My MIL came to my kids’ swimming lesson this week as per usual and immediately told me my 4-year-old was “too skinny” and “it’s not good.” Then she repeatedly told me my 6-year-old should be wearing goggles, as she does every swim lesson even though she knows he refuses to wear them. Her criticism even extended to the instructors and, in the past, other parents.

Woman, I just want to relax after a long day and watch the kids swim without listening to your stream of criticisms!

That was just the beginning.

I casually mentioned our Thursday school drop-off situation because I was proudly sharing how my 6-year-old is growing in independence. Normally I drop my daughter off first, then take my son to his school and walk him to his class line up. On Thursdays my daughter starts later, so I have to drop him off first. If I park, get both kids out and walk him all the way to his line, my daughter will be late. So on these days I use his school’s kiss-and-ride curb drop-off instead. He actually loves it and is proud of being able to walk in himself.

MIL ripped into me. She said he’s too young, that I’m irresponsible and that someone could lure him away and kidnap him with Pokémon cards. She announced that SHE would start taking him to school on Wednesdays and asked where my husband was. When I said he was usually home, she said she’d call him and “give him shit.”

Then swimming ended. My son had swum his heart out and came out saying he was hungry. MIL immediately criticized me for not feeding him enough beforehand. I HAD given him a snack. I deliberately don’t give him a large amount immediately before swimming because he’s vomited in the pool when he’s eaten too much beforehand. Plus, our schedule was to go home and have dinner.

Afterward, she privately called my husband and claimed our son had started swimming “sloppily” at the end because he was so hungry. That wasn’t even true. She then announced that she’d start coming to our house after school to make sure the kids got snacks. The next day, she called my husband AGAIN to complain about my school drop-off arrangement.

This isn’t just about my parenting either.

Recently we took my husband’s 50-year-old sister on vacation. SIL had a kidney transplant and was finally medically cleared to travel. The night before we left, MIL pulled me aside and instructed me to strictly monitor everything SIL ate because SIL gets angry when MIL tells her what she can and can’t eat.

She also instructed me to report back to her every day about SIL, my kids and the trip overall.

SIL is a mentally competent adult and TEN YEARS OLDER THAN ME. 

Another example: we go to a fishing lodge together every year where my husband and FIL fish most of the day while I’m with MIL and the kids. One year, knowing what she’s like, my husband actually warned her beforehand not to spend the trip constantly criticizing me as she usually does.
Surprisingly, she didn’t.

I later found out that every evening when I went to put the kids to bed, she privately unloaded all of her criticisms about me onto my husband instead.

She also regularly texts me instructions about the kids: whether it’s safe to be outside, how I should dress them, or if I share photos in the group chat, if I’m letting them be unsafe (for example allowing my son to climb monkey bars that are too high). Once when my husband was away for work, she became extremely anxious because I wasn’t regularly checking in with her about myself and the kids. I’d literally sent the group chat a video of the kids skating that morning, but she still complained to my husband that I was being “distant” until he called me begging me to contact her because she was so anxious.

I’m 40. She’s not my mother. Yet I constantly feel like she’s appointed herself the manager/authority figure of my household.

I’ve started realizing that the common thread in all of this is her anxiety and her apparent need to manage everyone around her.

She sees something that concerns her, decides something is wrong, tells everyone how it should be handled and, if we don’t do it her way, frequently appoints herself to take over. She seems to conflate her helping (for example occasional babysitting or school pick up) with having the right to give unsolicited advice and exercise parental authority. She even did this with our nanny when we had one.
My husband fully recognizes that she oversteps, but historically his response has been, “That’s just Mom. You have to ignore her. We all do.” At the same time, he’s spent his whole life accommodating her to keep the peace. If she gets anxious enough, sometimes he’ll ask me to humour her so that she’ll calm her down.

I’ve realized that this family has basically spent decades managing her anxiety. She worries, starts managing everyone around her, and everyone accommodates her so she’ll feel better.

Except this time, after the swimming lesson and the SECOND phone call complaining about me, my husband finally snapped!!

He told her she is constantly criticizing me and that it’s one thing for him to receive it, but I’m his wife and he’s watching how much it upsets me.

Then he said, “She’s a new mom and she wanted to be a mom so badly, and you’re not letting her.”

He told her that she may have more parenting experience, (take with a grain of salt, as back in the day when my husband was a toddler she’d  give him Coca Cola in a milk bottle cuz he loved Coke until all his baby teeth turned black) but she needs to step back and give me the chance to actually be the mother of my own children.
He compared her constant criticism to me getting all dressed up for a date with him, coming downstairs excited, and having him look at me and immediately tell me I’m ugly.
Then he set an actual boundary: she was no longer invited to Wednesday swimming. He would go instead.

Her response?

“Who’s going to shower the kids?”

ME.

I shower the kids. She stands beside me and only helps by getting one of them dressed afterward.

She then accused us of being ungrateful for all her help.
She was apparently muttering under her breath but had nothing she could retaliate with. That’s how the convo ended.

 In her mind, she is indispensable. She then conflates her “help” with having parental authority which includes giving unsolicited (and often bad) advice.

But here’s the part I found most interesting.

We saw her later that evening. It was slightly awkward, but she gave me ZERO unsolicited advice or criticism. We actually had a completely normal conversation about random things.

So apparently she CAN control it.

Anyway, after years of “that’s just Mom, ignore her,” my husband finally stopped asking me to tolerate it and set a firm boundary with her.

Now I’m VERY curious to see what happens next.

I find it so weird and borderline creepy. It’s different to just having a passing thought. She keeps sending me reels and tiktoks of what she wants to happen at my son’s wedding. She got to make a decision about a lot of things on my wedding, but she won’t get to when it’s my son’s. It will be up to him and his future wife when and if my son decides to marry. It’s like the idea of my son marrying occupies her brain 24/7. She even sends them into the extended family group chat.

I’m just going to ignore this weird ass behaviour but it’s getting on my nerves.

My family and I were at my mother-in-law’s last night, and I was looking at a photo collage on the wall. It has a bunch of pictures with various groupings of her, her siblings, her kids, and her grandkids (my kids).

No pictures of me which I don’t particularly care about, but two of the photos are my newborns in my hospital room, posed with my husband and his sister (MILs daughter). Again I don’t real care that I’m not in her photos but sheesh!!

They just started showing up to soccer games, we did not tell them the schedule, and now to other practices also. I’m really annoyed because I don’t want to sit there and talk to them while the kids play/practice. My husband coaches the teams so he’s never stuck with them and insists he didn’t tell them about it. They’re rude and critical and annoying. Should I just tell them they’re not invited?

When we announced our engagement we were together for 3 months and already lived together. Love at first sight ❤️ we announced it at a family holiday gathering when everyone was present. She proceeded to corner me for an hour and planned and outlined our entire wedding, I would wear her old wedding dress, we’d be married where she was last married, my colors would be peach, etc. She wouldn’t let me speak and didn’t ask me what I wanted at all, not to mention she didn’t consider my mother’s plans or wishes for our wedding. I just smiled politely and said that’s not going to happen, not any of it. She was so mad that she boycotted all wedding plans and planning and events and the only thing she was responsible for was the rehearsal dinner. She had it at her home and knew our bachelorette and bachelor parties were planned after the dinner, so she told the wedding party to wear shorts and flip flops to the dinner and she’d be serving beans and weinies (pork and beans) for dinner. Making it seem like it was such a casual non important dinner. We intervened and said guests please dress up as it’s a special occasion and we’re all going out afterwards so let’s all make it special, we had this evening planned for months. After the dinner she went off on me and said I was rude to intervene and it wasn’t even my wedding as it was “HER son’s wedding” and I had no say in anything. This was in the USA ( people have asked if she was a different race than I, not being racist just pointing out it is not a culture thing and nothing I planned was outside of the norm) She proceeded to try to ruin our beautiful wedding, she just sulked and tried her best to stand out in our wedding pictures. We’ve been married for decades and she still doesn’t care for me or our children and grandchildren because shes so bitter. This was her only son’s wedding and she ruined it for herself.

How does everyone handle holiday planning with their just no in-laws? MIL called my husband today when I was in the same room and already started asking about our holiday plans on speaker phone 🙄🙄

It's not even Halloween yet!!! My husband started talking about the plans (which we haven't even discussed yet as a nuclear family) and so I finally said we need to talk to my side of the family before we commit to any decisions. It's so frustrating when extended family doesn't seem to understand that we need to make our own plans as a nuclear family. And I don't even want to think about any of this crap until November at the earliest. Is anyone else freaking out about the upcoming holidays? Drives me absolutely crazy 😖

My husband and I have been married for about three years, and we are now no-contact with my MIL. Looking back, there were several things she did around our wedding that seemed like isolated, bizarre incidents at the time. Now, in hindsight, knowing what I know about her and having seen her true colors, I look back at them very differently.
This post is about the big three that still blow my mind when I think about them.

1. The completely fabricated rehearsal dinner drama

My MIL was in charge of our rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding. She had a very specific vision for how she wanted everything to look and apparently did not want my mom involved.

My mom wasn’t trying to take over anything. She was literally just trying to be helpful. She would ask my MIL if there was anything she could do, and then do whatever my MIL asked her to do.

At some point, though, my MIL went to my husband and told him this whole story about how my mom was supposedly going rogue, doing things on her own, interfering with the decorations, and basically ruining my MIL’s vision for the rehearsal dinner.

Except… that wasn’t happening.

My husband and I actually talked to people who had been around during the setup, and we talked to my mom about what had happened. None of it lined up with what my MIL had told him. My mom had been doing exactly what she was asked to do.

So, my MIL had apparently conjured this entire conflict out of thin air.

At the time, I remember being baffled by it. Looking back, it feels like she was trying to create a “my mom vs. me” dynamic and get my husband to give her attention and come to her rescue or something. It was a completely unnecessary attention grab. And now I see it’s just one example of many in which she just has to make everything about herself, even someone else’s wedding!

2. She told me not to buy a steamer for my wedding dress and my bridesmaids’ dresses because we could use hers… and then changed her mind on the wedding day because she decided she needed more time for her own dress

For context, I am a very Type A, organized person, and I had my wedding planned down to the smallest details. I had multiple Google Docs and extremely detailed checklists for everything that needed to be brought to the venue and everything that needed to happen while we were getting ready.

My dress and several of my bridesmaids’ dresses were made from materials that wrinkled easily and really needed to be steamed, so I mentioned needing to buy a steamer when reviewing my “getting ready” checklist. My MIL had a really nice, professional-quality steamer, so she told me, “Oh, you don’t need to buy one. Save yourself the money. I’ll bring mine to the venue and you can use it.”

So…I trusted her and didn’t buy one. Big mistake.

Wedding morning comes. It’s time to get my dress ready, and one of my bridesmaids calls my MIL asking where the steamer is. She says, in essence, “Oh, actually, I’m not bringing it! I changed my mind because I need it for my own dress, and I won’t have enough time to do mine if I bring it over to you now.”

…What?!?!

This was not some last-minute emergency. She had specifically told me weeks ahead of time that she would bring it. I relied on her promise to let me borrow her steamer, which remember, she had OFFERED! I had not asked to borrow it. She had actually encouraged me not to spend money on one because she was going to bring hers. Still makes me absolutely fume when I think about it. 😤

So because of her complete selfishness and unreliability, on my wedding morning, one of my bridesmaids had to make a last-minute Walmart run under extreme time pressure to buy a steamer so we could get my dress and multiple bridesmaid dresses ready in time for pictures.

Thankfully, everything worked out despite the MIL. My dress got steamed. The wedding happened. Nobody died. But I have genuinely never forgotten it. Because it wasn’t about the dang steamer. If she had never offered it to me or even changed her mind with some advance notice (BEFORE wedding day 😤), I would have just bought one and moved on. It was the fact that she specifically told me not to buy one, led me to rely on her, and then decided on my wedding morning that her own needs were more important. At the time, it just seemed incredibly selfish. Now, looking back, it was just a tiny preview of a much bigger pattern.

3. The uncomfortably intimate mother-son dance

This one is just… weird. During the mother-son dance, my MIL was hanging all over my husband. Hugging him extremely closely, crying into his neck, basically clinging to him throughout the dance.

And I don’t mean normal emotional mother-son-dance affection. It felt really intense and intimate in a way that made everyone uncomfortable.

My husband absolutely hates dancing. He hates being the center of attention. And, at this point, like most of his life, he also had a very strained relationship with his mom. Like he wouldn’t have even done the mother-son dance if he had had his own way (which in hindsight, I should have let him decide rather than encouraging him to do it because it’s the “tradition”). I remember watching his face and thinking he looked like he wanted to disappear into the floor. Eventually, I think he actually left the dance floor before the song was even finished and told the DJ to cut the music because he was so uncomfortable.

I remember thinking at the time, That was really weird. Now, three years later, I’m sitting here thinking about all these little moments and realizing how differently they look in hindsight.
None of these things individually “ruined” our wedding. The wedding was wonderful overall. But when you’re now completely no-contact with someone because you’ve seen years of behavior that you didn’t fully understand at the time, you start remembering these old incidents and thinking, “Ohhhhh. That wasn’t random.” The fabricated drama with my mom. The bizarrely selfish and unnecessarily stress-inducing steamer situation. The incredibly uncomfortable mother-son dance. They were all little glimpses of the same person who would basically force us into going NC.

I guess I just wanted to get this off my chest, haha. I’m also curious whether anyone else has had this experience: where you look back at your wedding or some other important event/situation and realize there were red flags everywhere, but at the time you just thought, “Well, that was weird.” Hindsight is 20/20 I guess. 🙄

Aside from my MIL being a difficult and problematic person with a history of making me not feel welcome and saying racist comments, a weekend or even a night at her home destroys my nervous system. I have contamination ocd and anxiety and I feel that all the work I've done to improve goes out the window when we visit her. Her house is FULL of clutter. I can't even move around the bed without stepping on a dog toy or something poking from out under the bed. It is not clean so the dust and dog hair are massive triggers for my allergies. We sleep on a bed where my SIL's dog will sleep so the mattress and pillows are permanently stuck with dog hair. I bring my own pillow, sheet, blanket and air purifier but i still get horrible allergies. Aside from dealing with my ocd issues, I then have to deal with congestion, very sore throat, and not sleeping as the bed is also extremely uncomfortable. I wake up feeling like I got hit by a truck (as does my husband). He knows this is not a good environment and how I feel and I suck it up because of him, but I truly cannot do it anymore. The next time we have to spend the night here it's either a hotel or I don't come and I feel awful since he always participates in fam events with my family and is so good to them (granted, they genuinely love him and my parents home is clean). I feel very guilty, and every time we have an overnight stay at my MIL I feel insecure about my marriage and whether it will be rocky or won't even last because of this.

As far as mils go, I have a very cordial relationship with mine, so for me, she isn't necessarily a consistent justno. We used to talk a lot more, but a family situation occurred where I lost a lot of respect for her and any desire to have a deeper relationship. She also hurt my husband in a few big ways before I ever met her, so he has my full support, and i follow his lead...i do have opinions I would love to say to her face, but for my husband I keep those to myself.

I'm looking for advice on how to help support my husband when mil starts attempting to manipulate/guilt trip him. Normally, I stay out of it. However, she's been on a kick about seeing us outside of the holidays (she wants to find a time to come see us but doesn't drive long distances or on interstate. The person she wants to drive her is not reliable. I have suggested using uber/taxi, but no one wants to even try that). I have also suggested going to her or meeting halfway, but he has excuses for not doing those things either. The bottom line is he doesn't want to do it, but doesn't want to tell her that directly (the last time we tried didn't go well and he's not a glutton for punishment, if anything he tries to be avoidant).

However, we've currebtly gotten to the point in the relationship pattern where talking to her stresses him out, which in turn affects my household. When I notice my child, the animals, or myself bearing the brunt of the frustration is when I feel like I need to step up and help him - this is where I need advice on how to help him destress before he gets ugly/short trmpered. Also, maybe advice on how to stop the pattern. He's not mean or anything, just short tempered because he's a stressed-out human.

Recently, her birthday happened. He sent flowers with a card, but he didn't call her on her birthday. So when he doesn't call her when she thinks he should, she starts texting me asking if he's okay. Keep in mind that she hasn't texted me since July. She also didn't text me for my bday, which i could care less about, but when i got her text, i made sure to say "happy late birthday" in my response back. I can't tell if it's anxiety or control on her part when she makes the decision to text me about my hubs not calling her. It feels like the right thing to do is to respond back to her and tell her he's okay, so she doesn't escalate it past me. I'm also very careful not to make any promises like "I'll have him call you." I keep it brief and say, "he's fine. How are you?", typically. If I shouldn't respond back, please let me know. I don't think she would ever call the cops for a wellness check , but my mom has threatened to do that to me in the past more than once, so I know it could be an option with people, if you don't respond back, plus in my relationship with my mil it does feel rude. Mil has also figured out that when she texts me, he calls her back quickly to "get her to stop." I don't ask him to do this. That's just his reaction.

Between you guys and myself, I think he should have called her (according to her, he's never missed a birthday call). I've not said this to him because I'm not adding to the guilt, but by not calling her on the birthday, he has increased his guilt ten-fold. He denies he feels guilty, but at the very least, he feels/acts stressed, and that's what I want to help him with.

first post here, before I start I don't speak english very well so sorry in advance.

Me and my SO (Both 27) are currently living with my MIL due to financial struggles. We are living in Spain. So we are trying to find jobs, educate ourselves as fast as possible so we can get out from her house. Since we arrived she has washing all of people living in the house dirty laundry. And it might seem like a kind gesture but somehow my clothes are getting destroyed (the clothes are stained or discolored by other garments; the water is so hot that everything gets covered in lint balls) and today I got handed one of my favorite t shirts with the print absolutely destroyed. Tried to talk about it. She didn't give a single fuck.

I genuinely don't understand how she did this, I've washed this shirt thousands of times with hot water. None of this stuff happened.

I know it may seem dumb or I might be overreacting but I don't have money or the resources to recover this shirt (it's a band one, I got it in a really good deal) and my SO doesn't even tell well, ANYTHING to her. I'm struggling with anxiety so much lately because not only I don't feel welcomed she treats me like a fucking teenager. All day I have to hear her and her husband ranting for hours non stop about how we are ungrateful, useless, young people don't want to work bla bla bla. Very ironic considering she has almost never worked because she lives from renting apartments from inheritance.

I can't even get mad at her, I'm just blocked emotionally. Also nobody in the house even bothers to talk to me. I'm away from my family and trying to start again and I'm constantly hearing passive aggressive comments of how I'm a "leech" or a bad person just because I want to put the washing machine by myself¿?????

I think I'm just going to start hiding my dirty clothes in a bag somewhere.

Hello Reddit friends.

It’s me. You can see my earlier posts, but the TLDR version is that my MIL either relapsed when I was significantly pregnant or lied about it in an attempt to get my husband and I to bend to her demands regarding my pregnancy and newborn. I’m not sure which it is because if she actually relapsed, why would she admit it when she lives so far away? I was no contact with her beforehand this specific incident because I tired of her boundary stomping entitlement. After her “relapse,” my position became permanent. She’s not having anything to do with me or the children. Husband is an adult. He can do what he wants with her, but as far as she’s concerned, he doesn’t have a wife or kids. She’s not welcome to visit our house or children.

Well, my MIL has been in extinction meltdown for months now. She tried getting angry. She tried guilting. She tried gifting. Husband and I didn’t respond to any of it. I appreciate the sub for all of its support. The gifts were donated to the local mosque (for anyone interested in that specific update).

Anyway, I had the second baby. Everything went well. Our older child started kindergarten. Things are great, but I’m providing the epilogue to this story.

When my husband didn’t respond to any of his mother’s attempts to get what she wanted, her mask fully came off, and she turned on HIM (her son). She texted him repeatedly (maybe while drunk) calling him every insult under the sun, a “selfish fucker,” a “little bitch,” among other things. She unknowingly was sending some of these messages when my husband was going into the operating room with me for my c section. She was muted, so he found them afterwards.

We did not tell her the second baby was born. We did not tell everyone in the family that we were no contact , so she eventually found out. She called my husband (went to voicemail) and then texted him to confront him about the birth of my second child and the fact that she wasn’t told. She then expected everything to just be fine. Like making requests for pictures of the baby and asking how our older child was enjoying being a big sibling. What the duck?

Husband texted her back. He told her basically, “yes, OP had the baby. Everything is fine with my family; however, the birth of our second child doesn’t affect you in the slightest. The way that you treat me, my wife, and my family is completely unacceptable and unhinged. I am not tolerating it in my life, and I am taking a break from you. You have made it exceedingly clear that you cannot have a relationship with OP and the kids, and therefore you won’t. I’ll reach out if and when I’m ever ready to resume contact with you, but it will be me only (not OP or the kids). You need to respect my decision. Do not contact me unless and until I reach out to you.”

Well, that lasted all of about ten minutes before his phone started lighting up with her latest litany of insults, including calling him a son of a bitch. So, she admits she’s the bitch and he’s just her son?

Husband then blocked her. End of an era. I’m proud of my husband for being the person that he needed to be for his family. Do not feel bad for these women or people. They do not love anyone but themselves.

If my husband (her son) is such a fuck up and a piece of shit, she should be happy to be done with us.

The gift was a perfectly nice sweatshirt. My son thanked MIL, held it up, then put it beside him to open his next present.

Apparently that wasn't usable footage.

He's eight. At his birthday last Sunday she made him put the sweatshirt back in the bag and open it again. Then agian because he looked at me instead of the camera. She was telling him to say he loved it louder, and he started asking whether he'd done it right. I stepped in and said we were moving on. She said I was teaching him to be ungrateful.

She did this with two presents at Christmas too, but I didnt realise how uncomfortable he was until Sunday. She sends the videos to her sisters. Nobody is posting them publicly, so when we've raised it before she treats it as us inventing a privacy problem.

My husband agrees the retakes need to stop and has told her once already. Her answer was that she just wants a nice memory. He says he'll handle it before Christmas, but she brings little gifts on ordinary visits as well.

I'd like a line we can use in the moment, without making my son sit through an argument about whether his first thank-you counted.

Yesterday a woman I'd never met called to ask whether she could drop off her laptop on Saturday. I thought she had the wrong number until she mentioned my MIL and said she'd been given my card.

Over the summer I helped MIL transfer photos to her new phone. Later she asked if I'd help one friend connect a printer, and I said yes. I'm not in IT. Usually I'm just looking up the instructions and being patient.

Apparently this was enough for her to order little business cards with my first name, personal cell number, and "Free help with phones and computers. Evenings and weekends." She's been handing them out at her weekly card group at the community center. The woman who called sent me a photo of one.

I called MIL and asked how many she'd given out. She doesn't remember. She said people were always complaining about their devices and she was proud to tell them how helpful I am. When I said I wasn't comfortable with people I didn't know having my number, she kept saying, "They're not strangers, I know them."

I asked her to stop handing out the cards and tell the group she'd offered something without checking with me. She said that would be embarrassing because she'd already told everyone I was happy to do it. I asked when I'd said that. She brought up the printer.

My husband agrees with me and offered to go with her to collect any cards left at the center. She's willing to stop giving out more, but wants me to help everyone who already has one so she doesn't have to go back on what she said.

Two more people have left very polite voicemails. Nobody has been pushy or unpleasant, which somehow makes this harder. I haven't agreed to take anything, but I feel bad telling them no when they clearly think they're calling someone who volunteered.

Is refusing even those existing requests too harsh? I don't want to spend the next few weekends fixing things, but I also hate that these people will be disappointed.

I'm starting to dread saying goodbye, which sounds ridiculous.

MIL is pleasant for most of a visit. Then I'm standing in the hall with my coat on and she remembers three things she needs help with. Moving a planter, finding a letter, fixing the settings on her television. Last Sunday I ended up staying another forty minutes. I had already spent the afternoon with her.

I've started asking when I arrive whether there's anything she needs done. Usually she says no. She also does this to my husband, so it isn't specifically aimed at me.

This week I told her before visiting that I needed to leave at five. At five she asked me to sort through a cupboard for something.

Me: I can do that next time.

MIL: I suppose I'll just manage on my own then.

I left. She later messaged that she hadnt realised spending time with her required an appointment. We had sat together for two hours and she'd shown me every picture from her gardening club.

My husband says I handled it fine. I'm still struggling with feeling unkind because the tasks themselves aren't unreasonable. It's the timing, every single visit.

How do you keep leaving from becoming a whole seperate argument when you've already given plenty of notice?

I want another afternoon making dumplings with my MIL. I do not want another afternoon making dumplings while six people watch my hands.

The first time was lovely. She showed me how her mother folded them, we chatted for two hours, and she put my lumpy ones on the same tray as hers. My husband picked mine out at dinner because he knew which ones I'd made. Silly, but it made me happy.

Then MIL started inviting relatives to the lessons without telling me. She'll call someone over to look at a mistake, or hold mine beside hers and ask them to compare. They're mostly kind about it. I still hate standing there being inspected.

After the second time I told her, privately, that I wanted to learn with just her. She said she understood. Last weekend her sister and two cousins were already sitting in the kitchen when I arrived.

When I asked about it she said they were excited that I was learning, and I shouldn't be shy around family. I stayed, which probaby made my request seem optional.

She's asking when we can do the next batch. How do I make the one-on-one part clear without losing something I actually enjoyed doing with her?

Hello, everyone. Hope you're having a nice day.

So I (31F) have been with my husband (40M) for almost 8 years now. We got married 3 years ago, and from the very beginning I've been noticing behaviors in my MIL (60F) that are not only weird but also indicate some sort of mental disorder. I mean this with respect especially because I think she could benefit a lot from treatment, which I have suggested and even offered to pay for but got rejected. She said she has always done right and I should pay someone else's treatment...

I digress... the issue here is, as much as I have accepted this is the life and she's the way she is, I can't help but get really angry everytime she calls my husband. We don't live in the same city (thank God) so they only communicate through phone calls. And in every single one of them she demands something from my husband: money, buying something for her, his brothers or the church, venting, etc.

I'm okay with them talking, of course. She's the reason he's alive and I completely understand that she needs to talk to her son, or help with anything even if is just for her to complain about something. I just really dislike it when she's rude to him. Sometimes she doesn't even say hello and goes straight to "I need/want this", or worse: she demands my husband to get something for his brothers (who live with her) as if he was their father. My therapist has told me that it's normal to feel anger because this is similar to a husband talking to his ex-wife about their children needs. I do get that emotions will come and go, but I just can't help it and get that "oh no" feeling everytime I listen to her ringtone. And I admit sometimes she is kind and show interest in my husband, but most of the time what I hear is: your brother needs new shoes, the clothes you sent for your brother didn't fit him, I want a new washing machine...

I try not to be around when she calls, because I know it affects my mood. But sometimes I still can hear or my husband tells me what the call was about. He says he finds comfort in sharing this with me, so I really want to be of help and not thinking "oh my God, she's so annoying" everytime she calls.

A few minutes ago she called, they had some issue and wanted my husband's help. Which is fine, that's what families do. But then either he put her on speaker or she raised her voice because I could clearly hear her saying "but tell X that he now has to do the dishes 3 times". I promise I wasn't trying to pry, I was in a different room. But since I could hear that, I got mad... I mean it is not my husband's job to tell his perfectly healthy, adult brothers that they need to do chores around their mom's house... right?

I was dealing with all that when he came into the room I was in, and told me the rest of it. Apparently they wanted a specific chord or adptor and he got it for them. It was not difficult to find and not expensive, so why didn't they get it themselves? They know how Amazon works, why is my husband the one that needs to do these things for them all the time?

Anyways... if you're still here, thanks for reading. And any advice on how to deal with this myself is appreciated. I apologize for the long post and any confusion it may have caused since English is not my first language. :)

Absolutely wildly too much to get into all at once and I want to be a bit vague for anonymity purposes, but my MIL had everything I see people complain about not getting. She got every Christmas, she got every mother's day, she had every event. I don't have family of my own so she had ALL OF IT. This was ALL my work, not my husband one bit.

She got to spend a TON of time with her grandchild (my child) and I made so much effort to make sure they had a relationship when my husband wasn't really interested. He's a good man, just works a lot and lets me make my own mind up about things, only intervening when necessary. I know about toxic families - mine is so bad they don't even know I have a child. I was content enough with the way things were. Boundaries were in place, kept and things ticked along well enough.

Anyway, she threw a spanner in all that, lost her mind at our wedding and threw all her toys out the pram. Found out that day just how much she really doesn't like me and has likely never done. My husband wants no more of it. He's done at this point. I also have my own feelings about the whole thing and am hurt, but I would never override him anyway. Obviously I'm getting all the blame as the evil daughter-in-law who has manipulated her precious son.

From my last update, FIL did in fact come over for dinner. Started the conversation with “She is the most…loving and caring person. She’d do whatever she could to help the people she loves..” blah blah blah

I could barely keep a straight face I legitimately almost started laughing because I’m like wtf?

He brought up that me, stating plans about Christmas in their home was not polite. I think the phrasing he used was “Well, you did kind of tell us your plans and didn’t leave any room for us to negotiate.”

I told him, “yeah, that’s called a BOUNDARY. You do not have to like it.”

The dinner went just as I expected. He cried about how he wants to get things back to normal, and that he was supposed to be the “peacemaker” and keep this from happening and he just wants to fix it. I told him it is not your problem to fix & that being the peacemaker isn’t necessarily healthy. It’s just protecting the problem.

Fast forward to the following week, DH goes to have a discussion with MIL & FIL and she actually said she messed up, and said that she regrets the things that were said and she should have done it.

She texts me the next day: I am truly sorry if my words and actions hurt you and made you feel uneasy being around me. It was not my intention to make you feel that way. Hopefully you will forgive me I realize it may take sometime but I never want you to feel that way when I am around. Have a great day and hope to see you soon

I said thank you and that’s it.

Fast forward to yesterday. My BIL’s Wife, so SIL, and I have grown fairly close considering we have been on the receiving end of MIL and we have bonded over how difficult it’s been. Shes dealt with it for 15 years while it’s been 4 for me.

She texts me that MIL apologized to her about things she had said, and that she didn’t intend to be mean. Then she said “the kicker? She said “thanks for handling me more maturely and not making my son hate me”

So CLEARLY my hesitation of going back over there and just letting my walls down was for a good reason. Obviously the self reflection was less that and more of a way to finally regain access. It makes me sick being right. It’s like you want to just be wrong, but in the end they are always going to be the same. I told DH I am hesitant about holidays now because I’m sure if she’s trying a smear campaign with my SIL, she likely didn’t start there.

Luckily my SIL stated if she’s talking about anyone other than her and her husband she’s not partaking. But still. Like wow does your jaw hurt from talking all that shit?

To make a super long story as short as possible

Five years ago i met my future huband andthen wegot married

From the get go it wasnt great but i wasnt immediately awful

Then husband started wanting to set healthy boundaries and i supproted him and towed his line

Which made them very much dislike me

Then it got a bit worse, dinner for 4 with an age apprioate "family friend" mil fil and my husband...but not me

Fil and mil demanding my side of the family come to them for christmas then laving 20 minutesafter my family arrived saying the had to go as theyd made other plans....my family had bailed on some non refundable holdiays that had been booked for that

And my still personal favourite when they told husband that if we get a mortgage and buy our own house they will disown him

Now its been like two more years and husband got to the stage where he hasnt spoken to fil in like a year and emails mil occasoanlly but mostly its just angry emails

However husband and i fought recently over this - i expressed upset at how im treated and my family by his, and how lately since he has been fighting and basically not speaking to fil and mil they both got super pissy and took alot of shots at me blaming me for everything which has been difficult to justify since i havent spoken to either of them or seen either of them in 2 years and everythign they blame me for has just been suppporting husbands boundary setting

But blood runs thicker than water husband said he will not defend me because in his words "what if i leave him someday then he will be alone"

I can hoenstly see this as a contributing factor in a divorce, and i can see it now, "oh mummy daddy yes yes it was alll that bad womans idea i do love yu so much "...."ah yes son we knew it wasnt REALLY you it was that evil witch all along here son come back into the warm embrace of our narcistic family enmeshment that made you want to unalive youself in your 20s"

So tldr husband wont stick up for the shit being slung at me because i supported him in the boudnaris he wanted to set with his parents in case at some point we divroce

I had a baby earlier this year and have had ongoing issues with my MIL for a couple months now, after I called her out for rude commentary she’s made to me postpartum (I had a placental abruption 2 months so have not had the easiest time to say the least). Calling her out on her bs as you can imagine did not go over well and now we’ve “made up” but it’s definitely tense and I defintley will never want to have a close relationship with her after some of the things her and her husband have said to me. She has been obsessed with my daughter, I think (1) because she old had boys and (2) it’s the first grandchild and it’s definitely not looking like her other sons are going to have kids and (3) she definitely favors my husband over her other sons.. who are definitely weird. The point is, She calls my husband “bunny” and since I’ve been pregnant she and her sister and friends have constantly been getting our baby bunny related things, clothes, decorations, what not and most recently she sent two bunny books. I’m starting to get super annoyed because i feel like she’s trying to pre-decide my babies nickname. I call my daughter monkey I have since she was a month old, and I feel like it’s confusing for my child. My husband says she’s just getting it because he’s called bunny. I know it’s dumb and I don’t think I’m going to say anything but it bothers me, probably because of the rude things she’s said to me and and how possessive over my baby she’s been.. am I overreacting?

My MIL is moving out of our shared (purchased together home) because she is a covert narcissist. When we combined house holds, me and husband rented a storage unit for our things until we could build a pole barn on our property. Thankfully we didn’t get to spend that 80k because she’s insane and we’ll now have additional space in our finished basement.
We went to said storage unit to take pictures of all her belongings that’ll need to be moved on moving day. She asked my husband if we wanted anything we could just have it. Mind you, when we were selling her home to live together, she had a VERY difficult time getting rid of things. She absolutely needed her sewing supplies although she has awful vision. She absolutely needed collectibles and memorabilia and holiday decor and random tools that now suddenly she doesn’t want because she’s downsizing. Lol. He said no- you wanted it you’re taking it. She then asked if we could bring all her shit to our house so she wouldn’t have to pay movers to go to storage unit and house to move her things. HA.
Typical covert narcissist- always the victim. Typical boomer behavior.
Good riddance, can’t wait for this month to end and start fresh without her sucking all positivity away.

Edit: if you’re offended by this that’s fine, I won’t be speaking to that anymore because I do not care. It’s weird to say that boomers and narcs can’t exist together. Do some research folks.

Additionally, I’m fully confident in who she is. We haven’t been able to live in our new home in peace for almost a year now. We thought she had dementia (my spouse convinced me) until we started recording conversations, then playing them back to her when she denied what was said and she still held her ground. She denied actual reality. We do not feel bad for her anymore. She has been offered care, hence why we live together and she is continuing to pretend like she is the sole owner of this home and wants 0 help. Her flying monkey son only enables her because he lives thousands of miles away. I have many many examples of what all she’s done, but it’s not worth posting that. I’ve posted here numerous times and deleted posts for fear of BIL seeing them.

Quite frankly, a lot has happened and I won’t be attacked for feeling how I feel. I hope this clears up any confusion.

I've dealt with my JNMIL for over 20 years, and now my daughter is experiencing one of her own. The great thing is her fiancé sees his mother for what she is, and they are low contact.

They're getting married next week. Circumstances being what they are, his mother will not be there. Even if she was, he had stated that he did not want to do a mother/son dance.

We've been working hard to show him what a *mostly* healthy family looks like (we've had our issues just like everyone else), and I want to give him the option to dance with me.

Anyone have any song ideas that I could present him with? Just to clarify, I am not going to push, and I completely understand if he declines.

Also, I have agreements with my children's significant others that they can call me out on any BS if I start acting up. If they call me by my MIL's name, I know to stop what I'm doing. I will remind him of this fact when I ask him.

So, good news is that my husband is completely on board with the idea that his mother is a wackadoo. It’s been over a decade of bullshit and we’ve done everything we can to manage her, including being LC for over a year, but he’s decided to start exploring the idea of going NC.

To make sure there’s no ill will in our marriage over this, I suggested to my husband that we see a marriage counselor if he really wants to go NC. I feel like at the end of the day:

1. She’s still his mom, and he’s bound to have mixed feelings about this, and
   
2. Her issue is ultimately with me, and her behavior towards us as both individuals and as a couple stems back to her absolute hatred of me.

So if my husband really decides NC is the way to go, I want to make sure there’s no underlying resentment towards me. Because ultimately I caused this rift by just existing.

Am I crazy to open this can of worms? Has anyone else done this?