r/inlawsaretheworst

Every 6 months or so my MIL will come across country to spend anywhere from 1-4 weeks at our house. She never buys her return ticket and always leaves earlier than she wants because she gets pissed off. ATP husband and I have been together for 6 years and she's taken a trip to see us at least 7 times in the past few years. My husband and I have full physical and legal custody over my step son 8 who has been in our care full time for 4 years. Now heres where my complaints and ranting comes in. As a family we've worked so hard to create and keep a tight schedule, 1 hour of device time on weekdays (even during vacation), weekends screen time is allowed after lunch until 6pm generally these 6 hours are broken up by trips into town and playing games as a family. Obviously I know Grandma is coming so we will have some disruptions but the extent of everything has me at my wits end. MIL has given 8yo her phone every morning since last Tuesday, he gets on the phone at 6am and isn't off it till bed at 8pm. I've tried telling her and 8yo that he needs to take a break, play outside, read a book, just something to get him off a phone, if I even slightly tell 8yo to do anything MIL gives him her phone and tells him to "go to your room before your mom gets mad". Last night when she said it I snapped, "Don't tell my child to leave me alone because he's a child and isn't who is getting on my nerves. Children don't get on my nerves you do." in the moment I felt so proud of myself it was meet with her deadpan staring at the tv not even giving me a glance. MIL also smokes cigarettes in my house and lets 8yo be around it. I tell her I don't like it and she still does it. She gets mad at me for mothering and it makes me feel like less of a mother, not that I am in her eyes anyway. Husband is super supportive of me and understands how his mother acts if it were to come from husband and not me she would be vindictive and probably drag us through a battle with cyfd. Thanks in advance for any advise.

I posted here last week about how my mother in law was controlling my marriage and manipulating my husband. She would keep reminding him of my faults, flaws, telling him that I wasn’t a good wife, a good person, a good daughter in law. I lost respect for my husband for enabling it, for sometimes supporting his mother, and not protecting me. I never swore, shouted or hit him. But I lost respect.

Last night, he divorced me. I don’t know what to do anymore. I feel numb, scared, broken. I hate her.

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/MuslimMarriage/s/baogWkegEk

I’ve been married to my husband for 2 years, and together for 4. He and I were inseparable from the moment we met. I also clicked very well with his family and they loved me (his dad actually set us up).

Recently though… I’ve finally caught onto some very manipulative behavior of his parents and little sister. I always give people the benefit of the doubt and I’m a very trusting person so when I’ve heard them talk about others when they weren’t there, I assumed they wouldn’t do that about me (they also assured me that they didn’t do that because they love me). But we had an issue a couple weeks ago where the dad overstepped and I called it out and stood up for myself. Ever since then I’ve emotionally stepped back to try and get clarity. The family is now sending flowers and gifts and it just feels like they’re trying to buy me back. Idk maybe it’s me and I’m just not used to the family dynamic. But the dad constantly brags about how socially aware he is and he can control situations because he can like “read people” really well. Sometimes he’ll say something that is clearly a “subtle” message to me. I’ve asked my husband if he picked up on it too and he usually just tells me that his dad is unaware and didn’t know how it would affect me. So it’s just not adding up. His dad also gets FURIOUS if you ever allude to the fact that his intentions weren’t entirely honest. Like he’ll freak out for being called a liar. My family raised me to think that if someone has a crazy reaction to something or is afraid of being called something, it’s probably because there’s some truth to it.

I feel like I got sucked into a family with very different values. I knew they were different from my own family, but I thought they were super honest and straight up people which I liked about them. Now I’m realizing they are really judgy and manipulative and not as honest as I thought.

VICTIM MINDSET
Whenever we try to talk to her about spending some family time on my partner day off just the three of us her response is inconsistent. Sometimes she seems to understand, but other times she becomes emotional. She will respond in a subdued tone, saying things like, “Yeah… uh, yeah… I know… it’s okay… you guys need it… I’m okay.” Although she says she understands, her tone often makes us feel guilty.
As I reflected on the past few years, I also realized that whenever my partner had time off work, we rarely had private time as a family because she would often come along. To be fair, I can see that she genuinely tries to keep everyone’s mood positive when she’s coming along with us. However, when it is time to hang out just me, her daughter( sister in law)and her and my almost 3 year old son.the atmosphere becomes very different. She often becomes quiet, rarely starts conversations, can be quite bossy, sighs heavily, in the car. It leaves me questioning why we even went out in the first place. The main reason I continue is because my son enjoys spending time with them, so I try my best to manage my own feelings for my son.And they still trying to see everyone or come pick us up on my sister in law day off. I don’t mind doing family thing’s.But like I said if it was just us she will get tired and emotional exhausted easily while shopping hanging out, in the car.
One memory that has stayed with me was about almost 3 year ago after I gave birth to my premature son by emergency C-section. I had just been discharged from the hospital. At the time, we had only recently moved into a new home. We had a new couch, one bedroom, and a nursery that wasn’t even finished because my baby arrived two months early. We barely had any baby clothes prepared.
She told us she wanted to fly from Sydney to Melbourne to help take care of me after giving birth. Later, I learned that her real reason for coming was that she had been fighting with her husband and was on the verge of divorce, although she never told us this at the time. Instead, she presented it as wanting to support me during my recovery.
This was only the second time I had ever met her, so I barely knew her.
Before she arrived, she repeatedly told us not to worry because she was happy to sleep on the couch. However, once she arrived, she immediately said that her back and neck were hurting and that she couldn’t sleep there. Out of politeness, my partner and I offered her our bedroom, never expecting that she would actually accept. She did. As a result, my partner and I, with me only just discharged after a C-section, slept together on the L-shaped couch while she stayed in our bedroom.
I also remember crying quietly in the hospital because my own parents abroad didn’t even know I was pregnant or that I had just given birth. They believed their daughter was simply studying overseas. She was talking to me in the hospital when i took. her to visit my son, While we waiting for my partner car to come pick us up I was shedding tear because I was emotional of what had happened because she asked me. When she noticed i shed my tear she turned face away from me and moved her seat further from me. while crossing leg opposite and just silent facing away. I get her body language right away and I stop . I stop shedding my tear and deep down I know this woman is not here to support me not that I judged her but I know how to read people and that was really not normal for me because why?At the time, I didn’t understand why, but looking back, I think she struggles to cope with other people’s emotional distress because she was carrying so much of her own.
Not long after returning to Sydney, her father-in-law passed away, and her husband told her he wanted a divorce. She was devastated and did not agree to it Yet .She then returned to Melbourne and stayed with us for several months before deciding to moved to Melbourne with my sister in law while I was still recovering postpartum. Fortunately, my son was still in the hospital, and later discharged so he stay in our room so we gave her what was meant to be his nursery.
Those months were extremely stressful for me. I was recovering physically and emotionally from childbirth while living with someone I barely knew. I constantly felt that I had to take care of her emotional wellbeing, even though I desperately needed support myself.
I remember 3 year ago one morning I used the last egg from the fridge for my breakfast.And somehow it affected her that much that Later on this year she still carry on about the egg things to my sister in law. I never thought she holds resentment towards that and let my sister in law know that .A couple times, she jokingly reminded her daughter about “the last egg” “in the fridge “in front of me.She giggled and stop talking .It may have seemed like a harmless joke, but it deeply affected me.
Throughout that period, if my partner and I stayed up watching a movie or playing games together, she would often come out of her room, see us spending time together, say something like, “Never mind,” and walk away looking hurt. We would then feel obligated to invite her to join us because she seemed emotionally affected whenever she felt excluded. This became a daily pattern for many months.
Now, nearly three years later, I still notice similar behaviour. She loves having the entire family together and always wants to be included in outings. She frequently talks about how nice it would be if we all bought a bigger house and lived together someday. While I understand that she values family closeness, it sometimes feels as though she doesn’t consider that other people may also need privacy and independence.
Even now, she occasionally brings up the “last egg” story. For example, if i’m going out alone with my son her and my sister in law we’re out together and food/egg related comes up, she’ll tell her daughter, “See, I know ( my name)loves eggs. Remember I told you about the last egg In the fridge ?”Then she’ll giggle , look at her daughter, and stop there. I still feel uncomfortable every time it happens.
I don’t have a car, so opportunities to hanging out when my partner is working is not much . Sometimes i have to go out with my son my mother in law and my sister in law coming to pick me up because my son love them and I’m purely openly love them too. But when things like the egg things happened it stir me up. I felt uncomfortable with her presence sometime and I asked my self why? I looked back at my experience and I thought maybe this is unresolved especially when my mom in law she doesn’t really think before she talked.
Another example that still stands out is every time she visits my home and gets up from our couch. She jokingly shouts in front of everyone , “Jeez, (my name)! You need to sell this couch! It’s so low—I can’t even get up!” “Why did you get this couch”Every most of the time she was at my place.What makes that particularly exhausting is that this is the same couch I was sleeping on immediately after my C-section because I had given up my own bed and bedroom for her Yet i still got frustrated at in my own home my own space my personal space.
Looking back now, I realize something always felt off from the very beginning. At the time, I genuinely believed she had come to Melbourne to help take care of me after giving birth. In reality, she was escaping conflict with her husband. Instead of receiving support during one of the most vulnerable periods of my life, I found myself carrying the emotional weight of someone else’s crisis while navigating my own postpartum recovery.
I still seeing my in law a lot every week , but the things that push me to write this stuff was because I couldn’t understand why sometime I’m not comfortable in her presence like it stiring something in me and sometimes it make me almost refuse to see family members. Maybe it is a good thing to do? If anyone have a tip to cope with this please le me know.Especially while I’m respecting my son needs to see family members! , And I did respect them 2 year and seven month later did helping me taking me and my son out during my sister in law day off. I meant since they moved to Melbourne our family is all they got and their family is all I got.I hope my feeling won’t get triggered anymore when stuff i have wrote happened .