Psycho Inlaws

Hi all,
I was hoping to get some advice or an outside perspective on this. I already have an opinion, however, I don't think it is going to be healthy or helpful, but it is hard to deal with this situation. I've posted on this topic before, but I don't think it was in here and it never got this bad.

Ok, my boyfriend and I have been together for over 5 years. He and I get along very well. We are deeply in love with each other. That isn't to say we don't have silly disagreements, we have just learned how to argue in a healthy manner, plus we don't disagree often. I would feel secure in our relationship, if it weren't for his family... in particular his mother.

I'm not sure what brought this about, and we both have our theories, however, without any logical reasoning his mother hates me and she is attempting to break us up. I'm not being paranoid, she stood in her kitchen and told the both of us to our faces that she has the power to break us up if she wanted to.

Most recently it has become worse. Before I could handle her snide remarks and backhanded comments and her just being a fucking bitch, but now I don't know if I can take it. She is getting more sneaky about things and trying to divide my boyfriend and I further by instructing him not to tell me certain things, and now she lies and makes up stories about me that never happened, and she purposely tries to antagonize me. The other night she called me a monster in front of my boyfriend, then tried to play it off by saying "that isn't what I meant". She makes sure no one is in the room then she starts shit, and if I respond at all, then she runs and tells everyone that I'm attacking her and all kinds of nonsense. So now I can't even be alone with her, not that I want to because at this point I don't care if I ever see or talk to her again. She is my definition of evil. She would rather her son be alone and miserable than with anyone and happy.

See, this isn't the first time she has done this. She did this to my boyfriend's ex, years ago. She didn't like her for whatever reason (because she was strong minded like myself I suspect) and she constantly argued with the girl and she started fights between my boyfriend and her. It got so bad that whenever the ex had to go to his parents house, she would have to take medication and sleep the whole time, which scares the shit out of me because recently I have been seeing a therapist because of my boyfriend's mother, and the therapist perscribed medication for me to take when I'm around the woman. That is just nuts in my opinion. Eventually, right after my boyfriend and his ex broke up, she had to check herself into a psych ward due to all of the stress. This is what his mom does to people!

My boyfriend has started to wonder if his mother was the reason for their fighting and break up because his mother was the root of all of their arguements as well. But I still don't know that he is putting the whole picture together. I know it is hard to picture your mother in that light. But it is the truth.

She does the same thing to others too, she sucessfully broke up his brother and his girlfriend, she is constantly accusing her husband of cheating on her with every woman that walks down the street. She can't have any female friends because she accuses them all of sleeping with her husband and she starts all kinds of fights with them so they never want to speak to her again. (my boyfriend told me all of this, he says she has always been this way; jealous and possessive).

Anyway, now I find out that for the past 6 months or so she and my boyfriend's father have been trying to talk him into moving out on me and back home with them. He and I are planning to move to North Carolina the end of July, and they are pretty much desparate at this point to get him away from me, so they can keep him all to themselves. My boyfriend seems to think it is because he has some money saved up and they want to live off of that (they did that to his little sister when she had money, the parents don't like to work and don't work very often and rarely pay bills). But I think it is a lot more than that.

I know these are all her issues and not mine, but it is making my life a living hell. It really just shouldn't be this hard to be in love with someone. I know inlaws aren't supposed to get along, but this is ridiculous.

I am not sure I want to continue a relationship with someone whose mother is incapable of wanting her child to be happy and just accepting of me. I know that would be letting her win, but I don't want to play games, I'm a fucking adult and this is my life we are talking about playing with. I don't want to put everything I have into my relationship to have her snatch it out from under me.

And I know what you are thinking... My boyfriend stays pretty neutral about all of it. Which kind of pisses me off even further. Not that I want him to choose (they tried to make him choose once already), but I do wish he would stand up for me for once. He says in private that I'm right and she is wrong, but never to her face. I feel like maybe if he did defend me once in a while, that they might start to "get it" and back off a little. but I don't know how to express that to him, plus with her being so sneaky, he doesn't know who or what to believe half of the time. I'm definitely not trying to keep him from his family as that would just be fucked up, but I don't want anything to do with them because I can't trust them. I can't trust that if I see them they won't start a fight with me for no reason and that would further push my boyfriend and I apart. I'm just afraid because she is pretty good (though with almost 6 years under my belt I've put up a good fight) and she has done this before. I'm afraid she will stop at nothing. I'm afraid that she will continue to play her mind games until he and I break up.

So, does anyone have any adivce... that doesn't involve breaking up, pills, or psych wards? I've tried talking to her calmly and rationally and that simply doesn't work. She is completely out of her gourd.

Thanks guys.

 

have you or bf talked about having him sit the woman down n say what he and you feel,,,, he obviously sees some of the same things you do etc etc,,,,, and quite frankly if it was myself and my significant other i would quite frakly say look,,, this is how it is ,,, butt out,,, if you cant be nice when around,,, we will no longer be around,,,,, sounds to me like mom is a control freak,,, always has been n always will be and thinks now that kids r grown can continue to be,,,,, and she will be until ppl start putting there feet down....

 

Thanks. Yes that is how I feel. The problem is my boyfriend won't put his foot down and I really feel he is stuck in the middle.It is hard for him and I feel bad that he has to go through this crap. I would never in a million years want to keep him from his family or ever make him choose me over them, but I personally don't think I can deal with them anymore. I think I have just decided rather than play tug of war with my boyfriend what I need to do is just ignore the dumb bitch. She is obviously threatened by me, so if I just don't go near her or talk to her, she can't possibly do anything else to us can she? God help us if she tries to make a fight out of me trying to keep the peace. I hope Jer and I can make it through this nonsense. Right now we are both walking on eggshells because of this fight she started this past weekend. I'm just waiting for her to call and ask him "so when are you leaving her and moving back home with us."

Does anyone else have these crazy inlaw problems? My parents love my boyfriend, and they treat him like gold. They also butt out and let me live my life.

 

deadbear, it seems that possibly the ties are still too tight between your boyfriend and his parents. Parents need to learn to butt out of their adult kids lives at some point, and if they can't it's up to the kid to step back and away. My mother has some of the traits your boyfriends mother and never seemed to approve of the women I liked or married. It took me not involving her in my life in such a way that she could not meddle and make hurtful comments to my wife. Is your boyfriend willing to step back from his parents to give your relationship time to grow on it's own?

 

unfortunately db if he isnt ready to do it and you feel at your wits end, then quite possibly you are looking at it in the proper direction,, for the temporary ....it is your home too and well iffin he wont do anything you can,,, refuse to be around when they are, dont go to there place or to functions where they will be present,,,,,, iffin he cant work through this in some sort of time then you know your answer to your quandary,,,, also gives you time to see how things progress in the near future or not, and consider your options further, but in the meantime lets you set some sort of boundaries on the whole issue

 

It sounds like his mom is insucre with her self. I mean always accusing women of sleeping with her husband.... Thats werid...If she trusted him she wouldn't say that! Unless otherwise. I know I am only 15 and my advice is some what limited. But believe it or not my family deals with pretty much the same stuff a lot.

My dads mom absolutly hates my mother and would if she could take our family aprat piece by piece. She is jelouse of my mother .... Why I do not know....But I think it is because my mother is strong and not fake like her. My grandmother married for money twice and has never really been happy. She never had a relationship with my father until he married my mother. Which is a good thing that he formed a relationship with her, but she only formed that relationship because she was jelous of another women other than her self being in her sons life.

My dad and his sister lived alone in a giant house with live-in nannies. My dads father was never there and well his mom and his dad were divorced and she didn't want anything to do with them because of her new found "love".

She would never come over to the house when I was younger because my dads sister would get jelous. She talks shit about my mom and her own son.

When my parents seperated for a while when I was younger she never gave a shit about us, or my father. When my family lived on welfare and got food from a food bank not once did she offer to help, because her money is more important than anything else. When my dad need a place to stay she would not let him live there instead she let my dads step borther and his wife live there. And at the time they where cocaian addicts, and had no jobs. The reason my father could not live there is because she wanted him to pay rent and my father said he would but developed a drinking problem. So she denied him staying there.

What I am trying to say out of all of this long speal is that sometimes you can't win. Or at least not fully. Or from my observations. I understand that a mother wants to protect her child but theres a fine line between protection and controlling. Don't take it personally because to me it sounds like shes really at war with her self... such as my grandmother. And I agree with you not making you boyfriend choose, that is compeltly the right thing to do. Sounds like he sees whats his mother is like but afriad to do anything because like all children they love their parents even though they are complete assholes. Tell him how you feel as you probley already do. But tell him to at least talk to her to make things easyer on your realtionship. My grandmother just sorta gave up after seeing that she couldn't keep my parents from being together. And well....if your boyfriend is up to it sit down with her and tell her face to face that she can;t win, and that you love each other....Heart renching stuff like that. Tell her how you feel and ask her why she is doing it?

Best of Luck!!!!!!!! And hopefully in your case love pervails I wish you the best!

 

Thanks for all of the advice everyone. I'm going to think about some things now. I've gotten some other advice from other people and I'm really confused. A lot of people are telling me that I might be dating my boyfriend but I will marry the family and if it is this bad now just think of how it will be down the road. A lot of people are telling me to get out of the relationship. I am not sure. I love my boyfriend so much, I hate to think something like this could break us up.

 

This sound like a classic case of an overprotective mother who believes that no one it good enough for her baby. My brother dated a girl whose mother was just like that. It was a shame, too, because she was a really sweet girl and they might have had a good relationship. My brother has a lot of these problems. I don't get it. He's a good guy, the kind of guy that any reasonable parent would be proud to have as a son in law. I'm not saying that just because I'm his sister, he really is a good guy who always manages to get with nice girls with crazy parents. It's part of the reason I'm cautious to date even at 19- do I really want to go through that?

What it really comes down to is him. He can love his mother and recognize what she is doing. In her own crazy way, she's probably convinced she's doing the right thing for him. However, he needs to realize the pattern and that not only is listening to her doing you a disservice, but it's doing him one.

 

Not to be offensive, but you might want to consider the fact that your boyfriend might be a bit of a mama's boy if he can't stand up to his own mother for the woman he loves. Your primary concern and focus should be about you and him... not you and him and his mother. He should feel the same way, and have a separate place in his life for his mother, but at an acceptable distance. It doesn't sound like he's severed the umbilical cord completely. Please believe me when I say I am not trying to upset you or be rude... It's just that I married a mama's boy and I learned these things the hard way. He's not a mama's boy anymore, but I can't tell you how many problems and hurt it caused in the beginning of our marriage. And his mom wasn't even bad like your boyfriend's mom, at all. You never know when his reluctance to stand up to his mother is going to take place at the worse possible time. Example: Once on a road trip to california for his brother's wedding, I got very very very sick on the way home, stuck in arizona in the middle of the dang desert. (We live in oklahoma). I was very seriously ill and needed to go to the ER, but all his family cared about was getting back home in time so they wouldn't miss work. I DID get to go to the ER, and I needed to stay in the hospital an extra day to heal up enough to handle the road trip home. But "Mama" decided that she just COULDN'T miss a day of work even though her DAUGHTER IN LAW was in the freakin' HOSPITAL. So.. hubby doesn't stand up to her when she decides it's time to get back on the road, a whole day before I am really ready. Result? I spend the next few years sick and unable to work, (long story how that worked out), and I suspect it's largely due to being forced to do something I was not able to do yet, all because he couldn't stand up to his mother. Big mistake. I liked her before, but not since then, and our relationship (me and his mother) has never been repaired. It took a long dang time for the damage from the fact that he put his mother before me to be healed too.

Just be careful what you're getting into, and do whatever you can to help him rip off the rest of that umbilical cord.

 

you are describing my husband's mom back when we were dating (we dated for six years before we got married). What needed to be done was for my husband to talk to his mom about it. That didn't happen until I was very pregnant with our first child, and he came home from work to find me crying uncontrollably because of something his mother said. So out poured all the little backhanded comments and nasty things she has said to me over the years. I cried and cried and cried, I yelled at him when he tried defending her, it was our biggest blow-up ever, before or since. And he rushed out of the house, and confronted her about it, all of it. Ever since then, things are still uncomfortable between us, but she isn't quite as nasty as she used to be.
in hindsight, I think it's a good thing that he tried to defend his mother. Once, a long time ago, a very wise woman told me that you can tell how a man will treat his wife by watching how he treats his Mama. Those words have proven to be true, time and time again.

 

I got one of those inlaws.........my wife's mother.

Sadly, I believe your situation is very simple, stay away from the crazy bitch, and tell HIM how close you are to being gone, if he still refuses to DO SOMETHING, then he plain out does not love you and you should move on. From the sounds of it he needs to stand up and be a man...........your fighting a battle by yourself when HE is supposed to be there to help, ESPECIALLY in this situation...........what are you going to do if/when you have kids with this dude.....do you really want your child's grandmother badmouthing you all the time?? Whatever the case may be DO SOMETHING..........you've already put up with this bullshit for far too long, and you shouldn't take it!

 

Thanks rob... that is pretty much how I put it to my boyfriend. I trust him to work it out.

 

Personally, I don't see what good it's going to do to try and get your boyfriend to confront his mom. His mom has issues, obviously, and you and your boyfriend aren't going to be able to change that. As long as she's involved in you guys' life, she will be fueling drama. What you can do to combat this is talk with your boyfriend about keeping some boundaries with his mom. He has the power to end a conversation with her when she crosses the line, that line being his relationship with you. If he's going to let her get in the middle, it will probably put enough strain on the relationship that you'll want out. A boundary to keep that from happening needs to be kept.

I don't know what it is, but I've read like five threads this week that sound incredibly bpd-ish. I've dealt with too many bpds so maybe I'm just seeing things (message boards are bad for that), but this woman is doing the manipulative, crazy-making, control freak things many bpd moms do. The drama increasing as the move date gets closer would be incredibly typical of them, classic fear of abandoment scenario.

 

Focus on you and your boyfriend. Does he know what she's really like? When I and my girlfriend started dating, there was nothing I could do that satisfied her family. I just wasn't good enough for their little princess.

The problem was that they were trying to create someone who she wasn't and our relationship allowed her to be an element of herself that she couldn't be round her parents.

So, in short, work on your and his relationship with one another. Let that develop. If that is strong enough, then his mother's whackiness won't effect him. There is nothing you can directly do about his mother anyway. She has no reason to be round you and there comes a time when you've just got to accept that he and his parents have a relationship that will leave you feeling excluded.

 

Perhaps the question should be "Do you want to continue a relationship with someone who lets his psycho mother ruin his life?" I doubt that she is capable of snatching your relationship out from under you without her son's help.

 

Get a book on Boundaries.


From my own experience, a crazy person being confronted by her son does not help much because she is craaaazzzzyyyy. It'll just make her feel like the battle (over her son) is really on now.
There are some red flags here that I didnt notice when I was dating my now husband. If your boyfriend listens to his parents when they talk junk about you, and I dont mean he believes it, I mean if he stays in the same room with them or stays on the phone, whichever the case may be, that is a problem. If his parents have boundary issues, he probably does too. Some people are boundary-less or boundary resistant. They have a real hard time in relationships. For his own sanity, he should just walk out of the room or say "Gotta go" when they talk about you or him moving home, or stuff like that. He doesnt need to try to reason with them. He is an adult.

It would be good for you and him if you do move a few states away (many times I wished I could do that).
The only thing that has worked for me is letting what my crazy MIL says go in one ear and out the other. It took me 7 years to find my way here though. When she talks her crazy talk, I just say "uh-huh". I avoid being alone with her, EVER, because she will do what you described your bf's mom doing.
I no longer try to "help" dh to see that his mother is crazy. He knows it deep down.
I very rarely go to her house, 30 min from us, maybe 2 or 3 times a year on holidays. Dh can go whenever he wants to. I make sure she is remembered on her birthday, mother's day, etc, so she doesnt have that to use against me. And I just stay far away!

Most of all, if your bf is even entertaining the idea of moving back in with mommy, I'd say " let me help you pack! "

 

" this woman is doing the manipulative, crazy-making, control freak things many bpd moms do."

YES!!! They need the drama and control. As long as you "fight" back, she'll be happy because she will have what she wants. And she can say, "Look honey, see how mean she is, I tried and tried to tell you" with a self righteous air.

 

If any human treats another human with the disrespect and craziness you have described,it doesn't matter who they are,strangers,cousins,uncles or parents--you cut em' loose.You didn't take on a group of totally dysfuntional,evil adults to change did you?What differance does it make why they do these things?You'll never change those people,so why put up with their antics FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!??? Its obvious your man won't help you--he's too weak.There are just too many decent men around with nice ,respectful parents for you to to waste any more time on ignorant trash.Imagine what they would do to your kids,if you stayed where they could get their hooks into them.jeeeez.If you really love the guy,then move--and stay moved!

 

I don't think you need to end the relationship, however in a lot of cases, you do "marry the family". I got a double whammy from my hubby's mom and grandma before we got married. He never wanted to put his foot down either. I finally sat down and talked to him about it and explained that I wasn't asking him to alienate his family, or to be disrespectful to them, but something had to be done. He spoke to them and explained that if they continued their behavior, I would no longer go to their house, and by extension, he would come over less frequently. I also let it be known to him, that while I was there, if the behavior continued, I would speak my mind and then wait in the car to be taken home. His family and I are not best friends now, not even close, however, we can be civil. One thing I've learned is that when a woman is this overbearing and obsessive about her son, the one thing that will make her sit up and pay attention is the possibility of damaging the relationship with her son, perhaps irreparably(sp?),as well as possible grandchildren, b/c he wuldn't tolerate them talking about me, or to me that way in front of any future children.

 

Man, deadbear you got your hands full with this one! I'll agree they sound like Psycho In Laws! Sounds like the old warhorse has plenty of experience breaking couples up. It's like you say nobody is good enough for her sons, his shirts just aren't white enough. Good luck!






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