I'm so furious right now and just need a place to vent.
There is a history with my MIL which I posted here about in the past under a different username but the main one was that I overheard her telling my oldest stepson that she loves him and his brother more than my children that I share with DH (so they are just as much her grandchildren). As well as this she has made repeated negative comments about me and my family to DH and my stepsons. My dad is Italian and she has made constant digs about Italians, once she even told DH that I wasnt cleaning my stepson's school shirts well enough because they were starting to go grey (stepson is 15 and we try to encourage him to put on his own washes but he will often mix them despite me suggesting otherwise and I even got those colour run sheets but he doesnt use them). Apparently as I'm the woman it's my fault and responsibility rather than DH's but what pissed me off most was her tellong DH that she "doesn't know how the italians wash our clothes, probably not at all, but in this country we do it properly". She calls my family the mascarpones (imagine our name being something like Marcucci). I stopped speaking to her for almost a year and in that time she didnt once try to see my children (but would see my stepchildren, no one ever stopped her from seeing our children, she just showed no interest). DH asked me to put it behind us before Christmas as he lost a family member unexpectedly and didnt want us to be on bad terms with his mum if she unexpectedly died. I did and everything seemed fine but today my younger stepson told me that he told his grandma that when we went to Italy the Italian drivers didn't stop at zebra crossings. He told me she replied that this is because Italians are all bad people. He said he asked her, "what about rage, she's half italian?" and then said, "and then she said.... oh never mind, I forgot". In my mind given the context and history it's very clear that she has said something negative and he has realised he shouldn't say it so pretended he has forgotten. I didnt want to distress him so I just said okay and left it at that but I'm fucking furious. I have dual nationality and spent a big chunk of my life living in Italy so I still feel very connected culturally and visit regularly to see my cousins and friends and family. I am raising my children to speak Italian as their second language. I am so sick of her twisted shit and don't want my children to ever be around her alone because I think she is toxic and I will never know she's not making toxic comments to them the way she does to my stepsons.
There is no history in terms of other fall outs or arguments between her and I and for years I ignored the digs and quips, she is the type of person who has had an issue with every single one of DH's exes.
DH has gone into hospital today with a really bad abscess so I cant say anything to him about it because he's not well. I just needed a space to vent about it.