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Mother In Law Trouble
Oh. Emm. Gee. Bear with me, I have GOT to vent somewhere and facebook is obviously not the place for complaining about one's mother in law, and I can't post it on my family blog either because I'm pretty sure she knows about it.
Okay, so way back when I was around the 15-18 week mark preggers with Little L is pretty much where the trouble started. We had went to the ultrasound to discover her gender and Tim's mom had been going on for weeks about how she better be the first to know and yada yada yada. Despite multiple attempts to call her on the way home from the hospital, and a few more when we got home, we couldn't seem to get her to answer the phone. Well I told the hubs that since there was a literal line of people waiting to hear the news, my family included, I wasn't going to wait around all day for his flaky mom to answer the phone. So I called my mom and my sisters and then posted to my facebook that the baby was a girl.
2 hours later the most ridiculous drama of all time started when Tim's mom commented on my facebook something along the lines of "Thanks a lot for telling me! I had to find out from "SIL" I told Tim to try calling her again so that he could explain. He did and she swore she had been sitting at home all day and NO ONE had called her. He said, yeah I did, several times, and she called him a liar and hung up on him because his mom is real mature like that. This went on for several weeks. The calling and trying to explain, the hanging up, the childish comments on my facebook wall for all of our other friends and family to see. Then she deleted me and started sending me emails telling me to tell Tim that she never wanted to see him or talk to him ever again and how she didn't even want to see pictures of the kids ever again, and have a nice life, and so forth. I told her I would absolutely not pass along such immature messages to him and that if that was how she felt she could tell him herself and blocked her from messaging me.
Then she emailed him, and after he quit responding she started messaging his dad and his sister. When they quit responding she deleted them as well.
A few months later she re-added everyone (except me because she is still blocked from contacting me at all) and everyone proceeded to act as though nothing had happened even though she never apologized for her actions or for anything she said. However, the last few months she has been going back and forth between acting as though nothing happened, and throwing it up in TIm's face saying things out of the blue like, "I know you guys hate me and don't want to see me. I know I'm not welcome there. I know you don't care about me." And so forth.
All because of some completely MADE UP scenario in which we with-held the baby's gender from her just to hurt her feelings.
So this weekend we have Little L's baptism and her godparents are coming up from New Orleans and we have all these things planned. The mother in law decides to make a random surprise visit up from FL and tells Tim's dad and sister not to tell him. Thinking that she means to drop in unexpectedly, and knowing we will have a lot of my family around, I tell Tim he'd better call and let her know what our weekend was looking like because I just knew if she came up here expecting us to drop everything and visit with her (how rude is that btw? to just drop in on someone with no warning at all) and then we couldn't that she would cause a scene. So he calls her and she spats that she wasn't intending on seeing him at all because "She knows she's not welcome" and that she didn't even want him to know that she was here.
So now my fam is here, the baptism is tomorrow and she is texting him wanting to know why she wasn't invited to the baptism tomorrow since he knows she's here, and why is he embarrassed by her and how come his wife hates her because OBVIOUSLY this is all me putting tim up to it. I with held the gender because I hate her. I caused this riff between them because I hate her, and she's not welcome or invited here because I hate her.
She is bat shit crazy, Ya'll. I mean: COMPLETELY BONKERS. I don't know what to do. I never even did anything to the woman!! I even sent her the cell phone bill showing the multiple calls to her house on the day of the ultrasound and she still believes we never called her and has made up this complete fantasy of how we did it out of spite and has been angry and malicious towards me for the last 7 months over it!!
And I just want to shake the woman!! WTF!!!!!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by MamatothaMax on -
Wow your MIL and my sister sound a lot alike. While I should hesitate to diagnose someone with a major mental illness I wont. ;) This smacks of Borderline Personality Disorder and it's an illness that is REALLY hard on the families.
My BPD sister has pulled stuff like this. In these situations I ignore it and take a drama break. There is a lot of literature and internet resources out there for dealing with the behavior of someone like this. Even if she isn't BPD it would certainly help you and your husband.
Also boundaries, lots and lots of boundaries.
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Permalink Reply by Andromeda on -
wow. seriously?!
what would happen if you just told her flat out that she wasn't invited because she causes so much drama? just like she was currently... wait for it... causing so much drama. tell her it's not that she's not loved, but until she stops creating so much unnecessary drama for everyone, then you will invite her to see you on YOUR TERMS, not hers. you have too much on your plate to deal with that. if she can't curtail her craziness, you just won't have her around. mental illness or no, you need to have boundaries for you and your family. there is rarely a way to intervene in those kinds of mental cases so i suppose the best thing to do is protect yourself and your kids from her hot cup o' crazy.
anyway, i'm sorry you are having to deal with all this. i too have a bat-shit crazy sister. i haven't talked to her in over 5 years and my life is better for it. i missed my nephews for a while, but they are a whole 'nother story. i don't plan on talking to them for many many years, if ever. i know that my sister should have been called out much much sooner by a lot of people but it never was. so she gets away with her behavior. maybe a reality check to your MIL needs to happen.
good luck.
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Permalink Reply by Mamawho on
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Are you married to a brother I didn't know I had? My mother is like this. She used to pull this crap on me when I was little kid - showing up at school to tell me that she knows I hate her and was talking bad about her to my friends. Like 2nd graders care about that stuff.
I have finally gotten rid of my mother. I will never see or hear from her again. And I couldn't be happier.
I'm sorry you're dealing with this. At least your husband sees that his mom is nuts. You guys may just have to eventually disengage with anyone who has any contact with her. That's what I had to do.
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Permalink Reply by mightyninjamom on -
She is feeding off of every response you give her. She probably LIVES for this exact type of drama that she is creating. I'm just sorry you have to deal with this all while having a new baby and small children as well. Suckage. I'm going to assume you and your husband have had discussions about how to handle her, no? If not, you may want to start tossing around the idea of not responding to her at all. Because it's like feeding a thread troll. It doesn't get you anywhere, and just makes the fire bigger.
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Permalink Reply by DLBK on -
I was thinking mental illness before I read anyone else's comments.
I'm sorry you have to deal with it.
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Permalink Reply by Gumbo Momma on -
I really think it's a combo of mental illness/drug abuse. She's been on pain meds for many many years, so the worst part is that she gets a prescription for her habit. This past weekend was HORRIBLE. By sunday evening I was so tense that the nerves in my shoulders were firing off all night. It felt like bee stings. I'm just now really starting to relax again. I have quit responding to her and have blocked her from contacting me in any way shape or form. If she calls, I don't answer the phone.
With the hubs it's a different story. She'll text him and email him and call him and he always responds. He always thinks he's making head-way with her too, until she turns around and pulls the same crap all over again. Like this morning he was talking about how she had sent him a nice email "apologizing." There wasn't even an apology in the email. She just said that "her life was so hard, and after all she'd been through she just couldn't help being a bitch sometimes, that's just how her life goes." Then she told him she misses him and the kids and wanted him to know she'd never had a problem with him. She underlined "him" and put like a million exclamation points. The manipulation was obvious to me, as well as the fact she was trying to underline that she still had issue with me. He didn't see it until I pointed out that I didn't think it was a very nice email in the slightest. I can understand him WANTING for it to be. I mean, it's his mom, but I'm just tired of the drama.
I told him as much and that I was simply tired of having to hear about what she had said or how she was better or whatever and that if he wanted to keep trying with her, that was his deal and I wanted no part of it and didn't want to hear about it either. As far as I'm concerned the only way to solve the problem is just to back away and stay away.
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Permalink Reply by wookie on -
As far as I'm concerned the only way to solve the problem is just to back away and stay away.
That doesn't actually solve the problem, but it is a perfectly legitimate choice. It just may not be the one your husband chooses, which is a problem.
I'm going to throw my hat into the camp of mental illness. One problem you are facing is that the decision to deal or not deal with her isn't exactly yours, it is your husbands and while he needs to support you (ie- back you up and not fall for the "your horrible wife is driving a wedge between us" BS), you also have to support his choices in how to deal with his mother.
I highly recommend doing some research on how to deal with Borderline Personality Disorder because wether she is ill or not, she is certainly behaving similarly and you might find some support and ideas of how to handle things without enabling her destructive behaviour. The more you and your husband focus on handling her as a team, the easier it will be.
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Permalink Reply by Gumbo Momma on
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I guess what I meant was that backing away from the issue makes it less of an issue for me for the time being, because then I don't have to think about it or deal with. So, no not exactly solving anything, but it's the only action I can see for myself. Mostly because I CAN'T solve it. You're right in that it has to be dealt with between Tim and his mother. We are still talking about it and at least discussing what our boundaries are/will be for our family as a unit. For example: No un-announced visits.
At this point if he chooses to continue to communicate with her, I will support that in that I won't voice any dissagreement. However, it is my choice to personally have no communication with her. Also, even though I realize I should be more supportive, I simply cannot summon the energy to hear him complain about her whenever it blows up in his face again. After 5 years of this mess, it's a lot like someone sticking their hand in the fire and then complaining that it burns, yanno?
That said, for the time being he doesn't buy into the "your wife's an evil bitch bs," it's just that he doesn't always recognize when she's being that way due to wanting to believe that she will change or get better... which again, I can understand. It's his mom. I love my mom and if this were turned around I'd have a very difficult time giving up on her too.
I will definitely look more into the BPD, though. Several people have suggested it, and I think any info for coping right now would be very welcome
wookie said:As far as I'm concerned the only way to solve the problem is just to back away and stay away.
That doesn't actually solve the problem, but it is a perfectly legitimate choice. It just may not be the one your husband chooses, which is a problem.
I'm going to throw my hat into the camp of mental illness. One problem you are facing is that the decision to deal or not deal with her isn't exactly yours, it is your husbands and while he needs to support you (ie- back you up and not fall for the "your horrible wife is driving a wedge between us" BS), you also have to support his choices in how to deal with his mother.
I highly recommend doing some research on how to deal with Borderline Personality Disorder because wether she is ill or not, she is certainly behaving similarly and you might find some support and ideas of how to handle things without enabling her destructive behaviour. The more you and your husband focus on handling her as a team, the easier it will be.
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Permalink Reply by kat3562 on -
I am sorry about what you ar going through but just like u I needed to vent.
My mother in law moved in with me, my husband and my two kids from my first marriage. Everythingwas good for the first 6 months but lately she as been telling me how terrible my kids are. Understand both of my kids are girls and both just recently started their periods they are 10 and 11. It has been a task teaching both of the the proper ways to clean themselves now and get ride of the used pads. She has called them lazy and nasty for the last 2 months. My husband doesn't see anything wrong with her doing this but both of my girls are sensitive about people yelling at them. My mother in law moved in with us because she is a hypercondreact who thinks she is dying every minute but she suffers from panic attacks and depression. OF course I know this because after the 10th time of taking her to the ER they told me what was really up. I have noticed that with my husband if he does not do everything she wants she gets mad at him and stops talking to him and if he says I love you MOM she does not say anything back. In turn making him feel like crap. She is starting to do this to my girls and all they want is her to love them so it really upsets them. My husband does not see any of this but I just cant take much more of her putting my kids down like that. Then to make them feel really bad she says I cant want til you and my son have kids so I can Be a real grandma. I finally stood up to her the other day and told her the way she was treating my kids was wrong but now my husband is mad at me for saying that to her. I need massive help right now. I apolized for the way I went off but nothing seems to be making it better. I dont want to lose my husband but I cant stand my mother in law anymore. It has got my stress level so high I have a nerve in my face that twitches from all the stress. If anyone has any advice please help me with this
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Permalink Reply by wookie on
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Unfortunately, the only real change is going to be from your and your spouse deciding together on how to handle things... wether you decide (together) that she needs to move out or you decide (together) that you need to work as a team to handle her issues differently.
Good luck. I don't envy your scenario.
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Permalink Reply by kanachick on -
I don't have any really good advice as far as dealing with crazy ass mothers in law (other than it's okay to stand up for yourself and it's possible to do it without being a complete bitch) but if you are worried about privacy you can do these posts as blog posts and protect them so she wouldn't be able to see them. It allows you to vent without worrying that she'll stumble upon them accidentally and you'll have WW3 on your hands.
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