MIL thinks husband’s extended family should be prioritized over my parents
This post may better be titled “MIL is definitely a narcissist and here’s one example that opens up a lot of questions about the future…”
Husband has a VERY large extended family on his dad’s side (>50 first cousins) and we live in the same metro area as his parents and 90% of his family. My family lives ~7hrs away.
I was on a girls trip that included my MIL recently when she “reminded” me of two extended family events coming up back to back weekends. We hadn’t even received the invites yet. The look on her face was PISSED when I told her H and I wouldn’t be able to attend either because we already had dates on the calendar for my parents to visit and help us with maintenance on our new/first house. It was so uncomfortable that my soon-to-be SIL commented on it to me later on.
The next day MIL told me that I could just bring my parents to the first event and that the host wouldn’t mind… as if this was a big favor to us. My MIL has only met my parents twice. The most recent time was at our wedding and she treated my family as if they were beneath her (she treats my husband’s dad’s family this way too). And this is not the first time that she’s pressured me to alter plans with my family to accommodate things she wants us to attend.
She’s now texting about both events fishing for updates and being a general pest. This works on my husband but DEFINITELY doesn’t work on me (more on that below) which isn’t that big of a deal but is just annoying AF.
She also doesn’t even actually care about any of these people and complains about/judges them constantly. She doesn’t have relationships with any of them individually or outside of opportunities to be performative. She’s just decided that I’m now also a prop for and reflection of her “most devoted member of the family” act and/or that my attendance is is a measure of my worthiness for “her” family and/or that participation in family events is some weird control tactic.
And not to mention, my husband’s extended family is genuinely wonderful and it’s maddening that she’s turned having a relationship with them into a “win-win” power struggle where she either gets to perceive herself as dominant, or gains “evidence” that I’m a terrible DIL who doesn’t care about my husbands family.
Anyway. Husband and I are getting ready to start trying for our own family and the boundary issues keep me up at night. I’ve done a lot of work on boundaries and respect within my own family (eldest daughter and former scapegoat) so I have a pretty solid foundation to approach these issues, and my husband is actively in therapy working on some people pleasing tendencies and making really solid progress towards better managing his relationship with her, but the path we’re about to head down with MIL makes me so nervous. I’m already thinking about how to start setting boundaries and expectations now and how to limit our exposure to her coercion once kids are in play. I So… any advice that’s worked for you? (not ready to go no contact, we’re already low contact).