u/Used_Sheepherder_622

Hi I’m new, I made a post on another sub and was directed here. My MIL has a bad drinking and drug problem, it’s gotten to the point where she is convinced she’s at rock bottom and all she has left is her bf and their drugs. He treats her like shit and just uses her for money so they can both get more drugs and alcohol.

I’m at a breaking point, I can’t stand her anymore, the hurt she’s caused me, my partner, her own parents. We’ve tried being gentle and patient, we’ve tried being communicative, we’ve tried sending her resources, we’ve tried being very blunt and being tough when expressing to her how she’s hurting us. I’ve stopped giving her money since she never uses the money for what she says she’s going to and only uses it for her benders (she literally just messaged me for money as I’m typing this and is now lashing out at me for saying no)

I don’t want to give up on her, she’s the only parent my partner has left, she’s the only parental figure I have left too, but I don’t know what to do anymore. An intervention didn’t work, she just stormed out while cussing us all out, and she refuses to go to rehab. My partner and I have stopped enabling her, but she refuses to accept our help or help herself. There has to be something else we can do though, one last way to help her see reason. Please help.

Edit: quick edit to add a TW/CW for mentions of drug use/drug abuse

I’ve been with my partner for 9 years now, my MIL used to be great. Well, not great, but compared to my own mother she was an angel. But the last four years have been hell. She’d slowly been becoming more distant from us, selfish and sketchy. But when she met her bf four years ago suddenly everything was worse. She was so distant we’d be lucky if she’d even talk to us once a week, suddenly she stopped spending time with us or getting us surprise gifts. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t care about material possessions like that, it was the fact that she just didn’t think about us anymore. I didn’t like when her life’s mission was to do everything for us, I wanted her to have a life outside of us, but how she acts is almost worse than that. No, it IS worse than that. She had no patience for us, she started borrowing money from us more and more often but rarely paying us back, she even once stole 3 thousand dollars from me, and it’s been getting worse and worse and worse.

She’s been on and off with her bf for years, but it’s a horrible and toxic relationship, she just has no self respect and keeps crawling back to him, and then complaining to us about how shitty he is. After two years of that we’d finally had enough and told her either be done with him for good or stop complaining to us if you’re just going to keep making the same mistake over and over again. Then she got her settlement money from her accident. Fifty thousand dollars. And what did she do with it? Pay us back for all the money she’s borrowed and stole? Get herself an apartment? Get us an apartment to make up for the apartment that she got us kicked out of? Pay off any of her debts, or perhaps make a savings account? Nope. None of that. Drugs and alcohol. And then suddenly fifty grand was gone in a month. And she came crawling back and immediately started borrowing money from us again.

And her drug abuse is just getting worse, she just borrowed money from my partners grandma, $300 gone in three days. That money was supposed to get her home after an appointment in the big city (which is 8 hours away and supposedly the only place she can be treated but I don’t believe that) and now she’s begging for more money to get her home. I’m so fucking done with her. There’s so, so much more than just this, she’s been treating my partner so horribly that I’ve had to physically stand between them to stop her from yelling at them, I’ve had to sit her down and make it clear to her that certain things she’s saying/doing is hurting her own child because if they do it she brushes them off or gets mad at them, but it’s like it goes in one ear and out the other.

We’ve tried interventions, we’ve stopped funding these benders she’s been going on, and when she’s off the drugs our relationship is great. But it’s like as soon as our relationship starts to heal, as soon as we start building trust again she’s fucked off to the big city to go do drugs with her bf. I am at my wits end with her, but I can’t go no contact with her because when she’s not fucked off to big city she lives with us (it’s complicated, but we can’t afford a place on our own)
I don’t know if I’m asking for advice or just ranting, but I am sick of her being so god damn selfish. If she wants to fuck off and do drugs then fine, that’s her choice, but to lie to us and her own mother and use the last of her money to fund her own drug use is so shitty. She constantly guilt trips us for money even when we tell her that sending her the money will mean we don’t get as much groceries as we need, even when we’ve put our foot down over and over she just forgets that we’ve told her we’re done giving her any money she just keeps begging for more. I think I might hate her at this point. But I feel guilty for hating her because she (and their grandparents) are all my partner has left. She’s all I have left after going NC with my own abusive family.

Sorry for the long post, I’d just had the breaking point when I asked her when she was coming home from her most recent appointment and she responded with “when I get money” literally the day after my grandma-in-law sent her $300, more than twice what it usually costs to get her home. I’m so so tired of her. Thanks to anyone who read this far.