UGH....I have a meddling mother in law who refuses to allow my blended family to bond and my step children aren't normal
So I am new to this but I just need to vent about my blended family and my meddling mother in law. A little bit of background on my life....I was a divorced mother of a 3 year old when I met my husband and he was a divorced father of an 11 year old and a 9 year old. We started dating and waited over 4 months before we met each other's children. He immediately fell in love with my daughter and I liked his children but not as much as he was with my daughter. I also met his mother who seemed very nice to me but as the months went on I could tell that she was very attached to her only son and her grandchildren but had no idea HOW attached she was until we were married and lived together. The first summer we were married I gave birth to our son who is now 1.
Over the past year, my mother in law has done very subtle things that are annoying to me by my husband seems to over look or make excuses for. She expects him to drop everything when she needs something, she views him as her spouse and will call and cry over the tiniest things, she called us on our honey moon because her bank had charged her an overdraft fee. my husband's children go to her house after school and on the days we have them she will make them their lunch for the next day instead of allowing us to do that for them. She also makes them dinner before we pick them up so they don't eat with us. She still buys my husband socks and underwear and will try to buy decorations for our home. She will text my husband and tell on me if I do not answer all of her calls and texts. She will text him when she knows we are on a date and continue to call and text if we are out until he responds to her. In December she went so far as to bad mouth my husband to my sister and tell her lies about his parenting skills just to try to make my family not like him so it would cause problems in our marriage.
Recently, she and my step daughter made my husband a card for father's day and signed my daughter and my son's name to the card without checkign with me first. She also gave him presents from my children. She also found out that I wanted to buy my step children new outfits and shoes for my son's baptism and before I could take them she set up a time to take them and bought them clothes and shoes for the baptism. Then, she came to my nephew's birthday party and gave him a present and put that the present was from her and my step children. I had already gotten him a present from us and had included my step children's names on the card from us. I know that it sounds petty but those are things that I want to be able to do as a family in order for all of us to bond and she keeps interfering with the bonding process. Due to her behaviors, I have still not bonded with my step children and I don't think that I ever will as long as she is involved. There are so many other issues she has caused over the past year that it's hard to keep track of them all.
okay....I think I got it all out there. Does anyone have any advice?? I have talked to my husband about how I have been feeling and he never sticks up for her but he tries to pretend it isn't happening or if I tell him we really need to talk to her about these things he says okay we can set up a time to do that and then he stops talking about it and hopes that I'll forget about it but I can't and I'm afraid that it will only get worse. HELP!!!!!!
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We've been together 2 years
We've been together 2 years and married for 1
Yes I work full time and so
Yes I work full time and so does my husband. My kids go to my sister's house during the day while we are working. My daughter starts school this fall
I could have written much of
I could have written much of what you wrote! Especially about the needy phone calls and texts! I wish I had an answer as I am really not doing well with the situation anymore and she lives with us - in an apt built into the house. We can't do ANYTHING w/out her butting in. We even bought a small piece of land 4 hours away to escape to on the weekend and he just told me the other day he promised to take her a few times with us as she wants to see it. Ugh!
DH and I were in counseling a few years ago (he won't go anymore) and the counselor asked him right in front of me, "Who is your wife? her or your mother?" Boy did he get mad!
I'm really hoping that it
I'm really hoping that it doesn't get to where we are fighting because of her. Right now he does not defend her or get upset at me if I vent to him about her behaviors. He says things like "she's just trying to be nice" or "she doesn't mean to make you upset". I tense up every time I know she's coming over and if she talks to me I am very short with her.
My MIL is not as bad as this
My MIL is not as bad as this but has the traits. I think she's only not as bad because her own DH is alive. This type of MIL loves when their son divorces because she then gets full access to the grandkids and acts like their mommy. Then if their son remarries, the SM is actually their direct rival as if they were a BM. Only the son cannot divorce her... As others have said, you will not beat this and your DH has survived this for so long from childhood on that he is of necessity blind to it. It was his way of coping when younger. My advice is to fully disengage from her just as with the disengagement techniques that people on here use for skids (OCC has a good link for the disengagement technique if you have not read the article yet). This is what I have done and it has paid dividends. Not only do I see her less than once per year (OK it's easier for me as she lives a couple hundred miles away), but also I ensure that my biokids are never, NEVER, alone with her and that if we visit I monitor everything she does/says to them. As far as the interfering in gifts and cards by signing them on behalf of others is concerned, annoying though this is you can only confront it if you have a full-on discussion with her where you call her out on it, and this may be too damaging to your relationship with DH. The easier option is to turn it into a gentle joke with the kids and say, "who's she signed for now, is my aunt on there, tee hee" or whatever. The kids will see through that soon enough and may even find it creepy themselves. Or they might find it charmingly sweet, but you can still ensure that it is trivialized.
I'd let her win the battle for the hearts of your skids, just concentrate all your energies on stopping her dividing you from your own kids.
To me it sounds like she is
To me it sounds like she is afraid of being cut out or left out of the family. Please try to be sympathetic to that as it is awful to be lonely like she must be.
My dad was so lonely when my mom went into nursing home, it was awful. If we are lucky we will all get old one day, and may be widowed and alone like that, so is there any way you can think of her as you would if it was your mom?
Clearly date night or whatever should be sacred, but if she wants to babysit and buy them things, that doesn't seem so bad? Maybe I am just misunderstanding.
Although in my case my Mil is hell in wheels. It is the nature of the relationship to bump heads. My Sil usedto complain about my dad, but now she sees how it is to be the mil, it is a lonely role if the dil doesnt like you.
Easy to offend without meaning to. I will pray for you guys 
Well my dh just told me we
Well my dh just told me we can only stay an hour at our friend's 50th bday party because he has to drive MIL to prison to see my SIL. Nobody has offered to take her so he feels bad. She does drive but he wont let her go alone. He works nights all week and has to sleep during the day so Saturday is the only day he can take her. So much for the bday party to go as a couple. We rearranged plans for this. And get this. He is not on the visitor list so he will wait in the car for 3 hours. Families are WEIRD! Between underwear shopping for grown up sons, texting their sons, driving Miss Daisy it is so deranged it is actually making me slap happy.
Omg I could have written word
Omg I could have written word for word what you did in your post...other than the parts about the new baby. My MIL has made my life hell.
DH's dad died almost 30 yrs ago. She's remarried twice since then and divorced. When DH got divorced from BM, MIL was the one the skids stated with at night while DH worked night shift, as BM had run off and was unstable and full custody was awarded to DH. I started dating DH when his boys were 9 & 11 also. My three were 4, 9, & 11. At first it was wonderful. And MIL thought I was the best thing to ever happen to DH. I'm involved with the kids, I have a job and am self sufficient, I am a good parent, etc etc etc. all she ever had was terrible things to say about BM (who is a POS). Suddenly...DH and I move into together after about two years. SS14 has behavior issues (as posted previously) and school issues. He now has a home he comes to after school, sleeps in a bed in a room that is his and gets up for school at this home. But that also means that when SS screws up and is in trouble, the punishment doesn't magically disappear at 8pm when he gets dropped off at grandma's. So now I was terrible and awful and mean and treated SS horribly...even though I was still financially supporting skids and BM wasn't paying a dime of CS or for that matter buying them a stitch of clothing. MIL started having regular phone chats and visits with BM where they could bad mouth me and DH.
MIL had BM and skids to her house in Christmas for family dinner (DH and I weren't invited) and got a very expensive gift for skids to be taken to BM's house. MIL was sharing intimate details regarding issues my DH and I were having with BM. BM called up MIL about two days after we got engaged, as soon as she found out to say, "have you heard the big news?" Now of course she had because DH called and told her right away, but what if for some reason he hadn't been able to get a hold of MIL? That's not BM's place and the fact that she is chummy enough with MIL to call and even say that. MIL was constantly discussing our wedding plans with BM. MIL wanted to bring BM to our wedding, "so she could see the boys all dressed up and get pictures".
MIL calls DH for every minor detail and bitch. Every one. Calls and asks to borrow lonely...even though she has enough for cigs and wine.
So I have disengaged from the woman. I am polite and cordial when needed but I don't go out of my way to speak to her or spend time with her. I have been for the past year. So she now calls to say "your wife hates me. Why do you let her treat me this way? What would your father think if he knew how you allow me to be treated!"
These are the statements she makes now because she can't say I'm not coming to the wedding I am not welcome no one wants me there like she did all summer least year leading up to the wedding. She of course showed...and let DH know she'd be there the day BEFORE the wedding.
Only difference in my situation...DH falls for her lies and manipulations. And is always defending her. She's the #2 reason we argue. Only beaten out by SS14 and only ahead of BM. Three things we argue about. That's it.
So I feel your pain. You need to put your foot down now. Disengage and let your DH know how you feel and then just don't bring the woman up in conversation. Hopefully your DH will continue to not defend her.
Maybe she is lonely? My mum
Maybe she is lonely? My mum is alone. I try to involve her a lot as she loves her grand kids and she is lonely. But in saying that, she knows what is too much. She can accept we need family time. She can totally take a hint. Loves my DH a LOT. is very kind to him. Just a gracious lady really.
She won't be around forever, I want our kids to remember her.
My MIL loves to visit a lot too. It IS diff when it's their mum and not yours. She does try so hard to make me feel like a daughter to her and loves all out kids and skids equally.
I think it's nice your MIL even gives thought about your bios. Does she make them all feel like her grand kids equally?
Shame DH can't put himself In your shoes and just think on it :/ then set boundaries. Without shutting down her efforts with all the kids. It's awesome she loves them. I wish my grandparents had cared.