Dealing with Invasive Cruel Mother-in-Law!?

Question

I was curious if anybody has a mother-in-law like mine.

My mother-in-law is 63 and has been retired for ten years because she has arthritis. She has always been fairly nice to my face, but one thing I have noticed is that she hates everybody else. She criticizes everyone from her own daughter to people that are too fat or black.

She is seems desperate to keep her adult children around her. She has one grandson from her daughter and my goodness she tries very hard to be number one is his life and highly discourages him from having friends or seeing his father on the weekends. She goes as far as trying to tell him that he's the last on the neighbors children list to play with. I heard her say this to him. He looked so sad after that cruel comment. She's nice to my face but then criticizes me behind my back for things that are none of her business. My husband and I moved further away from his family and my sister-in-law said that every since then my mother-in-law gets so angry that she throws and breaks things even in the back yard because she's so bitter that we moved further away. My sister-in-law said that my mother-in-laws blames me for this. I'm scared of what this could do to my marriage. But husband doesn't visit his parents a whole lot but he's certainly whipped by them. Any advice.

Answer 1

When my husband told his mother we were getting married,she told him she wished he had never been born. He has been emotionally and physically abused by her most of his life, and when she heard about the marriage, she had lost her control.

She has ostricised me for 30 years and many times tried to tell my husband to leave me.

Finally last year he wrote to her and poured out all the anger and grief he has felt.

He now gets counselling and we don't see any of his family, as his siblings were acting out abuse on us too.

Read Alice Millars books, they are very helpful.

Don't listen when people say you should try to be nice to the mother-in-law, because it won't change. She likes the control and you have to take control yourself

Answer 2

When my husband told his mother we were getting married,she told him she wished he had never been born. He has been emotionally and physically abused by her most of his life, and when she heard about the marriage, she had lost her control.

She has ostricised me for 30 years and many times tried to tell my husband to leave me.

Finally last year he wrote to her and poured out all the anger and grief he has felt.

He now gets counselling and we don't see any of his family, as his siblings were acting out abuse on us too.

Read Alice Millars books, they are very helpful.

Don't listen when people say you should try to be nice to the mother-in-law, because it won't change. She likes the control and you have to take control yourself