After 10 Years, Is It Me?
This is a long one so TIA for anyone who stays.
I’ve been with my husband for over 10 years. When we first started dating, I learned about his troubled childhood. His mom and dad had severe marital problems and my husband was witness to drug and alcohol addiction as well as physical, mental, and verbal abuse between the two of them. He spent much of his life moving between friends and family homes and not having much stability until his freshmen year of high school. Throughout his life, his mom was in and out but his dad seems to have always been around. He has about a five-year period where he recalls not even knowing if she was alive. He lived with his dad from freshmen year until he and I moved in together.
I loved his mom when we first met. She was youthful and fun and seemed like someone I’d be grateful for as a MIL. I was totally oblivious to the things I see now. Shortly after we got married, after about 6 years of having a positive but not super close relationship with her, I started to notice things and now, at 10 years, I have hit my breaking point and don’t want to even be around her. This creates quite a lot of tension between my husband and I because he doesn’t see or understand her behavior the way I do (it’s his mom, after all). The ONLY reason I question my mindset is because my husband wants her around and I have to check in with myself to ensure I’m not being dramatic. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t question it at all. He struggles to validate anyone else’s emotions, but that’s a story for another time.
Here are a few things that have bothered me:
- Every time she’s around she finds a way to bring up something negative about my husband’s father, who is still in his life. Mind you, they do not speak and she is only bringing up instances from over 30 years ago.
- I can literally see her get off on my son calling her “mommy” by accident like he does with my mom and his daycare. She never corrects him either.
- In labor, she was told by my mother that I was pushing and going upstairs to the hospital room was not a good idea (mom was my hospital gatekeeper and hubby was hospital room). She ignored my mom and went up anyways, walking into the room mid-push. Hubby told her to leave, and I found out later she told my sister in law she saw my vagina, which was a lie because the room curtain was pulled.
- When my son was WEEKS old she was babysitting while I worked from home. I came out of my office when my husband got home and her and my son were nowhere to be found. We looked all over the house and street and nothing. Called her, no answer. Husband had to jog down to the park a half mile away and found them there.
- Came over one day while hubby was working and told me he thinks I don’t love him anymore. I’ll never know the truth and hubby and I are fine now, but he told me she blatantly lied and he never said that.
- My son had a horribly scary choking incident so we were very particular about the food we gave him while he was little. She knew about this and would still give him food we asked her not to give him, specifically chewy/sticky fruit snacks and more.
- She told my husband she forked over a huge sum of money to his sister when she got married. His sister went no-contact with her (for the same reasons I want to be) and since then, the amount of money given has changed, and it’s gone from “given” to “stolen”. Weird.
- My son had a scratch on his lip after a night she babysat him. I asked her about it and she said he did not scratch his lip with her. It was not from fingernails while he slept, either. Do I think she did it, no. But would I like to know what happened, yes.
- It took months of me and my husband asking her to not post public photos of my son on social media before my husband told her she’s not allowed to post any pictures, period. We have graduated since she now posts photos privately, but she’s using photos she has snapshotted from OUR social media and sharing it to hers like she took it.
- She lied to my sister in law about being sober and lies to everyone else too. Even her long time boyfriend. She asked for a beer at Easter in front of my entire family when they all know she’s supposed to be sober”sober”.
- Speaking of Easter, we had no plans to see her this year specifically because I told my husband I need just a bit of space from her. She heard about our Easter celebration with my side through a family member she has contact with who invited her, not knowing I was trying to take space. She seems to have thought nothing of the fact that her own son didn’t invite her and showed up anyways.
- Halloween, my son’s first where he can run crazy with the big kids. He asked her to go up to a few doors with him and she made it very clear that he asked her to go and not me, even though husband and I were trying to encourage him to go up with his friends (we’re working on being brave and having courage)
- Cherry on top for me was our anniversary a few months back. We set up my son to spend the weekend with my parents (he is with them a few days per week already) and for her to dog-sit. No, I didn’t want my son with her all weekend, but we wouldn’t drop three dogs AND a child on any of our relatives, it’s just too much. She found out my son was with my parents and not her and threw an absolute fit. She insulted my husband verbally, threatened to go home and leave the dogs (while we were three hours away in a paid-for hotel), and told my husband she was not going to wait for us to get home to spend time with my son (we had already told him she was going to be there when we got home and he was excited). On top of that, she closed our 3 cats in their bedroom and let them shit all over the room for us to get home to. The bigger thing here isn’t even all that. We had been going through a bit of a hard time financially (suddenly, after hotel was paid for) and we finally actually asked her for help. We had never asked for financial help in the past, and she has a ton of money from working and her inheritance. It’s enough money to last 4+ generations. She completely blew us off and left us to struggle when we asked literally for $500 that would be paid back as soon as I found a new job (I was on the hunt).
There is so much more but these are some of the bigger things. I can’t figure out if she’s dumb and lacks common sense or she does stuff on purpose. I hear her manipulate my husband and he doesn’t even see it. I see the lies she’s told that she somehow convinces my husband are misunderstandings or just plain spins them differently. I’m feeling like there will come a time when I put my foot down that I don’t want her around me or my son. I am curious about outsiders perspective. My mom and sister totally see what I see, so does my husband’s sister and father, but my husband just doesn’t. At this point, she’s proven to be untrustworthy and toxic. I already know those things. My dilemma is whether I should keep up appearances and force myself to be fake, or if it’s understandable for me to want to put more space between us.