Mothers Day Drama
I deleted my original post bc my BIL is an avid redditer and I didn’t want him to see.
I have been NC with my husbands entire family, mostly due to my JNMILs boundary stomping and her flying monkeys, and my husbands lack of support in it all (letting them deny everything, play stupid, gaslight, etc.). I am 6 months pregnant and have a 10 month old baby. My husband lost his job in January. We have enough going on.
I have been blissfully NC and not going to any family functions, and my husband has been getting the hint that I won’t tolerate the behavior anymore and it’s on him to step up and cut it off. He’s made some serious improvements.
Mother’s Day comes around, I text my MIL on a group text w my husband and just send her a couple of pics of my husband and baby and wish her a happy Mother’s Day. She sends me a link on Instagram of a FB post from earlier that day, and I see the post to my SIL and the one to me. For my SIL: “I hope your Mother’s Day is as bright and beautiful as you are. Thanks for being a great mother to my grandson and a wonderful wife to my son.” For me: “have a relaxing and wonderful Mother’s Day.” I am not friends w her on FB, I would never have seen this post, but she made it a point to make sure I saw it.
My husband noticed the discrepancy and told her “if you’re not going to post equally, then don’t post at all. Can you please take down the post of my wife?” She said “yes.” That was the entire conversation.
She proceeds to delete her entire FB and it notifies every group message she’s ever been a part of that she’s left the group, which I’m sure led to tons of ppl reaching out to her asking why. One of those people wound up being my BIL.
So on Monday my BIL chews me out via text and tells me I’m using his family as a pawn, and I need to suck it up, apologize for my part in everything, and fix the mess I caused in his family. I did start a public thing like 6 months ago with his mom and apologized profusely for how I handled things, I was post partum and going through it, and I felt like she was making an effort with my BILs kid and was treating my baby differently, but it wasn’t an excuse to act like I did and we had worked it out. I’ve definitely apologized for my part in it all, many times. He accused me of not telling people what my problem is with them - I explained to him everyone has been communicated with - my MILs flying monkeys, but just because they act like they don’t know what I’m talking about and they didn’t mean anything by what they said, doesn’t mean they weren’t communicated with. And he called me out for not responding to any messages or coming to family events for months and I explained to him that it’s nothing personal I am just distancing myself from your moms drama bubble, and I will now continue to distance myself further. My husband did jump in when he saw the texts and tell his brother he can’t be talking to me like he is and the conversation isn’t going anywhere so it needs to end.
The good news here is my husband is seeing his mom for what she is. How many times can you “have no idea why” your family is acting out, or “want to stay out of” things that could only have originated w you? There’s never accountability, she jumps to denying any involvement, she claims she didn’t say things I word for word know she said, and when all else fails she plays victim “I’m sorry you feel like you need to treat me this way.” Then months later she’ll come up with a BS reason she “needs” all of the kids to get together, including spouses, my first pregnancy it was to announce her retirement and move to Florida that we all already knew about and never happened. She almost made it seem like a medically significant announcement which almost made my husband want to go, nice try.
I’m at the point where I don’t think she’s an emotionally healthy person for my kids to be around. And with the amount of shit she talks about my SIL and still is buddy buddy with her, and other people she talks shit on then acts like besties to their face bc she gets something out of them, I don’t want my kids around it. They’re too young now to know, but it’s just a matter of time. I have told my husband I don’t want her around them alone ever. I am stopping short of saying I don’t want them around her at all, but I’m hoping my husband will get there as he sees her continue her crap which can’t be blamed on me bc I am full NC. My husband has made comments like “I’m well aware my mom is a bit of a narc-is-ist (the post flagged this) and doesn’t take accountability” but I’m hoping enough is enough soon and we all can go NC. And I hold some guilt of the rift between him and his brother, but I don’t feel like I have caused that, I feel like that is something his mom and brother are causing.
They are just a very different family than mine. They give things time and just get over it, they bow to their moms guilt trips and control, and you’re supposed to take whatever treatment you get bc they’re family. Whereas my family doesn’t tolerate continued disrespect, when someone is told they have done something to hurt us we expect the behavior to change, and continued hurt and disrespect is met with distance. Not saying that we’re perfect by any means, but very very different. And it’s important to me to teach my kids accountability, being mindful about how what we are doing could hurt other people, and making sure we apologize to those we’ve hurt, even if it’s unintentional.
God, I hope my husband gets there so we can just be done-done with her nightmare.