Our 5th visit to the Stately Home

[Nabster]

Here we go again.

Feel okay, I think.

Getting lots done, still have lots more to do. Mainly as it needs doing but also as people coming tomorrow.

Kids are at inlaws and just heard from them and I don't have to get them yet. [relieved]

Just looked at photo of ex. Can't reconcile his face with his emails but I am determined not to slip back.

My DH has been amazing, no one else has taken his vows so seriously and acted on them as much as him imo.

Back to it.

Hope you are all doing okay.

Just been thinking.

About getting closure and whether that really is the word.

I don't have much to say to my father. left my mother. Seen him maybe when I was a baby and then by chance at 18. Didn't speak. Spoke to him a few times on the phone in 2005 and it felt great. After DH wrote to him I now have no contact with him and that is fine. Sporadic contact with my Uncle. None with anyone else (just have half sister and brother from my father's side and sister's child.) All I would say to my father is why did he never bother with me, but the way things are now, that is kind of redundant.

My mother is a different story. She says all she did she did for me but in all honesty I can't think of anything that she has done that she has thought could have been for my benefit. Except maybe putting me into care but then she messed that up so not even that. I feel she needs to face up to what she has done but DH thinks it will achieve nothing. I feel I may feel better for getting it out but then feel crap for upsetting her. Also it won't achieve anything so will I feel worse if she doesn't apologise? I don't want her in my life so it isn't for that.

AN, I love your posts too. And i love the way you are spending time with your DD and strengthening the bond. I have realised just this morning that I do actually need to put some effort into keeping and maintaining the bond that I am now slowly beginning to feel with DD.

The last few days I haven't spent a lot of time with her as we have had people over and she has been kept busy by them. She had a bad nosebleed yesterday and i felt like i used to, just detached and indifferent. She is prone to nosebleeds and it didn't bother her but I just felt no concern or anything. I'm sure it was because i had spent so little time with her the last few days. And she has now gone to stay with PIL for a few days.

I don't need to put in any effort with DS, the bond is just there and i think it will always be there. (Unless of course i do something terrible to break it like my dad with me, which of course i will never let happen). I feel very sad at the difference. I feel sad for DD because i don't feel as strong a bond with her as with DD and I feel sad for myself as a little girl as my mother made no effort at all to try and keep some sort of bond between us, however weak and fragile. Even when i felt so detached from DD, not so many months ago, i knew I couldn't just let her slip away or drift away from me as i know how lost and alone she would then feel. And she would notice how i treated DS differently, just like i noticed how my mother treated my sisters differently.

I know i should give up wondering how my mother could have allowed the distance between us to grow bigger and bigger. She and I are completely different people and that's all there is to it. It was nothing but terrible bad luck for me that i had her as my mother. I know how DD would feel if i made no effort to feel more connected with her and my mother must have felt as i did as a child, so didn't she think the same way? ie she knew how she felt so lonely as a child, how could she have allowed me to feel the same pain? It just seems so cruel. I could never allow that to happen to DD, no matter how hard it was for me to create and maintain a bond with her. My mother i'm sure had no empathy with me as a little girl which is why she allowed the distance between us to widen and deepen.

I think the holidays are always a bad time for me. I feel very isolated and the lack of routine and things to do make me feel at a loss. I used to dread the holidays like AN said, because i dreaded spending so much time with the DC's, but it's not that any more as i find i actually enjoy spending the days doing things with the DC's. (Although i do need a break from them regularly as well). It is always the thought that most other people are probably with their families ie parents during the holidays, whilst for us it's just me and the DC's just like always. We see PIL most holidays, but they are not my parents so i still feel alone.

Spending time with MIL does not help either. She is so critical and has to comment about everything and i can't stand it. I get stressed out days before she is coming, am tense the whole time she is here and can only relax and burst into tears usually once she's gone. I need to talk to DH about this as i just can't do it anymore, i think if she comes over i need to go out. I cannot be around her for any length of time. She is so toxic and DH cannot see it at all.

Am sorry for such a self centred ramble, have not really been able to log on for a while and just needed to get a load off my mind. Sorry.

Hi Smithfield

Very nice of you to ask after me.

re the outlaws:-

A flattering article re FIL was in the local rag the other day due to his services to volunteering. I say because he's no volunteer at heart really and panics at the first sign of work and or trouble. Also he gets paid for doing such and likes the uniform (likes all the adoration and power, these are his main narcissistic traits) so this is why he really volunteers. We think he's after an OBE!.

That will satisfy his NPD no end won't it!!.

MIL - well she's still the same. Still useless and enabling of her son, my BIL. She and FIL are both the same; they've dug themselves their own grave on this one. BIL's now returned from abroad. He still has no job and bums around all day rent free in their house!.

I think your manager is very much like your Dad; you're repeating patterns that you've always known. I hope you can find a way through this. I think you are very hard on yourself, I think you've come a hell of a long way since first posting and you are also to be applauded.

Well I think so anyway.

With best wishes for the Easter hols

Attila xx

Smithfield and OnePlusOne thank you so much for the nice things you said. It means a lot for people to say it looks like I've 'progressed', and yes, I have worked hard at it and it is so nice that someone recognises this. I never did it to make people impressed by me but your words have made me feel really encouraged. I don't feel half as shit about myself as a mother as I used to so it is worth it not just for the children but for our own self esteem as well.

It's weird that thing about having anxiety and not even realising it for so long. I suppose it must have just seemed so normal for us to feel like that, having felt that way for so long. I think such a large part of the process we are all going through is learning what is normal and what is not. Until you know what bits are not normal it is hard to focus on what needs to be fixed.

Smithfield, it seems like you understand really well what is being triggered by your work situation. Although you feel like you want to leave and escape those feelings from the past which are being triggered this might actually be a really useful situation for you to be in. The feelings weren't processed in the past but now they have been brought back into your consciousness, if you can manage to process it all this time round, with the extra knowledge and support you have now compared to back then, this could sort out another 'chunk' of the unresolved/unprocessed mass that stays inside you making you ill and holding you back. When my brother wrote the recent letter in which I felt he was trying to manipulate/control me and it brought back my fear of him I was really pissed off that this had happened when I had felt things were going better for me. But when I got it sorted I felt like another chunk of my 'problems' was sorted long term. A lot of the fear I had kept of him has gone.

It is also a hugely important point that you brought up about valuing our children for who they are rather than only giving them positive emotional input if they achieve certain standards - which is like saying "I'll only love you if you are good enough so try harder". A fact of life is that nobody is perfect so if you fear the smallest failure so much and think it means you are utterly crap then you have no chance of ever feeling good about yourself. What a crap way of thinking to teach your kids! - teaching them how to never be happy! It sounds like this is exactly what your parents have done, whether on purpose or unknowingly because of their own problems or misguided views. It is ok to be imperfect and to make mistakes because this is natural and normal.

It is a lot more ok for your boss to be like this than your parents and you are probably being much more angry towards your boss and colleague than they deserve because they are triggering stronger emotions from your past. It is not ok for your parents to be like this. They are the ones who are supposed to make you feel that you can go out and live your life in the big scary world and if you fuck up that is hard but they will still be there loving you just as much and thinking you are great and you can go back to them for comfort and reassurance before going out into 'the fray' again. They are supposed to give you security. Just like when a young toddler plays for a bit at the other end of the room but occassionally wants to come back to you for a cuddle and reassurance that you are still there for them before going off to play again. My therapist talks about this scenario a lot and says that if you didn't have it then you don't learn how to self soothe and you don't develop security (for when your parents aren't there all the time), you just build up more and more stress so it's no wonder you are bloody anxious!

I found it interesting what you said about your brother, that you just wanted a brother, not someone to compete against. I felt that way when I met my birthmother and she seemed to be trying to outdo me in everything I said. I was 'looking for' a mother who would be impressed by me just for being me but she didn't come accross as impressed when she said things like "That's nothing, you should have seen when I bla bla bla". She was interested in herself and promoting herself and feeling better about herself and I think this overrode any feelings she could have had about me. In Eastenders recently Ronnie wanted to ask her daughter's adoptive father loads of questions about what her daughter had actually been like as a person while she was growing up. I found it uncomfortable to watch and felt angry that my birthmother hadn't seemed to want to know these type of things when she met me, in fact she hardly seemed to ask me any questions at all about myself and my life. She talked and talked about herself and it was physically hard to get a word in. She would even talk over the top of me when I spoke. So I just withdrew. It felt like a second rejection. At the time I thought "I'm more messed up now I've met her than I was with the knowledge of being given away before meeting her". I feel ok ish now about the whole thing though.

I've still got more that I feel like saying to different people but need to go to bed and DH feels neglected if I stay up doing this too long! Got a busy day tomorrow as well, but hope I can sneak some time in on MN!

Hello.
Congratulations, Ally .

Had an awful anxiety attack yesterday. Feel better todau, but I think it felt so bad yesterday becuase I have been feeling a bit better lately. I too have realised that I must have been living my life in a near-c0nstant state of anxiety. Therapsit today said the nasty/nice chopping and changing thign my family do is very hard to cope with when you are a child- this is why so much anxiety.

I am quite in awae of people on here- how far you have come and how insighful you are. You give me hope!

An- You are welcome
Thank you for what you wrote. Just to hear someone go through it and speak about it like it is a normal thing (for someone from my background) to be going through, makes my feelings feel validated.

I think this is why I constantly need validation from others because I never got it growing up. Ever.
What you said about your birthmother was so reminiscent of my own mother. I?ve always struggled to see what motivated her, what lay behind my constant feelings of sadness and anger toward her. Her anger and rage toward me.

After reading that piece about you birth mum I realise that my mum was constantly competing with me. It?s something DH has said, but I guess with such low self esteem I always used to think why would she need to compete with ?me???

I think that is what lay behind her constant criticism and she would tell me over and over about ?her? achievements and what she had done. Like that song ?anything you can do I can do better,'

Any achievements I did have were treated as an extension of her own. ?You did that, or achieved that ?because of me?. So she took away any sense of achievement I may have very quickly and swiftly.

I guess this is also why the older I got the worse the abuse got. As I got older she had to compete with me physically as well as mentally and emotionally.

This competition extended to emotions as well. And I think ?this? was the hardest for me to bare. My emotions would always be usurped by hers. If I was sad and went to her?? she was far sadder, if I was angry, she was ?far? angrier and so on?AND her reasons for the existence of her superior emotional needs were always far more solid and valid than mine could ever be.

So in a way ?this? was my annihilation. In her eyes I simply DID NOT EXIST. Apart from as somone who must be dismissed at all costs.

She would always justify why ?her? emotions were greater and therefore needing more attention than mine.

Writing this I see now why I am ?so? triggered by my brother, because in fact, he is reminding me of my mum. His need is to constantly compete with me and beat me down. Maybe I should say, I never wanted to compete with her. I just wanted a mum. I just wanted her to love me.

So I know this longing AN, and how incredibly painful it is. The need in us to just want a mum to love us and approve of us, be impressed by us, but they are incapable of any of those things because they are too busy competing with us.
We know this rationally, but that need still remains.

I hate my mother for depriving me of the mother ?daughter bond, because she was too selfish, self absorbed, too bloody damaged to give it to me.

I think you are spot on with what you say about not running away from the work situation. I should use this as a mechanism to process the feelings that are surfacing right now. The feelings are incredibly powerful and I am sure I have felt them before but at least now I am identifying where they are truly coming from.
Hopefully if I can plough through these emotions and keep writing through them to alleviate some of the pressure I can begin to detach from them. Put them into some sort of perspective instead of feeling overwhelmed by them.

I have run away constantly in the past and I think all it has ever done is kept my true feelings buried inside me and at the same time, fed the belief that I am crap, so re-enforcing my low self esteem. Thank you again AN.

Attila- You do well to stay away from your BIL. You are correct in thinking, he is a complete narcissist. I think that is such typical narcissist behaviour, to appear to the outside world as one thing but at home to be something entirely different.
I feel incredibly sad for your DH too growing up in such an environment. It must have been quite a painful existence for him.
It also occurred to me when reading your post that you ?outlaws? probably trigger your emotions quite strongly Attila, because there is such a resemblance between their interactions and that of your ?old? family?

I agree with your insight on my post. I do think it is my father I am seeing. I always pick male bosses and I always want to impress them and get upset if they don?t ?notice? me or give me ?attention?. This boss is particularly hands off (no innuendo intended) in terms of his management style, which is a good thing because I hate feeling controlled. It is reminding me on the other hand of a childhood longing to have my dad notice me and be impressed by me.

There is a lot more regarding these links to my father I think I need to write through some of these too.

PinkyMinxy- ((((hug)))) for yesterday, but it is also a positive thing that you felt your anxiety more because you are getting stronger and so these attacks are less normal.
Anxiety is a dreadful thing to deal with, but those of us on here that suffer from it can help each other. I found a really good website on here the other day and I will look to see if I can put a link in to it.
I have realised that there are things that I do to deal with my anxiety which actually make my anxiety worse. They are habitual things, like taking stimulants, high sugar foods, sitting up late and dwelling on things with constant mind chatter. Avoiding situations which make me anxious and so never getting an opportunity to replace negative, anxiety inducing thoughts or experiences with a positive ones. I have only just realised that this is what I am doing and some of these habits I think I am a bit addicted to as well so it is hard to part with them.

Oneplusone- Sorry I meant to say how far I feel you have come also, when reading your posts, especially with facing some very difficult things head on. What you were saying about facing the fact that your mother didn?t bond with you and so you didn?t bond with dd and having to face up to that. That takes an incredible amount of strength and courage.

Your post on this topic helped me a lot because I had a huge realisation myself whilst reading them. I realised that some of the issues I had, when I felt ds preferred MIL over me, was (and I am a bit ashamed to say this) because part of me was ?JEALOUS? of ds bond with MIL. Though not as I originally thought, because she was taking my place, but because ?he? was taking mine! He was getting the nurturing from her that I so desperately wanted.

As AN said there is part of me still searching for the ?perfect mum? who will love me and nurture me and give to me without wanting or needing anything in return. That thing that eluded all of us on here. Unconditional love.

I am going to read recent posts in a minute, but for now, has anyone got the book Toxic In Laws by Susan Forward? I have just ordered it. I have spent a few days with in laws recently and i am amazed and horrified at the dramatic effect it has had on me.

Since cutting out all other toxic people in my life my health has improved dramatically. I haven't been to the docs for around a year, as compared to last year i was going seemingly once a week. My eczema was improving daily, my hair was in great condition, i had so much more energy than before.

But after having just spent 2 days with in laws, my skin has flared up, i have a terrible cold, my hair has gone straw like again and my energy levels just plummeted.

They are gone now and i can see my skin and hair improving again and my energy has gone back up.

The effect they have had on me is so dramatic, especially after quite a few months of relative stability and steadily improving health.

I need to find a way to deal with them but am truly at a loss as to how. I don't have the control to cut them out of my life as they are not my parents. DH is on my side but only to a limited extent, even he could see the obviously nasty things she was saying to me a while ago, but it is the more subtle stuff that i know he will simply not understand. He has grown up with it after all so he is blind to it. And i did have respect for FIL until recently but now i just see him as a passive bystander, complicit in MIL's nasty ways. He is aware of her nature as he has apparently told her to 'Guard her tongue' but he is 83, very hard of hearing and so i can't blame him too much for her. She is responsible for her own actions. She is much younger than FIL, she is 67 and a youthful 67 at that, no real illness or such like to contend with (although she would have you believe otherwise being a complete hypchondriac).

Anyway, i would be very grateful to hear from anyone who has successfully managed to 'contain' their toxic in laws. DD and DS love spending time with them so that is an added complication as if i were to try and say i want no contact DD and DS would be impacted greatly and i simply cannot deprive them of their only grandparents.

Please help!

smithfield, so much of what you have said rings true with me. Especially about your mother 'competing' with you about everything. Mine did this too, especially if i was sad/worried about something, if i went and told her, she would become even more sad/worried than me and I would end up having to comfort and reassure her instead of the other way around. I can completely relate to you and others about being on this constant but fruitless search for a mother figure and seeking that unconditional love we were deprived of as children.

I have realised i have done this all my life. All the extremely close friendships I have had since i was 5 have been about me searching for a mother figure, a female with whom i could feel close, safe and secure and i found that to a certain extent with my friends at various ages. We would become extremely close, and it would be an 'exclusive' friendship ie just me and her and i remember feeling anxious when as a teenager my close friend at the time struck out on her own and made some other friends.

It is a never ending quest that can sometimes be fulfilled partly and temporarily but the truth is that need can never truly be fulfilled because the need is from the past and the past is gone and cannot be brought back. To a certain extent i think i and perhaps all of us may have to learn to live with the loss of unconditional love from our mother's and allow ourselves plenty of time to mourn/grieve the loss. This is what Alice Miller talks about all the time, and I understand her work so much more these days.

And i agree with others who have said that you should use your work triggers to discover some more about your emotional past. Only by discovering the truth about yourself as a child and how you felt can you be free of those difficult emotions. Again, more from Alice Miller.

I am exhausted, am going to have a rest now while i can. Love to all. xxx

Congratulations Ally! I am really happy for you!

I think this is a main issue in damaged mother-daughter bonds. When a mother feels jealous and competes with her daughter. I think this can especially occur when the daughter starts blossoming into a woman during puberty and the mother is beginning to age a bit.

My mother competes with me endlessly. The classic was when I decided to train to be a nurse she declared that she was 'too sympathetic to be a nurse'. I had always been led to believe that I was a nasty person and I suppose part of the reason I went into nursing was to prove to myself and my parents that I wasn't. When she said this it was like a knife in the back really.

I am sorry I haven't replied to your posts recently. My DH is off work and we have been doing a lot so I am tired (and 7 months pregnant).

Oneplusone - absolutely agree with the need to grieve the lost unconditional love of our childhood, rather than trying to find a substitute.

AN - sometimes meeting a birth relative can be filled with dissapointment as we build so much hope on it. I am meeting my grandfather for the first time in September so I am wary of this.

Sakura - How are you? It is tough being pregnant and dealing with all these emotions. Although I feel stronger this time and hope things will run more smoothly.

Everyone else love and hugs x

Oneplusone - can you maintain contact with ILs, but with some distance. This is what I have done with my own parents.

Can you arrange for your DC to see them when you are not there? Or maybe you don't feel comfortable leaving your DC with them? Can your DH go to see them with DC?

I can only relate to my own parents. I just don't feel I could cut them out of my children's life completely so I have limited phone contact (only speak to my mother and only once a weekish, if I am feeling low I ignore the phone). They come to stay about 1-2 times a year but they stay in a B&B and not in the house. We only go to them once a year and next time we will be staying in a B&B.

I don't know if any of these solutions would be options. I fortunately live 200 miles away from my parents.

oops meant to say congratulations Ally! I do remember your name when I used to read stately homes but not post on it. I hope I have a more positive experience with this baby.

Meant to say, have any of you thought about writing about your experiences (other than on mumsnet)?. You all write so well about your feelings and experiences. I embarked on a creative writing course and found it therapeutic.

I think the mother jealousy thing is spot on. and the 'failings are your own but the suceses are mine' attitude.
My mum even tries to compare looking after her dogs with me taking care of my dc- they got a puppy when dd1 was a baby and i swear she was talking as if the two were the same. crazy lady.

i think i can concur pretty much completely with what you posted there, smithfield. and thank you for the hug

had a fab day today, but i'm aware i get stressed out when dh comes home. i don't think it's him, i think it's me feeling internal pressure to please. i feel he thinks i can't cope and he needs to sort things out. it's not true- he's just doing things, to be helpful, as part of our partnership.

i have been replacing experiences, as you say, smithfield. Since i started avoiding seeing my mother i have deliberately replaced days out with my own mother-daughter trips with my little girls. It was funny today, as i had all 3 at the soft play then lunch. lots of the ususal 'you've got your hands fuil' comments. but instead of saying oh yes i must be mad etc. (making jokes at my own expense as usuasl) vi said you know i'm having a really good day today, i feel very relaxed. and talking like this to people made me feel even morew relaxed.

i know now that i've done the work thing and the friends thing. i also persued aspects of my career i enjoyed the least because i was always told i would fail, i feared failure so avoided trying the big stuff, and it avoided treading on my mother's toes.

sorry for typing- sleeping baby on my lap

Struggling to post on here at the mo, so lacking in time and energy, and have been at therapy last two eves, as an extraordinary thing - just seemed necessary - and each one a 2 hour session, plus hour of travelling time, so that's 3 hours, the whole eve gone, and knackered afterwards but can't even go straight to bed cause need to wind down - and then DS waking up all through the night as usual - I'm not sure how I manage to be awake at all sometimes. But a lot of good stuff going on too. Anyway, I wish I could get on here and post a lot more often, so often I want to reply to things people say straightaway, but just don't get the chance, I need to know I have a chunk of time to try and "speak" and that doesn't come very often. Sakura, you wrote before about the childcare you use - sounds utterly brilliant value! - at the moment, the only support I have at all is our cleaner/babysitter, she adores DS and he her, so it's always good for him to have some time with her, but it's £8 per hour - if only money were unlimited there I go into fantasy land again! But I do need to get more space for me - therapist says I have two jobs, looking after him, and doing the work on healing myself, and at the moment, there's very little time/space/energy for the latter job but it is also vital.

Anyway, Sakura, glad my last post made you laugh - and I could have wrtiteen what you said about your parents myself. I too have always felt such a deep compassion and empathy for my parents, tried to understand them and see it from their pov, made allowances (and excuses) for them - and when I last saw my mother a year ago, I was shocked by how gaunt and aged she looked and it brought all the old feelings up of "I must take pity on her, I am hurting her so much, I am responsible for her, I have to make it allright for her" Isn't that what a mother is supposed to feel for her child, not the other way around?? And I too realise that they have NEVER thought about me in that way. They never say "we can't bear to think of Bop being in such pain." Because - I think this is harking back to an earlier part of the thread, I've been trying to catch up a bit - I don't exist for them. It's totally true that when our parents are themselves always in survival mode, they can't see us, they can't have any awareness of our feelings, because all their energy is for them and there's none left over.

Sakura and Roseability, good luck to you both for the rest of your pregnancy and birth.

Ally, I don't know you but get that you were instrumental in pioneering this thread - congratulations, and thanks a million! (If you've still got time to read this now!)

Smithfield - I'm so glad that what I wrote was useful to you, it's so great when we do strike these chords isn't it. I spent my twenties and my thirties trying to put my life together, it was like one long car crash for such a long time, therapy notwithstanding - and i still feel that hardly anyone gets what it was like to just not have a life for so long. My lovely mum friends now are really sweet and I can talk to them a bit, but they're not really in the same space, and I know they have no idea really waht I went through. I don't have any really really close friends I can really discuss this stuff with - one semi close but again not in the same boat. Which makes me so grateful for this space - opo and AN, you were talking a while back about wanting a sense of community, of belonging, I too have searched for that all my life, and have it far more now than ever before but this cyber community is invaluable.

Have to stop there and help DH clear up before bed, so so much more to say - including a letter received from my mother yesterday - but no time aagh
But love to all xx

The pity thing is tough. I think its what kept me bound up in guilt for so long. I see from your post Bop how the tables were turned between you and your mother, same as with my mother and I.

I was the caretaker of 'her' emotions, not the oither way around. I think it was Sakura that said girls are more susceptible to this.
I think it goes back to what we were saying about constantly searching for the mother figure.

I think my mother was doing this too. She wanted my dad to fill the gap but he was incapable, as he was too emotionally damaged himself and anyway as we have discussed, that is not a role any DH can or should fullfil.

Then she looked to her children.I became the prime target being the eldest and a girl. Perhaps that is where the emotional competing, I mentioned in my previous post, comes into play. Children compete with everything around them for attention and nurturing. So did my mother.

So the pity thing is because we've grown up feeling as responsible for our parents as we would feel responsible for any of our children.

Pinkyminxy- Meant to ask if you know what triggered your anxiety attack the other day? Was there anything that seems run of the mill but may have set things off?

oneplusone-I cant really think what to advise you, but I do empathise as (as you know) I have had more than my fair share of issues with my own MIL/PIL.
Things are ok with us now (well to a point). Im afraid mine live around the corner and like yourself I cant cut them out, due to DH and also Dc's who do have a very strong bond with them both.
I did get to a point though where I recognised that I was seeing her as another woman/mother figure trying to compete with me.
So she was triggering 'very' strong emotions from me. Mainly anger and rage.
But.... for some reason she has clicked back into focus as the person she actually is....my MIL.
As my MIL, She CAN NOT compete with me. 'I' am the mother of my dc's the wife of my DH and she can 'never' replace me. She cant annhilate me or rub me out as I must of felt she could at the point I was seeing her as my mum. Knowing this has increased my confidence and that in turn has enabled me to set clearer boundaries with her.
I still have to check myself at times though. Remind myself who she actually is. I still have to question myself and my motivations.
I know this experience only applies to me but if you could maybe identify what's going on underneath the surface when she is around is there a chance that might help?

Roseability- Its funny what you say about the writing because I have found writing has always been my only outlet since very young. I think I never did anything with it because my anxiety/perfectionist traits took over. It prevented me from writing and acted as a block. I would write and re-write and re-write and then give up because I couldnt make it sound perfect.
About three months ago I started journalling and at the beginning I gave myself permission to write, whatever I liked completely un-edited. I found that experience incredibly healing.
I still struggle with it on here because I know other people are reading and always think they will only see the faults, but as you can see I am currently working on this.

ah Smithfield my mother rang, that was what set me off. Pretty direct reaction, really. She was trying ti invite herself over. She left a message saying she would ring in the morning. I went out in the morning to a friends, as arranged. Mother rang our house at 11 am (morning to her) dh answered saying I had gone out so she flounced big style. He range me to tell me, so I had to work out what to do. I did quite well, really. I didn't ring and apologise and change all my plans to suit her- which is what she would expect. In the end I rang and left a kind breezy messge on her answer phone just returning her call sort of thing.SHe has not rung back. And so it goes on. She wont ring my mobile- she goes straight to DH. I am so sick of all these games. I had a dream last nigth that I asked her to leave my house because I had other plans.It was really strange to see myself saying these things to her.

But as you say, I can't worry about her feelings all the time. SHe didn't really want to see me, what she was annoyed about was the fact that I didn't jump to it as she expcets.

roseability and smithfield, thanks for your responses re my PIL. On a practical level i would rather stay at a B&B when we go there and i would rather they stayed at a B&B when they came here but that is unlikely to ever happen. They live around 100miles/1.5hour drive away and I would not want DH to drive that way alone with the DC's in the back of the car, as they are still very young. Perhaps when they are a bit older that might be a possibility.

Smithfield, thank you for telling me about your experience with your MIL. I don't however think my issue is the same. My MIL is very critical, she has to comment on everything from how much we spend on lunch on a day out (she clearly thinks me and DH are irresponsible spenders and go round spending money we don't have. We don't but her other son does, maybe she's confusing the two sons?) to what I feed DS for tea. Eg when MIL was over DS was having a very fussy/non eating day as he does quite often. Sometimes i end up making him a bowl of porridge for tea as he seems to like it and will usually eat it and so i know he's not going to bed hungry. I don't see anything wrong with it, it's healthy and nutritious and if he doesn't eat it there's not much effort gone into it on my part and it's not a huge amount of wasted food. But MIL has to go "Oooh, DS is having porridge at this time" and she will then cackle away. She makes me feel as if i'm an idiot for giving DS porridge in the evening as porridge is only for breakfast according to her.

I didn't say anything to her about the above 2 incidents, the second wasn't said to me anyway, i heard her from the kitchen. But i think that she is a guest in our home and she has no right to make any sort of derogatory comment about how i manage things with my DC's.

But these things are minor in comparison to other things she has said. She has made comments about how long i take in the shower (too long) and to get dressed etc (too long), if i have a lie in (I sleep too much, whereas she is not a 'bed person'). Once she told me i was like a nasty octopus with 'tentacles' reaching everywhere?! I was speechless at this comment, i didn't even know what she meant but it was clearly not a compliment. She is a complete bitch. She is from a dysfunctional family, her mother by all accounts was a bitch, she has been described as similar to Alexis Colby out of Dynasty (a long time ago i know!) but essentially a nasty, scheming, manipulative bitch.

I keep telling myself that MIL has nothing against me personally, she is just blind to herself, has no insight and is probably taking out her issues on me when she should be directing them towards her own mother (now dead). But no matter how much i tell myself this, everytime i see her and she makes one of her nasty comments i swallow it, say nothing and beat myself up inside. I just can't bring myself to say something to her because i know her reaction "Ooooh OPO is feeling sensetive today, i was just joking" or something along those lines. She will make me look silly and oversensetive and DH is totally blind and deaf to her comments unless they are obviously nasty so he won't really see my pov.

I think from the moment she met me, around 9 years ago, her radar sensed that i was vulnerable, that i wouldn't assert myself and she basically homed in on me and attacked me whenever we met. There are countless examples i could give of her nasty, manipulative, but always subtle and beautifully put comments. She has a way of appearing to be so friendly, caring and nice, as if butter wouldn't melt and she wouldn't hurt a fly, but it's all a cover so she can dig the knife in almost undetected, until a little while later when it's too late to say something.

I will be seeing her again in a few days at her house. I kind of find it easier to go to her house as i know i can always escape to the sanctuary of my own home at the end of the day, it's when she comes to my house that i feel most tense. As if i am attacked by her in my own home there is nowhere else for me to go. And i deeply resent being made to feel anxious, tense and uncomfortable in my own home by the likes of her. I absolutely hate her. A while ago things came to a head and i told DH how i felt and he spoke to her and things improved for a while (well we hardly saw her for months) but she is going back to her old ways now as i knew she would. She will never change. I need to speak to DH again about her, i have this horrible feeling that he thinks me and his mother are now on good terms. partly because i put on a good act whenever she is around, i am pleasant and nice, but it's only for the sake of the DC's. Inside i hate her as much as i ever did.

And i have no respect anymore for FIL. He knows what she's like and says nothing. Apart from stopping some of her more extreme behaviour he just keeps quiet and hides behind his deafness and newspaper. I despise them both. Sorry to say this but i will be pleased when they are dead and out of our lives. DH will be upset of course, but it will definately be better for our marriage to have his parents out of our lives.

Sorry, need to vent some more. MIL once told me that she had 'noticed' that i wasn't doing the laundry and that she wouldn't blame DH if he divorced me because of this?! This is when i was 7/8 months pregnant with DS. And the time she was talking about when i wasn't doing the laundry or much of anything really was after DD was born and I had severe undiagnosed PND and could barely get out of bed everyday never mind do the laundry. I did later (last year) bring this up with MIL and told her she was totally out of order in what she said, but she just pretended she couldn't remember saying that and when i insisted on an apology from her she huffily said sorry just like a child who has been forced to apologise; totally insincere and meaningless. Every time i see her i am reminded of all the nasty things she has said and i just hate her. When i think about it now no wonder my eczema flared up when i saw her recently, i was going over her nasty comments for days before she came but instead of acting on my true feelings when she arrived, i had to swallow it all and be nice. Just like i used to do with my parents.

I would love to just be myself with her and show her what i really think of her, but i can't. That is the crux of the problem. I would love to make some cutting remarks to her in response to her nasty comments (if i could think of anything at the time which i never can) and just put her in her place. But i also don't want to stoop to her level and demean myself. God it's so hard to know what to do. I wish she would just get run over by a bus. At least i can be myself on here if not in RL.

I am sorry, I have not read the posts from the past couple of days.

Oneplusone,
You should minimize your contact with MIL. That sounds simple, but I know it isn't really. Your dh should let you have time to yourself when his mother is around. At least every other time, you should have "other plans". Take up long distance walking/hiking .

As for in the moment situations, I know what you mean. Here is something you can try though...don't say anything-just roll your eyes, shake your head a bit and turn away. Think of her bullying hatefulnes as "bait" and just don't have anything to do with it.

You don't even need to listen to it. Once you get her tone of voice and once you feel her comment to be negative/insulting-you don't need to listen to the rest of it. You have custody of your ears.

Build a shell, focus your mind on something else(hobby-like quilting -is my focus)-and ignore her. She'll get mad no doubt, then just walk away.

Generally, I think inlaws belong to the partner and you really don't need to have much to do with them.

I agree with TMSB- and this is the stance I take now with my MIL. If she says or does something I dont like I either tell her or do this inane smile and feign deafness. Quite liberating really.

However I do think I was only able to do this once I'd distanced myself from who it was I was seeing her as from my old family.
She was creating such 'extreme' rections in me (like yourself oneplusone) and I know she hasnt really changed. It's just that now I refuse to supress myself in order to keep her happy.

I think a key thing here is how much of yourself becomes supressed when you are around this woman. If you are supressing your true feelings around her it figures that it would feel even more intense in your own home. Your home is the one place you have found since your childhood where you can be yourself..your sanctuary. When she visits you probably feel invaded and resent having to paint a smile on your face so to speak. You are forcing yourself to repress all the tension just as you did when you were small.

By the way if she tells you to stop being so sensitive you should say 'I will as soon as you stop being so INSENSITIVE'

Well, oneplusone, what I just wrote is really a page out of the guy's playbook, isn't it?

And you are expected to be hostess to a toxic one...difficult to say the least.

You mention that MIL's bile may be for her own mother/mil. That should give you some ground to stand on to 'not take it personally' (I know, I hate that phrase!). But if you are her 'poison container' then she doesn't really see you, and you don't really exist to her---so let her "talk to your hand" because no other part of you will be listening. ...Again from the guy's playbook, no doubt.

Smirk and smile and say "umm, humm" alot.

Just guessing:
It would take some guts, but you could try an experiment. Ask her about her mom. Give it the third degree, have 20 questions ready. Don't let it rest. Did she live up to her mother's expectations? Did she give (you) hell over every little thing? Did (you) like her (at all)? It might fan the flame, but she might get the message that the memory of herself -her legacy-may not be so rosy in the future.

And a long time ago on this thread, it was suggested that time with toxic ones be spent as an observer-detached, but taking notes. Thoughtful consideration-figuring out why?

Take care, though. It is temporary and the time will pass.

x post smithfield-
great great great great line re: sensitive/insensitive.

sorry oneplusone just crossposted-
She sounds like a complete cowbag. I know what you mean about not being able to come up with things in the moment.
I think when people make us this anxious its hard to be in the moment at all.
So could you say to dh they have to stay in bb or you utilise that time to get away yourself? A nice spa weekend booked via laterooms? .

Ah shucks thanks TMSB-