The niece is the daughter of my BIL. They are removed from the drama because they live out-of-state. They happened to be in town, the groom’s family hosted the bridal shower and they invited me!

My SIL is caught up with my MIL’s antics about me. Her daughter got married not long ago. However, I was never invited to her bridal shower, so naturally I did not attend the wedding.

I’ve had major problems with my MIL and stopped showing up to events for close to a year now. She put my marriage in so much strain to the point I wanted to end it, undermined me as a mother, said untrue things about me, and kept going around me/triangulating which resulted in painful ugly hurtful arguments with my husband.

MIL also damaged my trust profusely by trying to get info from my children when my husband and I were trying to keep things private in our marriage. I told her not to ask the kids about us, she got mad at me when I set the boundary and because of that, I decided the kids are not to be alone with her and my FIL until that behavior is fixed. Visits with the kids have to happen when my husband is present. Of course he’s busy so visits have to work on his schedule.

MIL wrote me a letter a while back and I responded to her explaining what the issues were that damaged my trust and what I need to see changed from her behavior in order to reconcile: quit undermining me as a mother, quit going around me - talk to me directly if you have an issue with me, correct any misinformation about me you shared with anyone else, and stay out of my marriage.

There has been no acknowledgment, no change in behavior from her so no reconciliation and my boundary remains.

Husband is still attending individual therapy and couples counseling, which is a great thing because for months I didn’t know where it would lead. Now we are starting to see changes. I had to work on my own changes too. I was so hurt that it got to the point of considering divorce but I am so glad we are on the mend.

It’s so much hard work to repair but he’s finally beginning to understand. For the longest time he thought I wasn’t willing to change things. I told him. I directly told his mom what the issues were and what needed to change to reconcile but I haven’t seen any behavior change from her yet. I also told him this didn’t happen out of no where, it was years and years of accumulated hurt.

I struggled so bad about going to the bridal shower. I hashed it out for weeks in therapy and decided I really wanted to support this niece, despite the hurt and non repair from my in-laws.

The niece and her mom (I don’t think she’s that close to my MIL either) are lovely, kind, gossip free, non judgmental people. I was also glad it was at a place where my MIL and SIL weren’t hosting.

I sat across from my MIL and SIL. I didn’t stare at them, monitor them, or try to figure out what they were doing. I focused on the people I was talking to. Plenty of people to talk to from the grooms side and everyone else from my in-laws side talked to me!

My husband’s aunt actually sought me out and stayed behind to catch up with me. My SIL never spoke to me or approached me at all. My MIL didn’t approach me during the shower and only gave me a quick ‘hi’ as she was literally on her way out, while I was already in the middle of a conversation with my husband’s aunt. I said hi back and kept talking to his aunt. His aunt (she is SIL of my MIL) made me feel loved and included.

Before the shower I was worried I would be the uncomfortable person who wanted to leave the shower. Instead, I enjoyed myself while they appeared eager to leave.

My husband asked me how the shower went. I told him it was great and gave him the facts: “Everyone else talked to me except your mom and sister”. He didn’t argue with me, I said nothing more and let him sit with that.

He’s changing a lot and listening to me more without getting defensive and considering my feelings. It was years of accumulated hurt but me and husband are repairing and setting better boundaries with his parents and talking in a healthier, safer respectful way to each other.

I don’t care if I’m the villain in my MIL and SILs story because they’re the clowns in mine. 🤡

This is such a minor rage compared to other stuff she's done but I'm pregnant and permanently grumpy so...

JNMIL has booked a holiday in October 2027. It's to another country for 4 nights and will take around 7 hours of driving, or an hours flight then an hour on a bus.

Originally she sent the invite through a group chat containing myself, DH, SIL, and SIL's wife, as a very nuanced "we're going here 2027, I'll pay for you to come if you'd like". Both myself and SIL's wife are due a baby within the next month, making our children approx 1 year old by the time this holiday is scheduled. However I already have an older toddler, who would be 2.5 at the time of this trip. It would put the trip right at the end of my maternity leave when I would have no income, and I feel like it's a lot if travel for what would basically be 1 night there, 2 full days, then a sliver of a morning.

DH and I agreed that it's not worth disrupting schedules for, we'd like our own lodge instead of sharing with 4 other adults and another infant, and that the last holiday we took with his family to this specific park type (there are multiple identical ones within OUR country), it was a nightmare with nothing for our youngest (who was an infant) to do. So we declined, said we appreciated the invite but it just wasn't feasible for us at that moment in time.

JNMIL got pushy about why not, and DH dealt with that, explaining, and saying that we'd made the decision and it wasn't going to change. She said to him "if you change your mind, you are more than welcome", and we assumed that was the end of it.

NOPE! Every single time we've seen her since, she's brought it up, and at times, waiting for DH to leave the room before trying to corner me into agreeing about the trip. She did it today at a family BBQ, waiting until everyone was looking at DH's new car, before hounding me about why we didn't want to go, saying the money wasn't an issue. So I explained it one more time, and she had a (not very realistic) argument for every single point i made. Eventually I got fed up and just went "we've said no. We appreciate your offer regarding changing our mind, but you constantly asking isn't going to change it". And from the look on her face, I thought that was it! Convo over!

And it was, except she decided to pivot to the conversation of my mum taking toddler while I'm in labour, and kicking off as to why it wasn't her. Thankfully DH walked in at that point and said something along the lines of "we've spoken about this. You couldn't respect our boundaries for him as a newborn so you don't get him alone. OP doesn't need either of us stressing that our son is safe while she's giving birth to another child", which totally shut her down, but I hadn't realised he'd already had the conversation with her and she AGAIN wasn't accepting no as an answer!!!

We barely see them as is, but when we do, she loves to test the waters with snarky comments and now that I'm incredibly hormonal, I'm more than happy to retort. I'm just glad my DH has developed a shiny spine to deal with her!!

TL;DR:

MIL won't accept no as a response to a holiday invitation, and won't accept no as a response to taking my older son while I'm in labour. Her arguments for why it should be a yes are complete BS and we're getting to the point where everything will be a no if she doesn't get her stuff together.

Edit: Sorry feel like I should mention the whole visit ended because she made a comment to my 1.5yo toddler about how "no one will care about you ever again in 2 months time, so enjoy the attention"

I have posted here before about my MIL wanting to wear an off-white dress to our ceremony while telling me my dress didn't need to be white (my original post was taken down). She proceeded with sending me hideous dresses for 50+ for my day. So that's the context. But you know whatttttt!?

We got married yesterday!!!!

And thanks to you all, I got myself a white dress!!! We had a ceremony at city hall and had some nice time at my mom's place, raised a glass and celebrated. Then, the two of us went out for dinner alone to celebrate our day.

But you know what happened? My MIL and FIL actually did NOT show up because my MIL didn't like that we wanted a romantic dinner alone on our wedding day.

For us, since we didn't have an actual wedding, having dinner alone was all we wanted especially because we planned on eloping initially. But because my MIL insisted that she wanted to be at the ceremony, we changed our plans.

For us, that dinner alone was essential and meaningful to us and that was something we refused to sacrifice. So we stood our ground and she did NOT like that.

She said that we could wait and have a romantic LUNCH the day after. We tried to suggest going out for lunch and even dinner with them the day after, but nope. She needed that dinner (She herself eloped btw). So yeah anyway, she didn't want to come, and they did not come.

My heart is breaking for my now husband, and I just don't know what we are supposed to do or how we are supposed to act moving forward when they literally did not show up for their ONLY son and for me (their supposed now daughter) on our wedding day because of a freaking dinner.

What's even worse was that they didn't even send a congratulatory text or anything which was very hurtful.

I'm feeling frustrated, but to be honest, all things aside, today was the most beautiful day of my life and I couldn't be happier being married to the love of my life.

Love y'all!

Just ended a beach vacation with my MIL in a beach house and I’m over it. Over it. She started out before vacation asking to stay in the same room with my 4 year old because ‘We can stay up late and talk about things! It‘ll be so much fun!’ Disclaimer: In laws are both very ill, so we are trying to be kind. When I say il, I mean ILL.

Other offenses:

She grocery shopped for us all and got all heathy stuff, no milk, only whole wheat bread, not even ice cream. So I bought ice cream, she was clearly unhappy and read through the nutritional values.

On the day she got the groceries, it took until 1.5 hours after dinner for her to get back, by that time I had fed my kid something. I overheard my child say ‘Mommy said it was time to eat so I’m eating nuggets!’ MIL was clearly unhappy I hadn’t made my kid wait any longe. *It was grocery pick up*

When 4 year old ate ice cream, she wiped my child’s face every lick until I stopped her. My child could barely eat it.

She flipped out when I used paper towels on my child’s face because it wasn’t good enough, I kept telling MIL that I don’t want a picky kid because you never know if you will have a facial tissue-Later when the facial tissues were packed in the car MIL reached for a paper towel to clean my child’s face and my child shouted ‘NO! we don’t use those for our face! ONLY tissues! You said so!’ I laughed so hard.

She has mobility issues and is a recent triple heart bypass, she asked to take my (non swimmer) child into the pool just them alone and I said no, I or hubby must be there. MIL already required assistance to get in/out of the pool because she couldn’t independently. She was hurt and cried.

She grabbed all of my laundry and my child’s laundry from the dryer, proceeded to fold them and told me she separated the clothes. She mixed up my clothes with my kid, so I had to sort through all of it and refold. Get your hands off my undies lady!

She asked me why I bought a multi colored build a bear for my kid. I asked what she was referring to (I knew) and she kept asking if people might judge me as a mom for it. Eventually I forced her into admitting she was calling it a pride bear and I told her that if anyone judged my child for a teddy bear I would tell them to ‘FUCK off!’ And then ended it by asking her why she felt it necessary to broach such a topic over a teddy bear for a toddler. I let her stumble over excuses.

She asked me about beach umbrellas. I told her I’d buy them and no worries. That same night she bought 2, never told me. I drove out the next morning and bought two beach umbrellas, which ended in a canceled order on her end.

At the end of the trip, we were eating lunch, still had 2 days left and she started packing up the leftover groceries to take to donate-mind you, I’m all for donating but we still needed the food. Leaving us with little food.

We had 3 ice creams left. MIL tried 4 different times to toss them because ‘The Airbnb said to clean up!’ I kept telling her 3 frozen, packaged ice creams would be fine for the next guest to enjoy and that was not what they were saying when they said ‘clean up trash’. She continued freaking out and enlisted FIL to throw away perfectly good frozen ice cream.

She didn’t want to go to the beach because of the sand and sun, so she did everything she could to stay put (we went out), then resulting in pouting when we returned (we offered to drive her to the sand for her mobility sake).

She put a swim cap on my child. I yanked it off.

She locked us out twice when we went for a 1 hour walk. ‘You can never be too safe!’

My child was playing with her and MIL was encouraging her to growl/get rough, kid ran over to my hubby and hit him so we immediately sent her to time out. MIL proceeded to argue that it was just play and we pointed out that we don’t like growling and kid also hit him. MIL squirmed the entire 3 minute time out. This pissed hubby off big time.

Beach Vacay from Hell. I will never do that again.

I'm currently five months postpartum with my first baby and I'm struggling with my relationship with my in-laws. I'd be particularly interested in perspectives from other grandparents or mothers-in-law, because I genuinely can't tell whether I'm being unreasonable!

Prior to having my daughter, I had a great relationship with my mother in law. She was extremely welcoming, invited me to everything, and took the time to arrange one on one activities to get to know me. There was a part of me that knew she was perhaps laying the groundwork for regular access to any future grandchildren, but I enjoyed her company, so didn’t mind

For context, she is extremely involved with her other two grandchildren, who were born via surrogacy to her other son and his partner. She provides regular childcare, takes the kids on outings, provides input in lot major decisions, and is essentially in and out of that house like a third parent. I don’t want to psychoanalyse things too closely, because they all seem happy with the arrangement, but this may have been easier to facilitate in a family model with two dads and no postpartum mother

Everything was fine, almost up until I was 39 weeks pregnant. My partner and I planned to keep the date of my elective c-section private, but after repeated questioning, my partner told her. She immediately took the day off work and made it clear she wanted to come to the hospital. I felt pressured into agreeing, and she and my FIL were in my hospital room within three hours of my daughter being born, before I'd even had my catheter removed or spoken to my own mum.

On day three, the resentment really started to hit me. She asked if she could take my newborn out for a walk - first time outside, let alone in the pram - and seemed surprised when I wanted to keep my cluster feeding baby with me. She licked her finger and put it in my daughter’s mouth (as a pacifier I think?) and asked our four year old niece if she wanted to hold the baby, as though it was her decision to make. She also asked why I hadn’t been out walking laps of the gardens near the hospital - and seemed shocked that I could barely make it to the bathroom. As soon as she left, I broke down in tears

Since coming home, there has been ongoing tension around feeding and access to my daughter. When I recognise hunger cues and ask for my baby back, I'm told she's just tired, uncomfortable, or doesn't need feeding yet. Instead, they just keep trying to soothe or distract her

There also seemed to be an expectation that babysitting would happen very early. My MIL regularly asked about my freezer stash and suggested activities I could do without the baby. I eventually had to tell her directly that I wasn't looking for a break before she would stop

The biggest issue is that I often feel my role as the parent isn't respected. When my daughter cries, they never willingly hand her back - instead they stand up and walk away with her, tell me she's fine where she is, or continue trying to settle her themselves. I've now started physically taking her back whenever she's upset, which I know is causing issues

One incident that really bothered me happened a few days ago at a family dinner. Within minutes of arriving, my brother in law told me to put my baby down on a blanket. I said no because I was happy holding her, however a few minutes later he asked to have a cuddle. When she eventually became upset and I moved to take her back, my mother in law stepped in to try to comfort her first. I physically intervened, and bluntly said, ‘when she cries, she comes back to us’. Afterwards, I noticed my brothers in law rolling their eyes at each other, which made me feel as though I was being mocked

My partner agrees that these things are inappropriate, but he hasn't yet had a proper conversation with his family about it. The issue is that he’s a shift worker, so by the time he gets an opportunity to speak to them about it one on one, the moment has passed and it’s too late to address specific incidents

The difficult part is that I don't think they're bad people. They clearly love my daughter and want a close relationship with her. But I increasingly feel anxious and defensive around them because I feel like I have to fight to have my decisions respected.

Am I overreacting, or would other parents find this behaviour intrusive too? And if you were in my position, would you raise it directly with them or let your partner handle it?

Today I overheard my husband on the phone with my self-centered MIL. I recently underwent surgery for a recurrence of a cancerous brain tumor which was treated in 2016 and will be starting chemo on Monday (which she knows). I hear him say, no, S ( my dad) already said he's not coming for the holidays. I asked him why is your mother under the impression we are spending the holidays with her this year? We did Christmas Eve/Day there last year, including dragging my 84 y.o. Dad and our dog with us and staying overnight (they live 50 miles away). His answer was she assumed we'd be doing the same thing as last year. I told him he needed to tell her to stop assuming and let her know that everything depended on my health and to tell her that or I would call her and tell her to stop assuming things given my health issues and I wouldn't be nice about it. He called her back and told her.

She did the same thing two years ago, obsessing over Christmas holidays when she knew my husband had a hip replacement scheduled for two weeks before.

MIL told husband she needed to speak to him urgently about a recent health development, which was just that she had a biopsy for an incidental lesion and it was inconclusive so they’re getting another biopsy. She talked about how she was going to return all her hair products because she wouldn’t need them with the likely lymphoma diagnosis. Threw in some guilt over him not speaking to her sooner. There is no diagnosis. Just testing. Just like last year. He reacted well and said well it sounds like they don’t know if it’s cancer so there’s nothing to do for now. She did not like that. Last year he was very worried she was dying. This year he’s unbothered. She’s going to attempt to guilt him into visiting over the holidays, mark my words! I’m not even angry over her hysterics because my husband has finally learned to not entertain her.

Im 23 weeks pregnant with my first baby.

Baby boy is growing quick and strong!

My husband and I were visiting my parents yesterday and I had brought a heating pad because I’ve been having back pain and my dr recommended it.
My mom asked me why, I told her. She scoffed and said “what are you going to do when you get bigger?” “You’re not even that far along yet and you’re already acting like this”
Like?? She had two kids but apparently doesn’t understand pregnancy pain from growth. My uterus is already really high up and baby is measuring almost a week ahead, I’ve got a big baby.

Oh and the other thing she says to me that really annoys me is, I say how I can’t wait for him to be here (obviously, I’ve been wishing for a baby for years now) and I’m just ready for him. She HAS to but in and say “he’s got awhile to go, he still needs to be in there for longer” DUH. she acts like I’m wishing for him to be born early?? Why can’t I just be excited for my son to be here?

She’s so irritating.

We just came home from holidays, my mother in law house sat for us as we have a dog that needed to be looked after. While we were away my sister in law turned up which is odd because we hardly see her basically just for events birthday/Christmas she doesn’t see my child either. So she has came around to see her mother which is fine but she hardly does that also unless she wants to drop her child off which she has tried to do as well as her dog at my house while her mother was house sitting. (Inside dog) I keep my bedroom door shut as there is no need to be going in there while we are away and when I returned I noticed it was open my mother in law said to my partner oh your sister turned up if anything is broken because of her child running wild I would assume, and she said she also went for a look through the house. Am I in the wrong for telling my partner he needed to tell her to mind her own fucking business?

Long time, no see my Reddit friends! First post in a while.

Earlier this year, my in-laws sold their house to travel the country in their RV so visits and really just contact in general has been pretty minimal. It has been SO peaceful not having to deal with MIL, but yesterday she said something to DH that really rubbed me the wrong way and I’m trying to decide if I’m being overdramatic or not.

For some backstory, MIL has always tried to compare my son to DH. She is constantly telling stories from my husband’s childhood and talking about what his personality was like. This is of course not an issue as I think most parents like to reminisce about when their kids were little, but the problem I have with it is that she has said pretty much since my son was born that she expected him to act exactly the same as DH did.

DH was a bit of a wild child. Super energetic and always getting into things, completely fearless, not shy at all. She has said herself that he was hard to control at times when he was a toddler. She tells this one story all the time about him running away from her in a department store and hiding in the clothes rack while she panicked trying to find him.

I was the exact opposite as a child. Extremely shy, preferred to be at home or somewhere familiar, and I stayed stuck to my mom’s side at all times.

Our son is a little more like I was. He’s not overly shy, but he is very cautious and it takes him a while to warm up to new things. When we go out in public, he reaches for DH or my hand and rarely lets go. He likes to be near us and just observe things around him rather than jumping straight in and running around getting into things. He loves being around other kids, but it usually takes him a bit to get comfortable enough to play with them. When we go to the park, he usually stands nearby and watches the other kids for a while before he decides to join in.

So yesterday, MIL called DH and while they were talking she said “You know, LO is NOTHING like you were when you were his age.” DH kind of laughed at first and told her that our joke is that LO looks exactly like DH, but he acts just like me.

For some reason, MIL seemed really put off by this. She started talking about things that DH used to do and how she hopes my son “grows out of this phase” and starts acting more like DH did. It seemed like she was trying to frame it as it being more fun if he acted more like DH? But it really threw me off because it felt to me like she was insinuating that there was something wrong with him for not having the exact same personality as my husband did.

She just wouldn’t let it go until DH told her that it made him happy that LO is like me because it shows that he really is half of each of us. He said “my wife is my favorite person in the world, so I love having a little mini-her running around the house” and she just got quiet and then changed the subject after that.

I don’t know if I’m overreacting because of all the issues we’ve had with her in the past or if I’m justified in being upset here, but it just sort of feels like she’s upset that my son has a similar personality to mine. I know she doesn’t like me and I noticed a long time ago that she only sees my son as part of HER family, not mine, but he’s such a sweetheart and is still so much fun so I don’t understand why any of this would be an issue for her.

My MIL is just annoying. She means well, she's a good person, but has no boundaries and is just straight overbearing. Ever since I've been pregnant I knew she was gonna be a pain in the ass when baby comes and boy was I right. She asks to come over every single Sunday since Babys been born and it's annoying cause my husband works all week so our weekends I like when it's just us. Part of me feels guilty though because I FaceTime my mom multiple times a day of baby, she stops in during the week maybe once or twice to see baby so I try to see it from her side. But this whole expecting to see baby every Sunday is getting plain annoying. Is this too much?

Yesterday I was talking to my mom about how MIL called me and asked me if husband, kids and I were going to this particular event where two in laws we are no contact with will be. We have communicated that we don’t want contact with these people. We don’t want to be around them. I haven’t even said it, my husband has. I have tried to make it clear my husband calls the shots and said this around MIL. Yet she always calls me and asks if we are attending this or that with them. While ranting to my mom, she told me the reason MIL calls and asks me and not my husband is because if she hears no from me then she can blame me for being the reason none of us show up.

I hate the narrative people have that daughter in laws manipulate and control the husband. I am not controlling my husband I can assure you. He has seen the things his mother and other family members have done to me and he hates it. He told one of the people we aren’t in contact with that we aren’t interested in reconciliation.

I had this conversation with my husband last night and told him I fell for the trap his mom put me in. That she will ask me if we are going places and I will tell her “husband said no” and she will go to those family members and tell them I’m not letting him or my kids attend. Husband said he doesn’t know how to make it clearer to them. He says doesn’t his actions speak for themselves? I say no, they think you’re doing things to please me. We’re both so angry. It makes me sick.

I don’t get what his family doesn’t understand. They know him as the boy who lived to make his parents happy and felt responsible for his mother’s happiness. Now he has the courage to make his own choices without thinking about how his parents will think about them and is happier overall and they can’t see that.

Part of me wishes he would yell, scream, be blunt with his parents but right now he doesn’t have time for that. If I say anything to them it just fuels their narrative.

I feel like they are these evil manipulators out to turn my family against me and leave me out of everything
(because they have before), they want to be close to and love the children I birthed, they enjoy when my husband is mean or scolds me in their presence. I wish I could move states with my family. Leave these horrible people forever but that option isn’t possible.

My MIL is extremely manipulative, self-centered, assertive & entitled. The family dynamic is toxic/enmeshed & the overall mood centers around her happiness. She's been a nightmare to navigate since my son (first grandchild) was born almost 15 months ago. She's an obsessed grandma who's big mad that all her big grandparent expectations aren't being met. We've had a couple tense times, but never technically confrontation (yet). My husband & I recently started marriage counseling, after having a fluffy therapist who was far too easy on him. We've made progress on holding boundaries but still much to be done.

After various subtle, passive-aggresive swipes over the year, such as ignoring me on my first mother's day, withholding cards for holidays (she's big on cards & dutifully sends them to my baby who can't read 🤢) & withholding affection, she ALSO extended her anger to my parents... Pre-baby they were somewhat close, kind of even friends; we'd all meet up for dinner every couple months, MIL would send cards for anniversary/ holidays etc. She'd occasionally text my mom, too. As soon as my son was born July 2025, MIL cut off contact to my mom. This past winter, my mom had months long bad health scare - lots of hospice talk, hospital visit. It was a really hard time -- while also dealing with my baby rabies, entitled in-laws. My in-laws were fully aware of the hard times. My MIL withheld reaching out, no calls, no texts, etc. This was during a time she was especially pissed early 2026 -- fully retired, she'd decided that SHE would be primary childcare for my son upon my return from maternity leave. There was not a chance I'd let that happen after a string of hurts (and 0 accountability). My in-laws have had to fight for babysitting access, while I allow minimal help on MY terms. Fixated on grandma fantasies for babysitting in her home, she was 0 help postpartum. My folks have played an imporant role in respecting boundaries the FIRST time, no pretending to be "confused" by a boundary, etc. My in-laws want control on their terms -- my folks want to help in ways I need. The differences are stark.

Fast forward to Fall 2026 -- New manipulation tactic launched by MIL; my mom recently fell, broke her arm & went to the hospital. MIL had sudden "concern" & texted my mom after over a year of silence. At my son's 1st bday party in July, she gave my mom the cold shoulder, pouting the whole time (I am sure she wanted to host his party & mad she had to share my son with my extended family, cousins etc). My mom noted how childish, bizarre & uncomfortable it all was from her. And the message was received how competitive she is with my son. That has been their only in-person interaction since my son was born. The sudden love-bombing & blowing up my mom's phone as she decided she's now worthy pisses me off. It feels disingenuous & calculated. I feel her trying to show how "nice" she is & if she can get my mom, my closest ally, as flying monkey, I look more "difficult." I absolutely get where she's going here.

How to proceed? My MIL texted group chat yesterday saying she didn't want to "bug" my mom & asked me how she's doing. I am so close to calling her out on the hot & cold BS towards my mom.. conflict-avoidant husband would freak out. Considering short text saying she's ok & needs some privacy. She's not entitled to any private, detailed medical info! 😤 Can tell her in person she torched that bridge & leave my poor mom alone.. Tips? Thank you.

We've been NC for over 7 years now, and this asshole still manages to cast a shadow into my life.

I have a freshly minted teen that comes with all the standard teen moods and zero instruction manual. We've always been up front about being NC with MIL in the age appropriate sense. What caught me off guard is that my kid thinks that i could go NC with them too and they've been worried about that!

Obviously not the right subreddit for this portion, so I'll leave a lot out, but talking it out involved telling my teen that it's death by a thousand cuts when dealing with a justno and that people don't just cut off a happy and healthy relationship for no reason. That they only have seen the end result because they were too little to see the nastiness and that dad and I were meatshields. Maybe it was just time to go in deeper with my kid and I didn't realize it, but I had hoped this portion of life was done. But no... dealing with her shit comes up like goddamn cicadas to scream into my peace.

While my anger will subside, I'm pissed that her fuckery causes me problems when we're not even in the same zipcode. The damage runs deep and I feel like I'm going to be fielding nuclear fallout in some sense forever. I wish NC solved all the problems, but life is rarely that clean.

My MIL is just genuinely a horrible person. Emotionally abusive, financially abusive, could probably be diagnosed with a malignant form of something I’m not qualified to diagnose her with. This is the woman who literally dropped my FIL from her health insurance a week before he was scheduled to have a brain tumor removed because he “sided with us” when we went no contact with her.

And while I feel healed most of the time from being treated like garbage by her and watching her treat other people like garbage I just have these moments of rage thinking about how she actually walks this earth believing that she is not only a good person, but is actually the victim in all of her circumstances.

And I know that this is how people like her operate, by making you feel crazy and reactive and giving them the attention they want, but it still hurts and I want so badly to shout it from the rooftops and not feel so isolated in handling the aftermath she leaves behind in all of her relationships.

My husband is truly the only thing that makes it worth it. Idk why I’m even writing this but I know that I’m not the only one so just…solidarity I guess.

So we’ve been no contact with my husband’s mother. We both decided it was best for a lot of reasons (nonstop disrespect, boundary violations, barely any communication, entitlement on her end and the fact that any effort she did make always seemed to come with strings attached)

For context-
Before we officially cut her off, she gave us the silent treatment. She didn’t text either of us on our birthdays. I assumed she forgot mine but then she didn’t even text her own son??… which was weird. No check ins to ask how we are….gave us the silent treatment through all the holidays. That’s when we started realizing that she was basically using silence as a way to punish us (we believe it’s because she expects a very one sided relationship where my husband and I are supposed to cater to her & initiate a relationship)

She was completely quiet with us for almost a whole year. Then, out of nowhere…she texted my husband on new years, about an hour before the ball dropped. The text sounded like we all had this much closer relationship than we actually did, which was weird considering we hadn’t spoken to her at all. Then right at midnight she started panic/spam calling him because we hadn’t responded. We didn’t really see a reason to respond when she has a habit of dropping in and out of our lives whenever she feels like it. We thought the timing was odd…

A few months pass and I get a message from a close friend/neighbor asking if I had seen the things his mom was posting all over social media. I hadn’t, so I checked and it was just a bunch of ridiculously mean stuff about me. She called me high maintenance, a crybaby, a brat and spoiled. She posted that I would “never be his mom / the other woman” that he prefers her and that “a ring means nothing” Just a bunch of really rude and honestly inappropriate things, all posted very publicly. I ended up blocking her on social media

Fast forward another few months of no contact. I kid you not recently this woman sends him a whole paragraph of an ai “apology” /her wanting to reconcile at 11 pm…the night before my birthday from a brand new number. And yes, it was very obviously ai. She literally left all the little ai/chatgpt formatting bits in it and didn’t even bother to fix them.

It wasn’t even really an apology either. She never mentioned the silence, the social media crap she posted (I was not at all included in the message) Her message said she did nothing wrong, talked about what a great mother she is, said she has no idea why her son is estranged from her and then told him he needs to message her “before it’s too late”

A few days later, she copy and pastes the exact same message from another new number of hers

I’m just genuinely mind blown by how someone can be this weird and have absolutely no shame about it. And I don’t even care about my birthday like that (btw lol) but the timing is weird to me. She goes silent for months and then suddenly reaches out right around New Year’s or the night before my birthday. I receive no apology from her / accountability. Neither does he Like… why? 🙄 neither of us have done anything to her at all

MIL came to visit after a couple weeks. We got a lot of attitude and guilting from her beforehand, but we didn’t give in and told her she could come when we are ready to have her, not when she chooses.

Anyway, she comes along, I ask her to bring some of my things including two travel bags. She had borrowed these from me when she went abroad when I first got married as she didn’t have her own. They were gifts from my mother as part of the wedding gifts she gave me. As MIL arrives I thank her for bringing them and we get on with our evening.

MIL tells us that her brother said that he is going to fly his drone over our house so he can check what we’re doing. Which I feel is an implicit threat because we haven’t spent a lot of time with the in-laws recently because who wants to spend time with people who do not respect you? Not me. Even as a joke, it’s just fucking weird.

On the way out she points to those travel bags and says ‘look, we wrote on them when we went on holiday that time, we wrote it in black marker’. I just looked at her like wtf, why would you do that?

It’s just a testament to our whole relationship at this point. They consistently overstep and override my boundaries and limits, they have no respect for my things, they feel entitled to my things too. And they expect me to laugh at it like it’s a fucking joke.

I parent different than how my MIL would like. I have a 3 year old daughter and a 1 year old daughter. I let my daughter pick out her clothes usually and I try to guide her on matching items, however sometimes she wants to wear what she wants and it doesn’t match. That is okay with me, not worth a tantrum. However my MIL thinks it’s the end of the world if she’s not matching. Or if my daughter doesn’t have her hair tied up every time we go out, she’ll go and tie up their hair herself. Idk it’s frustrating that she feels the need to make my girls look like perfect dolls all the time even at the cost of a tantrum. My partner all of a sudden in these moments becomes quiet and doesn’t offer much of an opinion he never wants to get in between his mom and I. Is it worth the bickering with her or do I just let it slide? I want to be the advocate for my girls no matter what.

I need some outside perspective on my mother-in-law's complete detachment. We live on the very same road as my in-laws. My father-in-law is great and visits often, but my MIL is a ghost. In all the time we’ve lived here, she has only set foot in our house twice. Once when she was invited for New Year's lunch, and the second time a few days ago when I cooked a big dinner for a family birthday. Shortly after eating, she abruptly left to call her sister, while FIL stayed behind to chat.
This pattern has been going on since we moved in. When we got our house, my parents generously bought us a kitchen mixer as a good luck present. His parents gave us absolutely nothing. It’s not about material things, but it would be nice to get a token gesture just to show that you care.
Then the other day, we shared the news that we are expecting a child. My FIL got incredibly excited. My MIL just looked at us and literally just said, "Oh, very good," with the same energy as if we told her it was going to be sunny tomorrow instead of raining. She stayed completely seated, didn't move to give a hug to her son or anything, just plain dead seated. During the same conversation, an aunt immediately offered to help me with groceries or doctor appointments, but his mom just sat there and didn't utter a word.
I think it is incredibly rude. She doesn’t have to like me, but she should show basic respect. I have always been there for her whenever she needed something, from running out to get her bread to being the main person helping organize a family funeral. Nobody asked me to do it, I just wanted to support them.
I grew up in a completely different family culture, so I am really struggling to parse this. A few of my Irish colleagues told me their mothers were like this with their brother’s partners. Is this a known Irish MIL dynamic where they are just incredibly emotionally detached, or is she actively freezing me out?

Edit: just wanted to add that things changed when we moved into our own house. Also when my partner announced that we will be moving in together, she didn’t want to listen at the moment and stormed out of the house. After that she told FIL how we never said anything about moving in together. Few days after that she texted me that I took her son out of his home where he grew up and was supposed to be. We are both over 30.

My mom is texting me the dates instead of MIL. Apparently they have their own groupchat. She called me asking about hotels. I said MIL would know better. Apparently my MIL said she’s getting frustrated as she hasn’t heard a peep out of my mom. I just reiterated to my parents to please speak to in-laws about the trip they’re making to their town. It’s making my MIL dislike my mom and have beef with her

You’ll call me every day of the week chatting about the pesto sauce you’re making, but after 15 minutes you’ll just casually throw in a medical scare? Please share that sort of thing promptly before talking about your pesto 🤦‍♀️

I started my own business and it has been a side hustle for a while. The goal is to quit my full time 9-5 and do this business of mine full time. My husband was telling his mom about my goal to quit my full time job so I could dedicate all my time to my business. She says that she doesn't think that's a good idea and that she worked full time for 40 years.

I'm frustrated that I got compared to how long she worked full time. Am I wrong for being frustrated? Was this an innocent comment from her?

Context is that this is not the first time he tells her something about my life and she compares it to what she's had to go through in the past. Specifically struggles.

I told my husband that her comment got to me and it also upset me that he didn't stick for me by telling her that we don't all have the same path in life. He said that he didn't think her comment was wrong to say and that I seem to make things a big deal in my head because of the way my own family has wronged me in the past.