have you played in that. Have you tried to control his relationship with his mother. Do you control other aspects of his life.

I honestly think you have bigger problems than your mil. Your husband is checking out.

This. She is his Mum.
A similar situation happened between my friend’s parents. My friend’s Dad carried on seeing his Mum in secret for their entire childhood. They only met their Grandmother for the first time when they were in their twenties and she was dying in hospital. Yes she had been unkind to their Mum, but I felt really sorry for their Dad, as did my friends. He knew his Mum was a difficult woman but he loved her and the estrangement caused him a lot of pain for decades.
I don’t know what has happened with family life but on mumsnet I see people suggesting cutting off parents all the time. Where there has been a truly terrible family situation with cruelty or deception then I can understand, but more often this “toxic” behaviour is just normal family stuff, people being rude, annoying, grumpy or difficult to deal with, which isn’t great but surely it’s better to laugh about this in private and accept that wider families aren’t perfect ? My mil falls into this category. She favours my Sil over DH, she’s incredibly rude to me on occasion, but she is 90 now so clearly she isn’t going to change..and she is my DH’s Mum , he loves her and I would never want him to stop seeing her. I’ve had thirty years of her being difficult, yes it’s annoying but I am nice to her when I see her, because I love my DH.

Not sure why people are being weird about OP requesting no photos at the ceremony. That's a really common request because people then aren't actually paying attention to the ceremony and are getting in the way of the paid photographer trying to get their own shots.

I don’t think the request is weird at all. I do think it’s weird to cut your mum out of your life forever for doing it though. Be a bit cross if you want but never see or speak to her again and never allow a relationship with you children because of it is next level vengeance. It’s the sort of reaction reserved for murder or sexual abuse, not taking a snapshot of a wedding ceremony. How many people in this situation would never, ever see their mum again? It’s not normal.

I bet her own mum was a allowed a couple though, wasn't she? Even if not during the wedding itself she'd have taken some before it happened. The groom's mum won't have had that privilege.

Toxic is a massively overused word on here. Being banned from contact with one's son or grandchildren is harsh punishment for taking a sneaky photo or two during the wedding ceremony. In the big scheme of things, why did it matter at all? As for the 'rules' some of you are suggesting, that this man could be 'allowed' to see his mum but not be 'allowed' to take the children, does he not get a say in this at all?

I'd assume her mum was happy watching her daughter get married and was happy to receive official photos shared afterwards ... just like his mum could have ...

The wedding photography thing sounds ridiculous I’m afraid. Your husband is allowed to have a relationship with his family. You cannot stop him. You can choose not to of course.
You also cannot prevent him from taking the children to see them. If you were to split up he would take them on his time.
It is perfectly possibly for him to have a relationship as he has been which hasn’t caused any issues when you didn’t know about it. If you want to cut them out that’s fine for you.
You’ll have to either navigate this together or separate

Would you assume? Or do you think her mum and dad might have got a sneaky few of her in her dress before she left the house? I think my scenario is far more likely than yours. Perhaps the OP will come back and tell us. Unless it's one of 'those' threads.

I bet there are two sides to the story! No photos at the wedding of your own son?

If he has had a breakdown maybe he needs their support right now.

Do you have any support yourself?

It also worries me that in order to jusdtify why his mother is toxic and needs to be cut off, the first and only example we are given is that she sneaked a few photos at the wedding. If that's the worst thing she's done then the OP is off her rocker.

Whilst she shouldn't have taken photos if you didn't want them, if this is typical of her levels of transgression then I don't think it is worth going NC over. But if you go NC both you and your husband need to agree - which you obviously don't.

Demanding he never has any dealings with his family again, against his own wishes, is much more toxic that anything his mother appears to have done.

You have three children. Imagine being cut off from one of them. Imagine their pain at being cut off from you. Unless there's something vastly more toxic than you imply, then it's way too much to expect your DH to be NC with his mother. You can not see her by all means, but it will - and clearly is - fucking him up to not have any relationship with his own mother and to have to lie about it all. Without there being serious abuse in the frame or something on that level, it's not clear that it's not you who's being at least equally controlling and toxic here.

Your husband wants a relationship with his family so you need to accept that. You don't need to have any contact, he has to accept that too. If you have a son maybe when he grows up you would like to take photos at his wedding, maybe you will be pissed off that your new dil won't allow it, who knows? Maybe you are the problem? Even if you are not and your mil is toxic, your dh loves her, if you make him choose you have to accept that he might not choose you. The poor man has already had a breakdown trying to keep in with both of the women he loves, why can't you live and let live?

@FunOchreTurtle OP why have you started another thread when your previous one about the same subject is still on the go???