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Holidays update.....along with MIL drama....
We actually had a fairly good holiday season this year! Suprisingly! 
We did not have a party with the obnoxious in-laws, however, I did do several compromises with DH (we did a dinner with his coworkers, invited his sister "the normal one!" to our house for New Years Day, and had a holiday dinner with his mentor and his wife) and it worked out very well. We did my family parties, and he went into those with a whole new attitude this year, and did not sulk/whine/complain.
His mom (remember the terminal MS?) was hospitalized for some kind of "back surgery" before Christmas, and wanted him to come to the hospital. He refused. She kept calling him, and he did stop in for a brief visit at her house on his way home from work one day. Came home and said she was nice to him, and things were cordial/polite, and he hoped she might call us over the holidays. She did her perfunctory 5-min call on Christmas Day, and he hung up, shrugged it off, and moved on without drama.
Flash forward to New Years Day.....after not hearing from her for over a week, her husband #5 shows up on our doorstep while we are cleaning up our house and preparing for a holiday party that evening with neighbors and friends....hands me a gift card to Applebees and a card for each of our kids and says, "Here....this is for you." (DH was scrambling to get the dog out of the house at this point.) I said, "Oh, thank you." and didn't know how to respond....it was very awkward, and I was unsure if I should hand them back to him, or let DH handle it....husband #5 takes off out the door, no goodbye, no hello, no comment....and DH comes back to the door and yells, "What is going on?" and husband #5 won't answer. MIL is SITTING IN THE CAR and won't acknowledge DH at all, turns her head, and they speed off.
DH calls her cell phone, she won't answer....when he finally gets in touch with her, he rips her a new one for what happened and she (of course) starts crying and says she didn't want to come in and visit because *I* am home. Ummm, I live here!??!?! DH said he has had enough, and that if she cannot be an adult she is not welcome to come here, and we are sending her gifts back in the mail because he thought she was doing something nice, but instead, ruined it all. She says she is sorry, she just cannot "handle everything" and hangs up on him. He called her right back and told her that the problems are HER fault, not ours, and he is not going to keep playing games with her. She of course, blames everything on us and says that DH should just come see her alone from now on. He said, "Nope, sorry, we do things as a family. I made a huge mistake coming to visit you by myself, and look what has happened. Don't ever do this to me or my family again."
WHAT A MESS. I let him vent about it, and politely said, "Okay, let's move forward....WE didn't do anything wrong, we are prepping for our party, and our friends are going to be here soon. Don't let this spoil a fun night for everyone." He went for a run, I got ready for the party, and we did not discuss it until last night, when I asked, "How do you think our holidays went overall?" and he said, "Ummm, with the exception of my mom's stupid antics, everything else went fine. I would even go as far as to say the stomach flu we both got was better than what happened here on Saturday!" We both kind of laughed it off, and I am hoping that we can move on and move past this....she is such a whackjob.
At least it didn't turn into WW3, and we are both handling ourselves much better in regards to her behavior.
Re: Holidays update.....along with MIL drama....
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
ECB, This is her usual M.O.; she will promise things to DH and say things like, "I will stop by!" and then she does something stupid that just reaffirms that she is the one with the problem....
I had told him when he stopped by to visit her that I did not think anything good would come from his solo visit, because when she talks to him, she feeds him all the "right" answers, and he buys into it with reservation that she *might* do the right thing for once. Then it all falls apart.
At first, we both thought that she sent her husband over alone to drop off our "gifts", and that alone was pretty weird. Until DH saw her sitting in the car ignoring him. Then he picked up the phone.
O.k.... I still dont' get it. why did he call her? It's only playing into her hands. It gives HER the chance to try and play the victim. Even if he doesn't play into that exact game, even the fact that he's calling- he's giving her the attention she obviously wants.
She's ignoring him? LET HER!!!!!!! Just LET HER.
I know your DH is sucked into this. This is his mom, he probably has a hard time seeing this situation the same way I or others on this board do.
But you should have stopped him from calling her then! What came of it? Nothing. No solution to the situation. Only more frustration.
She plays games. Picking up the phone and calling her is falling for her games.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Yes, I know this....and honestly, I was just so taken aback by what happened that I didn't curtail his phone calling. My new mantra is to let him handle those incidents by himself and do what he sees fit; if I flat-out told him, "Don't call her! You're just feeding into her games!" then he sees me as the control freak. If I step aside and let HIM make the judgment calls, then he has to actually DEAL with the nonsense instead of blaming me. Does that make sense?
I know, it's confusing and it's hard, and there is no "right" way to deal with crazy, unfortunately. And the frustration this time was 100% on her behavior, not on me or our kids or how WE were wrong, and that has taken a lot of time to get there. Trust me.
I'm sure I've said it before- I think he needs counseling to get some outside help on how to deal w/ his mother.
I know you don't want to be the 'bad guy' to him, but as long as he makes these poor decisions, these problems just simply will not go away and YOU also have to deal w/ the nonsene! And teh problems will just keep festering.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
I completely agree with you. COMPLETELY. And I know its been hard work for you to get to this point to not jump in to prevent nonsense.
Again, I don't think this is something we will ever 100% agree on, so for now, DH simply needs to handle it on his own. I have tried getting MIL to like me, I have done all the "right" things, I even called her myself and told her she brings nothing but pain and anger to our family, and it does nothing. So I have stopped trying completely. If DH wants to continue to talk to her, stop in to see her....fine. I am not going, and our children are not dealing with her. I cannot stop a grown man from making mistakes.....and I know he is making them with his choices....but I can control our home and try to keep the crazy at a bare minimum. He has to want to stand up for me/us, and if he does, then that is all I ask.
We did go to marriage counseling for over a year, and I think solo counseling might help him, but our counselor also took the stance of saying that his mother is toxic, but that if SHE reaches out to us, we should accept her olive branch. Obviously, that's not working. And I hate to be pessimistic, but this drama with her is going to continue until she dies....it's not going away....so if the best I can do is make sure DH is standing his ground and protecting our family, that is all I can do.
We have made huge strides so far, but it's never going to be 100%. I know and accept that, and it's hard for me to watch him get burned all the time and not want to shake him/scream at him/make him finally get pushed over the edge and cut all ties. It's very hard. I would like to think that if this were me, I would be more like his sister, and cut my mother out of my life and not deal with her garbage. But I don't know, because my parents/family/siblings are not this wildly dyfunctional.
the better way to respond to an incident like that would have been for you H to ignoe her. send back the gifts in the mail (if he was so inclined) and NOT phoned her on her cell. it does nothing but kick the drama up a notch and give her what she's looking for: negative interaction.
i do understand your issue about not wanting to be the bad guy. your H needs ongoing professional help to deal with this issue and to understand the healthier ways to approach these situations. i think finding a new counsellor is a start (the one who said you should be accepting an olive branch from these toxic people is clearly wrong, in my experience, and i do have experience with toxic in-laws as we haven't had any contact with my ILs for about 7 years of our 10 year marriage for reeasons similar to yours).
as long as your H is feeding into their crap, this situation will never improve. it is such a strain on your marriage.
Actually, I think you handled everything well. Staying out of the middle is a good choice! You know how it gets when you involve yourself in MILs drama! AND snaps to you for putting boundries on what kind of entertaining you would do with the ILs.
Your H still needs work, but you can't make him attend therapy (although I agree he needs it).
You didn't invite or go see the obnoxious in laws for the holiday, but you did go to all family events with YOUR family who also sound obnoxious by the way you say hubby did better and didn't sulk/whine/complain at your families party.
She is still dh mother and in the hospital and YOU don't think he should visit. She calls him from the hospital and asks him to come and you have a problem with that.
She calls Christmas day and you complain than she doesn't call in a week and you complain about that. Why doesn't the whimp you married call his mother on a holiday.
FIL comes to your door and gives you gifts for you and the kids and you stand there not knowing what to do, why didn't you invite him in unstead of acting like a b#$ch.
I think you are a controlling whackjob and DH needs to grow a set.
Do not engage. Repeat. Do not engage.
Stop giving her any input. Your DH should not have tried to reach his mother after the present. He should have just sent her a thank you note and left it at that. By trying to reach her, he started to play her game.
The drama queen is a beast that you should not feed. It will eventually starve and go away if you do not engage.
BAH! Ha Ha! Someone hasn't read a single post you ever wrote before today.