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I'm going to try to condense as much as possible. But hopefully any MIL's or paternal grandmothers might be able to give me some insight.
Since me and my fiance have gotten engaged what was once a nice, kind woman has turned into the most manipulative, cartoonish disney villian version of a monster in law I could have imagined. She seemed to accept me just fine as his live in girlfriend of the past almost 5 years but now I couldn't even begin to understand what is going on in her head.
She's the mother of 2 adult children, her daughter ran off and eloped so we knew this was going to be the only one of her kids 'weddings' she was going to have. Knowing that and also wanting to have a close relationship with her (growing up my fathers mother and mothers mother were best friends, that is how my parents met, I never understood the 'two sides' of a family before, I was raised in one big happy one, the same kind I wanted to give my kids one day)
We live more than 4 hours away, my fiance is in the service and I work as well. He works rotating shifts each lasting 12 hours or more a day, his mother is retired. We have invited her to stay with us multiple times, a big reason we got a 2 bedroom apartment was so she could stay with us, she never has. I had invited her to gatherings with us and my family, she has always refused. She makes next to no attempt to call him or keep in contact, though she does not work she still turns her phone off at 8 pm even though she knows for half the month if her son wanted to speak to her due to his work schedule he could only call her after that.
She has made no attempt to be involved in our lives at all, our constant offers of hospitality don't just get declined they get ignored, she's been invited for EVERYTHING shown up for nothing. It became apparent the only thing she did want is for her son to drop everything and spend what tiny amount of time he has, one 4 day weekend a month spending 2 of those driving to see her and the other two sleeping on her floor. She doesn't want to be involved with me, my family or whatever family we are going to have together, she wants her son to come play house and pretend he's 15 again.
When we were planning our wedding we thought it would be a great idea to have our mothers officiate our wedding. I really wanted to include her in the highest way possible so that maybe I could have the close family for us I always wanted. She agreed, fast forward to a month before the wedding and she drops out. Blaming my fiance for everything, he doesn't call enough (phones go both ways and his isn't shut off half the time, and he did call, but she never responds to voicemails, if you don't call her until she answers its just as bad in her eyes as not calling at all) he doesn't visit (its next to impossible for him to get time off work they allowed him leave for the wedding and honey moon, nothing more, she's the one not working, who drives and lives right by a train station) his emails to her got ignored and on top of which she knows his schedule and that we were planning a wedding, but she has no consideration for others and takes no initiative to try to mend bridges on her own.
She eventually agrees to do it again after arguing with him, but as of now were set to get married in 2 weeks and she's ignoring everyone again. She's made it obvious my fiance is not her 'favorite' her daughter is a chip of the old block when it comes to manipulation and making everything out to be everyone elses fault, the same mother who wouldn't take a train or drive to spend time with us, flew her and her daughter to australia for 3 weeks just a few months ago.
The part of this killing me is how much this is hurting him. His entire life he's been blamed for everything from his sister and his mother no matter what horrible thing they were doing to him at the time. He lets his sister have his car while he's stationed elseware, sighed the papers over to her for insurance purposes, she sells it out from under him and doesn't even tell him and somehow my fiance is the one who is suposed to feel bad because she was going through some 'stuff' and needed the money, because the thousands of dollars in loans he cosigned for her to take a school trip to France she ended up not going on yet kept the money somehow wasn't enough. And then the mother who lost custody of him because she wouldnt ask her husband to move out after he assaulted my fiance holds it over my fiances head as though he left her when he was a minor taken away by cps. Yet it somehow his fault, he was raised to believe everything in the world was his fault.
As much as it's obvious to us who is to blame for the distance, she refuses to see it and implies to other family members that my fiance is just a horrible son who doesn't want to include her in anything, and I'm the reason there's separation there (they hadn't spoken for years before I started dating him until a family tradegy brought them 'back together)
She is obsessed with playing the victim, she needs everyone to feel bad for her and it doesn't make any sense. No matter what you do it isn't good enough, he sent her flowers on mothers day with an 'I love you' note, her email response the following day was how disappointed she was in him that MY mother attempted to contact her to work on the ceremony instead of him playing middleman. And "I guess you're still mad at me because you didn't call" even though she knew he was working the 1pm-1am shift and had made sure to call her his last day off because he wouldn't be able to speak to her. She isolates herself then blames everyone else for isolating her. But she wont tell it to YOU she'll tell it to everyone else and just treat you horribly. She's mad at the bridal party because they threw us a shower and she wasn't asked for anything other than a guest list, though she has shown ZERO interest or initiative in being involved with anything related to our wedding, she could have done a small engagement part for us months and months ago but again, she takes no initiative just complains when people, even strangers can't read her mind. At the shower as soon as she see's him is when she decided to back out of the wedding, doing it loudly, embarrassing him in front of my entire family, people he just met. She refused to be introduced to my mother (they had met once before, when my mom did a big favor for her which apparently didnt grant her any consideration but thats another story) because by my mother greeting her brother (who she hadnt seen in 2 years) before greeting her, the mother of the groom, his mother was slighted and wouldn't attempt to get over it. So my fiance walks up to my mother (who he has a fantastic relationship with and can actually rely on, tells her what his mother said and asks if she would walk up to his mother and introduce herself since his mother is refusing, which of course of mother did for him)
I don't care about gifts, but it's obvious by her not giving us one at the shower it was intentional, she brought his sister along to the shower knowing the two of them dont get a long and he didn't want her there. Sister also empty handed which really bothered the bridal party who threw the party. To bring the point home that it wasn't an accident the mother brought my fiances junk mail which had gotten sent to her house and left it on our gift table. She then made a very loud comment to inform us that she was not 'Ready to be a grandma', she's 55 and this isn't the first time I've heard about how much she doesn't want us having children. She then got up and walked out without saying goodbye to anyone. But still after all this and her insane behavior it's everyone elses fault.
We had rented a large house for our family to stay it at our wedding site, she refused to stay in the house with us. Yet she feels 'excluded'. In a phone conversation with my fiance recently he finally stopped catoring to her guilt trips and steered clear of her attempts to manipulate every little thing to make herself out to be pitied, at the end of the conversation after she still tried to blame everything else he tries to end it by saying 'Yeah I'm upset by the way that you've been acting and that you'd be putting us through all this so close to the wedding but at the end of the day you're my mother and I love you, we'll figure it out." Her response, "Okay bye" and hangs up the phone.
Her last attempt to blame someone else for everything is on my parents, they don't look well off, they lost their house to a hurricane 2 years ago and being as though they were in the forclosure system that was it, no insurance no nothing so there for my parents must be bad people and make her uncomfortable because they're so 'irresponsible' (bank+hurricane took my parents house away, cps took her kid away, you do the math) oh and my adult brother has a tattoo so he must be horrible also. She has turned into the most judgmental person I've ever met. Her house was hell with her drunk all the time and his father screaming and hitting all the time, but hey their lawn was way greener than mine was growing up so they must have been better people! Ironically she was completely broke, tens of thousands of dollars in debt until a surprise inheritance windfall (long story) 3 or so years ago. The only reason she and her husband afforded a house was living with her parents well into their 30's to save up for it, as a role reversal, my parents let my grandmother move in because she couldn't afford to live on her own, while they were in their early 20's until her death 15 years later.
My heart breaks for him, it's great that he has my family and he's been fully accepted with open arms, he has a great relationship with my mother, he's actually gone to my parents house to hang out when I was at work(my parents moved from our home town to be closer to us after their house was destroyed, I joked aorund with his mother many times she should come too, she never would but still she's jealous of my family because he see's them more, yet still everyone elses fault but hers) but no matter how comfortable and happy he might be as a part of my family or with my mother, she will never be HIS mother. He has some issues, or still has but worked on them very hard, and it's clear to see what that much rejection and constant guilt has done to him through the years. While he is far from a mamas boy up until these recent incidents he had always held her to a high pedestal, now we both see her for what she is.
My questions are many for anyone who read this, though due to it's length I imagine none. Is it just all cries from attention, so much so you'll allienate your own son to feel peoples pitty? Does she honestly not see she's the one to blame, how can you reject every invitation and then turn around and claim to anyone who'll listen how left out you feel? My fiance has more or less decided that unless she actually makes an effort to be a part of our life, accepts our marraige, the future grandchildren she doesn't want and accepts the fact he's an adult with an adult life that can't drop everything to go help his mother play pretend house he's done with trying to include her in our life. But I wonder how that would play out years down the line, when even though he has his reasons, she's gone off and continued to tell his entire family what a horrible son he is.
I have had the urge that once the wedding is over with to write her a very long detailed letter, she plays this passive agressive game I don't understand nor do I allow in my life. If you're upset or mad or hurt just tell me. But I think that just might make this worse because she will find a fault in anything she can, to twist and manipulate it into something negative. I am incredibly over protective of my fiance, I know what a hard life he's had and though I'll be the first one to tell him when I think he's done something wrong watching him be manipulated and treated like this by his own mother just kills me. I don't know what mother would treat their only son this way. What mother wouldn't be thrilled to be given an open invitation by your sons fiance to visit whenever she wants, invited to every holiday. I had thought before getting engaged I was going to have a decent mother in law, though a bit distant. But so long as I kept trying to make her feel welcome and including her in things eventually she'd actually try to be a part of the family.
As much as I read women getting annoyed at their mil's calling them too often or trying to visit too often or asking a bunch of questions, I can't help to feel jealous. I wish my future mil wanted anything to do with me, I wish she cared about this wedding, I wish my fiance didn't have to feel like his mother of all people doesn't care about him at all and is just using him as a pawn in her guilt game to tell everyone how bad she has it. As bad as it is to have the wedding ceremony weve been planning for months ruined weeks before the wedding with her being so horrible, I just can't imagine what he's feeling and how much it hurts to have his mother of all people acting this way.
Since me and my fiance have gotten engaged what was once a nice, kind woman has turned into the most manipulative, cartoonish disney villian version of a monster in law I could have imagined. She seemed to accept me just fine as his live in girlfriend of the past almost 5 years but now I couldn't even begin to understand what is going on in her head.
She's the mother of 2 adult children, her daughter ran off and eloped so we knew this was going to be the only one of her kids 'weddings' she was going to have. Knowing that and also wanting to have a close relationship with her (growing up my fathers mother and mothers mother were best friends, that is how my parents met, I never understood the 'two sides' of a family before, I was raised in one big happy one, the same kind I wanted to give my kids one day)
We live more than 4 hours away, my fiance is in the service and I work as well. He works rotating shifts each lasting 12 hours or more a day, his mother is retired. We have invited her to stay with us multiple times, a big reason we got a 2 bedroom apartment was so she could stay with us, she never has. I had invited her to gatherings with us and my family, she has always refused. She makes next to no attempt to call him or keep in contact, though she does not work she still turns her phone off at 8 pm even though she knows for half the month if her son wanted to speak to her due to his work schedule he could only call her after that.
She has made no attempt to be involved in our lives at all, our constant offers of hospitality don't just get declined they get ignored, she's been invited for EVERYTHING shown up for nothing. It became apparent the only thing she did want is for her son to drop everything and spend what tiny amount of time he has, one 4 day weekend a month spending 2 of those driving to see her and the other two sleeping on her floor. She doesn't want to be involved with me, my family or whatever family we are going to have together, she wants her son to come play house and pretend he's 15 again.
When we were planning our wedding we thought it would be a great idea to have our mothers officiate our wedding. I really wanted to include her in the highest way possible so that maybe I could have the close family for us I always wanted. She agreed, fast forward to a month before the wedding and she drops out. Blaming my fiance for everything, he doesn't call enough (phones go both ways and his isn't shut off half the time, and he did call, but she never responds to voicemails, if you don't call her until she answers its just as bad in her eyes as not calling at all) he doesn't visit (its next to impossible for him to get time off work they allowed him leave for the wedding and honey moon, nothing more, she's the one not working, who drives and lives right by a train station) his emails to her got ignored and on top of which she knows his schedule and that we were planning a wedding, but she has no consideration for others and takes no initiative to try to mend bridges on her own.
She eventually agrees to do it again after arguing with him, but as of now were set to get married in 2 weeks and she's ignoring everyone again. She's made it obvious my fiance is not her 'favorite' her daughter is a chip of the old block when it comes to manipulation and making everything out to be everyone elses fault, the same mother who wouldn't take a train or drive to spend time with us, flew her and her daughter to australia for 3 weeks just a few months ago.
The part of this killing me is how much this is hurting him. His entire life he's been blamed for everything from his sister and his mother no matter what horrible thing they were doing to him at the time. He lets his sister have his car while he's stationed elseware, sighed the papers over to her for insurance purposes, she sells it out from under him and doesn't even tell him and somehow my fiance is the one who is suposed to feel bad because she was going through some 'stuff' and needed the money, because the thousands of dollars in loans he cosigned for her to take a school trip to France she ended up not going on yet kept the money somehow wasn't enough. And then the mother who lost custody of him because she wouldnt ask her husband to move out after he assaulted my fiance holds it over my fiances head as though he left her when he was a minor taken away by cps. Yet it somehow his fault, he was raised to believe everything in the world was his fault.
As much as it's obvious to us who is to blame for the distance, she refuses to see it and implies to other family members that my fiance is just a horrible son who doesn't want to include her in anything, and I'm the reason there's separation there (they hadn't spoken for years before I started dating him until a family tradegy brought them 'back together)
She is obsessed with playing the victim, she needs everyone to feel bad for her and it doesn't make any sense. No matter what you do it isn't good enough, he sent her flowers on mothers day with an 'I love you' note, her email response the following day was how disappointed she was in him that MY mother attempted to contact her to work on the ceremony instead of him playing middleman. And "I guess you're still mad at me because you didn't call" even though she knew he was working the 1pm-1am shift and had made sure to call her his last day off because he wouldn't be able to speak to her. She isolates herself then blames everyone else for isolating her. But she wont tell it to YOU she'll tell it to everyone else and just treat you horribly. She's mad at the bridal party because they threw us a shower and she wasn't asked for anything other than a guest list, though she has shown ZERO interest or initiative in being involved with anything related to our wedding, she could have done a small engagement part for us months and months ago but again, she takes no initiative just complains when people, even strangers can't read her mind. At the shower as soon as she see's him is when she decided to back out of the wedding, doing it loudly, embarrassing him in front of my entire family, people he just met. She refused to be introduced to my mother (they had met once before, when my mom did a big favor for her which apparently didnt grant her any consideration but thats another story) because by my mother greeting her brother (who she hadnt seen in 2 years) before greeting her, the mother of the groom, his mother was slighted and wouldn't attempt to get over it. So my fiance walks up to my mother (who he has a fantastic relationship with and can actually rely on, tells her what his mother said and asks if she would walk up to his mother and introduce herself since his mother is refusing, which of course of mother did for him)
I don't care about gifts, but it's obvious by her not giving us one at the shower it was intentional, she brought his sister along to the shower knowing the two of them dont get a long and he didn't want her there. Sister also empty handed which really bothered the bridal party who threw the party. To bring the point home that it wasn't an accident the mother brought my fiances junk mail which had gotten sent to her house and left it on our gift table. She then made a very loud comment to inform us that she was not 'Ready to be a grandma', she's 55 and this isn't the first time I've heard about how much she doesn't want us having children. She then got up and walked out without saying goodbye to anyone. But still after all this and her insane behavior it's everyone elses fault.
We had rented a large house for our family to stay it at our wedding site, she refused to stay in the house with us. Yet she feels 'excluded'. In a phone conversation with my fiance recently he finally stopped catoring to her guilt trips and steered clear of her attempts to manipulate every little thing to make herself out to be pitied, at the end of the conversation after she still tried to blame everything else he tries to end it by saying 'Yeah I'm upset by the way that you've been acting and that you'd be putting us through all this so close to the wedding but at the end of the day you're my mother and I love you, we'll figure it out." Her response, "Okay bye" and hangs up the phone.
Her last attempt to blame someone else for everything is on my parents, they don't look well off, they lost their house to a hurricane 2 years ago and being as though they were in the forclosure system that was it, no insurance no nothing so there for my parents must be bad people and make her uncomfortable because they're so 'irresponsible' (bank+hurricane took my parents house away, cps took her kid away, you do the math) oh and my adult brother has a tattoo so he must be horrible also. She has turned into the most judgmental person I've ever met. Her house was hell with her drunk all the time and his father screaming and hitting all the time, but hey their lawn was way greener than mine was growing up so they must have been better people! Ironically she was completely broke, tens of thousands of dollars in debt until a surprise inheritance windfall (long story) 3 or so years ago. The only reason she and her husband afforded a house was living with her parents well into their 30's to save up for it, as a role reversal, my parents let my grandmother move in because she couldn't afford to live on her own, while they were in their early 20's until her death 15 years later.
My heart breaks for him, it's great that he has my family and he's been fully accepted with open arms, he has a great relationship with my mother, he's actually gone to my parents house to hang out when I was at work(my parents moved from our home town to be closer to us after their house was destroyed, I joked aorund with his mother many times she should come too, she never would but still she's jealous of my family because he see's them more, yet still everyone elses fault but hers) but no matter how comfortable and happy he might be as a part of my family or with my mother, she will never be HIS mother. He has some issues, or still has but worked on them very hard, and it's clear to see what that much rejection and constant guilt has done to him through the years. While he is far from a mamas boy up until these recent incidents he had always held her to a high pedestal, now we both see her for what she is.
My questions are many for anyone who read this, though due to it's length I imagine none. Is it just all cries from attention, so much so you'll allienate your own son to feel peoples pitty? Does she honestly not see she's the one to blame, how can you reject every invitation and then turn around and claim to anyone who'll listen how left out you feel? My fiance has more or less decided that unless she actually makes an effort to be a part of our life, accepts our marraige, the future grandchildren she doesn't want and accepts the fact he's an adult with an adult life that can't drop everything to go help his mother play pretend house he's done with trying to include her in our life. But I wonder how that would play out years down the line, when even though he has his reasons, she's gone off and continued to tell his entire family what a horrible son he is.
I have had the urge that once the wedding is over with to write her a very long detailed letter, she plays this passive agressive game I don't understand nor do I allow in my life. If you're upset or mad or hurt just tell me. But I think that just might make this worse because she will find a fault in anything she can, to twist and manipulate it into something negative. I am incredibly over protective of my fiance, I know what a hard life he's had and though I'll be the first one to tell him when I think he's done something wrong watching him be manipulated and treated like this by his own mother just kills me. I don't know what mother would treat their only son this way. What mother wouldn't be thrilled to be given an open invitation by your sons fiance to visit whenever she wants, invited to every holiday. I had thought before getting engaged I was going to have a decent mother in law, though a bit distant. But so long as I kept trying to make her feel welcome and including her in things eventually she'd actually try to be a part of the family.
As much as I read women getting annoyed at their mil's calling them too often or trying to visit too often or asking a bunch of questions, I can't help to feel jealous. I wish my future mil wanted anything to do with me, I wish she cared about this wedding, I wish my fiance didn't have to feel like his mother of all people doesn't care about him at all and is just using him as a pawn in her guilt game to tell everyone how bad she has it. As bad as it is to have the wedding ceremony weve been planning for months ruined weeks before the wedding with her being so horrible, I just can't imagine what he's feeling and how much it hurts to have his mother of all people acting this way.