Replies to 'Toxic Family Relationships'

I read the last couple of posts in here, and I find it really funny that there are so many evil mother in laws.  My situation is a little different, but the end result is the same.  My father in law died early on.  My husband and I had only been married 3 years and our daughter was only 6 mo. when he passed.  Life was very sweet until the day he died.  My mother in law turn into broom hilda.  What we have come to realise is: my mother in law is a closet alcoholic.  My father in law kept her under control, but the minute he died, she was free to do what ever she wanted and she usually did.  She has never liked me.  She said I stole her baby when my husband and I got married.  So when my father in law died, she wanted her son back.  She resented the fact that he had to go home at some point because I was waiting.  At one point in our lives we had to move to another state to find work.  My husband went to his new job and I stayed behind with our 2 kids to sell the house and get things together so we could go and be with him.  My mother in law would come over and act like she really cared and would talk to me about how the hunt for new owners to our home was going.  She would take this little bit of information and run home and call my husband and tell a story that did not even resemble what actually happened.  Then he would call me and be mad and didn't understand and it was just ugly.  I was even thinking I wanted to divorce this man.  But after everything came together and we had time to sit and talk things out.  We noticed that the stories she had told him and what actually happened were not the same.  She was trying to break us up in some suttle way.  That was the beginning of the end for her.  Now it is 20plus years later.  WE have absolutely no contact with her at all.  No phone calls on mothers day, no sharing presents at Christmas,....Nothing.  Every so often she will send a newspaper article or pictures of someone we used to know, but we do not respond to them.  She keeps trying to invite us to family reunions, we do not go.  A few years ago my husband tried to talk to his mom and explain his feelings.  Everything he brought up, she denied any knowledge of it and the few things she did remember, she blamed on me.....So we have cut her off.  Our lives are way better with out her in it.  OUr 2 kids are grown and have their own families, which we are part of.  I get along with my daughter in law and I have unlimited access to my grandson.  I have a son in law that tells me I can come to visit and stay as long as I want.  So Itry to focas on that.  My mother in law has been gone from our lives for so long now we don't even give her another thought.  We still think about all the bad stuff she created for us early on and try to figure out why.  But it just doesn't matter any more.