Am I in the right to feel hurt by my MILs words and actions?
To make this short, my MIL and I have a long history together, I’ll spare the details. She has said some incredibly hurtful things to her son, including how she doesn’t understand how he has no empathy for anyone (he’s incredibly sensitive and empathetic), and has called him a liar and disrespectful. She told him that she didn’t need to be his mom anymore since he had another one (my mom). She is incredibly childish and somewhat manipulative. My FIL is so incredibly nice, but he always takes her side and tell my husband to let things go. I understand his actions, I do not judge him for standing by his wife.
The start of this story goes back to our wedding about 3 years ago. My SIL passed away unexpectedly 8 months before our wedding was supposed to happen. It was devastating and heartbreaking. I did my best to support my husband’s family throughout these times, while also trying to process my own grief (she was supposed to be a bridesmaid, I truly considered her a sister to me). I talked with my husband a lot before our wedding about his wants. I told him I understood if he wanted to postpone our wedding, or even cancel it. I really wanted him to feel comfortable with getting married after her death. Not once did he mention postponing or canceling. Any time this was brought up he immediately shut it down. He would always say “I want to marry you and celebrate with our family and friends. I know it will be difficult, but I want this for us”. However my MIL was not so supportive. She went through a very complex grieving process, at one point she even accused my SILs husband of killing her (absolutely not the case). She was a complete wreck, which was understandable, however she refused to get any help, and said that she was the “victim in the family, the one who lost the most”. This was really frustrating for me to watch, as her actions had a large effect on the rest of the family, who catered to her feelings. Again, I understood that she needed care and support, but it felt like everyone else’s feelings were set aside for her. She would frequently complain that she wasn’t involved in wedding planning, but when I asked her to help (I asked her to buy some linens that we picked out together) she put it off for months and never ordered anything. My own mom ended up ordering them, which infuriated my MIL. She’s always been very jealous of my mom, but that’s a story for another day. About 3 weeks before our wedding, she was taken to the hospital for wanting to hurt herself. I felt awful, and again offered to postpone the wedding so she could make it. She then said that the wedding was too stressful for her and that she didn’t want to go because it would be “miserable and the worst day ever”. She was very upset that my husband included his BIL in the wedding and insisted we take him out, and we refused. The day of our wedding, she cried most of the day, complained about her dress (which she picked), her makeup, her hair, the weather, you name it, she complained. I was really hurt by her actions, and finally months later I voiced this to my husband. He said that he noticed a shift in my relationship with his mom and that he figured that was the case and that he was disappointed that I couldn’t resolve the issue. Eventually, a conversation was had where she said she didn’t do anything wrong and that we should have postponed because she wasn’t able to function, let alone support her son. I was infuriated, I had offered to postpone for months, I attempted to include her, her family encouraged her to go to therapy, but none of that was enough. I would try to talk to my husband, however he hates confrontation and would often defend his mom when I would bring up my feelings. However, he would often talk about how his mom was “crazy” and that she hurt his feelings a lot. Eventually, a conversation was had where we tried to bring up our concerns, however we were met with verbal attack, she made a list of all the things we did to wrong her and talked about how we were so mean to her. The conversation was going so poorly, I thought my husband was going to storm out, however the conversation took a turn when she said her extended family noticed how “quiet and distant” I had been acting recently. I was so frustrated, as I had been dealing with some mental health stuff myself, including suicidal thoughts. When I brought this up, she immediately related to me and said she understood and asked why I didn’t just talk to her about it. I apologized, however I felt uncomfortable and told her I didn’t feel comfortable talking to people about my poor mental health. I was not happy that the conversation ended of a “good note” due to them feeling sorry for me. My husband disregarded the rest of the conversation and said he was happy to have everything put behind us, as if she wasn’t calling him a liar and other awful things 20 minutes before. However, I really wanted to just let things go, so I tried. I had a hard time, I really hung on to a lot of resentment, which really upset my husband. I am disappointed in myself that I can’t let it go. I’ve been trying very hard to let my guard down around her, and I feel as if recently things have been improving.
Unfortunately, yesterday things took a turn for the worse. We were hosting breakfast for some out of town family, who commented on a picture from our wedding that we had hanging up. My MIL then pipes in, “I don’t remember anything from that day, it was too close to when (SIL) died”. It obviously made my family and her family uncomfortable, however she continued to talk about it. She must have mentioned her “not remembering anything” about 5 times. Her family commented about how beautiful our flowers were, they were clearly talking to me, looking at me, engaging in a conversation, and my MIL still continued to say “I don’t remember the flowers, I don’t even know who was there”. It was awful, I eventually politely removed myself from the conversation. That evening, my husband brought up the comments and again called her crazy and said he was frustrated. I agreed with him and said it’s really hard to forgive her when she keeps making me feel bad. It’s been a strain on our marriage. He was clearly frustrated with her and myself and said he didn’t want to talk about it. I mentioned to him if he thinks couples therapy would be beneficial so we could maybe discuss when he was ready, however he said he didn’t want to and that he feels like I don’t like his mom and that he feels a need to defend her. However he then said he feels like he hardly knows her anymore since she has changed so much since his childhood.
I’ve been thinking about this whole situation this morning. Does anyone have any advice? I’m really stuck. I know I am by no means innocent in all of this. It’s all just so hard. TIA!