u/Jujubjoy

I’m at a point where I genuinely don’t know how to deal with my MIL anymore. Every interaction turns into her being the victim while everyone else is the problem. She doesn’t handle criticism well, but has no problem dishing it out. She tends to be very passive-aggressive, keeps score in relationships, and brings up old issues whenever there’s any new conflict.

An example: she helped my mom host my baby shower at my mom’s house. I thanked her in my speech (along with my mom and best friend), and also sent her a thank you card. She won’t say it to me, but she insists to my husband that I never thanked her. My husband was at the shower and has told her numerous times he heard me thank her. She has brought this up on several unrelated discussions.

There’s also a long-standing pattern of emotional distance. My husband has said he can’t remember her ever telling him she’s proud of him. When we lived far away, she often focused on asking when we would move back instead of showing support for his career or achievements. When this was brought up, she blamed it on not being an “emotional person” and her own upbringing. Her husband recommended she go to therapy, she shut that conversation down immediately & refuses to go.

Another issue: she took my maternity photos (she’s a part-time photographer) and posted them on Facebook before I had a chance to. When my husband explained to her why this upset me, she got very upset, deleted the post, but said she had every right to post because she took them.

The biggest issue was around the birth of our baby. She wasn’t invited to the delivery (my mom was there to support me), but we did invite her to the hospital the next day. Instead of focusing on the baby, she brought up that she wasn’t invited during the labor and delivery, as well as old conflicts. Mind you, I was sitting on the hospital bed less than 24 hours after giving birth.

Since then, there’s still been no apology or accountability from her side, and any attempt to address issues turns into defensiveness or revisiting past grievances.

My baby is 5 months old now and I feel so awkward. It’s obviously caused distance between us. I know she feels left out, yet makes little to no effort to check in on me or the baby (both during the pregnancy and postpartum).

At this point I’m just trying to figure out how to handle this without everything escalating. I don’t want to cut things off, I genuinely do want the relationship to improve. Has anyone dealt with a MIL like this? What actually works long-term?

I’m at a point where I genuinely don’t know how to deal with my MIL anymore. Every interaction turns into her being the victim while everyone else is the problem.

She doesn’t handle criticism well, but has no problem dishing it out. She tends to be very passive-aggressive, keeps score in relationships, and brings up old issues whenever there’s any new conflict.

An example: she helped my mom host my baby shower at my mom’s house. I thanked her in my speech (along with my mom and best friend), and also sent her a thank you card. She won’t say it to me, but she insists to my husband that I never thanked her. My husband was at the shower and has told her numerous times he heard me thank her. She has brought this up on several unrelated discussions.

There’s also a long-standing pattern of emotional distance. My husband has said he can’t remember her ever telling him she’s proud of him. When we lived far away, she often focused on asking when we would move back instead of showing support for his career or achievements. When this was brought up, she blamed it on not being an “emotional person” and her own upbringing. Her husband recommended she go to therapy, she shut that conversation down immediately & refuses to go.

Another issue: she took my maternity photos (she’s a part-time photographer) and posted them on Facebook before I had a chance to. When my husband explained to her why this upset me, she got very upset, deleted the post, but said she had every right to post because she took them.

The biggest issue was around the birth of our baby. She wasn’t invited to the delivery (my mom was there to support me), but we did invite her to the hospital the next day. Instead of focusing on the baby, she brought up that she wasn’t invited during the labor and delivery, as well as old conflicts. Mind you, I was sitting on the hospital bed less than 24 hours after giving birth.

Since then, there’s still been no apology or accountability from her side, and any attempt to address issues turns into defensiveness or revisiting past grievances.

My baby is 5 months old now and I feel so awkward. It’s obviously caused distance between us. I know she feels left out, yet makes little to no effort to check in on me or the baby (both during the pregnancy and postpartum).

At this point I’m just trying to figure out how to handle this without everything escalating. I don’t want to cut things off, I genuinely do want the relationship to improve. Has anyone dealt with a MIL like this? What actually works long-term?