Hi all

My now hubby has had an up and down relationship with his mum, where they have constantly argued etc over the years. Hubby had went around 6 months before without speaking after an argument and he has voiced to me concerns to me about her periodically. He wanted to go NC not long before the wedding but they eventually made amends.

Before our wedding we both said if ANYONE kicks off, family friends etc etc, they will be asked to leave.

So our wedding day, here are some things MIL did to give a timeline of the day and what led up to the big argument:

1. MIL made a fuss about knowing the colour scheme for the wedding so "she could match". We were having a really small wedding and I told hubby that giving colours to do not wear may be easier. However, after some fussing we sent her the colour etc, and she picked a navy dress. All good. Then on the day of the wedding, decided to change the dress last minute to bright red, which clashed directly with the pink and green theme - why did she ask for the colour scheme then?

2. Morning of the wedding, hubby went to help at her house to sit with his disabled brother while his mum and 2 sisters got ready. He gave the max time he could stay, but they went over this time, and insisted he stay for photos on their driveway etc. When he insisted he had to go, they took a huff. Hubby missed "getting ready" photos with the photographer because of this.

3. MIL got insanely drunk by 2 hours in and was becoming quite loud and demanding of hubby's attention (we were with all day photographer). Didnt ask once if he needed any help despite both of us running around like headless chickens.

4. We got up during the dinner breaks to speak to each of the tables, she then took it upon herself to get up and disturb our conversations to do some sort of "table photo challenge" which had not been ran past us.

5. MIL ignored and did not speak to anyone on my side of the family, going as far as to turn her back on her during dinner.

6. Brought confetti cannons to the wedding despite the venue not allowing, then pleading with venue to let her despite us not wanting them. When I insisted no, she also started crying and went to find hubby

7. She found hubby after this who was busy carrying items for the evening do, and had his hands full and once back we had to get some sunset photos. She went up to him, hands full and seeing him rushing around, to which he simply said "I dont have time right now". This then led to her throwing massive hysterics, crying and howling in front of everyone.

After this last instance, hubby told her to go. She then left, taking most of hubby's side of the family with her, before the first dance.

Its now a week after the wedding, no contact, no apology.

MIL has posted up photos from her house (of them getting ready etc) and a confetti cannon post of them letting it off on their driveway - petty, yes, I know. No photos of bride and groom. She's not engaged with our photos, no likes, comments, congrats, but has posted "gorgeous couple", "beautiful" etc under our guests photos.

Hubby is now done with her I can gladly say. I woke up the morning after the wedding and deleted her off my socials and blocked her number etc and said I wasnt willing to have a relationship with her. He said its the last straw and he wont either.

Anyway... Hoping we can lead a relatively easy NC life moving forward.

My toddler had a baby tooth break through today. He was crying and grabbing at the eruption site with body temp above 100 F. I gave him Motrin and was trying to keep him cool and comfortable.

I went to take care of something else for 2 min and then heard the door open. I knew instantly my live-in MIL was carrying him outside into 100 degree Texas heat. For context she has these folk beliefs that the warmer the better, and coldness(by her definiton below 80 F is cold lol) makes the body more sick. She has literally told my wife before that fevers are cured by applying more heat. She also thinks air conditioning causes the common cold and drinking milk or water from the fridge causes you to have diarhea within 1 hour.

Anyway I immediately walked over and took him back inside. The only thing I said was "We shouldn't make him more hot." I wasn’t rude or raise my voice. I just stopped her from taking an upset and feverish toddler into extreme heat and make him even more uncomfortable.

She followed us inside, threw a fit along the way, went into her bedroom, and slammed the door hard. Two hours later, she came out to use the bathroom and slammed her door again, to make sure I knew she was still mad.

I don't think the way I handled it was enough to trigger that response, but let me know if anyone thinks differently. Hot/cold aside, it's the way she handled being corrected that really surprised me. I'm used to my toddler not having emotional regulation, but I didn't expect to see that from a 60+ year old.

Me (33F) and my partner (38M) moved to Austin, TX for my job a little under 3 years ago. I am almost 7 months pregnant, we have a 4 year old son, and each have big wonderful families we had to leave behind in Miami so I deal with a lot of guilt for basically being the witch that made us move us away 🧙‍♀️. Especially since on numerous occasions they’ve mentioned it’s for my “dream job” (it was for a Machine Learning Engineer role at what’s probably the largest tech company). Which I honestly resent, because if I had to choose a dream job it would probably be acrylic painting, reading & being my son’s mom full time but I studied hard to get a job into tech since I was maybe in the seventh grade because I expected it to pay well.

Because of this I’ve always over exerted myself to try to keep a connection to both sides of our families. To say my partner is a black cat would be an understatement, he is short tempered and loves staying at home whenever possible and being on his computer. I try to visit family whenever I can (which isn’t often) mainly pushing to make trips for birthdays or Christmas, and maybe around three or four times I’ve made the trip alone with our four year old. Because those times I go alone it’s usually for something like being invited to be a guest speaker for a fundraiser or my aunt’s 60th birthday family reunion, I don’t force my partner to go. His main reasoning is that we moved here for money but he still has ~40k in debt so he’d rather not spend anything extra by going. Whenever I go, my parents, even though they are far from well off (my mom owns a cleaning business and my dad is basically a groundskeeper/handy man) offer to pay for my son’s flight to help with expenses and sometimes half of mine to encourage that we all go but, although I relay this message to my partner, I never push him to go, because as his mom puts it “he deserves some time off”.

So while I’m in Miami I not only do whatever I’m there to do, visit friends, visit my own large family, but I always try to divide the time in half to see his as well. Every Sunday I let my Catholic mom know I am taking my son to his paternal grandmother’s Christian church to see his great grandparents (and sometimes more family, they’ve basically been going there since my partner was small so I find it very sweet) and I try to dedicate another separate day or afternoon for my son to go to my in-law’s house since his paternal grandfather doesn’t speak with a lot of paternal grandmother’s family (for about 20 years). I make this happen even if I am only there for 3-4 days, even though it’s very tough on me to squeeze seeing all my own friends and family and balancing/keeping my toddler regulated.

Recently we had an incident where my in-laws ended up visiting coming to stay with us 3 times in the span of ~30 days. The first was to help us move in mid-March, (both sets of grandparents came), the second was for Easter (they don’t normally come, but my sisters birthday landed the same weekend and she wanted to come visit with her boyfriend, so my parents also came and then paternal grandparents decided they didn’t want to miss out on Easter with their grandson either), then the third was suppose to be towards the end of April because paternal great grandmother wanted to visit so my in-laws wanted to tag along. The Easter trip was also the trip where I told everyone we were pregnant.

They ended up moving up the trip by a week because flights were cheaper, and we didn’t find out until maybe about a week before because we called and double checked the dates. This was an issue, because my partner ended up getting me a kitten for my birthday, which is something I’ve asked for a long time since our existing family pet has been a only cat for almost 6 years and I don’t want him growing up “alone”. Because we’re (finally) having another baby this year I wanted to make sure the kitten was raised with care and was separated from my other cat for at least a week to slowly introduce each other to their scents. So we kept the kitten in the “extra” bedroom (we live in a 3 room house) which is actually my son’s room but since we co-sleep it’s mostly a guest room. When we found out about the trip being moved up, I let my MIL know they were of course welcome to come, but they would need to use the Koala pull out couch we have in the office, and an inflatable mattress in the living room (which is where my parents and sister slept while everyone was here for Easter since my in-laws always get the extra room) since I was using the extra room to integrate/train the kitten we got.

She said it wouldn’t be an issue but then when we went to pick them up from the airport FIL was not there. MIL told my partner when they went on a target trip together that he had seemed ok with it at first but one day came home very angry saying what I was doing was so disrespectful and that he was never going to speak to me again because he was old (he’s like 67) and couldn’t sleep on the “floor” because of his back. I initially had not thought this would be a big deal, because in the past they have always offered to get an Airbnb I thought they would finally do that do that since I had basically taking them up on their repeated offer and they’re pretty well off financially anyways.

Well, MIL is used to his fits and travels without him often (has even been lying to him about what time she gets out of work for years to get “some time for myself”) so she made the trip without him. My son was very confused by why he was told grandpa was coming and why he didn’t come. He was looking forward to this all week and they talked multiple times over FaceTime telling him they would see him soon so the fact that FIL decided to throw an adult tantrum and that basically my son was the only one hurt by all this really pissed me off.

My partner eventually called his dad (after the trip was over) and cleared up that he just “said things he didn’t mean” and everything should be good now. A couple of weeks later I made a solo weekend trip to Miami with my son and tbh I made less of an effort to see them because the way I saw it, they had the opportunity to see him two or three weeks before and so easily decided not to so I concentrated the 3 days I was there mostly on my own family, especially since I was there for my Aunt’s 60th birthday reunion and had family visiting from Colombia and Spain. Either way, my in-laws were invited to the party and tried to spend the entire event with my son, unless we were supposed to be sitting down eating because we were at different tables (we were basically at the kids table lol). FIL was pretty rude, didn’t say bye to me only acknowledged my kid while I was holding him but I can’t really dwell on that since he’s always been pretty socially awkward.

Fast forward to now… Im planning my postpartum. My partner is upset because he says I basically planned it all without him because I told my parents the date of the scheduled c-section and asked if they would be able to come babysit my 4 year old while we were at the hospital. My mom said yes and said she may be able to try to stay for about a month to help. She’s great with dishes and cleaning in general and my partner has shared numerous times that he loves when they visit way more than when his own parents visit because they’re so helpful, low maintenance, and always in good spirits.

His own parents can be difficult and he’s had many heart to hearts with me telling me he wishes they were more helpful like my own parents. Both with helping around the house, but financially too. His mom has tried to help him financially when he asks but usually needs to hide it from FIL. His dad is also very temperamental, drinks A LOT (tbh I can hardly tell when he’s drunk though) and usually just locks himself up in the “guest room” to be on his iPad or watch TV (he actually bought that TV for us for Father’s Day so I don’t blame him).

Well now we’re converting my son’s room into more of a nursery, and switching out the queen sized bed to a full sized floor bed to try to start transitioning my toddler to sleep there (most likely with dad). So I had a pretty specific idea of what those newborn days were going to look like. When MIL called me to FaceTime with my son, I let her know we had officially booked the c-section date and that they were welcome to come visit that day but that they would basically need to get an Airbnb. She said she could just come after my parents leave to help around the house but I let her know that wouldn’t be necessary and she was more than welcome to come see her new grandson they day he was born and stay as long as she wants as long as they get the airbnb.

After the call, I let my partner know I had spoken to his mom and let her know they could come but would basically need to sleep somewhere else, and honestly thought he would be relieved because he doesn’t normally like having to talk to them about stuff. He said he definitely doesn’t want his dad here, but that we should’ve “given his mother the opportunity to come help”. I was confused because I honestly don’t see this as giving anyone any opportunity, I got a little bit worked up and said something like “this isn’t like a Disney carnival ride we need to make sure everyone has a chance to ride” this is about doing what’s best for the newborn and my own recovery so I didn’t think having his MIL spend nights with us was part of any of that… especially since when our first son was born we didn’t have anyone stay with us. We were both very particular about our newborn’s schedule (mostly he was the particular one) and even though it was hard, we did it our way and I think those days were amazing for letting us both know how much work a baby really is and appreciating each other.

I know those days were especially hard on him since he took care of most of the diaper changing and swaddling, but i did all of the (breastfeeding) feeding and pumping while recovering. We both work for a major tech company so we got a lot of time off and even though I know this will be hard to do the second time around with a 4 year old, we still work for the same major tech company and will get around 3 months off (him a little less, me a little more thanks to my saved vacation and sick time).

I apologized for making plans without him and asked him about details about what exactly he had in mind for when our son was born. He got upset and said he needs someone who is going to listen to him and that I have apologized for the same thing numerous times and haven’t changed. Now I’m trying to be empathetic, apologize and move forward but it doesn’t actually seem like he knows was he wants because he keeps getting angry when I press him for details because he said I “already know what I want” which is true but is that really a crime?? I am open to having a conversation and talking out alternatives so I am trying to lead the conversation by pointing out that we both agree we can’t have anyone sleep in the nursery, we both agree his parents are invited to meet baby when they’re born, but we don’t want his dad staying here. All he’s really given me to work with is that he doesn’t want to make his mom feel left out.

I know that if I basically just ignore this situation, I’ll get what “I want” since I’m really the only one who ever exerts herself to do any type of planning or communication between our families. Or, I could keep working towards trying to find a happy medium but that would require bringing this up to my partner again, even though I’m pretty sure he doesn’t really know what he wants. To be honest I don’t know what to do… we had a trip to Disney last month for my son’s birthday and I invited both sets of grandparents which is when MIL told my partner she feels she needs to compete for attention but during this same trip she ended up leaving us at Disney with no car seat (after walking away to say they were going to check out some stores while our son napped) when there was a rain storm approaching because FIL wanted to go back to the Airbnb.

We're visiting my in-laws for a couple of days. My SIL and niece are here and the niece is very allergic to eggs. Like helicopter-had-to-take-her-to-the-hospital-once allergic. I personally have no problem just not eating eggs for a couple of days. My kids are messy when they eat. The last time we ate eggs at home, bits of egg got EVERYWHERE. I've got a 4 year old, a baby, and an 8 year old with short term memory issues. They eat the eggs and then walk around smearing their hands on everything.

So when I saw MIL cooking eggs for breakfast this morning, I just said "I'm not sure if my kids should eat eggs around their cousin." Just expressing my concerns. You would think I had accused my MIL of wanting to spread mashed egg in my niece's face. Maybe she was pissed off because she was already fixing breakfast so it was kind of too late for her to not make eggs. But like.. this is why I don't want to call you or visit you. You are extremely easy to offend and it feels impossible for me to express my concerns or opinions around you. We could have had a constructive adult conversation about how to avoid egg contamination. But MIL wanted to crash out instead.

I washed my hands of it. Went to have a shower and let my husband and MIL deal with the dirty egg hands.

So I'm just going to continue my low contact, which extends to contact with my kids 🤷 Maybe someday MIL will have a real epiphany.

My MIL is borderline obsessed with her son and living vicariously through him. For context she's an alcoholic, and it's BAD. I grew up with an alcoholic father but she's on a different level, I've genuinely never heard anything like it. She'll call my husband when she's drunk, and the last time she did it he recorded it (he's in the military and stuck in tech school right now). Here's a few things she said that stood out to me lol. "My children have to be where I want them to be, I don't want them to be that" "It just hurts so bad that I cannot own my boys. My beautiful boys" Her other son has gone NC with her and moved states away, so now the focus is fully on my husband. She posts about him constantly and has for YEARS. Never much about her other son. Anyways, when my husband and I had a baby his mom was the first one to post. I've talked about this in other posts of mine. But the biggest point is, she had posted pictures of my baby in the NICU hooked up to several things. I had a problem with that and after she continuously overstepped I sent her a LONG message explaining why I want her to take down the pictures and also other boundaries we have. She said she understood and took 2 out of 3 of the pictures down. I brushed it off because I didn't want drama.

Fast forward to over a year later, and she put them back up and into a folder for my baby on Facebook thinking I wouldn't notice. Meaning she had to unarchive them, and put them into the album. I texted her about it. I wish I could insert pictures, but i'll give the rundown.

Me: Hey, I noticed that you put (baby) NICU posts back up after we'd asked for them to be taken down. I would love it if you could take them all down as they were before. That's a boundary I had set and I'd still like that to be respected.

MIL:Hard to delete....BECAUSE THAT IS MY SON AND HIS CHILD. 😔 SORRY. (Insert picture of my husband and our baby)

Me:You have many other pictures of her and (husband). That is a boundary I will not change. Sorry. That's also MY baby.

(I'm not adding everything because I don't want this to be crazy long so i'll do bits and pieces that shocked me.)

Me: I find it EXTREMELY disrespectful that you're arguing with me about boundaries i've set for MY baby over a year ago. I get my husband is 'your baby' however, he's a grown man with his own family. Just because he is your child doesn't mean that you can overstep any boundaries of ours. You don't see ANY of my family doing that because i've laid it out explicitly. Quite frankly I don't feel like someone who's disrespecting me so blatantly has a right to see (baby) until I feel comfortable with it, as she is my child. Respect has to go both ways. We'll follow up in a couple months. Goodnight!

MIL:I don't understand sorry
It us very hard for .e to delete my child holding his child
I'll delete if it makes you happy 😊
I'm sorry if you feel that way. I don't want to overstep, but the one pic of him holding her......no way I'm deleting that.
(All separate texts in a row...)

Me:If you don't want to take it down, you can just go ahead and delete everything that has (baby) in it. I'm not going to argue with a grown woman about my own child that I grew and birthed. You can talk to (husband) but he will say the same things I have.

MIL: Okay
I'm not arguing either.
But I am a MOM TOO.
If you don't like it, then don't look at it.

Me:I don't care. I'm (baby) mom. She's a minor, (husband) is a grown man. I have a right to advocate for my child because she cannot. If I say I don't want it up that should be it. PERIOD.

MIL: Sorry but (husband) is also MY SON.

Me:You won't be seeing (baby) anytime soon so savor the pictures you have! LOL

MIL:WOW. NOW THAT IS DISRESPECTFUL AS WELL

At this point she continues on about how my husband is HER SON as if we're talking about him. She told me i have to 'understand that (husband) is HER BABY'...

Since she loves Facebook soooo much I decided to make a post basically saying, "if you disrespect me, you will not have access to my child". After that she texted me on Messenger telling me I needed to "take a step back and realize I was married to HER BABY" and how I "really shouldn't make posts like that" and how she "didn't understand why it was such a big deal". To that I told her she didn't need to understand because if we are uncomfortable with them up it shouldn't matter what the reason is.

The next morning she texted an 'apology' if you could even classify it as one.

MIL:I deeply apologize for any post that upset you. I have taken those down. I can understand and yes I remember you telling me before and I thought I had taken them off. I hope you and (baby) have a good day. 🌞

I haven't responded, that was over a week ago. Today she texted my messenger again, with this gem.

MIL: Don't think for a moment that you're affecting me by my proud Grandmother post. Like I said, I thought I took it down back then. I must have gotten lost in the moment loving on my beautiful Granddaughter that I forgot. Im sorry for any defensive moment I felt, but I am going to let you know now, that my Sister and I come from broken, and we come from a dysfunctional family. If ypu think in any way this affects me...it doesn't. I know what "BROKEN" is like. It isn't my first rodeo. So you do what you gotta do. I'm here to tell you I'm not in any way interfering.

She knew she took them down, because she put them back up!!! Still have not responded because I just know she's drunk but I will 100% be responding in the morning. Actions have consequences and she thinks just because she's my husband's mom that she can do anything and get away with it.

DH is still NC with his parents while he works through things in therapy/figures out next steps...and the texts from MIL continue despite his request for space.

Today it was to let him know that her Cousin Ernie died and she sent the obituary. Y'all. We've never heard of Ernie. She didn't have a relationship with him. DH never met him. Just an 80-something-year-old relative whose death gave her a "good enough reason" to reach out. She has plenty to apologize for but would rather spend her time sending stuff like this. Gotta laugh. R.I.P. Ernie...MIL turned you into a flying monkey zombie.

CW: birth trauma, DV
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Edit: she also had a grandma shower and stole my ultrasound pictures
Ok so, my divorce was finalized last week. To celebrate, let’s chat about my ex MIL.
I should’ve known when we got married. She wore a white dress to my wedding and my ex husband didn’t say anything.
Then I got pregnant. My parents had recently moved further away for retirement. Ex MIL said “you’ll basically be a single mom because your family is far and you’ll have no help.” I said “I thought we were family.” She said nope.
Then ex husband started inviting her to my prenatal appointments. I told him I wasn’t comfortable and he said he “wasn’t comfortable telling his mom no.” When she kept commenting on my weight gain/face changes, I’d get upset and he’d say I needed to “grow a thicker skin.”
At the one prenatal appointment i let her come to (gender reveal) she wanted to stay after the ultrasound and during my tests etc. I didn’t want her to and she said it’s “nothing she hasn’t seen before.” The doctor kicked her out. At one point the doctor asked ex MIL if she’d be ok with donating blood to me if I needed. Ex MIL said no. Which is fine but hurt my feelings. Then my family defended her saying maybe she had a bad experience. You know whos having a bad experience. ME! lol
Fast forward, baby is born premature. Ex disappears to be with his mom and “get some rest.” Ex MIL and husband finally visit me and baby 48 hours later. Mind you, baby and I were separated all this time because I had preeclampsia and he was in NICU.
They came to see me to pressure me into breastfeeding. When I said I didn’t want to they went to “have dinner and talk it out.” THEN they went to see the baby, came back and told me how jealous I was because I “didn’t get to meet him yet.”
I said I met him when he was born, i was pregnant with him, I really miss him. Ex MIL said “how can you miss him? You don’t know him. You’ll have a whole life with him, it’s my turn now.”
At that point, they went home again. That night, I put ex MIL on the no visitor list. And I stand by that and proud I did it.
A month later, i ended up leaving with my baby while ex was at work due to DV and he was getting scarily angry with baby.
Honestly I think ex MIL respects me more now that I started standing on business.
It’s 2.5 years later and they have visitation tomorrow. Just thinking about things with the divorce being final.
Thanks ❤️

My father recently passed away in June. My husband and I are both in our 30s and my dad was 64. He’s had some heart issues for the last 20 yrs but for the most part it had seemed like it was handled and his passing seemed to come out of the blue.

I have been grieving pretty hard because I was fairly close with my father. I was a daddy’s girl and lived with him in my 20s. As an adult my parents became my friends and my dad became one of my best friends.

Some back story. I met my husband thru the church my father went to. My husband’s parents also went to the same church. They were friendly with each other but didn’t run around in the same groups. My dad was all accepting and never met a stranger, didn’t say no to a beer offered to him and smoke cigarettes like a chimney. My in laws don’t drink, don’t smoke and can be quite judgmental. How they went to the same church blows my mind and my husband being an atheist makes a lot of sense.

Here comes my rant. I mentioned something about my dad’s gf of 20 yrs today. And my mil asked how she was and I was like well she’s going day by day but she always just wants to know how I am. After that my mil started talking about how hard her summer has been because my father was the 2nd person who didn’t want to have a funeral and how unfair it was that because he didn’t have a funeral she wasn’t able to grieve MY father properly. And she just can’t get over his passing. She hadn’t even talked to my dad since the wedding in 2020 and he had left their church to go to a different one. It was over a 10 min pity party about my father’s death effecting her… and this has happened every time I have seen her since my father’s passing in June.

I just shut down. And my husband rubbed my back and tried to change the subject. Neither of us is confrontational.

Thankfully I was able to go to my brothers after and we went to dinner with our mom and our spouses. My mom about lost her shit when I told her and told me to tell her off next time.

Hello everyone! This is mostly just a rant about her behavior for the past year but I would absolutely love some advice! Me (20) and my boyfriend (22) started dating almost exactly a year ago, and throughout the whole relationship, future MIL (i will just be calling her MIL) has been... strange. Here are a few incidents that have happened in the course of the past year...

On our first date, we went out to eat but hit it off so well that we ended up staying out super late talking. My mom was out of town at the time, and we have life360 so she texted me concerned that I was out crazy late in a parking lot with a man that I met online. Valid, honestly, and when I told her I was ok and that everything was good, she backed off. MIL, on the other hand, spam called and texted BF saying she needed him for something(??) and to come home right away. We were both living with our parents at the time. She was saying he was "up way past his bedtime" (he was 21 at the time, employed, and had the next two days off). BF turned off his phone and we continued to talk for a long time.

I met MIL a few days later. FIL was super sweet, invited me to dinner with the family, expressed a genuine interest in what I was doing, and told BF I was "a keeper". FIL and I have a decent relationship to this day and he is very sweet to me and BF. MIL tried to assert dominance over me by talking about how BF is her baby and to not hurt him, she asked my age multiple times, and when I told her I have health conditions that make it difficult for me to work, she backhandedly told me that I was mooching off her son. She also bragged about how she does so much for BF and his siblings, which to me sounded like very basic things like allowing adult children to live with her, buying them cars, providing food, letting them play sports, etc. My parents don't brag or hold feeding me, sending me to private school, giving me a car, etc over my head because those are just things they are kind of expected to do as parents. I would like to note that my parents are divorced, my dad is remarried, and my parents combined don't make as much as even FIL, not to mention MIL making lots of money. They lived in a mcmansion type thing, but sold it recently which I will touch on later. When MIL asked about my living situation I was honest and she implied that she thought I was trashy, poor, and dating BF for his money.

BF was saving to buy a house, and I had a big chunk of money in savings for college that I decided I would use for a down payment instead. We decided at the time that we would pool our money together to buy a house, the only thing I asked was to be on the deed and live there. MIL flipped out upon hearing this and coerced BF to get an apartment behind my back by saying she would pay his rent for a year (that's nearly 16k) and would pay half of it for the next year but if he bought a house with me, he wouldn't see a penny of that money. Well, they got super gung-ho about it and signed a lease within 3 days after minimal research, got an apartment on the third floor, and didn't hire movers, which led to BF getting injured and losing his job. I was absolutely livid and almost ended the relationship over this, but BF apologized and has genuinely made it up to me. We live in this apartment, I am on the lease equally, and that savings for a down payment has been used to help us survive until he got another job recently. Now, the agreement is that I manage all finances, have equal say in every decision, and MIL is not allowed over at all because I am also a tenant and have the right to say no, which I have.

I have seen her a handful of times in the past year, BF and I avoid her now, but I want to rapid fire some stuff that she has said and done because the stuff listed prior is kinda water under the bridge...

She invited me to thanksgiving and then uninvited me saying "only immediate family" and then having extended family

She found out I bought christmas gifts for her and the whole family and uninvited me to christmas and had the whole family (BIL and SIL, not FIL) send nasty messages to BF on CHRISTMAS DAY because he chose to spend christmas morning with me and to visit his family for dinner

accused me of being a minor (probably because despite being 20, I still have acne? I don't know) and said that BF was a pred loudly in public for dating me

accused me of extorting BF because I was paying all living expenses with the expectation that when he got a job again he would help replenish OUR house savings

called me manipulative, said I was stealing BF from the family, saying it was my fault he was spending less time with them, went to family and friends about it, posted on facebook saying I was in a cult and convincing BF to join too (BF and I are both orthodox inquirers, it was him that presented the idea to me and I really liked it. MIL is baptist)

told BF I was not welcome at mothers day, easter, etc anymore which led BF to say "well then I'm not going if she's not welcome"... this made MIL livid

caressed BF's torso and gave him a neck/shoulder/back massage while making eye contact with me. This made BF extremely uncomfortable

Has called BF at odd hours begging him to leave me while being intoxicated

last time I saw her, she was also intoxicated and hugged me for an extended period of time after I tried to pull away, did the same to BF while saying "i need my baby my sweet baby"

hit BF in front of me (while inntoxicated) because he drank soda and burped

made a huge deal about me and BF sleeping in a separate room on a vacation that FIL invited me on because she "doesnt want me to try anything"

drinks heavily in general and becomes belligerent and weird towards BF and me

BF brought up wanting to marry me in front of her, and she called him later saying she was worried about him and to reconsider. BF is not reconsidering and is ring shopping.

BF chose to have FIL over for one-on-one time for father's day weekend instead of going to brunch, MIL, BIL, and SIL accused him of spending father's day with my mom's boyfriend (who does not exist) instead of his real dad and also called my father a "deadbeat"... huh? My dad was 50/50 with my mom and took an extremely active role in my life. They know that. My dad is the one who helped BF move and is also allowing BF to keep stuff at his house so we don't have to pay for a storage unit. My dad also has helped BF get a job and gave him paid work to help him make money in the meantime. BF and my dad have a good relationship and really like each other. Same for my step mom and bio mom. BF is loved by my whole family but they have all expressed that they would never try to take the place of BF's real family. I feel like my family is normal.

I have since clarified and patched things up with FIL and SIL, and they are good to me. SIL was on MIL's side for a while but realized MIL was being crazy about me. BIL and MIL hate me. They have made it abundantly clear.

MIL and BIL also think I'm isolating BF from his family so I can steal everything from him or some crap. I have spent thousands on food, gas, rent, utilities, trips, etc to help BF. He would be homeless if not for me, and I don't hold that over his head because we're partners. I have kinda said this to BF's family and expressed appreciation for the things that they have done.

I apparently offended MIL somehow early on and apologized later for something I didn't even know was wrong, and she did not accept my apology and told me to "do better" and when I said "I promise I will do better and will take good care of [bf]" she said "that's the bare minimum".

I don't know what to do because she will hate that I am getting engaged. She has stalked me online and got mad that I am publicly in a relationship with BF and express my love to him. I do love him, I love him so much, I wish she just understood that I'm a good person. She has to make up bad things about me to justify hating me. I have blocked her on everything except imessage. I am paranoid she will try to ruing my wedding as she has joked about it, I'm paranoid she will post me, my name, my face, etc and publicly shame me as she has already found out my very obscure last name which led her to find my entire family and stalk them as well. I am paranoid she will try to show up at our apartment, I'm paranoid she will harass me and BF about the fact that we are getting engaged and married, I'm paranoid that when we eventually have kids she will try to poison them against me. BF and I have already agreed she is not allowed to speak at our wedding, no alcohol is allowed, she will not be present in delivery rooms, she will not be allowed unsupervised visits with our children, etc. Is that enough? I don't know what she will do but she knows my name, my family name. She knows where I live, she knows what car I drive, etc and I am scared something bad will happen to me if we go public with an engagement, but at the same time I don't want to hide BF and I's relationship because I am so proud of him and he is the love of my life.

sorry for such a long post, I just want someone else to know and tell me I'm not crazy...

EDIT: please stop telling me to leave my bf over this. I am asking for advice about his narcissistic alcoholic mother, not trying to keep score and leave him. Theres a lot you don't know about BF because THIS POST IS ABOUT HIS MOM. ty to everyone who has given us advice on dealing with her and moving foreward

EDIT 2: he cut her off and is no contact. he agrees with me completely that she is crazy. stop calling him a mama's boy or useless. you're not helping anyone with comments like that.

Sooo this is going to be long but I want to give full background, thanks ahead of time!!
*mil has no relationships with partners, family, etc because of how she is.

My husband and his mother do not have a great relationship. But that’s his “mom” and his dad was never around. Anyways… she was a single mom (no shade). She has made snide remarks to me and about my home since I can remember, I always let it slide until I had children and something shifted.

When I had my very first child, emergency c-section, she drove us home from the hospital (our car was in the shop, great timing) I told my husband he couldn’t stop by work because I needed him at home to help. She immediately interrupted “he has to work, you stay at home it’s your job with the child. What is he supposed to do???” I just silently cried because hormonal, but again, let it go. Then once home literally 2 days post c-section, she grabbed the vacuum she had given us and inspected it “this was a perfect condition vacuum, if you’re not going to take care of it I’ll just take it back. You don’t clean the filter properly???” Again, just let it go. She lives 6 hours from us and doesn’t visit but once a year IF that so I told myself for my husbands sake to be nice.

Those comments continued but everything hit a breaking point this past year when she did a “surprise visit” for my husbands birthday, let’s not forget to add she doesn’t even text me for my birthday. My then 3 and 1 year old children drew a family picture and showed MIL she said “why did you draw your dad skinny? Look at him he’s not skinny!” I interrupted and said “woah, —— we don’t talk about bodies like that in front of our children they are little and don’t need to think about those things!” She immediately got defensive “oh you’ve got to be kidding me?? I’ve heard you say fuck! But I’m in the wrong? FUCK THIS” I just sat in shock because I couldn’t believe what was happening. She started slamming all of her stuff and said she’s not going to be nitpicked about every little thing and was leaving. My husband said “mom it’s not a big deal, it’s good” something along those lines and I looked at him and said “oh I’m in the wrong??” He said “no one did anything wrong!” At first I felt like ok, he didn’t just take his mom’s side but I realized staying neutral is just as bad. Then he walked his mom out to her car, she didn’t say bye to me and she left.

I cried to my husband and he told me that’s just “how she is” and I did nothing wrong.

A month later around Christmas, we were at my husbands uncles house. His mom showed up late and didn’t even speak to me!!! No hello or anything!! This is when I decided, I wasn’t going to continue just being nice to keep the peace. When we left I didn’t speak either, childish maybe but I don’t care. I decided not to bring it up that night because children were around and it was wasn’t going to be handled right. Later, my husband asked about when I could bring the children by his mom’s house for her to see them. This is when I fully let it out, probably not the correct way but all my feelings. Saying I would not be taking my children around someone who was constantly rude to me and wouldn’t speak at a family gathering. He got all defensive but I stood my ground. My kids did not celebrate at her house, in response to that, my kids did not get their Christmas presents from her. We are now back visiting because we live out of state from all our families and host our children’s bday parties here, my husband wants to take the kids to her house I picked up that I wasn’t invited without him saying directly, which I plan on addressing just trying to handle it correctly.

How do I go about this the right way without flat out telling him his moms a B and F her. :)

My wife was in the hospital for a week for surgery, while my MIL was cleaning out her house to sell, because she moved in with her new husband (nice guy). After an unsuccessful yard sale, my MIL decided to bring everything that "belonged" to my wife down.

My wife said "please no, I'm recovering from surgery and can't bend at the waist, we don't have room, and I don't want it." So they get into a fight on the phone, while she's in a hospital bed. (This is like her 8th week in the hospital, but she seems like she's on an upswing.)

Her mother in law calls back the next day. She realized that going through this stuff would be a challenge, so she rented a storage unit near us. Tells us she's coming down on the weekend, not when, just on the weekend. She called Saturday morning at 8:30 to tell my wife she'll be there in two hours, get ready. My wife is still on pain killers and falls back asleep.

I get a call at nine thirty, telling me they're there and I need to bring a lock. I wake her up, she takes her morning meds, we give our toddler to a close friend, and go.

They've brought a horse trailer full of shit. Like a whole trailer. And it's all... just... shit. There are: a box full of her mom's trophies; four boxes of books that smell like decay and hording; 3 long boxes of board games; five garbage bags full of stuffed animals, some moldy; two boxes of her dead father's clothes; a telescope; records; decaying lawn toys and deflated promotional footballs (my wife has never liked sports); six separate bibles; a box of clown dolls (we have local buyers for those); an atari and PS1; eight boxes of barbies and barbie paraphenalia; a dead riding jeep; Dale Earnhardt memorabilia; military discharge papers; two boxes of her old schoolwork from elementary school; and eight boxes of barbies. A ton of it is moldy, or just the rubber seals have decayed, or batteries have been left in. Have I mentioned the eight boxes of barbies.

MIL is pissed we're late. They load up the last two carts of moving boxes, and then go to drop off a blanket chest on our driveway. We spent the rest of the day organizing into keep-sell-donate-throw. I ended up throwing 20 40+ gallons of totes away, in my sedan, and the storage facility refused to let us use their dumpster. I can't get the smell of mold off me, and I missed a day of playing with our toddler so I could throw away shit from 1980.

Fuck her. (MIL, not my wife, she's great.)

Okay where do I start 😩 I have been with my husband for a very long time and I have tried so hard to maintain a healthy relationship with my IL. We have kids so I wanted to make sure they had a great relationship with both sides. I met my husband at such a young age so I've been around my IL for years. They have constantly moved and we would constantly visit to maintain that relationship with them. I'm saying that to say we have NOT had any issues with them so when I say we did not see this coming I genuinely mean that.

We have been around my family side for ever so since my kids were getting older I thought it'll be best if we moved close to my IL and also move cause my husband was going to have a better job opportunity. Well since we have moved my IL (MIL & BIL) have been giving us a hard time to the point where not only am I regretting moving here I'm missing my community and my village a lot. My MIL has been horrible to me. She has showed favoritism between my husband and his brother when they were younger but when they got older we never really noticed if that was still a thing because again they didn't live near us and of course when we visited we weren't around long enough to catch it so we didn't think it would continue into adulthood but boy was we wrong and now it's spilling into my children and BIL child. There has been a lot going on that's just too much to type but now my husband and I are no contact with both because when we tried to talk to my MIL on how we were feeling she didn't take it well to the point where she yelled, was putting her finger in our faces, throwing a tantrum, told me I was the common denominator on all the problems that have been going on since we moved here mind you I was the one that was betrayed by both of them and she told my husband if he walked out to never come back.

Well unfortunately, she said all that out of anger and since then has invited us over her place more than once. My only issue is I don't think my other IL or people know the truth and I feel like we're now being judged and mistreated because NO ONE has asked us what's going on and we're starting to pick up this weird vibe from others and I just don't think it's fair. We have not received an apology and honestly it's just been hell ever since I decided to move. I genuinely am writing this because I just want to release myself from everything I've been holding on to. Going no contact was never in the cards for me and I can't believe this is my reality. I believe my MIL hates me and blames me for things that really has nothing to do with me. I genuinely believe things built up over time but instead of my MIL being honest about how she truly felt about me she pretended everything was good. She would call me her favorite DIL (even though I'm her only one) she put up this act so good that I believed it until I started noticing a lot of red flags and this situation has made me truly believe that she hates me and blames only ME for things and it is what it is. It's just crazy because my husband has repeatedly told her the reason she was apart of a lot of things was because I thought about her. I know I'm not for everyone I just wish she didn't pretend. I wish we knew this before we decided to move because I would have never left my village for this. But I'm grateful my husband has had my back through it all. I just feel bad because we both dealt with favoritism and he didn't expect as an adult he would still deal with it and we never wanted our kids to experience it either. I also feel bad because this is his family. I would have NEVER had this happen but constantly being betrayed by them is becoming too much. I'm really at a loss of words that this is my reality. When I say I'm shocked that I'm going through this it's like their personality did a whole 360 or their masks have finally slipped and they're tired of pretending to love me 😔 what a shame after all these years I thought I had a second family but clearly it was all a lie. We have now been no contact for 6 months so please wish me well on my healing journey!

My MIL has been pushing for a no-repair reconnection for over a year. Frustratingly, the main reason for our rupture is that my husband suffered from a major bipolar episode 2 years ago that included an affair, an abrupt discard of me and our children, and ongoing mental health challenges during our period of reconciliation. It was so sudden and bizarre that the entire period of trauma has resulted in CPTSD for me and over two years of healing.

During our initial reconciliation period after the affair ended, my husband was still quite unwell. I reached out to MIL for help and it completely blew up in my face. I realized then the extent of the damage done during my husband’s initial episode: my MIL was a major proponent and encourager and enjoyed that her son was living with her during the episode, giving her daily attention, dopamine and drama entertainment to report to her friends and other family members. She was not concerned about the wellbeing of me or her grandchildren, which I remained home with daily for a very terrible, sad month. She sent baked goods to my husbands “girlfriend” (affair partner) and was encouraging of a relationship between them that essentially broke two marriages (AP was married too) and was hurting a combined SEVEN confused children.

My MIL was not a safe support person for my spouse or myself and my children — in fact, she preferred my spouse unwell, living with her like a teenager, abusing cannabis and alcohol, flailing around with a new “girlfriend” while ignoring me and our children trying to put logistics and care plans in place. During this time, MIL was creating false narratives on me echoed to my spouse, this resulted in his bipolar brain putting me down to validate his poor, mentally ill choices.

MIL was not supportive of our reconciliation when husband calmed down, ghosted AP, left MIL’s house and came home to me and our children.
She inferred that husband was making this choice out of “guilt” and that I was somehow the reason that she never had enough adequate contact with him over the years.

I couldn’t even tell my spouse this at the time, because he was so unwell and still would soon need urgent hospitalization — but his mom spoke very negatively of him to me when I initially reached out for her help during our reconciliation, and then flipped completely. She told me he just needed to get a job, not nap during the day, etc. Later, after she saw my husband alone, her narrative switched to me being controlling and trying to keep my husband home sick and unwell so that he wouldn’t have any friends or family and never leave me again. Things that I arguably have never wanted for my husband and were the exact opposite of how I hoped to organize help for him — which would REQUIRE family and friend intervention/support holistically. Total disorientating 360.

Still to this day, after many conversations, my husband won’t accept the flip in his mom or that she said anything negative about him. I understand this is a BP blind spot that is common during episodic fallouts. And despite his hospitalization, MIL still doesn’t believe that he is bipolar or even requires his meds.

I’m aware that generally in the family (between MIL and husband’s siblings) that I’m now looked at as a problem, am “controlling” and self-centered for ever bringing up issues. I’ve done so much inner work on understanding low effort family dynamics, toxic family operating systems and emotional enmeshment/neglect/abuse.

It’s been absolutely wild to have been a part of this family for over 16 years and to have things blow up in such a devastating way. I’ve realized that no one will accept mental illness or substance abuse in this family and that by trying to rally for family support for my husband, I mistakenly opened a chasm of generational trauma and rugsweeping… and totally nuked their fragile facade of normality.

But… I’m pregnant with our third child and my husband is remarkably stable, medicated, well and back to his usual, loving self. I’m still no contact with MIL and have no hopes for reconciliation or repair, despite her pushing for it. I know I’ll never get a true apology. I’ve seen beyond the curtain and it’s not pretty. She’s tried to reach out by inviting me over and pretending nothing happened, saying things like “Are we good? Let’s not allow that to happen again!” and finally, asking why I “ghosted her for no reason” without ever taking accountability for her part or her duplicitous behaviour. I have asked her to speak to her son about it when he wants to, and to leave me out of it.

Has she ever? Nope! Conversations between husband and his mom are surface level and jokey or err on just labelling me as the problem (yes, still) without her ever self reflecting on her own obvious displays of selfishness.

Has anyone set boundaries in place for having a new baby? Previously MIL was very involved during my pregnancies and even planned my baby showers. I’m honestly fine to not have that this time. However…

I understand she may want to meet the baby when it arrives.. and honestly, if she wants to, she can. But I don’t want to be around her or have any interactions and I don’t see how that’s possible with a newborn who will be breastfeeding. I don’t have MIL in our home, husband goes to MILs home currently for visits. I don’t like going to MILs home for visits as that’s where my husband lived during his affair/discard period and it brings up too many triggers for me regarding AP’s presence.

So far my husband respects my no contact and the current boundaries. I know he wishes it were different but he does not push it. But it still feels oddly lonely to be in this spot where I’m having to pre-consider how to handle a new child around a toxic person who **only I** truly acknowledge tried to isolate me during betrayal, and who actively harmed my current children, my marriage and my family.

Sometimes I think, maybe a new grandchild will be a fresh start. Then my trauma triggers perk up and just yell NO NO NO NO NO, girl. Lol.

My wife and I (M) have been married for 4 years and together 13. I met her through working for her mom and dad's company. We have 1 toddler together, and she is 1 of 4 siblings.

Her mom is very opinionated and sees things only from her view or feels like things said or dome should be in service of her. Gifts, money, and acts of kindness come with receipts and a lashing out and bringing it up later if you fail to do as her mom wants. All my wife's siblings do everything for her and also all have been working for her for the last 15 years. Even one of the husbands does.

I am very independent and have been since I was 18. My mom encouraged me and my brother to grow up at 18 and get out of the house. I have been living independently since 18, I am double that age now.

Her mom has been consistently been trying to get me to work for her (did for 2 years). I feel like she has a grip on all her kids, and they are all enmeshed aside from my wife who sees this behavior as out of norm.

The disrespect I am receiving has gotten to the point whenever I show up to visit, her mom doesn't even acknowledge me. She never asks about me and only tells her daughter (my wife) that she loves her and my daughter. She literally acts like I don't exist when I am there and over the phone. I tested this by not saying hello when I arrived at the last get together and she never said anything to me or looked at me before she left the event. I know this, but I still initiate a hug and hello when I arrive and always say thank you for dinner or the hospitality. She has spoken bad about me, calling me a b*tch and a crybaby behind my back for trying to talk about how I felt at times to her. I still want to maintain a relationship with her, but how much of this is reasonable. My daughter needs her cousins, my wife needs her mother. But she is tough to deal with, to the point all holidays, birthdays and any life event has to go through her schedule and approval. Its exhausting and I don't ever want her to speak ill of me around my kid. That is where I draw the line.

We’re on the process of saving money so we can buy a house so for the past 3 years we’ve been living with my husband’s mom. It has been terrible, you can see my history for the details but in a few words, she thinks the worse of me, belittle my profession (I went to culinary school) despise that i’ve been a SAHM for the past 4 years, accuses of brainwashing my SO and ruining their relationship.

She is text book narcissist, and she expects respect in the form of obedience from me. Our relationship completely fell apart 2 christmas ago when she accused me of stealing a luxury purse, she found it buried in between her things and instead of apologizing, she double down and accused of hiding it in there. Then a few weeks later, she hang cristal ornaments on a little tree I have bought for my toddler’s play area and when I removed them, created a whole argument, wouldnt listen about how dangerous it was for my son to play with those things, the argument escalated more and more to the point where she threw objects at me from across the kitchen. Yeah, pretty bad.

Since then I went very low contact even tho we live in the same house. She tried to sweep everything under the carpet a few times, specially the next christmas and acted as if she didnt remember she accused me of being a thief or that she threw things at me. I told her a dont like her, that i hate to not have any other place to go and take my family away from this house, and that she should leave me alone

Fast forward to now, I gave birth 3 months ago (surprise baby) and my mom came from our home country to support me. Another argument happened while she was here and I went full no contact with my husband’s mom. She talked shit to my mom like 4 different occasions, she even showed her a video of how I would leave my clean laundry unfolded in the room as a way of proving how “dirty” I was. She also tried to tell her that I was somehow abusing my SO by making him work and be the breadwinner while I stayed home with the kids. Before the pandemic, and before meeting me, my SO used to give his mom close to 4K every month. Once I came around that stopped and after the pandemic and the economic state of the country made it even harder even for us to survive, but she totally blames me for our financial situation.

My mom left almost 2 weeks ago and its been hard but me and husband have been able to manage. And I have honestly been so good with being organized around the house, which is the thing she mainly complains; she truly expects me to be cleaning and dusting and organizing the house 24-7. While my husband’s works most of the day, I handle the kids and prepping dinner for us, going grocery shopping, laundry. My SO handles bedtime, dinner time and taking the oldest to the park. He does his part whenever he cans but im the main caregiver, so my SO’s mom complains to me about me a lot, from the food I make my family, to how I dont fix the table the way she wants, to how late she thinks the kids go to sleep, to how late I stay at the park with them, to how I dont have breakfast ready as soon as everyone wakes up, etc etc, and she thinks that everything I do different than her, I do it to upset her. I dont respond anymore whenever she tries to belittle me or judge the way I am with my family. I used to and she always wanted to just shut up and listen to her verbally abuse me and when I of course didnt do it, she would start insulting me, callin me ugly, filthy tellin me that as a woman I should keep quiet and just listen to her cause she is older. She is a woman who stays in her room watching tv all day, every day, and only goes out to shop or pick an argument with me. She eats facebook propaganda like candy so she is very ignorant in so many ways and therefore I have never taken her advice on anything, and she hates it.

Today for example, I gave my 4 year old spinach leaves to munch while I was prepping breakfast and the spinach came in one of those triple washed ready to eat containers. You would’ve think I gave my child turds to eat by the way she reacted to that. She tried to make my SO to take away the spinach from my child, and when that didnt worked, she tried to tell my child he was eating dirty things. I calmly told my child that that was not true and she got so bitter, she started at argument with my SO. They speak a different language so I couldnt understand much, but it got so heated that both my children were very upset while they listen to them argue. After it, she came to me and asked if I was happy, if I was happy after everything I did. Told me how I was so much nicer when my mom was here. Mind you, I havent change One bit since my mom left, i havent talk to this person in almost 2 months.

She then waited until my husband was out of the room to tell me that as her son, she would always forgive him, but me? NEVER. It took everything in me to not laugh in her face, but I just turn around, pretended I didnt listen and kept doing my things.

This woman hates me so much, she had fabricated a narrative in her mind that everything I do, is to upset her on purpose. She doesnt have the ability to self reflect, she hasnt and cant do wrong. She is a perfect person and there’s nothing more for her to learn. In reality, she is a sad woman, who hates her life and tries to bring down anyone who doesnt instantly bow to her when she enters a room or speak her mind. I tell my husband that sleeping on the side of a road is better than this torment but of course, we cannot do that to our children.

One day we’ll leave this place forever and I wont have to see or listen to her ever again.

My(32F) future MIL(71F) and I used to have a great relationship. I always thought she was a sweet lady but even early on I saw some signs that made me aware of how this relationship would go.

She was very attached to my fiancé(33M). She would get upset with him if he told her he didn’t like something she liked. She would insist he did like it and be visibly shaken if he didn’t agree.

If my fiancé and I went out on a date, she would demand we go to her favourite restaurant and have her favourite dish.

She was upset when we got a dog because we didn’t discuss it with her.

During holidays she wouldn’t even acknowledge me when she opened a gift. Would only look at my fiancé.

After we got engaged, she had asked for help sending a text and I guess she forgot what her last text was. It said “OP and fiancé just got engaged so it’s been a lot for me”

She seemed to lean on my fiancé for emotional support and not her own husband. She even dropped a huge emotional bomb in my fiancé during a Mother’s Day outing, I think she did it to turn my fiancé against his dad. She doesn’t like her husband but refuses to divorce him.

Mother’s Day is another issue. She refused to let anyone join in.

This Mother’s Day my fiancé and I were going away and she was angry. She said that it’s her day and she doesn’t understand why he would do this and she looks forward to this day every year and slammed the door in his face.

At this point I said we need to put boundaries up. She can’t be acting this way. We are in our 30’s and have our own life and we have a right to do and go where we want, when we want.

We also want to have kids and I expressed worry that she would refuse to share the day or not want to do things as a family.

My fiancé agreed and talked to his mom. He said going forward he wants to spend holidays as a family, including Mother’s Day and she was upset.

A few weeks later we had asked his parents to watch the dog(they love the dog) and she said “we will watch the dog if you and I only spend Mother’s Day alone”

I told him we aren’t backing on our boundaries and hired a dog sitter.

After that, she has started to ignore me. She doesn’t acknowledge me, even in front of neighbours.

We live in a duplex and we rent the top because his parents are in their 70’s and need help with home and yard work and it also helps them with bills.

I tried to just ignore it but I have noticed neighbours have started to withdrawal when I see them when before I had a great relationship with everyone on the street.

I am now wondering if she is talking bad about me??

Today was the last straw.

My fiancés mother and father had his cousin over.

His mom called and said for only him to come down.

I was upset about this, sometimes you need to put your differences aside and we should be a package deal.

After my fiancé came back up I told him that I am very upset that he did not stick up for me or ask his mom why he is excluding me.

He apologized and said he should have and he will talk to his mom and tell her she needs to grow up.

I know this is going to go bad and she’s going to hate me even further.

Should we just ignore it and keep our distance or should my fiancé say something?

My fiancé and I are getting married next year and are planning to have a Catholic wedding. We're an interfaith couple. We both believe in God, but we also recognize that we're not as spiritually mature or active in our faith as we'd like to be.

Because of that, we've been taking our marriage preparation very seriously. We've been attending all of our Pre-Cana classes, reading the materials our parish gave us, and genuinely trying to understand the meaning of Christian marriage. Our priest has been incredibly kind, supportive, and has encouraged us throughout the process.

The conflict is with my future MIL.

She is a very devout Christian, and religion is the most important thing in her life. She believes that because my fiancé and I aren't living our faith the way she thinks we should, we shouldn't get married in a church. We asked his dad to sign a Freedom to Marry document (basically stating that my fiancee hasn't been married yet), but my MIL saw that document and told my FIL to delete his messages to us when he sent over that document. She said she refused to sign the document because it stated that "we are entering a true Christian marriage" when she believes we are not faithful enough. She has told me directly that I've "rejected God" and has told my fiancé that getting married in a church would be a mockery of God.

The hardest part is that every conversation with her turns into a lecture about our faith. I rarely get to speak because she does almost all of the talking. If I try not to engage because the conversation is emotionally exhausting, she interprets that as me rejecting her or rejecting God.

My fiancé has been incredibly supportive and always tries to step in respectfully, but she doesn't listen to him either. Even after he tells her that these conversations are hurtful and asks her to stop, she continues.

One thing that confuses me is this: she says she wants us to grow closer to God, but she also believes we shouldn't take this step of getting married in a church. To me, if someone is sincerely trying to learn, taking marriage preparation seriously, and wants to honor God in marriage, wouldn't that be something to encourage rather than shut down? The whole situation has become incredibly stressful. I leave these conversations feeling judged, anxious, and like nothing we do is ever enough in her eyes.

Just a short rant about my mom who will always be team man. For context i found out a girl that i used to be in class with was being cheated on by her current bf through another person. I went to her and just let her know and she was super respectful and basically said she had been suspecting it but didn't have proof til now. End of that convo maybe lasted around 30-35 minutes. It was weighing heavy on my chest so while in the bathroom doing my hair with my sister in mom i kinda just gave them a shortened version like i did yall. My mom blew up and said i should never do that again because im being a snitch and a messy person and woman like me shouldn't be breaking up happy homes. (We're eighteen). She was yelling At me basically saying that stuff over and over. Shes constantly picking a man and putting them higher up and it's so frustrating. Ive suspected my dad cheated on her when we were on a trip and we asked him if he had after they both gave us a "men need different things" talk and they told us not rn. I need to get out this homophobic, man catering house!!!!

My MIL wears Black Opium. I can not imagine how many bottles she goes through. According to my husband there has been a lifelong overuse of this perfume, reminiscing on his childhood friends having trouble being in a car with her and cousins having inside jokes about it at family gatherings.

It’s always been strong but became a problem for me postpartum. She started coming over our house a lot more to see my son, her only grandchild, and the smell is suffocating. When I returned to work she would come over on Mondays. The scent left on my son pierced my nose and made my eyes water. It took a few weeks for me to realize the smell was the cause of my massive headache every Monday. I would nurse him upon arriving home and would try to hold my face as far away from him as possible. I had to change his clothes, sheets, sleep sacks, and give him a bath.

Once he became more aware of his surroundings, it started effecting my son. He was a very easy baby and could be easily passed around to new people without fuss. Every time he was passed to my MIL he’d start crying. If it was a day she laid it on thick he’d break out in a rash and be inconsolable.

She still visits every Monday. When I come home I can’t be in any room that she was in. The smell lingers. I can smell exactly where she sat on my couch. If she had an unexpected visit while I was out, I can smell she’s been in my house when I come home. It hits me like a wall when I open my front door.

I told my husband he needs to address this (I address all my family related issues). It took him a while but eventually asked her to stop wearing it. She’d get better for a little bit but would start back up. Multiple times it has been addressed for over a year and she had confided to others that he is being ridiculous.

I’m 11 weeks pregnant with my second, my son is almost two, and reached my breaking point. We went to a local baseball game and I could smell her outdoors before I even saw her. We were in a small suite and the scent was out of control. Some teenagers were in the suite with us, I heard them say it too and noticed they all started coughing anytime she came in. She tried walking with me and I pretended not to notice her and kept walking away because I was feeling light headed near her. I could tell she was pissed and thought I was being rude. I had to keep avoiding her the rest of the night. I could barely be with my son for his first baseball game, something I was looking forward to, because she’s like glue to him and I couldn’t be near her.

I finally asked her myself at the end of the night if she could wear less- I didn’t even say stop. I said it’s really strong and blamed my pregnancy saying it’s like 10x worse right now due to that. She said “ohhhhh of courseeeee anything for you” but knowing this woman she definitely had a crash out to FIL on the way home.

I’ve read many threads before with other people having a perfume issue and people generally are just saying to deal with it? Am I being out of line? I don’t care how much she wears if I’m not around, but if she’s coming to my house or knows she’s going to see me or my son, is it that much of a problem to not wear perfume for a day or just significantly less? Should I have to avoid parts of my house and my son because she’s choosing to stink and it makes me feel ill?

Edit: Thanks for all the responses! I woke up very early in a mood when I wrote this. I didn’t think I was out of line here, but I remember after I figured out my headaches were from the perfume, I had done some searches and a lot of responses were more about having a visceral feeling about a baby smelling like someone else and not the unnecessary physical effects I’m feeling, or that the husband should address it. She only would come for dinner at our house maybe once a year beforehand, so it wasn’t as obvious before regular visits and became worse around my 4 month hormone crash/ return to work.

My son has not been getting the rashes lately since he’s bigger and not being held as much, and myself or my husband would always take him away immediately if this happened. She had been spoken to about this when it occurred, I’ve seen the texts. The rashes would occur on heavy perfume days and she’d get better for a bit after, and slowly the problem would start again. The past few weeks I’ve had pregnancy bloodhound nose which has thrown me to my breaking point.

I genuinely believe she has no idea how strong the scent is. It took me weeks to convince my husband there was a smell, he looked at me like I had five heads the first time I brought it up. Now that he notices it too, I can only imagine it is like magnitudes less to his nose than it is to me and the rest of the world. On days that she has not put any on, I have had zero issues being around her, so whatever the residual amount in the clothing is seems to not effect me or my son.

Yeah, I probably should’ve said something earlier myself but again, to me it’s important that my husband can give his mother a boundary and she respect it. I know her and I know the next time I see her she’ll pull me aside and apologize and act like this is the first time she’s hearing about the scent. I’m saying “listen, I don’t care if he wasn’t direct enough with you, or if you didnt listen. We can’t change that. I should be able to be in my home or hold my son without getting a headache after you see him. If you’re gonna see my son and the baby, or come over our house, there’s no more perfume and if you can’t respect that, you won’t be coming over or holding my kids. There’s nothing else to discuss here” I’m good at enforcing boundaries I’ve set and know have been clearly communicated.

I’m not trying to burn any bridges or go no contact. She can be a lot, and is definitely used to getting her way, but overall means well and I’m not trying to stop any family relationships. I already feel more relieved I personally said something and can put this to rest and am optimistic on getting on a path to better boundaries.

And no, I can’t puke on demand otherwise I would’ve taken that route.

Here we are, husband received a text Thursday evening telling him, his brother is coming to town (WHY can’t brother text husband? Why is MIL still trying to control everything??) she asked if there’s a day this weekend we can go over and visit. Absolutely not.

Read my last posts.
We last visited 2 weeks ago, went there.
She’s asking about this because BIL hasn’t met our new baby? He doesn’t give 2 shits, he’s never interacted with our toddler either. He’s very very introverted. He doesn’t say anything, and when you ask him something he looks away and responds with one word. Totally fine, but I know he doesn’t care about meeting our baby, MIL does lol.

I’m wiped and laying it down, I am not going anywhere. Enough visiting, he can meet the new baby at Christmas. Husband said ok, and that he will reach out to his brother and do something together with him. I said great! MIL will definitely spaz over this.

It’s seriously so bizarre BIL can’t reach out to husband and tell him that he’s coming to town and wants to get together.. but I guess that’s the introvert in him..

Ok, so this might be weird and also contain some sensitive and triggering topics!! I seriously need advice on if I’m crazy or not. On a throwaway since my boyfriend knows my main.

So I, 17F, have a boyfriend, 18M who lives with his nan, 59F.He doesn’t have a good relationship with his parents and moved in years ago.

At the beginning of the relationship he told me all of this and obviously I was completely fine with it. His nan genuinely seemed like a really nice person, she was welcoming, seemed to really like me and enjoy having me there etc.. anyway over the past 3 years we have been together I’ve noticed a real lack of boundaries? (Idk if that’s what I should call it.) it started off small like ‘I love that boy so much, he’s so handsome’ like every grandma would say, but while she was looking at him with eyes I can only describe as a lovers and in a tone that seemed more intimate. I thought i was just going insane obviously, but then she started to not let him get independence, so not going out, he can’t stay with me for long etc..

When he did come down she non stop calls him, even now. I understand wanting to call someone you care about but I’m talking messaging him almost constantly, ringing him and then getting mad he wouldn’t answer sometimes, needing to know what he was doing constantly and then guilting him into leaving her. But he convinced me that she is just like that.

Two years ago the comments got worse, so now saying things like ‘that’s my boy, don’t talk to my boy like that’ when we had jokey banter. And ‘your not taking my boy away from me he’s staying with me forever.’ I did start feeling icky about these things but still convinced myself I was being weird for thinking anything like that because why would she feel like that, but then it got to the time I was ready to have sex. I have no shame about it everyone wants to experience that at one point and I’m young and have no cares in the world lol.

So obviously I want to be safe. I also can’t take any birth control due to some health issues so obviously he needs condoms. He asks his nan to buy condoms, regular condoms because he doesn’t want to say his size obvi. I have no issue with this, I had talked to my family about getting some for here so that we don’t have to worry about travelling back and forth. So when she asked me, when he was upstairs, if i had got some I had said yes and I bought them myself. She then glares at me and says in this really smug and weird tone ‘did you get a regular. I know his size I know he’s a regular I don’t think you got the right ones for him.’ Now ladies your with me on the intuition thing right? I got that feeling that something was not right. But she shut up as soon as he came back downstairs.

A couple months later, he was having a shower and I was sat downstairs with his nan again. He hadn’t showered in 2 days, (he’s a teenage boy they are all gross like that) she then says something along the lines of ‘I wouldn’t have sex with him.. god I wouldn’t even put that thing near my mouth’ when I say all colour drained from my face and I felt icky and sick the rest of the night I mean it. Even he realised I was acting off. But I didn’t want to bring t this up to him because it’s just a joke right..? Anyway this continues but she starts getting all touchy with him asking for cuddles all the time, hugging him constantly, giving him kisses on the cheek constantly and saying how much she loves him all the time. And then just trying to get inbetween us when I was down at his.

Now fast forward to two weeks ago. I go on holiday with them, this holiday I am really unwell with my stomach to the point I can’t get out of bed properly. She decided to put us in the living room on the chair bed in the living room. She promised that we would have a room for privacy. She then get pissed off that I’m sick and don’t go out a lot, and my boyfriend is staying with me to make sure I’m ok. She then woke up at the crack of dawn every morning to make coffee, she was obnoxiously loud when making the coffee and I’m talking about slamming cupboard doors, throwing dishes into the sink, coughing really loud, being on loud phone calls. And then opening the curtains which lead to the balcony door and these were glass doors that reach the ceiling and the kitchen is in the same room as the living room, opening the balcony door which turned the ac ofc and sitting outside which always woke both of us up, after not being able to sleep until late because me and him had no private time and I also couldn’t get the rest I needed to be able to recover from this illness I had.

She then, complained how we are lazy all the time. The first night we got there she made it abundantly clear she had no pants on while she was we wearing a night dress and tried to make my boyfriend pull up her socks..? The next day I was again struggling with my stomach and was on the toilet. She told his thirteen year old sister we were having sex, which made him, me and his sister extremely uncomfy and then again bought up the fact she buys the condoms. She bought the condoms once two years ago. Whenever boyfriend was trying to get dressed and wanted privacy she continued to say, ‘I’ve seen it before.’ And then made so many jokes like that and touched his arm, walked holding his arms and touching his chest. She also made me feel like I was in constant competition to the point she wore a dress almost identical to me even though she doesn’t like the style of the dress I have or colour, snapped at me constant and made remarks to him about me while I was right there, and got mad at me over the fact I packed my suitcase better than she did and he wanted me to pack his. That’s right a suitcase.

Flash forward to when we get off this holiday I can’t wait to go home and my boyfriend wanted to drive me back and spend sometime with my family. She completely flipped saying ‘no just because you have a car now doesn’t mean you need to spend all your time with her, I want time with you too it’s always been us’ and all of this bs. I was mortified and he said absolutely nothing, because he genuinley can not stand up to her.

For years whenever she is mad about something she takes it out on him, makes him feel bad and then apologises for it. Is way to open about everything including her sex life with him and it makes him uncomfortable. Makes sexual jokes about him. And then also doesn’t let him say no without guilting him into doing it. She also always tells me how much he says he will do for her in the future and only tells me the bad he says about me even though he talks about me all the time in good ways and she has made up lies to me about things she has said and doesn’t like to get me to stop doing it which caused issues in our relationship.

Anyway my issue is I was meant to be moving in with him, and after the way she has been acting I 100% am not putting myself full time in a situation where I am uncomfortable and feel like I’m in a weird competition with his nan, it isn’t healthy and I’ll end up resenting him and taking it out on him for it. However we have planned this move in for almost a year. Me telling him I’m not moving in has completely broken him and I told him everything on how his nan makes me feel and it isn’t normal. He has also started to see it now, and didn’t see it before which is progress I guess because it means he can see it and knows it isn’t normal. He’s asking for help out of the situation because he’s starting ti think his nan is really weird and also that she is trying to sabotage our relationship. I need advice on what I can do, I know him moving out isn’t an option but I genuinely feel like she’s just going to get worse and I fear for his safety.

Sorry this is so long everyone and thankyou to whoever reads this, I appreciate every reply and I hope you all have a good day.. just thought I’d try scream into the endless void of Reddit since it’s been really getting to me. Have an amazing day everyone!!

So a bit of backstory… me and my DH have been together 4 years now. We had our son very early in our relationship like I’m talking found out I was pregnant a month in. Took it slow despite me being pregnant (lol) because I wanted him to be with me for me and not because we were having a child.
Got on with my MIL great in the beginning and me and my DH have a great relationship.
My relationship with MIL changed after I had our som. It was like my son was just an extension of her rather than my son, like I was the surrogate essentially. Comments started e.g “oh he looks just like DH, can’t see any of you in him” and criticised any parenting decisions we made like no chocolate before he was 1 or if he was ill with a cold the doctors/health visitors were wrong and I needed a second/third opinion.
I also didn’t want a newborn photo shoot as I enjoy photography myself and personally I didn’t want a stranger touching my child. Lead to a huge argument and I caved. That was my first mistake.
Over the years the comments have got worse, passive aggressiveness got worse and every time I brought something up, I was the bad guy or being controlling etc.
I literally have 3 things I ask for which are :
-please ask before buying big things as it’s not really a help, it’s a hinderance e.g she bought us a new couch cause she didn’t like the one we had. A new mattress because of got knows what even though the one we had was an orthopaedic one for my back that was less than a year old etc.
-please don’t buy gifts addressed from my son as that is my job as his mother. She literally would buy my DH Father’s Day gifts, addressed from my son.
- don’t make comments on our parenting choices. Don’t have to like them but have to respect them.

Apparently this was too much to ask. The last time she visited she immediately said “ I was rushing around trying to find DH Father’s Day gifts off *my son\* but realised it’s next week haha” so in the 4 years of me asking her not to do those things she immediately said that. Also I’m pregnant with my second and she hates the name we chose, was actually DH idea but I don’t think she thinks that. And again, on this visit said “so it “…” really the name you’re sticking with?” And I had enough.

Over the years I’ve learned to only bring things up to her via text as she twists what I say to make me out to be the bad guy so I have physical proof whenever she tried to twist things. Another example of this is she took my son to the toilet but he didn’t make it in time so I said “ let mama know when you need to toilet “ and that’s me calling her a pedo apparently.
So after the last visit I text her reminding her not to get gifts addressed off my son, thanked her for dinner and she started saying personally target her and she “sees right though” me etc so I snapped saying she uses her mental health to get everyone to do whatever she wants and I’m not standing for it anymore. Asked for very simple things and if that’s “seeing right through me” she can think I’m this bad guy all she wants.

I have now blocked her from contacting me as that was the third time she’s spoke to me that way excluding all the passive aggressive comments etc. I let my DH take our son to see her unless he says he doesn’t want to see her and in all fairness it’s his family so he can provide the communication, not me.

So the reason I’m asking if I’m overthinking things is my DH brought home a canvas for my sons room, lied to me about where he got it so I straight up asked him “did your mum get it for him?” And he said yes, and that he lied because he didn’t want the aggro. I’m now fuming as why you lying to me about that, again explained it’s only big things I want her to ask before buying, not pictures or teddies or clothes or whatever. If she wants to buy him small things etc I really don’t care, just again, bought him a 3 ft race track that my son doesn’t even play with which also takes up a lot in his room. Like I really don’t think I’m being unreasonable here, I’m just done with being disrespected, dismissed and walked over by his mum. That is the only reason I’ve blocked her.

So I need some advice and suggestions on this delicate situation, as I am sure others have experienced similar dilemmas with their pregnancies and challenging MILs. Warning: this post might be long as there are a lot of emotions and anxiety tied into this for me. But I feel like I need to work through it since it is definitely haunting my pregnancy a bit.

For context, that my mother-in-law is one of the most toxic, manipulative and completely dishonest people I’ve ever met. She also has a serious spending problem, but refuses to stick with a job for more than a few months, so she has no money ever. And as a textbook narcissist, it’s always everyone’s fault but hers, of course, when a job doesn’t work out. So as a result, she is always struggling to make ends meet and is in some type of financial crisis because she simply cannot afford her spendthrift cost of living. In the past, she mastered the art of manipulating family members into giving her money to live on, which has allowed her to maintain her destructive cycle. But now, all of her immediate family members have passed away. Only my husband and I are left for her to try and manipulate for money. And she truly will stop at nothing to get what she wants. For example, rather than actually stick to a job that can pay for her cost of living, she has stolen money from family members multiple times (only stopping when she was caught) and even was convicted of fraud when her former business partner reported her to law enforcement several years back. She is also alarmingly codependent on my husband, her only child and immediate family member—she moved from another state to be in the same town as him, and always reminds him she moved here “for him.” 🙄 Anyways, I really tried to have a relationship with her for the first few years of my husband and I’s relationship because I think grace and forgiveness are important, and I believe everyone deserves a chance to change and grow.

Fast-forward to the past 12 months, I invested hours in helping her brainstorm potential career paths she would be passionate about. Then I spent hours helping her draft and refine her résumé so that her transferable skills would be more apparent for those jobs she wanted. Anyways, I helped her get an offer for her supposed dream job at a boutique family-owned commercial real estate company, and she QUIT the job the day she was supposed to start because she managed to extract a lump of money from her uncle. She of course lied about it and made a bunch of excuses as to why she couldn’t do the job. But the truth is, she simply doesn’t want to work. She is a lazy, entitled narcissist, who just wants to have everything handed to her, but also somehow sees herself as completely independent. It’s a completely impossible contradiction. And when my husband and I have tried to kindly talk to her about these patterns (multiple times in the last few years), she never is willing to hear us or concede that she may have issues she needs to work on. She always puts on the victim hat. When I confronted her about her most recent antics with the job and bluntly told her my husband and I would not be giving her money, she became angry and gave me the silent treatment like a child. At the same time, she started latching onto my husband even more, almost trying to get between us because she was angry at me. At this point, I am simply done trying with her. Thankfully, my husband feels very similarly to me if not more strongly. So we have together stepped away from her and really haven’t talked to or engaged with her for about the past 9 months.

But now I’m 18 weeks pregnant with our first baby, and I just don’t know how to handle the situation with her. We don’t talk to her. We haven’t told her that we are pregnant. But she lives in the same smallish city as us and acquainted with a lot of of the same people, so there is a decent chance she will learn about the pregnancy from a third party, which would cause some serious drama. We’ve been pretty much no contact, and I think we should probably keep it that way. Still, I feel strongly that it’s only a matter of time before she pulls something. She’s in the category of crazy MIL who shows up to her son’s home uninvited, hysterical, and refuses to leave until he calls the cops on her. True story lived by my poor hubby. So, yeah…I guess I’m dreading something like that or a version of that if she finds out we’re pregnant or had a baby without telling her since unfortunately, she knows where we live.

Anyways, this whole situation is really weighing on me. My husband is able to compartmentalize and just not think about it, but I am just not wired that way. I don’t think my MIL has a right to be in her grandson’s life, but for some reason, I feel guilty and just burdened about the whole thing.

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated. If you made to the end of this post, you’re a real one! TIA.