“How Can I Deal with My Entitled Mother-in-Law?”
– She behaves badly when things are not about her or do not go her way. She had a wedding tantrum when she felt she was not being treated specially enough as mother of the groom. In every photo of her she is scowling. Whenever she talks about the wedding week, she refers to her side trip to the Grand Canyon as the highlight of her trip.
– She is a manipulative crier and will start crying when she feels she is being “attacked” (i.e. anyone trying to speak to her about her behavior).
– She is incredibly self-absorbed and controlling.
– One day before the wedding, I was at a jewelry store with her and she was fawning over a necklace but it was more than she wanted to pay. I offered to buy it for her as a wedding gift. She happily accepted and seemed thrilled. She took it off halfway though the wedding and when my MOH asked her where her pretty necklace went, she said, “Oh, well Jane bought it for me but it’s not really my style so I took it off as soon as I thought no one would notice.”
There’s more, but to get to my question:
We live in close proximity to her and my FIL. She does a lot of things that make me angry, but I limit how much of it I share with my husband, because as much as he “knows how his mother is,” he will still go into defensive mode if I bring up too much stuff about her (I think he is also a bit embarrassed by her behavior).
So who do I vent to when I need to talk about how I’m feeling? It feels like a betrayal to him when I vent to my friends about her, and yet I don’t want to be constantly talking about my issues with her to him. Getting a therapist just to vent about my MIL doesn’t seem healthy either.
Learn to just suck it up? My other concern is that we will be trying to have a baby soon, and after the very entitled “I am the mother of the groom” behavior surrounding the wedding, I am already dreading “I AM THE GRANDMOTHER, I AM VERY IMPORTANT” routine. She already has baby rabies and is constantly talking about her future grandchildren. — Over It Daughter-in-Law
If this is already causing an issue so early in your marriage, even before trying to conceive, let alone actually having a child, I don’t think the idea of seeing a therapist is unreasonable at all. I also don’t see why you feel it’s a betrayal to vent to your friends about your mother-in-law. Your husband would probably prefer you complain to someone other than him anyway. You could also write in a journal, or get out some aggression through exercise or creative pursuits.
But if what you really need are some tools to help you create and stick to boundaries with your MIL, as well as some direction in communicating with your husband (like knowing what to bring up with him vs. what might be better to simply vent about with friends or an online community), a therapist can certainly help in that regard. There’s nothing “unhealthy” about getting guidance about family tension before it becomes a bigger drama than you can handle on your own. In fact, it’s actually healthy and proactive.
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“Baby rabies”!!! Ha ha ha! I’m totally adding that to my vocabulary.
Sounds like your MIL has some narcissistic tendencies, eh? I agree with everything Wendy said, but also would add that it might help to really lower your expectations when it comes to her behavior. “Bemused detachment” is what you are going for here. Don’t share tons of details about your life with her (like, don’t tell her you’re trying to get pregnant, tell her when you ARE pregnant. Tell her when you’re due, but don’t tell her when you actually go into labor or she’ll storm the hospital. Etc.) She is probably never going to respond to you like a normal person. Don’t get too invested in having her act like one. Easier said than done, I know! And things will get more complicated when there are kids involved, so it really might be beneficial to talk to a professional about some strategies to contain the crazy. Good luck!
i thought that too. SOOOO GOOOD
“Bemused detachment” will be my battle cry from now on.
It’s really funny to imagine that as a battle cry. Here we come, the bemused detached ones! Jokes aside, I think it’s exactly the right attitude to cultivate.
“Baby rabies” is the greatest thing ever. I am so going to use that from now on.
Great advice, Wendy! Is “baby rabies” a thing? I’ve never heard that, super funny.
Who ARE these people??? Honestly, I know they exist and that a lot of LWs and members of this community have to deal with them, but I have never met anyone like this in my whole life. I can think of the two people who are the “worst people” I know, and they are nowhere near these levels of crazy. I guess I’ve been super lucky in that regard.
I agree with Wendy, venting to your friends is fine!
As you’re planning to start your own family, I think talking to your husband and deciding what boundaries you want to put in place once you have a child is necessary.
Talk to your husband about moving about a thousand miles farther away from his mother. What is it in today’s posts with men who are unable to stand up to their parents?
I am now officially going to figure out a way to work “baby rabies” into my conversations with relatives over Thanksgiving. Fantastic!
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Also, it’s totally fine to vent to your friends about your MIL. But, I agree that getting with a therapist (probably with your husband at some point) to help you set some real boundaries is a great idea prior to having children. It’s not like this woman is going to magically stop being a nightmare on her own.
Why can’t you vent about your MIL to your friends? I mean, don’t vent to his friends (at least not excessively), and don’t air your dirty laundry about your husband to your friends, but since when is venting about an obnoxious MIL not allowed? I’d keep the venting in check, so that you do talk to your friends about other things, and not just her, but there’s no reason to think you can’t vent to your friends!
That being said, you and your husband need to get on the same page regarding her involvement in your life and that of future kids before those future kids exist. Every couple needs to know the boundaries for dealing with relatives, and when those relatives are obnoxious or horrible to deal with you need to come to an agreement between the two of you and then both of you (or the most related person) need to enforce those boundaries. You and your husband, and any future kiddos, are now priority #1, and she is (at best) #2. If she tries to put herself into the #1 slot, you two need to put her back in her place. But that means you need to talk to him about what that means, reach some sort of agreement that he is also comfortable with. Sure, it would be great if you didn’t have to do this (because in healthy relationships you don’t often get near the boundary), but it’s better to set up and enforce those boundary lines early if you realize there is a problem. I have a friend who’s going to have a baby in 2 months, and she doesn’t currently have a much-needed boundary line with her MIL, and I’m starting to get worried for her about what will happen then. (MIL and her husband want MIL to move in with them. My friend VERY much does not want this, but… I’m worried she’ll cave.) Set boundaries early!
That being said, how much of her behavior can you just ignore or laugh off? Or take as a lesson learned? (ie, don’t buy her expensive gifts. Don’t expect much with respect to gratitude for gifts in the future.) I’m sure that there are some aspects of her behavior that you can actively chose to not let get to you (not that doing so may be easy, especially at first!). I mean, I’m sure there are things about your own family that drive you crazy, but that you’ve learned over time to just deal with. How much of her behavior is a problem, and how much is just annoying? Yes it sucks that she says the Grand Canyon was better than your wedding, but… so what? She’s scowling in the photos, but… aren’t the ones with just the two of you the most important anyway? Set boundaries for what’s important, and learn to ignore whatever is just merely annoying.
The fact that you have this much to vent about indicates that this is not sustainable. Like the bigger problem is that she’s causing so much disruption that you have to vent about all these things. I’d say that it means that you and your husband need to come up with a plan on how to deal with her, and likely it means distancing yourself from her. For you, I’d say interact with her only when necessary and in a superficial manner. As in, making small talk at an event, but not shopping with her, etc. You and your husband also need a plan where if she is throwing an actual tantrum, what do you do? Can you just remove yourselves? This is not going to get better, so you need to have a way of dealing with her that is manageable, before kids are involved.
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I think you can vent to your friends, as long as it doesn’t become the only thing you talk about. My friends vent about their parents all the time (as do I). Also, a therapist isn’t there to vent to, necessarily, but they can help you figure out how to handle her. Like ways that might help you get less annoyed with her.
I can’t believe nobody’s ever heard of baby rabies. I thought it was in the common lexicon. Anyway, LW, sorry your MIL sounds like the worst.
Is this my sil writing in?? Kate, is that you??
Lol I feel for you LW, I have one of these.
Mine is the devil itself and we live with it!! Bad thing about it before we moved in they loved me so much till I quit doing all the laundry, dishes and not to mention everything else. My husband is in denial and she already told me I needed to go live with my mother. That’s been two years ago and I haven’t spoken to her since. We live in the basement thank the Lord for that anyways it could be on the same floor. She’ll cook stinky stuff then turn the air on and send it down. Stomp on my head in every room I go in scald me by running water while I’m in the shower, shake dirty rugs on my head as I’m going in the apartment. There outside door is right above ours and to top it off we pay rent and they don’t even need the money.
The MILs aren’t nice but you have each put yourself into these situations by being unable to provide your own home.
Move out!
there’s a bit of a difference between a cooking smell and potential anaphylaxis though. That aside I’d not have a baby until I had a safe place to put it . And if I had that level of allergy I’d be extra sure to make that the case, it’s a lot to ask of any host.
At the risk of projecting too much, i felt this could’ve been written about my mother. She acted out at our wedding, created drama when there was none and left early in a huff bc she felt slighted.
After a few more years of her continuing this, i went no contact with her.
When your mother can’t let anyone outshine her in any social setting, sometimes it’s too toxic to continue.
Now, just because your MIL seems similar to my mom, your story doesn’t have to be the same ending. Talk to someone, understand she probably will always have personality issues and trying to fix her isn’t an option. It’s all about damage control.
Definitely start working on setting boundaries with MIL with a good therapist or marriage counselor ASAP. Your concern about future monster-grandma is valid. My sister, who lives out of state, had major issues with our mom trying to insist that she had exclusive rights to her grandchildren whenever she visited, which was always the eldest grand’s birthday in the summer, and over Christmas. Her excuse was that the local grandma had full access the other 50 weeks of the year. Sis finally banned our mom from Christmas, which meant she camped out at my house that week – oh, joy. (Not)
Your problem isn’t quite the same, but believe me, when you have an adult who thinks they are the center of the universe, it’s best to prepare for challenges as best you can, and agree on a plan ahead of time.