Ok. This is a long story, but I really need advice! I thought my mother-in-law and I were getting along great, I've been married to her son D for more than two years, we have a beautiful daughter J together whose first birthday was last week. But my mil didn't even want to go to her birthday, I had to beg her. One week before J's birthday, my mil called the house at 8:29am on a Saturday, asking for my husband, not "hi, how are you? How's J? What are you guys up to today?" Just, "where's D?" So I said, "well, it's kinda early, he's still asleep" and she said "oh, well what time is it anyway?" She didn't even look at the clock! My husband works really hard so I can stay at home with J, so when the weekend comes, I want him to sleep in and really enjoy his days off. Two days later the phone rings at 10pm at night! I think something's wrong because no one should call a house with a baby that late. I pick up on the first ring and it's my mil again, asking to speak to my husband. I tell her he's in the bathroom, it's kinda late to be calling. And she replied, "well I hadn't heard from him all day and I'm up so have him call me when he gets out." He didn't because we were heading to bed. The next day while on a break at work, my husband calls his mother to talk. He politely tells her to check the time before she calls the house phone, that if she wants to talk to him directly, just to call his cell phone. She starts yelling at him, telling him how disrespectful I've been, how disrespectful he's being and how we better start treating her better because she doesn't deserve to be treated this way. They apparently fight and he tells her if she's acting like this, then she shouldn't come to J's birthday party. Once she's done fighting with him, she calls me up at home (I had no idea she had this conversation with my husband, I found out later) and yells at me, telling me D cannot treat her this way and she's sick of the way he's been treating her (like this happens all the time or something), that this is not the man she raised and she'll just cut us out of her life, she doesn't need this stress. I'm in shock, I'm telling her she has to come to J's birthday, that this is all some big misunderstanding, we can work this out, she's got to be here for J's big party. Then she starts yelling at me, how she's tried so hard to be my friend but it's just too hard and not worth it anymore, I'm always rude and disrespectful to her, how I had no friends at our wedding and she knows why because I'm so controlling and I'm a know-it-all and I'm hard to get along with. She said she's never been able to be herself around me or my daughter because she feels like I watch her like a hawk when anyone's around. I start crying and apologizing, telling her I had no idea she felt this way, that I'm so sorry for everything, how I just want her to be here for J. And then when she's through yelling at me, she says, "well you tell D that you and I worked our issues out but if he wants me at J's party, he better get on his hands and knees and beg. I have to go pick up my car bye" and immediately hangs up the phone. I'm left standing here, dumbfounded, shocked and upset. I didn't know what to think, so I called up my husband and he said he had a huge fight with her and that if she's going to be like this, then she shouldn't come. Apparently she was bringing up the same issues she had with me to him, telling my husband that I don't have any friends and I'm too controlling, so that's why he told her she couldn't come to J's party, because SHE was disrepsecting ME. But I didn't even care about that, I'm just really upset that she hasn't been able to be herself around me. All these years I've known her (I actually met her a year before I met my husband, and I thought we were friends first) I've always been myself around her, and she's been telling me that she loves me before we even got married. So has she been faking it all these years? Has she just pretended to like me? Or was it after I married her son that she started to hate me? She did end up coming to J's party only because my husband called her the day before and told her she should be there. I was really glad that she was there, but I tried to stay away from her the whole day, I said the bare minimum of words to her, whenever I saw her with J I didn't get too close for fear that she would think I was watching her like a hawk. I'm a stay-at-home mom so being with J is my full-time job and I take it really seriously (and my mil stayed at home with D too, so I thought she would understand that being a mom is really important to me). I just don't know what to do. J's birthday was over a week ago, and we haven't heard from her since. I sent her a thank-you card for her present for J (from J's point-of-view but I wrote it). I don't want to call her because I don't want to get yelled at, and when she was yelling at me she said she'll only call if it's an emergency because she's afraid of me being rude to her again. So what do I do? I feel awful because I want my daugther to know her grandmother, and I don't want my husband to hate his mother for the things she's said to me. I also don't want to have to spend awkward holidays with them and that's it, they live less than an hour away so she could be a big part of J's life, but I think because of me she doesn't want to be. I just wish I had known she felt this way sooner, I had no idea she thought I was disrepsectful. I really loved her, and now I am afraid to be myself around her. I just don't know what to do. Can anyone give me any advice? What should I do? Leave it be or try to make amends?
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