Home › Forums › The Community Lounge › MIL Hates Me
- This topic has 2 replies and was last updated 1 year, 8 months ago by
Maddie.
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Lou
I just got married yesterday, Saturday, August 13th. It was a beautiful day, the venue, flowers, food, music, sky and ceremony were everything we asked for minus something my husband and I had a feeling would happen. His mother literally left in the middle of our ceremony…
Some background, I had dated my husband for close to 8 years before our wedding day. It was a long distance relationship for the first 6 years. Then I finally moved to where he lived, just for him to be diagnosed with cancer and then covid hit.
His mom and I used to have a wonderful relationship until his diagnosis. The stress of it did not sit well for her. We had to move in with her due to her son (my now husband) being unable to walk up 2 flights of stairs. I tried to help out just to be told I was doing everything wrong even though my mom was a nurse and my best friend is a nurse practioner. I was trying to smooth things out when she said, “f*** you,” to me and then really started tearing into me any chance she got. I started not eating, barely left our rooms, and only focused on my husband. I had sat down with her and told her that bow she was speaking to me was unacceptable especially in our situation and that we need to be sticking together rather than picking on each other.
She eventually kicked me out of the house when I went to visit my mom for mother’s day. And hasn’t spoken 2 words to me since then. I tried saying hi or asking how she was doing when I would pick up/visit my husband.
Fast forward these last 2ish years. My husband proposed, we planned our wedding, he had said he wanted to pay for anything the grooms parents would pay for. His dad (parents are divorced) would have happily paid, but he didn’t want anyone saying I did this/that for you. She told my husband that she only felt like a guest, that the wedding invitation should have been hand delivered to her, and that she wanted to know why I hadn’t spoken to her in a year and a half…
My husband had said that she was coming to the ceremony but not the reception bc “her dogs needed her”. I had ordered her a corsage, my husband had asked her to walk him down the aisle… but she went up with his sister(a whole different issue that is between siblings) sat in the back row. When I came out with my father, everyone was standing except for her… and when the ceremony ended and we walked back down the aisle as husband and wife neither of them were there. Come to find out they left before we even said our vows.
Today my husband gets a text from his mother saying that she hopes to understand one day but doesn’t and that his actions Saturday has cut her deeply. We were cuddled up together when he read the message and I don’t know if he knows I saw it.
How do I handle this situation?
He’s tried talking to her and it’s like talking in circles which he doesn’t want to put me through. He’s talked to his dad, but he has no words for her anymore especially after she has recently said nasty things about him to his friends.
His dad and dad’s family love me and know that I would anything and everything for this man.Raven
Hi Lou, Congrats to You & your Husband!
Sounds your MIL has been this way for some time…
Sounds like your husband is supportive.Unfortunately, it sounds like a situation you’re going to have to ‘tolerate.’ She’s not going to change just because you are now married to her son. It’s also a situation that your husband will have to deal with.
How do you handle this situation?
Ignore your MIL awful behavior & support your husband.& make a beautiful life together.
Maddie
Second what Raven said. Try to minimize interactions between you and her. Nothing you can do will be good enough because her behavior isn’t about you. She may be irrationally afraid of losing her son, at first to illness and then to you, and cannot overcome feeling that way even though you wanted to show her that you’re on the same team. It sounds like you tried to appropriately involve her in your wedding and invited her to participate, and it didn’t help, she still somehow ended up insulted and left (at least she didn’t start a scene and interrupt the wedding). She has her own issues, wants control, and likely won’t change. On the off-chance she does change, it will not have anything to do with you, either. Support your husband, he can have his relationship with her if he chooses to, but that doesn’t mean you yourself need to tolerate her toxic behavior. He also may want to ask for a therapist’s guidance, especially if her behavior and manipulations are causing him lots of stress during his recovery. He will not be able to talk her into changing her behavior towards you, since again, it’s not actually about you.
When minimizing your interactions, if she does try to engage more with you, you can try something called the gray rock method when you’re dealing with toxic behavior. There’s more info if you search online, but here’s a summary: “Using the Gray Rock method, your objective is to make someone lose interest in you. You don’t feed their needs for drama or attention. You don’t show emotion, say anything interesting, or disclose any personal information. Nor do you ask questions or participate in conversations, except for brief factual replies. Limit your answers to a few syllables or a nod. Say “maybe” or “I don’t know.””
Congratulations on your wedding, and give yourselves some space to focus on enjoying being newlyweds instead of worrying about her, at least for the time being!
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