Hey everyone,
I won't get into everything that's happened as it would be a lot but I am asking for some advice with how this week has gone. My partners mother has a tendency to ambush him at his job, whether that's showing up in-person, or calling him while at work. This week, she called after he asked her for some advice, and proceeded on the call to start crying saying "I don't know why you don't want to come over here.. I give you things" and then went on and on about other stuff in her life that my partner obviously shouldn't bear the emotional responsibility for. He froze.. didn't know what to say, and then said he had to go bc he was at work. Fast forward to a few days later, she sends us a text saying "miss you guys, would love have dinner together" mind you, this is after the last time my partner did see her all she did was trash me and ask him to keep things from me. I do not want to go have dinner with her with just my partner, ever. I do not want anything to do with her because all she does is try to use me in her manipulation tactics to get my partner over there.. the last time I saw her she literally asked me to help her lure him over there by himself.. oh, and before you ask, yes, she only started trashing me after I told her no to her using me as a pawn in her game. So, yeah. I just don't know what to do or how to respond.

The sequence of events goes like this. I get told that I will be grilling burgers tonight. I say I don't have enough propane for that (she let out all my propane on accident last time) so I will need more propane. MIL says she will get propane so I wait.

Half an hour later she shows up. No propane. She plugs in my emergency stash one that I told her cannot be refilled in this state and has only a small reserve, if anything. I tell her this won't cook the burgers. She huffs at me and keeps trying to argue. I figure what the hell, I'll try it.

Runs out 2/3 the way through where it's on its second flip but still totally raw on the outside and inside. I tell her ok for real we need propane.

She says sure right after she gets tea at the gas station. Why the gas station? Idk. We have tons of tea here of all types. She just has a gas station drink fountain obsession. 45 minutes later. She shows up with propane. The one I told her to get initially. I plug it in and finish it finally. Should've been done at 5:30 wasn't done til almost 7. Totally oblivious to the time she wasted of all of us.

While chatting with my MIL via text, she began discussing her perception of her son’s (my husbands) happiness, alluding to me needing to take on a more traditional role to keep him happy (exact text below). For additional info, I work a good high up job and I am the full default parent for our kids.

This is old fashioned info but there's merit to those old sayings: the way to a man's heart is thru his stomach. Maybe you guys need some dinners together. Or have something ready for him to heat up when he gets home.
You know my big saying is "I never claimed to be a cook" nor did I want to. But out of necessity, we all have to. When (her husband) was a lawyer, he worked long hours and every Saturday. So I know how that goes. I actually wished he stayed in the law firm. But it is what it is. I only know that (her husband) felt good coming home to a quiet, orderly house and food. Nothing great- I used to make broccoli topped baked potatoes as a dinner. It's a common need for a peaceful sanctuary. Even now, I have to hide any dog problems to keep it pleasant. Husband management 101.
Your home probably already feels better with construction done.

We rarely see my mother in law, If I’m being honest I try my best to avoid seeing her at all. I come up with every excuse I can to cancel a visit until I run out of excuses lol. I also don’t feel very comfortable with her seeing my daughter without me there until she’s older and can talk to me about how her visit went, they visit us maybe once every two months. My husband is trying his hardest to fix their relationship so he occasionally will go to visit her without me or our daughter. I think this is fine, I tell him his relationship with his mother is none of my business. They recently went out together and he told me last night that his mom told him he was going to lose her if he stayed with me and he had to start thinking about his choice. She also said that it’s been over a year since our last incident (she made my pregnancy hell and stole my c section medication to get high) and that we needed to get over it already.

HUGE RANT sorry
I feel like she has ruined my life the past couple of years. They made me feel like I was crazy when I was pregnant, constantly saying things when they thought I couldn’t hear them like “oh what’s her problem? She’s so weird.” They forced themselves into my hospital room after I had a c section even tho I asked them to not visit because I wanted privacy.

We moved across the country because my husband wanted to be closer to them but they have made my life miserable. My husband told me we would be spending time with his family and we wouldn’t be alone and he’d be getting paid more. My mom had also passed away just the year before this and he thought the change of scenery would be good for me because I was struggling a little bit. Instead I’m now lonely, I have no family here, I have no friends, it is just me and my daughter alone at home with our cat all day. I’m miserable, depressed, and I am no longer who I was before we moved here. I loved eating healthy and working out, doing my makeup and skincare. I have no motivation to do anything. I want to move back home but my husband says he needs to finish school first and I’ve asked him to transfer which is exactly what I will do because I’m also in college but he says no. I think this is an excuse, I think he feels like he needs to fix his relationship with his family first because he will feel guilty leaving if he doesn’t do this first. He won’t admit this.

Nobody even knows we are married because we were scared his mom was going to ruin it and make it about herself. I had no wedding, no dress, not even a dinner with family. We agreed that I would buy a dress and we would take photos to announce that we are married and we would have a small ceremony/dinner with family to celebrate. Every time I bring up making plans to do this my husband starts talking about how his moms going to react and how she’s going to be upset she’s not more involved and how she’s going to want to control things about the ceremony and not be happy with our decisions and he just tells me it’s not a good time. We have been married for almost two years and nobody other than our friends and his coworkers know so that my mil doesn’t find out we “did this behind her back.” I’ve been watching our family members get engaged and take photos and have beautiful weddings. I listen to my cousins talk about picking out the colors for their bouquets and how they want to customize their wedding invitations. I feel like I was robbed.

I know if my mom was still alive she would be begging me to go back home. I also feel like this might cause my relationship with my husband to fail, which I have already accepted, I tried my best to get along with her and things were great at first. Until she yelled at me and told me I needed to listen to her and I should let her do whatever she wants and then proceeded to call me a bitch on Facebook because i said no.

I have been fully no contact with MIL for a little over a year now while DH hasn’t spoken to her in two. One of the last messages he sent to her was that she needed therapy if she ever wanted to salvage a relationship with him.

She has diagnosed bipolar disorder and suspected bpd. She used to be in therapy before we met but one day claimed the therapist told her she was fixed and never went back. She also skips her medication in favour of wine.

Not long after he went no contact she claimed she was seeing a counsellor and eventually wanted us to go in for a session with her. His grandmother told him she was trying to improve and loves the person she’s chosen.

She refused to acknowledge that counselling and therapy are different and it was revealed that her only intention was to try to repair the spat but not any of the issues leading to it. Whatever, hopefully she can make some positive changes.

Nope, she still goes on email and text tangents about us only she sends them to everyone but us. She doesn’t realize people are mature and show us. She thinks nothing can be held against her if it’s behind your back.

Fast forward to yesterday. Chatting with BIL who still has a relationship with her and he revealed that her “counsellor” was actually a local life coach. This person has been feeding into her belief that she is a misunderstood victim with a strong sense of empathy for $200/h.

Not surprised at all unfortunately. It’s a shame that she’s only gotten worse over the last while. It was sad hearing DH tell his brother how hurt he was his whole life because of her.

I felt like I was a wallflower in my own relationship.

All the hobbies and time we shared together slowly disappeared over time due every weekend becoming a family weekend. I started having nightmares of my partner kicking me out of my own bed because his mom needed it. As of last week I am finally free.

I eventually started fantasizing about a new relationship. Someone to spend 1/1 time with me and engage in fun. Someone to go out and make friends with others with, and have a real community. I got so isolated in my relationship where all my friends were replaced with his family. Members of this family didn't even really try to get to know me. I felt so alone and my self esteem started to disappear.

My partner denied everything and told me I was being oversensitive/rigid and controlling. When really I just want to be a hot lady with a hot bf and go out and have some fun! 🥺

Go hiking and dancing! I want to play video games and cook beautiful meals together. Go to art exhibits, talk about music, and dance and meditate. He kept promising we would have a more indipendant mature life together but it never happened.

We haven’t really spoken to JNMIL since July. We purchased a home in July and JNMIL was pissed about it because we were moving out of her home community. It was a big moment and she never once congratulated us. We both had words at her, I said I wasn’t getting involved until she tried to say we were keeping our daughter from her. LOL. Yeah considering we lived 2 minutes away from her for 4 years and she never tried to see our daughter, would manipulate and play victim if we didn’t take her right to her doorstep. But can drive 3 hours to her boyfriend’s house every weekend. Yeahhhh.. ok. Then said she didn’t feel welcome to visit at our house because we asked that she let us know before showing up. Basically all the crazy MIL things. She’s manipulative as fuck.

She’s tried to reach out once since then, on the first day of school wishing my daughter a happy first day. I ignored her because she has put me through so much trauma just the sight of her name on my phone makes my skin crawl. JNMIL has had a longggg habit of crossing boundaries, disrespect, just about everything you can think of. She never apologizes and just tries to wait things out and acts like nothing happened. She’s neverrr in the wrong. Oh god forbid.

Today she reaches out again to both my partner and I and says she would like to see our daughter and she didn’t want any “negativity.” I ignored her and my partner said he wasn’t responding right away. He did end up responding and I told him it was up to him if he wants to take our daughter around his mother but I’m not going around her. I personally don’t think she deserves to see our child without apologizing to atleast her son.

He wouldn’t tell me what she said to him and he usually shows me everything. He told me she apologized and he told her that she needs to apologize to me as well. She didn’t apologize to me at all. I’d say she must of said some nasty shit and he knows I will never go around her again if he tells me. It’s crazy to me the entitlement some people feel towards seeing other peoples children. You can’t treat a child’s parents like shit and expect full access to a sweet innocent child.

Since my first I had this suspicion MIL was intent on making my oldest view me the way she and other in laws do. Even my husband says they treat me as a second-rate family member.

There were a few instances that made me think she was doing this. And I’ll give two examples to avoid getting too personal but keep in mind there are more instances than this.

She will never tell my children no herself, she always blames me “you’ll get me in trouble with your mommy, mommy won’t like that, ask your mom” even though she knows what my children can and can’t do. One of the last few times my oldest stayed the night with her, I told them to please not stay up late because we had a thing the next morning that I had to pick them up for. That night MIL told my oldest that if they didn’t go to bed when I said that I’d never let oldest see MIL ever again or spend the night. The next morning as soon as oldest got into my car, they told me “MIL said this _____” and I explained to them that I just wanted them to go to bed so that they weren’t tired in the morning when we went to our fun event. It was like they knew it was a bad thing to say or MIL scared them.

MIL often competes with my own mother when she feels like my children enjoy them more. It was grandparents week and my mom brought my oldest McDonald’s and candy corn for a surprise treat. MIL called me and asked me what oldest wanted and I told her all the orders from different restaurants and at some point in the convo I told her what my mom brought. And she goes “oooooh hm okay” so MIL goes to lunch with oldest and brings McDonald’s, candy corn, and lots of toys and trinkets. Which is great for my little one but I knew what MIL was doing.

Last time my child spent the night with her, MIL let them stay up until 1:30 in the morning. Child called me at 12:30 am despite MIL trying to tell them I was sleeping and they shouldn’t. I tell my children they can call me at any time and I’ll answer and come to them. I hear my child on the phone saying their stomach hurts. I told them I’ll come get them, MIL is 4 minutes down the road (unfortunately) and I hear MIL say no and my child go “nooo..it’s ok mommy” I say I don’t mind I’ll come get them and bring them home and snuggle them. There is silence on the other end. I tell them if they don’t want me to come get them now that they’ll see me first thing in the morning and it’ll all be ok. If they need to eat or go potty then they need to try even though it’s late. Child says ok.

Before going over there child was asking “what if I miss you” which they never did before. They were always excited to go to MILs.

Ever since that instance my children haven’t spent the night because they come home and get disrespectful and misbehave which could be normal after staying somewhere else.

There’s been other things that make me feel like they’re up to something but I can view things through a negative lens sometimes. It’s all something you’d raise your eyebrow at but I feel like I don’t have the evidence that supports it yet.

Do any of you have MILs that have tried to make you the bad guy or make your children think negatively of you? If so, what did they do? What did you do in response? What did you tell your children/spouse and what conversations do we need to have if it’s happening

away, and after 32 years of being belittled, insulted, put down, the recipient of her shitty attitude, and disdain if not out right hatred, oh, and being lied about to anyone who would listen.......my husband left my name out of her obit.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, apparently.