Topic : 03/21 When In-Laws Cross the Line

I thought when I got married 12 years ago, life would be great.  It didn't take my mother-in-law very long to show her true colors.  My husband tell me just to let things go.  Yes I know some things that bother me are really not worth thinking about but after a while they all add up.  For instance my husband doesn't "belong" to me.  He will always be "HER" son.  There are three children in that family and they are all scared to say no to her.  If mother says jump they don't even ask how high they jump.  My mother-in-law won't ask for something she demands it.  This is funny.  We were to go the their place this past weekend and were to leave on friday.  My husband told her that we could not make it friday.  She asked why, and was told in detail why not.  If I could just get my husband to cut the apron strings life would be better.  Here's something that really made me mad.  My mother-in-law said we were all getting together on a certain weekend.  I told her we had plans with our friends.  She asked us if we could change our plans for a different day.  Because that was they best weekend for her.  What upset me was that she just wanted us over at her place.  Not for anything special.  My husband changed our plans.  I was so mad I think everyone knew it too.  She wants to know everything we do and make sure she has a say in everything.

I know it is not all her fault and I know that my huband should set the boundries but he thinks that it is talking back to his parents.  I am almost tempted on doing it myself but I  don't know what kind of damage it would do to my marriage.  Our marriage is pretty great but this could but a huge hole in it.  I have always said that if we every get a seperation or divorce it would mostly be my mother-in-laws fault.  By the way my father-in-law jumps almost everytime too.

I have been married for 3.5 years and I love my husband dearly, and that is why I am hoping to get help so that I can learn to peacefully co-exist with my in-laws. Initially, I was the "hand-picked" daughter-in-law, when I was "set up" with my now husband. Everything changed when the wedding approached. My mother-in-law is a control freak, because her siblings, husband and sons have let her have her way all her life. I came from a home where I saw my mom's feelings and opinions trampled on when it came to my dad's family because of the way she appeased everything. My dad finally realized that my mom's opinion's mattered and their relationship is so much healthier now than it was before. I want a healthy family based on my husband and I, and eventually our kids. 

I feel that the problem with my MIL is that she has no experience being a DIL and her mother was a very toxic person when it came to her DILs. My husband's grandmother babysat her daughter's children (son's children had to find a sitter), and was demeaning to her DILs on various levels. In addition, my MIL's MIL met her once overseas before she died and they were only together for a couple of weeks. She never knew how it was to be a DIL. In turn, I hear my MIL blame all of her extended family's problems on ILs. On several occasions, I have heard her blame her nephews' teenage pregnancies, divorces, and mental issues on her ILs. She even blames her sister-in-law for her nephew being gay, because once she bought him expensive leather gloves! Yet, when she gets together with them she is so two-faced. The problem is that I see the same thing creeping into our relationship. I have caught her on several occasions talking about me behind my back when she does not notice that I walk in. Despite the fact that my budgeting managed to pay off our mortgage in 3 years, she thinks that I "waste" her "son's" money because I dress well and buy my husband nice clothes (usually outlet, wholesale, sale, or a gift from my parents) and keep a nice home. Although, she does not have the guts to tell me what is bothering her directly, she does make bitting remarks when my husband is not around. Everything became 100 times worse when my husband's brother moved to the same city. He is a mooch that uses his friends (so he lost them) and relationships until they are no longer useful. When I refused to have him over for dinner as often (he came at least once a week) because of his attitudes and so many problems that I do not have time to discuss, she got upset. When my husband and I told her our concerns, she called ME a lier and said that I was the worse thing that ever entered into her family. I cried for a week, especially after all of the time that I spent doing things for her, bitting my tongue, and generally being nice. She since admitted that the things that we were concerned about were true, but never apologized. Instead she said that my husband's younger brother was young, and that we should just ignore all of the hell he puts us through, but heaven forbid we see him less! In the end, she rewarded my BIL with the down payment on the apartment they bought for him (when we bought our house, she gave us a BBQ). She manipulates to get her way with everything. She hated my BIL girlfriend that he was mooching off of, so if the down-payment wasn't enough, she assumed the $90000 mortgage on his apartment and the girl was dumped the next week. She has run her family using a system of guilt and manipulation all of her life. She still does it. Sometimes she gets in these distant moods and she won't let us know why, but the backstabbing is usually flying. My husband defends me quite often, but I have caught him lying about his brother and mother (covering for them) so many times "so I won't think badly of them." When I ask him why, the standard reply is "I don't know." My MIL manipulates my husband into "being a good brother" and he feels obliged to spend time with him even though he is poison in our relationship. In the end, I need help diffusing this constant tension. I love my husband, but I am tired of being manipulated, controlled and put down. Does anyone have any advice for me? thanks for listening

Both of my parents are serving time in prison for murdering their son-in-law, my brother-in-law. When they killed him (my father shot him three times with a rifle at close range), my younger sister, his wife, was 21 weeks pregnant with their child, a son. My father also kicked her in the stomach when she tried to grab the gun from him but the baby survived. I watched this murder happen in my own home, right before my eyes. It is something I will never forget even though it happened more than three years ago. My mother told the police officer after it happened that she and my dad took care of it, "The Sicilian way."

I tried doing this the other night but I was not in the right screen, now I am I will try this again. Growing up I watched my parents go through this with my dad's mother.It divided our house into two camps with my dad and I on one side and my mother and my younger sister on the other. Thier marraige ended in divorce partly due to the fact my dad wouldn't stand up for my mother against his mother. He also wouldn't stand up for his mother against my mother. He always told me they had to figure it out for themselves he didn't want to be in the middle. This problem mostly stemmed from the fact my grandmother didn't want my parents to have more than one child,me; this created conflict between my sister and I that to this day makes it hard to be as close as we should be as sisters.

When my dad remarried he gained three more daughters and as you can imagine my grandmother was not happy, they are not my granddaughters but they wereand my sister and I had no problem telling her so which didn't make her happy especially with me. In the end about six months before she died she moved back down south and I told her I couldn't take her anymore badmouthing any of my sisters. We didn't leave on good terms but I did get to tell her about a month before she died that I loved her very much. The discourse she caused in our family was great. It tore one family apart and I didn't want it to tear our new one apart the same way. It wasn't fair for her to treat me so differently from the other girls.         Cinaplum13