If MIL Calls Me One More Time, I'm Going To Effing Lose My Mind
MIL has started bypassing DH again and calling and leaving messaged for me directly. This is absolutely on me, because I JUST realized this past week, with the help of our marriage counselor, that it's because she realizes every time she calls me, I tell DH to deal with it and DH calls her, which is what she REALLY wants. If she just calls DH, he ignores it. So from now on I'm only going to mention it but no longer ask DH to "deal with it."
For some reason she is laying it on THICK in the messages to me about her shingles--how much pain she's in, how she itches, but how she hasn't seen BD3 in a while and she should be good to watch her and for me to have BD3 call her because she misses her so much.
I get a message almost once a day at this point starting from last week when I told him to call her and see how she was doing because she sounded pitiful on my phone. She occasionally leaves messages with DH but they're more like, hey how are you doing, not asking him to do anything.
Lady, did you not get the memo? For good or bad, DH is the one you go to for your relationship with your granddaughter. You burned your bridge with me a long time ago and I've been polite and cordial but now you're pushing it.
I highly regret trying to do the good thing.
I told DH the next time we see her and this nonsense has not stopped, I'm laying it out. For some reason she did not respect what he said so now I have to say it. I also said that it will probably not be pretty if she wants to retaliate with me, and that will be the end of ANY relationship I have with her, so if he can't get her under control and I have to do it, kiss goodbye to having me around for Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter--he can take the kids to her if he feels like it, I won't stop him, but I'm not going to be there anymore.
Also, BM is coming back from the UK in a month, just in time for SS's birthday, which will be a whole other debacle because it's been a circus for the last 5 years with MIL being the ringmaster so I don't see this time being any different--except I warned DH that IF it is a debacle and his mother has anything to do with it, I will flip the fuck out at her. I don't care who it's in front of, if it's the whole damn united nations.
The new baby would be almost a month old, I will be tired, cranky, leaking at the boobs, and I will most likely fly into a rage and this will also be the end of it. No apology will ever be accepted. I think dealing with 6 years of passive aggressiveness, having MIL insult my parents when the first time they came for Christmas by getting offended that they didn't know whose picture she had plastered all over her house (and yelling, IT'S MY GRANDSON at my poor, almost non-english speaking mother in that "hello, are you blind or stupid" tone), and having me when I was still the GF, send her to the airport to see BM even though DH FORBID her to ask me when she asked him if he could ask me, pulling out pictures of SS at BD's birthday party to STRANGERS who didn't even know about SS--yeah, it's more than enough for me to freak.
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I was going to do that (and
I was going to do that (and told DH which he thought was going just a teensy bit overboard because he thinks I can just ignore it--but I have EIGHT voicemails from her in the last week and a half on my phone, half of which I haven't even listened to because they make my blood pressure rocket) but thought I'd give one last shot at being civil, i.e a "talk" before I took that route.
Why haven't you blocked her
Why haven't you blocked her on your phone?
I am shocked your counselor has not offered that suggestion IF you could not think of it yourself.
He thinks we should clearly
He thinks we should clearly communicate what our intentions are if she cannot respect our boundaries instead of just suddenly cutting off contact, since that's what reasonable adults do. Our counselor thinks his mom is on the narc spectrum, but wants to make sure we feel like we did everything we could so guilt doesn't cause us to backtrack.
DH has a problem being extremely clear and concise with what he has to say when dealing with his mom, which is a large part of the problem. When he tells her that he "Will be managing the relationship with BD and his family", it's not clear enough to her that this means that ANYTHING dealing with BD should go through him when it comes to his mom, which means any requests, questions, etc.
Which is I guess what I'm going to be iterating in excruciating detail if he can't manage it in the next few weeks.
Ah, you just gave me a
Ah, you just gave me a lightbulb moment. I never even thought of this aspect and I will warn him of this when he gets back from work.
Holy geez, I'm going to take a wild guess that you have a lot of experience dealing with a narc?
Unfortunately, that's the
Unfortunately, that's the problem--I've been ignoring the calls for close to 2 months already.
He won't call his mother on his own volition, even if she leaves a message because she always says something passive aggressive that pisses him off or makes some sort of demand he's already told her he won't do.
So because I don't pick up, but tell him because she calls me and leaves a message and have him call her back, she now thinks the only way is to call me so I get HIM to call her. Ergo she gets what she wants in the end anyway.
It's just backfiring all over the place.
His thing was to try one more
His thing was to try one more time to be civil and then place firm boundaries such as blocking her number if she can't be.
The thing that did surprise me was that he didn't seem too bothered for when she decided to come over to our house unannounced, with active shingles, to see if I was home and just ignoring her under the pretense of dropping off some of DH's junk mail. He said some people don't see a problem with dropping by unannounced if they're the parent.
The question is, how does he handle someone who takes any type of contact he has with her as an invitation to meddle? Other than his tried and true method of just cutting her out completely until he feels a bit guilty and the cycle starts all over again. He's told her to leave me alone and to stop calling me, but even that hasn't worked.
He thinks we should clearly
He thinks we should clearly communicate what our intentions are if she cannot respect our boundaries instead of just suddenly cutting off contact, since that's what reasonable adults do. Our counselor thinks his mom is on the narc spectrum, but wants to make sure we feel like we did everything we could so guilt doesn't cause us to backtrack.
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There is the problem/challenge. THIS is not the first day she has crossed boundaries it has been a long long time. You cant reason with a anyone who is borderline.
Trust me when I tell you that some people will not stop doing what they do.
They do not care what you think, or how you feel and THEY are OFFENDED that you are offended.
Ma'am you may want to behave in a manner like most 'reasonable adults' but you must know your mil is not going to act the same way. IF she wanted to she would have the very first time this was brought up.
GOODLUCK
Funny you should say
Funny you should say that--it's what DH says. Regardless of if we communicate or don't communicate clearly, she's going to do what she wants so he just doesn't see the point of talking to her at all and not even interact with her.
But she ends up sending me calls with messages in increasing misery and it's increasing my anxiety. I don't know how DH can stand hearing someone moaning about being in SO MUCH PAIN and not be moved just a little bit.