MIL told bridesmaid to “set him straight” after wedding.
hi, new to reddit and desperately need help figuring out what to do about my new MIL.
we’ve had issues with her in the past, including but not limited to:
-her inquiring about our sexual activities to make sure we’re “making the right decisions” (about 5 months into our relationship)
-asking my husband, then bf, to not invite me to christmas with his family so they could have “one last hurrah” with only him even though i had already been part of the family for about a year at this point and had been at the previous christmas. she also cited the reason as to why i shouldn’t be there as me always being “done up” and she didn’t want to have to put makeup on on christmas morning…?
-when we got engaged she told a mutual friend of ours that she wasn’t happy and is having a hard time…at our engagement party. also wore all white.
-any time my husband tries to talk to her about things she redirects and starts crying about how apparently she’s not a good mother and how she just wants her feelings to be known. this is literally every time he talks to her about one of her inappropriate behaviors.
-yelled at me in a restaurant bc he grew his hair out. (she was going on and on about how bad his hair looked and after her partner, my husband, and myself trying to change the subject multiple times i said that it wasn’t nice to keep talking about it and she snapped at me that she’s his mother and she can talk about his hair if she wants to.)
we have tried grey rocking and low contact which works until holiday season or any other reason she needs to see him. when my husband is around her he returns as a different version of himself. i feel he is more agitated and less affectionate towards me. when he tells me about what they talk about it’s usually a guilt trip about how he doesn’t visit and how much she’s missed him, etc. and then a push for him to travel, get in shape, take our relationship slower, or to really consider what marriage is. (she is not married.) so it makes sense why he’s different when he gets home, but also makes me really sad and frustrated that every time he hangs out w his mom i have to pull him out of his shell again. admittedly, part of that could be bc he knows i don’t like them hanging out so he’s afraid of what i’ll say. he’s a sweet guy and doesn’t want to make anyone upset. i feel as his partner our relationship should take precedence. i think he feels like he’s abandoned his mom bc of how she spins it to him.
we’ve done no contact once after our engagement and it was great for a while until she started sending texts, dms on instagram, and calling late at night. the texts and dms were mostly fine saying that she loves him but also that he’s his own person and she knows that. then she would send his dad to talk to him about marriage (also never been married) and started posting stuff on fb about estrangement. again, not the worst things and she wasn’t posting tons of stuff but previously she had never posted so it kind of spooked us.
after a few months the no contact was lifted and they started texting and chatting on the phone here and there.
but once we were about 3 months out to the wedding things really calmed down. we thought that our time apart had worked and she seemed to be thriving in her church group and with new friends! we were honestly so relieved and even hopeful that she was finally accepting our marriage. she was so helpful during wedding prep and even gave me a gift at the rehearsal dinner (a trinket dish that had writing about me being her new daughter) and told me she loved me. there were things to worry about but she was not one of them and i personally was so relieved.
the wedding was beautiful, our friends and family were so supportive and happy for us, i couldn’t have asked for a better way to ring in our marriage! as the night winded down MIL and FIL said their goodbyes and as she was walking away she yelled for us to have fun but “no babies!” (which is a common theme as she has always been against us having children even though we have both been very open and excited about having our own soon enough) to which i yelled back “how do you know we aren’t already pregnant!?” she yelled “what!?” and i laughed and said “gotcha!” my husband and i both laughed and that was that. or so i thought.
when we returned from our honeymoon my best friend informed me of some things that were happening behind the scenes wedding weekend.
these events were then confirmed by the bridesmaid it happened with, another bridesmaid that saw it happen, my best friend (also a bridesmaid) that heard the account directly after the incident and the best man who also had an incident with MIL (told him she wished she was his mom bc he still lives at home. to which he replied that he would leave if he had a reason to, she kept pushing that she liked that he lived at home and he just said okay and moved out of the room. this was also during the wedding.)
at the rehearsal dinner, MIL greeted the bridesmaid (who has known my husband since HS and has since become a close friend of mine too!) and said that she needed to talk to her but when BM said they could chat now MIL said that she couldn’t bc she would cry. BM said she’d be here all weekend so to text her or come find her later. that was that.
BM then avoided her as much as possible as she didn’t want to be involved in any drama. however when MIL was leaving, she and MIL chatted. i don’t quite remember specifics but the gist was that MIL was not happy about us getting married. that she wanted my husband to travel more, like BM does and how they should get lunch together to talk more bc BM needs to “set him straight.” also there was some talk about how i don’t allow him to see her and that she hasn’t seen her son in 3 months. which is not true, but we have been busy with wedding prep so neither of us has had much of a social life as we did our wedding on a budget and DIY’d everything.
the morning after, BM had an insta dm from MIL saying, amongst other things, she hoped she hadn’t said too much and to please keep it between them and “i hope he is happy that’s all that matters” then sent her phone number. BM responded saying that the wedding was beautiful and it was good to see MIL. MIL read but didn’t respond.
as of now MIL doesn’t know we know what she did and we don’t know how to move forward. i’m enraged and my husband is extremely disappointed and sad. it’s looking like full no contact is the answer but i know that would really hurt my husband since she raised him and they have always been really close.
i’m trying not to go nuclear but can only think of handling this in a rude way. i’d love for her to be in our lives bc she can be cool and fun to be around when she’s not busy trying to break us up. i feel backed into a corner bc my husband doesn’t want to make a decision and im afraid if i make the no contact call that he will secretly hate me for it. we’ve talked about it extensively recently and throughout our relationship and he is supportive of no contact but it makes him really sad and i hate seeing him this way. it makes me feel like maybe im not doing the right thing.
so if you have any advice or have gone through the same thing would you please share? i think it would help to know what we’re getting ourselves into. sorry for the long post but thank you for reading. please help!!