Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
MIL !!!ugh!
Ok before we start I would like to say that I am probably going to be very biased and come off as a total witch. I don't mean to be this way but there is so much malice now from all the stuff that has happened. I'm 21 I've been with my H for 3 and 1/2 years and married for little over a month. When I first met my H I knew nothing about his family even when we started going out I didn't meet them until one day at church when she walked up to me and introduced herself. She was very friendly up until about the time my H asked me to marry him. Then she felt the need to ask him to do every little chore around the house and asked him to visit alot more. You have to know my MIL she is not blunt but very sly in what she says so people can not read into the undertone of what she means. When we started planning the wedding I picked a caterer they did not like at all and it was his family's side that did not like them because of a fall out but It was cheap and people said they had good food. She kept telling me to get some other catering service and started getting really adamant about it. Please take note she was not paying for any of the wedding or reception. She only had the rehearsal dinner to do but I didn't really care about that. So it got to the point one day that we were at Mc Donald's with his family and my grandmother called because we might have changed the caterer possibly. I wanted to tell my H but I didnt until i thought everybody was talking and wouldn't hear well my MIL did and she got about a few inches away from my face and put me out of my comfortzone and told me about why I shouldnt pick the one caterer. I remember kicking my H under the table because I was so upset she was in my face. The rest of the time while we were there I was silent and mad so she decided to throw a waded up napkin at me and ask what was wrong. That was the breaking point for me when we got in the car to leave to go home I cried so hard. Finally my mom wrote a message to her on facebook telling her to contact them if she had a problem with the wedding. I know she does not like me at all its plain to see how she is with the other IL she has. Speed up to present day we have now been married for little over a month and she has decided to text and call my H and I continously through out the week. She was never like that until after the wedding. She then decides to send a picture to us saying " helll hath no fury like a mother whose call goes unanswered." thing is if she wouldn't call at the butt crack of dawn then we might pick up. My H is starting to get fed up with it to, but he is to much of a momma's boy to say anything. And I'm not one for conflict, so I just shut it and stew. my H doesn't understand why I do not want to stay long with his family anymore , but I don't know what to say other than I phsyically make myself sick because of how my MIL and My H's Sister's Husband is.
I need help trying to figure out a solution cause I'm starting to have issues again....
Thankyou
If you have any other questions about any other times let me know . I didn't want it to be a huge novel of stuff that's happened.
Re: MIL !!!ugh!
I'll start the mantra,
you have an H problem here.
Her throwing things and getting into your face is aggressive behavior and must end. Your mother has to stay out of this dynamic, if you are old enough to get married you are old enough to handle your in laws by yourself.
What did your H do at McDonalds after she became almost violent? Nothing. Your mother ended up handling the wedding drama. Your H is allowing her to treat you this way and call constantly. If he was bothered by it he would tell her to stop.
At 21 you are young and I'm sure she is using this to her advantage. You have to get your H on the same page as you and he has to get that you are his family now, you come first and his mother is his problem to fix. If you talking to him isn't working then you need marriage or family counseling.
Why did you marry someone who you can't get support from?
Total power play on MIL's part. She is laying ground work now to control your whole lives.
Regardless of how you and DH handle this crazy lady, you need to do it as a team and have a unified front.
Right now, you don't.
Use team-oriented language (what can we do? how do you want our relationship to look and act when with your mom?) when discussing this with your DH otherwise all he'll think is that he has two nags brow beating him.
My sister said soemthing to me the other day that applies here. The short backstory is that she and I have a somewhat over-bearing mom, opinionated, irritable, etc. Both her DH and my DH think this too. But sister gets annoyed with her husband when he bad mouths our mother to my sister (he would never do anything to our mom's face). She said to me, "It's okay for me to talk about her behind her back, but DH can't do it! She's STILL MY MOM!"
All I'm suggesting is that you not go into attack mode about your MIL to your DH because no son likes to here his momma being bad-mouthed. While you are right to think/feel ugly things toward MIL, to help your cause with your DH, try to quell your anger toward her.
I see that a few things are stacked up against you here, but the biggest is him. Your H is allowing your MIL to get away with bad behavior and it needs to end. Now.
Ever heard, the squeaky wheel gets the grease? Yep, MIL is the wheel right now.
I disagree with the other poster, you can talk to your H about his mother without putting her down but also, getting your wants and feelings acrossed to him. It's all about the delivery. No need to go Scarlett O'Hara here, stay clam, no emotion and give him the facts. She did X, I felt Y and now we are at Z. What do we do to fix it?
The end result with in law issues is until the child of these people put a stop to it, it will continue and get worse. (I saved you thousands in therapy here)
Always remember, being the squeakists doesn't always mean being the loudest. It can also be being the most consistent. Don't let your age hinder you.
Next time MIL gets aggressive (in your face, throws something or whatever) get up and leave. Tell your H this, if your mother does xy&z I will get up and leave. I need you to back me and leave also. I cannot tolerate this type of behavior going forward. And then you do it.
The worst part that you have to look forward too is having children and her thinking this is okay. Get her to stop this or it will get worst.
I didn't even read the rest.
Your problem is twofold:
He needs to tell his mother to blank off and do it once and for all
YOU need to start standing up for yourself.
Don't let her -- or anybody else -- belittle you, be rude to you or push you around. Say it to the person there and then: no FB, no text no email: right there on the spot.
That is most of your battle won....the rest of what you posted sounds like petty wedding stuff.
Age is a factor here. He's very immature --- and how you're going to get him to age emotionally several years in a very short time is nigh impossible.
He needs to tell his mother right now -- and his family too, the following -- and he needs to do it with you standing right there:
"What hurts Ashley hurts me also. She is my wife and we are a team. We are first and foremostly A FAMILY.
"Therefore we will NOT be in contact with any of you, either in person or electronically, until the entire lot of you get your sh!t together and treat the both of us civilly and properly.
"Call us when you get your acts together and start acting like decent people."
And then he needs to follow through: no answering their calls, no answering the doorbello, no texts replied to, delete their emails before they are opened and read.
And if a snail mail letter arrives, RETURN TO SENDER written on the envelope and drop it back into the mailbox.
This is NO way to start a marriage: there is already a rift between the 2 of you -- and this is no quality of life for you.
And it is not great to be married to a 21 year old candyapple. He needs to get up off his and tell this bunch where to go. Hard cheese for them.
I want to start out by saying that I too am Baptist and the way that your husband is behaving is very...ahem, unbiblical. On the day you got married, he vowed before God to put you above all others and let no one come between. There is nothing wrong with you holding him accountable to the promises he made to you on your wedding day.
To summarize : he can't uphold his marriage vows and still be a mama's boy. It doesn't work like that. He is a married man and that means you come before mommy. Now, he can still respect and care for his mother, but to put her comfort, needs and emotions before yours is wrong.
If I were you, I would calmly sit him down and let him know that his behavior in regards to his mother and her treatment of you is unacceptable and against everything that he said when you got married. You shouldn't have to spend the rest of your life being harassed and abused by her. That isn't what he promised and that isn't how marriage should be. This very reason is why God said " A man shall leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife." This simply won't work.
Any clergyperson worth his or her salt -- and I don't care if it's Baptist, Quaker, Catholic, Unitarian, Wiccan or what have you --- will tell you he needs to uphold his vows.
LET NO MAN TEAR USUNDER and FORSAKING ALL OTHERS is the vow.
Considering these people shat all over you once you got engaged, premarital counseling -- and a LOT of it --- was needed before you even got married.
He needs to get it in gear. And even an athiest knows that his ot her spouse comes before his/her parents or ILs.
If you waited until at least his mid-20s to marry this guy, you might have had a better shot at marriage. You positively cannot marry at 21: too immature; he needed at least several more chronological years under his belt before he could even think of marriage.
I also tend to think that the in law in question is more than a little nuts when he or she starts this funkiness and nastiness. She could even have a personality disorder or a case of mental illnuess -- then again, if it's the whole family, another story...
And considering they all treated you like trash before you were married to this guy, you needed to RETHINK a guy whose family spends so much time treating you like a used piece of gum.
And try this on for size:
You were driven to tears by this bunch of bananas?
How come he didn't wake the bleep up and let them have it?
This is now also a character thing. He needs to stand up for you -- he let you cry over this, more or less -- and didn't confront them? He's sure some gem.
When I married my first husband at 21 it was a pretty huge mistake - not saying you made a mistake but my first marriage certainly was.
His mother was the same way and age was certainly a factor - that plus he didn't have the cajones to stand up to her. He let her walk all over me and I was attacked - physically and verbally - by them both when I stood up for myself.
If he doesn't get on the same page with you, and let's hope he does, just run.
This is a youth thing and another excellent reason to stay away from marriage until you are at least in your mid 20s. This guy needs to grow up...but even so, no guarantee. He could be the same way in several more years, maybe not. No way of telling.
I can't see how anybody would willingly continue to date somebody whose family hasn't got anything positive to say about her. And if they are divisive, rotten and do nothing but hate you and you have no idea why they do, time to run like hell. Who wants to date a guy like that with this kind of Sword of Damocles hanging over your head?
Reading PPs' opinions, I'm not sure I agree. I positively WOULD NOT marry anyone without seriously dating them for several years, without living with him for a year or so, without getting into at least a couple critical arguments with him, without having several consistent discussions over the years about your futures to reaffirm your goals separately and together and to assure you're growing as individuals in a similar direction, etc. Age has less to do with it than maturity. Realistically yes, most 21-year-olds do NOT have a mature enough relationship to marry. But I wouldn't condemn you for your decision and say your MIL's actions are because of your young marriage.
Your MIL will probably change before and after your wedding, before and after your pregnancy, etc. the same way you'll change before and after those major events. As demonlike as she may be at times, she is human.
It's okay to not have stuck up for yourself the first time. Sometimes, in the moment, you are so hurt and shocked (especially if you did have a positive relationship with her at some point in time), you can't even find the words. In those cases, sometimes no words are best. You do need to let her know you are a force to be reckoned with at some point.
It's okay for your SO to not stick up for you or himself the first time. If she is a narcissistic MIL, she was a narcissistic mother first. He's probably taken a lifetime of reinforcement that pleasing her comes above all. That (likely unnoticed) instinct isn't going to change once he says his vows, no matter how deeply he may mean them. But he absolutely needs to stick up for you once you point this out to him. Talk to him. He may not realize what he's doing or that he hurt you. Help him learn about himself and learn about yourself--you're young! Doing some research on narcissistic mothers will help, trust me!
I have to disagree with PPs about the age thing. Some people in their mid-twenties or thirties are less prepared to get married than some people who marry young. Setting an arbitrary age like that is ridiculous.
OP, I can sympathize with people using your age against you. Because you are young, people are going to automatically think they have more control over what you do. The key is not to let them and stand up for yourself. Also, you do need to get your DH on side..
A 26 or 27 year old is going to have more "years" under his belt. By that time, most guys have already gotten their first real job, saved some money and then moved out of his parent's home and into his first apartment.
A guy that age is more mature and is bound to know that he's his own man and when somebody is acting nuts, they're NUTS -- and that person needs to be told it's not cool.
Then again, some guys never do grow up.
I blame this oh lets get married at 21 on horniness. Now the minister says we can kind of thing.
Moral to the story: Don't marry into a family where anybody in his family or his friends treat you horrifically. This guy's not a good bet for your future and besides, why do you want somebody who comes laden with problems?
I agree with Tarpon. When I look back at my 21 year old self, there's no way in hell I could have married at that age. I was living on my own, working, taking care of myself, but at that age, I was still trying to figure out who I really was as a person and what I wanted out of life. Marriage at that age definitely was not one of those things even with all the family pressure I was getting to 'settle down'.
My younger brother IS 21 now and I can tell you that he nowhere even near ready to get married. He's a good kid, but he still has a lot of growing up to do. I know other kids that are around the same age as him too - to think of any of them getting married so young is laughable. I say people should just enjoy their 20's and worry about marriage later, but that's just my opinion. To each their own...
And I'll admit that I put up with a full array of ballbreakers when I was 21. Like they say "If I knew then what I know now." This is a youth factor/
Enjoy your 20s -- finish school, get a job, get your first single girl/guy apartment and grow and learn.
omg...yes....I swear, if I had married any of the guys I dated in my 20's, I'd probably be divorced like 5 times by now. hahaha
It's funny too - I can remember any time I did have a 'boyfriend', 2 of my aunts would always ask me 'so, are you going to marry him?'. How the heck should I know? Leave me alone and let me enjoy my youth!
So happy I listened to that little voice inside of me saying, DON'T DO IT!!!!
I met my H when I was at the tail end of my 20's, but at that point, I was pretty well established on my own, knew what I wanted, and knew what I would and would not put up with. And we dated for a good 3 years before we even moved in together, let alone talked about marriage. My relationship with my H is unlike any other relationship I've ever had, and I?m happy that we took our time. We actually just celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary and next week, it will be 10 years since we started dating
I'm 21 he is 25 going on 26. Sorry I should of put his age in there
Your husband can be supportive and loving and great 99% of the time. He's still failing you when it comes to his Mom. He needs to tackle this head on... "Mom - you can not treat my wife that way, you can't throw things at her or get in her face. You're making her uncomfortable and you're making me uncomfortable. This behavior needs to stop." Regarding the phone calls and texts... ignore, ignore, ignore. If you can't answer, or simply don't want to, then don't answer. If she takes it to a new level (i.e. the "hell hath no fury..." comment) then again, you husband needs to handle it asap. "Mom - if we are unable to answer the phone, you need to wait for us to call you back. I don't appreciate your comment with regards to 'ignoring' your calls."
I get what PPs are saying with the age thing. I agree but what can you do now? You married him and you guys have to figure this sh!t out now. If you continue to allow her to overstep her bounds, get what? It's not going to stop. A frank discussion between your husband and his Mom is in order.
One thing I will say though... you can not change these people. You can wish and pray and hope that they change. They won't. So as much as your husband needs to start creating boundaries, you need to accept this concept as truth. That you will be dealing with these people for the rest of your life. Determine what your non-negotiables are and figure out what's not worth the trouble. My MIL is the queen of underhanded comments and I spent YEARS of my life trying to decipher what she really meant. I made myself crazy. So I've learned to take things she says at face value. I've learned what's NOT worth making a stink over. Ultimately, I decided to accept her as she is, with boundaries in place, and a husband who's willing to go to bat for me when touches on my non-negotiables. You have to work within those parameters otherwise EVERYTHING will be a fight.
Good luck to you.
^^^^YESSSS. This. All of this.
Do it. And do it now before you even think of having children. Because I can tell you now, when kids come along, if this is not sorted out now, it is going to get worse.
You keep saying the problem is YOU not standing up for yourself. YEah, that's a problem -- but your greater one is your H and how he will not take your side and tell this funky bunch once and for all to shut their mouths.
Cutting them off --- yes, for good --- will help. No more contact with them until they get it that you happen to be A PERSON, not something to be scorned.