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EmiliaL
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25 Sep 2011, 1:19 pm

Dione wrote:
I have tried to confront my husband about this, but he refuses to help me except for the attacks on my malnourishing him and does not like to hear that there is anything wrong with her. Can anyone help me to either tell her to step off or to deal with her?


Oh my...

It is your husband's job to grow a spine.

This is a common problem many wives have with their husbands.

Their husbands seem to not notice they grew up, left home, married someone and now have a responsibility to their own family that trumps What Mommy Wants. It can take a few years to sort that out, so some patience on your part will be needed as your husband learns. BUT he needs to be willing to do the work to move in the direction of acting like the adult he is now.

You will need to put this to him in very basic terms, I am sorry to say. It's not something the subtle approach ever seems to solve.

Keep it focused on him. He has a duty to his family that he needs to step up to. It's time he learned to say No to Mommy when she's out of line. He didn't marry her. He married you.

It doesn't require being mean to do that -- it does require being firm and very clear.

At some point if he can't do that he'll find he's lost his own family, kids and all.

What can you do with your mil yourself? Stop entertaining the bullcrap. When she tries to blame you for stuff like "malnourishing" your husband, tell her to take it up with HIM, not you. He isn't your slave and can think for himself and speak up for himself. If you can change the subject, do so, and quickly. If you can't, leave the room, pretense or not.

Sometimes simply letting her rant and then, when she's quite finished, saying with ultra calmness "Are you finished now?" can work. Sometimes a flat-toned "you need to stop now" can help.

If she tries to hug you, put your arm out and calmly state your preference, "Thank you, I do not wish to be hugged." Or turn sideways, or otherwise physically deny a "normal" hug. She is NOT hugging you out of affection. This is about domination, and she means to be the alpha dog in your husband's life.

It depends on what you're able to tolerate and do and also on the character of your mil and the rest of the family. Only you can know details like that. But there are many methods to accomplish the goal of stopping her bad behaviour.

The only way she will stop this behaviour is when she stops being rewarded for it. Remove yourself as a target, however you must. Her reward is that you make yourself available as her punching bag.

Then your husband needs to convince her to stop shooting in the first place, not by persuasion so much as by him being sure she realizes she will not get away with it anymore.

At some point he will need to give his Mom an ultimatum, odds are. He will suggest that she gets to choose between having a son and daughter-in-law, or no son and no daughter-in-law.

Because it really does come down to that, when you have a parent who is out of control on this level.

One last thing: How is your father-in-law? Don't overlook the possibility that he could be an ally in some way. Maybe hubby could ask Dad if he can work with his own wife to stop her. Sometimes the back room deals do work. ;)

My best wishes to you and your husband as you try to work out a united front to protect your marriage and your own family.



Dione
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25 Sep 2011, 5:02 pm

DeanAdamFry wrote:
Dione wrote:
DeanAdamFry wrote:
Dione wrote:
Okay, I thought my problems were over, but they are sadly far from it. Now she is trying to get me to attend some class by a group called Peace Community Church which involves the laying on of hands. As I mentioned before, I cannot stand to be touched or to touch most of the time. When I expressed disinterest in attending, she went off on me, saying if I didn't learn how to feel like a normal person that I will be a cold cruel parent. While I can come off as being unconcerned, I do not think I am cold or unloving. Also, the way she described the class seemed a bit cultish to me. She is also trying to get me to go despite having a family gathering to mourn the loss of a cousin who died of leukemia that went into his bones.

She then went on to say that my job as a parent is to keep my future children from feeling pain as much as possible so I should get them a chicken pox vaccine as soon as they are old enough to avoid the pain I have gone through in the last year with shingles and the resulting nerve pains. However, I find that highly illogical because life itself is painful; if I shield them from every little illness, they will not be strong enough to fight off illness resistant to methods used for prevention and therefore die. Simply put, it makes about as much sense as treating a virus with antibiotics. Also, my job as a parent will be to make sure they can deal with life and the pain that often comes with it as mature adults instead of being terrified that they will go through pain and try to prevent it from happening.

Once again, my husband is telling me that I am being irrational. I love him, but his mother just seems to insist on picking me apart. The food crisis gets solved and now she's decided to pick on me about my trouble with feelings and my ideas on parenting. While I'll admit that I've not yet had any kids, I will admit that my mom exposing us to illness to make sure we got it was smart; his mother has reared one child who is often irresponsible and childlike but also came out slightly better adjusted than myself.

I am currently so stressed by this that my chest actually hurts. I am half tempted to start checking for pustules even though I had no extreme itching on a corresponding point of my back.


Oh just divorce your husband if he isn't going to care about you.

The mind set you should be thinking is "How dare she question my parenting skills?" your mother-in-law has no right to judge your parenting skills nor should she be making your life hell and for that husband of yours, he should bloody grow a pair and stop trying to find the easy way out in life because as far as I can see, he is being very selfish.

So what if he has to work? WE ALL BLOODY WORK! but that is no excuse to neglect your feelings and your troubles you are currently having, all he is caring about at the moment is himself and while you do need time for yourself once in a while, he is in a marriage and should be there to support you, that is what he agreed to when he married you.

At the end of the day its up to you but if I was in your position, I would just walk out on him and give him the middle finger to both his mother and him, you don't deserve this kind of treatment they are putting you through at the moment.


After an argument and an emergency massive disposal of dry goods due to flour beetles (I forgot to quarantine food items that we had stored at his parents' house before we got our apartment; I wound up so neurotic about it that I wouldn't have slept without cleaning it up) we came to an understanding. He saw that I was shaking and asked why it meant so much to me to clean up infested food at two AM, and I told him everything. He now understands why I hate bugs in the house and what the dry goods represented to me. He doesn't entirely agree with it, but at least now he understands where I'm coming from. The weight is off my chest. He even scratched my back until I fell asleep; he never does that.

He agreed that to put pressure on me to miss something with my family was overstepping bounds, especially when it's someone who died under the age of fifty. He also understands that death in my family is pretty much the only way to get everyone in the same area without cursing eachother out. He said that the only way to make her stop is to be really blunt, so I should tell her to F off and die. I will need to grow a pair and say it, but it feels good to have his backing and full support on this.

He says that being a cold parent is bad, but being a clingy parent is just as bad, and that's what she's doing. Once we get a home far away from her, things will be a lot better because we won't be spending every weekend with her and I will get the opportunity to spend more time with my mother, who also has a monster in-law and has gone through a good deal of what I'm dealing with now.

He also said that at the end of the day, it is my choice to do what I feel is right. That was the best thing he could have told me because I often feel out of control of my own existence, let alone my actions. It feels good for the frustration to end for this moment.

Part of our problem is, we don't always consider each other's feelings when upset. Granted, we have only been married about a year, and this is new to both of us. Hopefully with time we will be able to overcome this more easily; for now, it's just something to put effort into.


Ahh good, at least its working now :P

Well if your only a young married couple then I can understand why it was a bit awkward at first because you two are technically new to all of this, I didn't have enough information regarding your marriage so I thought you two were together for way more then 3 years and he still didn't do anything about it to help you so I was in a way pissed off with him.

Sorry if anything I said in my previous post offended you but I just generally don't like men who don't stand up for their women, same way round for the woman to stand up for her man, really the only thing I hate more then that is abuse within relationships.

Hopefully you two will sort this all out and get it over and done with, I wish all the best for your marriage.


Thanks for the apology. It is really hard to gauge age in this sort of setting, plus I don't know you on a personal level, so I can't really get offended, if that makes sense. Luckily his mom pushed the issue of my taking the class in front of him and he stood up for me; it's the first time he has done that to his mother. We'll have been married for a year next month, so we are definitely ironing things out, and the way things are going, we will be okay. Thank you for your concerns.



Dione
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25 Sep 2011, 5:11 pm

EmiliaL wrote:
Dione wrote:
I have tried to confront my husband about this, but he refuses to help me except for the attacks on my malnourishing him and does not like to hear that there is anything wrong with her. Can anyone help me to either tell her to step off or to deal with her?


Oh my...

It is your husband's job to grow a spine.

This is a common problem many wives have with their husbands.

Their husbands seem to not notice they grew up, left home, married someone and now have a responsibility to their own family that trumps What Mommy Wants. It can take a few years to sort that out, so some patience on your part will be needed as your husband learns. BUT he needs to be willing to do the work to move in the direction of acting like the adult he is now.

You will need to put this to him in very basic terms, I am sorry to say. It's not something the subtle approach ever seems to solve.

Keep it focused on him. He has a duty to his family that he needs to step up to. It's time he learned to say No to Mommy when she's out of line. He didn't marry her. He married you.

It doesn't require being mean to do that -- it does require being firm and very clear.

At some point if he can't do that he'll find he's lost his own family, kids and all.

What can you do with your mil yourself? Stop entertaining the bullcrap. When she tries to blame you for stuff like "malnourishing" your husband, tell her to take it up with HIM, not you. He isn't your slave and can think for himself and speak up for himself. If you can change the subject, do so, and quickly. If you can't, leave the room, pretense or not.

Sometimes simply letting her rant and then, when she's quite finished, saying with ultra calmness "Are you finished now?" can work. Sometimes a flat-toned "you need to stop now" can help.

If she tries to hug you, put your arm out and calmly state your preference, "Thank you, I do not wish to be hugged." Or turn sideways, or otherwise physically deny a "normal" hug. She is NOT hugging you out of affection. This is about domination, and she means to be the alpha dog in your husband's life.

It depends on what you're able to tolerate and do and also on the character of your mil and the rest of the family. Only you can know details like that. But there are many methods to accomplish the goal of stopping her bad behaviour.

The only way she will stop this behaviour is when she stops being rewarded for it. Remove yourself as a target, however you must. Her reward is that you make yourself available as her punching bag.

Then your husband needs to convince her to stop shooting in the first place, not by persuasion so much as by him being sure she realizes she will not get away with it anymore.

At some point he will need to give his Mom an ultimatum, odds are. He will suggest that she gets to choose between having a son and daughter-in-law, or no son and no daughter-in-law.

Because it really does come down to that, when you have a parent who is out of control on this level.

One last thing: How is your father-in-law? Don't overlook the possibility that he could be an ally in some way. Maybe hubby could ask Dad if he can work with his own wife to stop her. Sometimes the back room deals do work. ;)

My best wishes to you and your husband as you try to work out a united front to protect your marriage and your own family.


After several months of arguments, he finally got the message and has been standing up. Just today she made the mistake of trying to goad us into going to that cultish seminar, me moreso than him, and he actually stood up for me. I felt so proud that he has gone from anti-confontation to prevention.

As far as my father in-law goes, he is very quiet. He, unlike her, dispenses advice and tells us that it's his personal experience, but that we are allowed to do what we will.
We are pretty much not allowed to say anything negative about my mother in-law to my father in-law. It really riles him up, and often turns downright nasty. The problem is, he is a major pleaser, and so will bottle up everything that bothers him about her until such a time as the bottle no longer can hold everything and spews out like an improperly opened bottle of champagne.

The other problem is, she doesn't tend to do it around anyone else; only when we're one on one. Today was just a weird exception.



Dione
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29 Nov 2011, 11:52 am

I thought it was over, but it reared its ugly head again. This time, we're trying to find a house. His mom has been needlessly critical of the realtor we chose (accusing the realtor of not doing her job correctly, accusing the realtor of preventing us from getting a house we liked, etc.) as well as suddenly she thnks she's a realtor.
She is pressuring me to look at a house that is 10K over our budget. I told her that we were not interested in looking at houses that were over what we could afford, but refuses to listen to me. I tried enlisting my husband and he took her side! I am at wit's end with this. What is worse is, we are now looking during the week and because I don't drive, his mom is going with me.