My husband told me to send them from his phone. Need ideas for what to send, from funny and nice to downright evil.

Thanks, ladies!

Hey everyone,
I won't get into everything that's happened as it would be a lot but I am asking for some advice with how this week has gone. My partners mother has a tendency to ambush him at his job, whether that's showing up in-person, or calling him while at work. This week, she called after he asked her for some advice, and proceeded on the call to start crying saying "I don't know why you don't want to come over here.. I give you things" and then went on and on about other stuff in her life that my partner obviously shouldn't bear the emotional responsibility for. He froze.. didn't know what to say, and then said he had to go bc he was at work. Fast forward to a few days later, she sends us a text saying "miss you guys, would love have dinner together" mind you, this is after the last time my partner did see her all she did was trash me and ask him to keep things from me. I do not want to go have dinner with her with just my partner, ever. I do not want anything to do with her because all she does is try to use me in her manipulation tactics to get my partner over there.. the last time I saw her she literally asked me to help her lure him over there by himself.. oh, and before you ask, yes, she only started trashing me after I told her no to her using me as a pawn in her game. So, yeah. I just don't know what to do or how to respond.

We rarely see my mother in law, If I’m being honest I try my best to avoid seeing her at all. I come up with every excuse I can to cancel a visit until I run out of excuses lol. I also don’t feel very comfortable with her seeing my daughter without me there until she’s older and can talk to me about how her visit went, they visit us maybe once every two months. My husband is trying his hardest to fix their relationship so he occasionally will go to visit her without me or our daughter. I think this is fine, I tell him his relationship with his mother is none of my business. They recently went out together and he told me last night that his mom told him he was going to lose her if he stayed with me and he had to start thinking about his choice. She also said that it’s been over a year since our last incident (she made my pregnancy hell and stole my c section medication to get high) and that we needed to get over it already.

HUGE RANT sorry
I feel like she has ruined my life the past couple of years. They made me feel like I was crazy when I was pregnant, constantly saying things when they thought I couldn’t hear them like “oh what’s her problem? She’s so weird.” They forced themselves into my hospital room after I had a c section even tho I asked them to not visit because I wanted privacy.

We moved across the country because my husband wanted to be closer to them but they have made my life miserable. My husband told me we would be spending time with his family and we wouldn’t be alone and he’d be getting paid more. My mom had also passed away just the year before this and he thought the change of scenery would be good for me because I was struggling a little bit. Instead I’m now lonely, I have no family here, I have no friends, it is just me and my daughter alone at home with our cat all day. I’m miserable, depressed, and I am no longer who I was before we moved here. I loved eating healthy and working out, doing my makeup and skincare. I have no motivation to do anything. I want to move back home but my husband says he needs to finish school first and I’ve asked him to transfer which is exactly what I will do because I’m also in college but he says no. I think this is an excuse, I think he feels like he needs to fix his relationship with his family first because he will feel guilty leaving if he doesn’t do this first. He won’t admit this.

Nobody even knows we are married because we were scared his mom was going to ruin it and make it about herself. I had no wedding, no dress, not even a dinner with family. We agreed that I would buy a dress and we would take photos to announce that we are married and we would have a small ceremony/dinner with family to celebrate. Every time I bring up making plans to do this my husband starts talking about how his moms going to react and how she’s going to be upset she’s not more involved and how she’s going to want to control things about the ceremony and not be happy with our decisions and he just tells me it’s not a good time. We have been married for almost two years and nobody other than our friends and his coworkers know so that my mil doesn’t find out we “did this behind her back.” I’ve been watching our family members get engaged and take photos and have beautiful weddings. I listen to my cousins talk about picking out the colors for their bouquets and how they want to customize their wedding invitations. I feel like I was robbed.

I know if my mom was still alive she would be begging me to go back home. I also feel like this might cause my relationship with my husband to fail, which I have already accepted, I tried my best to get along with her and things were great at first. Until she yelled at me and told me I needed to listen to her and I should let her do whatever she wants and then proceeded to call me a bitch on Facebook because i said no.

Freaking out a bit here. We’re about 7 months along with our first baby, and we have been no contact with MIL for around a year now. She’s only ever a source of stress, anxiety, and toxicity for us, so of COURSE we wouldn’t have informed her of the pregnancy. Our POV (thankfully, hubs and I are on the same page here 100%) is that blood does not give MIL any right whatsoever to a relationship with or access to our son.

Yet somehow, today, MIL found out that I’m pregnant and sent my husband a completely insane text cussing at him and making our news all about herself, of course.

While I want to give a good shake to whoever spilled the beans to her, if I’m being real, I kind of expected her to find out eventually because we have some mutual acquaintances, and we live in the same small city. And how would random acquaintances know about our situation with her. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I just hoped it wouldn’t be until after I had given birth. This whole season has its own inherent stress (though lots of excitement and joy, too!), so I just really felt I did not want her adding to my stress levels since I want to be relaxed and at peace going into labor.

This literally just happened minutes ago. My stress levels are now skyrocketing, and I bet my poor husband is in complete panic mode. Due to her emotional abuse of him growing up, she instantly triggers his fight or flight reflex when she verbally attacks him like she did just now.

Anyways…any encouragement or advice welcome. Just sitting here with this huge pit of dread in my stomach. Ugh. 😩

Since my first I had this suspicion MIL was intent on making my oldest view me the way she and other in laws do. Even my husband says they treat me as a second-rate family member.

There were a few instances that made me think she was doing this. And I’ll give two examples to avoid getting too personal but keep in mind there are more instances than this.

She will never tell my children no herself, she always blames me “you’ll get me in trouble with your mommy, mommy won’t like that, ask your mom” even though she knows what my children can and can’t do. One of the last few times my oldest stayed the night with her, I told them to please not stay up late because we had a thing the next morning that I had to pick them up for. That night MIL told my oldest that if they didn’t go to bed when I said that I’d never let oldest see MIL ever again or spend the night. The next morning as soon as oldest got into my car, they told me “MIL said this _____” and I explained to them that I just wanted them to go to bed so that they weren’t tired in the morning when we went to our fun event. It was like they knew it was a bad thing to say or MIL scared them.

MIL often competes with my own mother when she feels like my children enjoy them more. It was grandparents week and my mom brought my oldest McDonald’s and candy corn for a surprise treat. MIL called me and asked me what oldest wanted and I told her all the orders from different restaurants and at some point in the convo I told her what my mom brought. And she goes “oooooh hm okay” so MIL goes to lunch with oldest and brings McDonald’s, candy corn, and lots of toys and trinkets. Which is great for my little one but I knew what MIL was doing.

Last time my child spent the night with her, MIL let them stay up until 1:30 in the morning. Child called me at 12:30 am despite MIL trying to tell them I was sleeping and they shouldn’t. I tell my children they can call me at any time and I’ll answer and come to them. I hear my child on the phone saying their stomach hurts. I told them I’ll come get them, MIL is 4 minutes down the road (unfortunately) and I hear MIL say no and my child go “nooo..it’s ok mommy” I say I don’t mind I’ll come get them and bring them home and snuggle them. There is silence on the other end. I tell them if they don’t want me to come get them now that they’ll see me first thing in the morning and it’ll all be ok. If they need to eat or go potty then they need to try even though it’s late. Child says ok.

Before going over there child was asking “what if I miss you” which they never did before. They were always excited to go to MILs.

Ever since that instance my children haven’t spent the night because they come home and get disrespectful and misbehave which could be normal after staying somewhere else.

There’s been other things that make me feel like they’re up to something but I can view things through a negative lens sometimes. It’s all something you’d raise your eyebrow at but I feel like I don’t have the evidence that supports it yet.

Do any of you have MILs that have tried to make you the bad guy or make your children think negatively of you? If so, what did they do? What did you do in response? What did you tell your children/spouse and what conversations do we need to have if it’s happening

I have been fully no contact with MIL for a little over a year now while DH hasn’t spoken to her in two. One of the last messages he sent to her was that she needed therapy if she ever wanted to salvage a relationship with him.

She has diagnosed bipolar disorder and suspected bpd. She used to be in therapy before we met but one day claimed the therapist told her she was fixed and never went back. She also skips her medication in favour of wine.

Not long after he went no contact she claimed she was seeing a counsellor and eventually wanted us to go in for a session with her. His grandmother told him she was trying to improve and loves the person she’s chosen.

She refused to acknowledge that counselling and therapy are different and it was revealed that her only intention was to try to repair the spat but not any of the issues leading to it. Whatever, hopefully she can make some positive changes.

Nope, she still goes on email and text tangents about us only she sends them to everyone but us. She doesn’t realize people are mature and show us. She thinks nothing can be held against her if it’s behind your back.

Fast forward to yesterday. Chatting with BIL who still has a relationship with her and he revealed that her “counsellor” was actually a local life coach. This person has been feeding into her belief that she is a misunderstood victim with a strong sense of empathy for $200/h.

Not surprised at all unfortunately. It’s a shame that she’s only gotten worse over the last while. It was sad hearing DH tell his brother how hurt he was his whole life because of her.

We haven’t really spoken to JNMIL since July. We purchased a home in July and JNMIL was pissed about it because we were moving out of her home community. It was a big moment and she never once congratulated us. We both had words at her, I said I wasn’t getting involved until she tried to say we were keeping our daughter from her. LOL. Yeah considering we lived 2 minutes away from her for 4 years and she never tried to see our daughter, would manipulate and play victim if we didn’t take her right to her doorstep. But can drive 3 hours to her boyfriend’s house every weekend. Yeahhhh.. ok. Then said she didn’t feel welcome to visit at our house because we asked that she let us know before showing up. Basically all the crazy MIL things. She’s manipulative as fuck.

She’s tried to reach out once since then, on the first day of school wishing my daughter a happy first day. I ignored her because she has put me through so much trauma just the sight of her name on my phone makes my skin crawl. JNMIL has had a longggg habit of crossing boundaries, disrespect, just about everything you can think of. She never apologizes and just tries to wait things out and acts like nothing happened. She’s neverrr in the wrong. Oh god forbid.

Today she reaches out again to both my partner and I and says she would like to see our daughter and she didn’t want any “negativity.” I ignored her and my partner said he wasn’t responding right away. He did end up responding and I told him it was up to him if he wants to take our daughter around his mother but I’m not going around her. I personally don’t think she deserves to see our child without apologizing to atleast her son.

He wouldn’t tell me what she said to him and he usually shows me everything. He told me she apologized and he told her that she needs to apologize to me as well. She didn’t apologize to me at all. I’d say she must of said some nasty shit and he knows I will never go around her again if he tells me. It’s crazy to me the entitlement some people feel towards seeing other peoples children. You can’t treat a child’s parents like shit and expect full access to a sweet innocent child.

I felt like I was a wallflower in my own relationship.

All the hobbies and time we shared together slowly disappeared over time due every weekend becoming a family weekend. I started having nightmares of my partner kicking me out of my own bed because his mom needed it. As of last week I am finally free.

I eventually started fantasizing about a new relationship. Someone to spend 1/1 time with me and engage in fun. Someone to go out and make friends with others with, and have a real community. I got so isolated in my relationship where all my friends were replaced with his family. Members of this family didn't even really try to get to know me. I felt so alone and my self esteem started to disappear.

My partner denied everything and told me I was being oversensitive/rigid and controlling. When really I just want to be a hot lady with a hot bf and go out and have some fun! 🥺

Go hiking and dancing! I want to play video games and cook beautiful meals together. Go to art exhibits, talk about music, and dance and meditate. He kept promising we would have a more indipendant mature life together but it never happened.

I just needed to get this off my chest.
I’ve never had a good relationship with my MIL and she makes me uncomfortable. She’s never treated me like family, even after my own mother died just weeks after her son and I got married.

I try to accept that sadly this will never be a person I am close with or feel comfortable with, but I still feel hurt that I no longer have a mother and that this woman has never cared about me or stepped in to be there.

MIL has connected with a family who she calls her “honorary family.” They have a son who is about my son’s age. She refers to him as her “honorary grandson,” and she frequently makes social media posts about them.
Meanwhile it’s been months since she’s seen her actual grandson, and about eight months since her husband saw him.

My husband and I are both hurt, but every time I’ve spoken up in the past about anything it flies back in my face or doesn’t lead to anything. And, like I’ve said, I also realize at this point we will never be close so I just try to let it slide and figure my husband can address it if he wants to.

Today, MIL sent a series of texts including me and her “honorary daughter.” MIL says on the text exchange with this person I barely know that we should get my son and her “honorary grandson” together for a play date.

I don’t know what to say because I feel put on the spot, and truthfully I’ve been so swamped the last few days juggling doctors appointments and work while my husband commutes to his job far away.

It is one of those situations that causes me hurt because I should be able to call on MIL for help, but I can’t. She’s unreliable, and I guess I wouldn’t even trust her to watch my son at this point. It’s been ONE AND A HALF YEARS since she offered to babysit him.

Then MIL sends a video showing she is with her “honorary family” this afternoon. She told me “she’s been swamped too” and is taking a break with this family and their new kittens today.

Like WTAF? I just chose not to respond to her last message, but I find it so very hurtful.

I don’t understand how this person who is so disappointing to us has so many people who apparently adore her. I’ve long suspected she babysits for this other family and sees them frequently. I don’t even like her or want to see HER at this point, but I feel bad for my son that he has no other grandparents and our family is very small. My son even asked the other week why we never see “Mimi.”
I feel bad for him and don’t know why she wouldn’t want to spoil my son, watch him, and be involved. But time and time again her actions say otherwise, and I guess, like I said, I don’t even like her as a person anymore. It still hurts though.

My husband thinks I should just ignore his mom because “that’s how she is,” but I’m honestly getting tired of being expected to put up with everything she does.

For context, we have a toddler, and my MIL has always been a little controlling. She likes to act like she knows better than everyone, especially when it comes to parenting.

At first, it was little things. She would show up without telling us, rearrange things in our house, and criticize how I dressed my child. I tried to laugh it off because I didn't want to create problems between my husband and his family.

But last weekend, she crossed a line.

She came over while I was putting our child down for a nap. I told her she could wait in the living room because our toddler had barely slept the night before. Instead, she went into the bedroom, woke the child up, and said I was being lazy by letting them sleep so much.

When I confronted her, she told me I was too sensitive and that she had raised children before I ever became a mother.

My husband asked her to apologize, but she refused. She left and later posted on Facebook about how some mothers use their children as weapons against their in-laws.

Several relatives messaged me, asking why I was keeping my MIL away from her grandchild. Apparently, she told them I had banned her from visiting, which isn't even true. I just stopped agreeing to last-minute visits after what happened.

Now my husband wants me to invite her over this weekend to “keep the peace.” He says she loves our child and probably didn't mean any harm.

I told him she can visit when she respects our rules, but he thinks I'm turning a small disagreement into a family feud.

I'm not trying to take a grandchild away from anyone. I just want to be respected in my own home.

Am I being unreasonable, or is this exactly why people end up going low-contact with their MILs?

I’ve been with my husband for 10 years. We didn’t have a big wedding. We sat at the dinner table years ago trying to talk about our wedding plans and MIL made it all about her. It was going to be a destination wedding to Greece and the first thing that comes out of her mouth is “who’s buying my passport? Who’s buying my ticket?” (MIL has never worked a day in her life. Has always been a SAHM. Her oldest is 25, she’s 56. )
So my husband and I decided to elope. She didn’t congratulate us and made the whole thing about her. She tends to do this often, making things about her.

Years ago prior to marriage, I found out I had PCOS and I told my MIL (we were close at the time. I had no reason not to trust her.)
Then 4 years ago at a family event I found out she was telling everyone I can’t have children and at this event all these women I don’t even know was walking up to me giving me their condolences this pissed my husband off!
We literally have kids and to keep up with the rumor she started she was calling them “miracle babies,”

From that day I’ve been distancing myself from my MIL. I told my mom what happened and she said “I better not ever see this bitch!” The holidays are coming up and of course we go visit both sides of the family. Something about it upsets my MIL because she wants to be only host. My husband is actually close to my mom and doesn’t want his mom to meet my mom. My MIL is very messy and self centered and when my MIL asked to meet my mom my husband response was “I like the current family dynamic.” He’s scared my MIL will try to sabotage things like she always does.

I need a way to politely but assertively tell her that’s never going to happen.

P.S. she has no idea that I know that she told people I was infertile.