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natg504

SparkySharky

At this point, I would tell my husband that there will be no next time. And I'm sure you have already - but I would also outline that this is affecting how you view your marriage and has you doubting altogether how he feels about you when he regularly sees someone treating you badly and does nothing to stop it. Because he won't stop it, you're doing the only thing you can do - which is to greatly limit the amount of time you spend with her, if not eliminate it altogether. He can do visits on his own and he can take your daughter for visits, but until there's someone on your side, you aren't going to be putting yourself in that position anymore.

Leftie22

Wow, I'm really sorry you've had to go through all that! I can relate because my inlaws are also very controlling and manipulative, and my DH also struggles to stand up for himself and me. He's said the exact same thing about growing up with it and not understanding what's rude or not. (Which I don't fully buy either.) We went to counselling, and it really helped. I think he needed to hear from someone other than me that what his family was doing was not normal, and not ok. It sucks that it's not enough when you say it, but sometimes I think people like your DH need an outsider perspective before they can recognize what's wrong. I'm sorry that I don't have any other great advice, I just wanted to say that I empathize with you. I've sometimes felt the way you do - that if I had known what it would be like, always competing with DH's family and what they want - I probably wouldn't have married him. It's an awful feeling, especially if you love the person and can see how things could be if their family would stop interfering. I will say that things improved after counselling, and we also moved far away. I know that's not possible for everyone, but I know that if we had stayed in the same city as his family, we would be divorced right now. I'm sorry for what you're going through, and hope your husband is open to counselling.

natg504

Thanks for the responses.  It does help to hear someone else say they can empathize, although I'm sorry you had to go through it too!  I have brought up counseling with him.  He doesn't feel like it's necessary, but I know if I set it up he'll go with me.  I guess I'm just nervous about going to counseling too, so I've been putting it off.  I feel the same way though.. I think at this point he just needs to hear it from someone else besides me, so it might be the best option. 

Did your counseling give you any advice on how to handle issues when they come up?  I always feel like it should be his job to handle his mother (so that we appear to be on the same side to her), but he feels like that's just me putting him in the middle. 

TarponMonoxide

natg504 said:

I always knew when my husband & I were dating that his mother would be a challenge to deal with, but I figured I can ignore most of her comments.  Almost 5 years and 1 baby later, I am having trouble ignoring her anymore & things have just begun to snowball.

Why did you put up with this mess for one second -- and where was he when this kind of treatment started???

He needed to make sure his mother stopped this and immediately upon its appearance. Therefore you have an H problem, not a MIL problem.

Say goodbye to a guy you are dating who has a relative that is nasty to you. End of story.

 I remember her saying after we got married that she can "finally be herself," which is evidently mean & manipulative! 

This is a dopey little comment and neither here nor there. I'd have had to have been there to see what the context and the rest of the conversation was about before can draw a conclusion to her comment.

It's really affecting our marriage to the point where I question whether it will really last & how much he cares about me every day. 

Sorry, but this is a question you needed to ask a good several years ago: when this nastiness made an apperance while you were dating -- and the answer should have been YOU heading for the hills. Because he's a pushover and he can't stand up for himself or others.

She likes to say that she has an “allergy” or a deep fear of everything that she doesn’t like, and she uses those things to get sympathy and manipulate situations.  I know I'm sounding insensitive, but to put it in perspective, she has a fear/allergy of sun, snow, driving, the beach, peaches, lettuce, cats, dogs, and even water.  She literally will only drink one brand of bottled water because she says she’s allergic to all other water.

Pick your battles. She sounds like she's overly dramatic and looking for attention.

I understand that even if these things are not all true, it might be true in her mind, so I do ignore it when I can.  The times when it’s hard to ignore are when she uses it to say she needs special attention and tries to manipulate the decisions that should be between my husband & me.  The first time we hosted a holiday she threw a very dramatic fit because she said the cat made her sick & as she left crying she said, "Well, I guess you'll just have to come to our house next year!"  She even left sage in our bedroom to “cleanse” the house.

More silliness.

YOur real battle is getting your H to tell his mother to stfu once and for all. It probably will not happen, in which case you can either settle for being a doormat or you can send him home to his mother who's allergic to water.

I’ve been ignoring outbursts like these for years now, but when we had our first baby last year, I think I finally hit my limit.  When I handed our daughter to my mom for the first time she stood there & whined, “Oh, I don’t agree with this! She should be with her mother!” She just kept whining and complaining until it was her turn to hold our daughter, and somehow everything was fine then.  Again, I ignored her, as did my entire family, even though we all thought it was weird.  The next day was worse… I was still in the hospital after 20 hours of labor, 3 nights without sleep, and a c-section.  By the end of the day, I nicely told everyone I needed a break.  This included my sisters who were visiting as well. Everyone understood, except her…  The nurse, the pediatrician & her husband also all told her that I needed a break, but evidently she didn’t get enough attention that day.  My husband had fallen asleep, so she stormed out of the hospital room, yelled at my sister when she also told her I needed a break, and drove halfway back to their house (2 hours away).  When my husband woke up he asked where she was & I said, I don’t know, she seemed mad and stormed out.  I literally couldn’t walk, so it’s not like I could stop her.  He called her & told her that she shouldn’t have done that.  I did hear him tell her not to come back, but she decided to come back.  I told my husband again that I needed a break, but he let her come back & take our daughter & sit in the waiting room with her.  We didn’t even get a chance to name our daughter the first day she was born because we had visitors all day & she refused to leave.  She was literally there from about noon to 8pm, so it’s not like I didn’t give her any time.

I disagree. She could have been ordered to leave, either by the head nurse, by you or if need be, security. WHy cant you take a stand on an issue like this??? SHe'll have you by the short hairs forever -- this isn't an issue that invovles your doormat husband.

God helps those who helps themselves. Don't let anybody push you around.

I was so disappointed that my husband wouldn’t stand up for me, even when I had just given birth to our first child, but he still insists that it was okay because he wanted her to come back and she was in the waiting room.  I tried to put it behind me, but I can still feel my blood pressure rise every time I have to interact with her.  Over Christmas, everything got even worse.  This time, I evidently didn’t show enough excitement about the gifts she got me, so after opening gifts, she went into our kitchen & started a long rant about what a horrible, “uncompassionate” person I am.  This was not one comment, she went on for at least 5 minutes while I sat in the other room and my husband let her continue.

Here is where he is a problem. Why do you tolerate this???

Finally, I went upstairs to change the baby & asked him to come up to help.  I pulled him aside & asked him to stick up for me & tell her not to talk about me like that.  He said no, that I had to go downstairs & handle her myself. 

He is in the wrong. How dare he say this to you!

I explained that it wasn’t a good time for me to confront her, especially since it was basically his entire family there against just me by myself, but he refused to speak with her.  He even left me & went downstairs & gave her a hug instead.  I got so mad I started packing a bag, and he said “looks like she’s leaving, so I think you should all stay overnight now.”  I did eventually take our daughter & leave & spent the night somewhere else because I felt like I was cornered & had no support at all from him.

If the "looks like she is leaving" was a comment where the "she" is you?

I'd have filed for divorce the second I got out of that hospital!

And that would have been right after I round kicked HIM into the next century somewhere!!!

I don't know why you pursued dating this jerk, let alone thought he was good husband material.

And I also don't know why you thought having a child with a child was FINE!

We have spent hours & hours discussing her behavior & my husband always agrees that “next time” he will stand up to her.  He says since he grew up with her, he doesn’t recognize what bothers me about her, so I need to point it out if I want him to intervene.  That’s what I tried to do, but I just don’t understand how he could listen to her rant & still not see that it’s a good time to stand up to her.  It’s been making me look back on all of our past & question all of the decisions I made when I decided to marry him & the things I might have overlooked back then.  It’s really hurting our relationship because I see all these signs now that I should have seen back then that show he never really cared about me in the first place.   I just feel so stuck now that I have a daughter with him, and I want her to have the best.  I know she needs two parents that love each other, and that’s getting harder to do every day.  He really is a good dad to her though, and I would never take that away from our daughter.  I also don’t want to take my MIL away from our daughter, but I just don’t know how to handle her anymore.  I can’t trust how my MIL might act around her, and I can’t trust my husband to handle his mother.   I haven’t seen her or spoken to her since Christmas, and we really have no new plan as to how to deal with her.  I feel like I’ve tried to ignore her and be nice to my husband about it for so long now, but it just keeps getting worse.  There’s a lot of tension between my husband & me, even though we act civil to each other.  I just feel like if I’m really honest with myself, I’ve lost a lot of respect for him over the past year or so.  I’m at a loss at this point.  Any advice on how to turn things around would be helpful!

You cannot change him. He will always be an immature doormat.

Respect, like trust, is nearly impossible to replace once it's gone.

You'll have to decide where to go on this -- and it should be to a divorce attorney. This guy has no spine and he can't have yoru back and be a team with you: he's struck out all the way around.

I would suggest counseling but he won't go and even if he does, he's not self aware enough or serious enough to fix what is wrong with himself.

You've got a lost cause here. The little Helen Mirren impersonation with the playacting and woe-is-me bit is silly and stupid; that's nothing compared to the fact your H won't be a HUSBAND.

Figure out wht it is YOU want to do about this and then do it.

Leftie22

natg504 said:

Thanks for the responses.  It does help to hear someone else say they can empathize, although I'm sorry you had to go through it too!  I have brought up counseling with him.  He doesn't feel like it's necessary, but I know if I set it up he'll go with me.  I guess I'm just nervous about going to counseling too, so I've been putting it off.  I feel the same way though.. I think at this point he just needs to hear it from someone else besides me, so it might be the best option. 

Did your counseling give you any advice on how to handle issues when they come up?  I always feel like it should be his job to handle his mother (so that we appear to be on the same side to her), but he feels like that's just me putting him in the middle. 

Our counsellor recommended that my DH spend a lot of time thinking about what HE really wants, instead of listening to his family and being wishy-washy about everything because he's listening to too many people. She also suggested that I stand up for myself when something was directed just at me, but that DH absolutely had to back me up. (For example, my MIL would pull my son out of my arms when he was a baby, or refuse to give him back to me when he was crying, or I needed to feed him, etc.) So I started fighting it more, and if DH was there and saw it, he'd tell her she needed to do what I asked. And when it's an issue with both of us, he deals with it. I don't talk to my MIL anymore. My situation might be a little different because my DH often DOES want the same thing as me and want his family to back off, he just didn't know how to do it, or felt horribly guilty for doing it. So counselling helped mainly because it gave him permission to focus on himself and to recognize that his family was guilt-tripping and manipulating him. Your DH sounds like he might still be on his family's side, I hate to say. It sucks to even feel like there are sides, but from what you're describing, he's really not making you and your child his priority. I hope a counsellor can give him a wake-up call on that too. Wishing you the best.

VOR

First of all - yes, get to a counselor.  I don't see how your DH can say "I don't think we need one".  Does he really GET how you feel?  If not -TELL HIM.  Tell him you're losing respect, tell him you're beginning to question why you married him, tell him your MARRIAGE IS IN TROUBLE. YES - YOU NEED HELP.

That being said.... if, IF, you feel it can't be saved, I need to speak to this:

I know she needs two parents that love each other, and that’s getting harder to do every day.  He really is a good dad to her though, and I would never take that away from our daughter.  I also don’t want to take my MIL away from our daughter, but I just don’t know how to handle her anymore.  I can’t trust how my MIL might act around her, and I can’t trust my husband to handle his mother.

No, she actually doesn't "need" two parents who love each other.  She needs parents who respect themselves and each other, and whether together or not, who are HAPPY.  She needs parents who are strong and who make the right decisions, even if they are hard. 

If, IF, you were to leave him, he can still be a strong figure in her life.  Not being with him doesn't mean you're taking her away from him. 

And what is this BS about how you can't take her away from your MIL?  In the next sentence you say  you can't trust your MIL w/ your DD.  Why on earth can't you "take" her DD from her if she isn't a good role model for your DD?  She doesn't have any rights to your child. 

You admit that you've kind of had your head in the sand.  You've ignored a lot of warning signs along the way and you seem to admit it.  But yet you STILL have your head in the sand over this idea of what you "have" to do and who you have to give access to your child.  If your MIL isn't a good person and i fyou have any concerns of what she'll do/say to your DD when you're not there - then she doesn't get access to your kid! 

Maybride2

Who givs a rat's butt if he's a good father? He's an awful husband. Nothing at all that you could say would change that. He encourages his family to outright disrespect you. What a horrible example for your daughter to see - do you want her to grow up seeing her mother get treated like crap? Or worse, grow up thinking that that's how women get treated? Do you really want to spend the rest of your life taking a back seat to his mommy? Any man that I had to drag to counseling to get to understand that his wife comes before his mom is an ignorant Neanderthal that isn't worth my time.

BulgariHeart

I'm sorry I agree with the PP. Besides, You have to start standing up for yourself for your daughter's sake, if all else doesn't make the switch go off for you. I get that this your H's mother but if she's badmouthing you in the next room and you KNOW she is, then YOU get up and confront her! If she has a problem with you she better have the guts to say it to your face! I actually just went through the same thing with my MIL, who isn't as nasty I must say. My H put her in her place immediately but also didn't keep the episode a secret from me. You think I let her get away with it? Hell no I didn't! I confronted her and made things crystal clear for her, so next time she'll think it over 10 times before disrespecting me AND she knows that her son doesn't keep secrets with her.
I strongly suggest therapy for you alone. Even before dragging your (useless) husband, you owe it to yourself to acquire some self respect/esteem and the right tools to protect yourself. This show is continuing to go on because you LET it happen.

R.Wilsonny

I can't say what hasn't been said here already - yes, you have a MIL problem, but the larger problem is your H's inability to tell his mother to knock it off with the bullshit. Since it's apparent that he won't, and if you are going to stay with him, it's time to take matters into your own hands. She starts with her nonsense? Confront her. Then I would get up, take your child, and leave. The bullshit with her starts in your house? You tell her to get out and don't come back. Maybe then your H will get the message that you are not to be disrespected once he sees you sticking up for yourself.

You don't trust her around your child? Well then sorry, she doesn't get access to your child. And you don't feel the least bit guilty about it. You're the parent - you set the rules about who does and doesn't have access to your child. Someone who blatantly disrespects you is not worthy of having a relationship with your child to rub their nasty behavior off on them.