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Just wanted to let you ladies know how things have been going lately. If you don't really remember my story, I'm the one that was trying out the taking my toxic MIL out to dinner once a month. Here is my original post if you want to read it:
http://www.wisewomenunite.com/index.php/topic,1412.0.html

We successfully took her out to eat 2 months in a row and then she traveled around a bit to visit her other kids and the times she was home didn't work with our schedules so we went 2 months without going out to eat. We never committed to going out to eat every month, we'd just tell her "we'll see how things play out next month and let you know." Well, after 2 months in a row that was commitment enough for her because the next two months when she was busy traveling and we were busy with work and other commitments and we didn't go out to eat she threw a fit and said "What ever happened to us going out to eat every month." Ugh!

My DH and I ended up seeing a counselor a few times to help us understand a bit more and to cope a little better with my MIL. We have agreed to continue to take her out once a month (if it works with our schedules) and my DH is going to go to her house once a month to either visit or help her with something. So he'll see her twice a month and I'll see her once a month. This has gone on for 2 months and so far it has worked out well.

This month my DH went to her house 3 times and it was a little too much for him. So he'll stick with 1-2 times a month and just going out to eat. This month she also thanked him for making an effort and for trying and that she has noticed and the relationship with his siblings has improved as well.

Okay now for the advice part...

A few years back one of our nieces celebrated a big moment in her. The ceremony only lasted 30 min. and they live 12 hours away. My DH and I decided not to go because of the traveling & taking off work. Everyone else in the family went and to this day we still hear about it and get grief for not going. Well, another nephew has reached the age to celebrate a big moment in his life. The ceremony again will only last about 30 min. and they also live 12 hours away in another direction. We are happy for him but we just don't think it's worth it to travel and take work off for an event that will only last 30 min. I know we are going to get the same grief & guilt as we did before. This type of ceremony can't be recorded either.
We just get very frustrated because 4 of my DH's siblings live out of state but whenever anything like this happens or family vacations, or holidays they ALL travel like its no big deal. My DH and I absolutely hate traveling plus we can't afford it, but that doesn't stop the comments and bullying.
They all went on a vacation across the country last month and my DH and I didn't want to pay to spend time with my DH's 4 moms and 2 dads (his mom, 3 sisters, and 2 brothers). After telling them all that we wouldn't be going we got bombarded with emails and phone calls. I finally sent an email saying this is a decision that we made together and we ask that they respect our decision and we hope they all have a great time and take lots of pics to share with us...we still got bullied by a few people.
What do we do? How do we handle ourselves in these situations? When we do go it's awkward and unpleasant and when we don't go we get bullied and looked down on. Help please!

On V-day my MIL sent us, as well as the rest of her kids, an email valentine. My DH sent a thank you email back and of course this opened the door for her again. But it's okay because we were going to try the going out to eat once a month thing. Well, yesterday she drove past where I work (she's driven past a few times) and since she saw that DH was with me, on her way home (5 min later) she stopped but didn't get out of her car so DH went to talk to her. She said that she had been wanting to take us out to eat since New Years and to email her soon so we can make plans for next week. I figure this works out for the best (i think  ) because this way she's the one that initiated it so it makes her feel better about herself and she'll be more at ease because it's not on her DIL's(my) terms. At the restaurant if things go well then DH will ask if this could be a monthly thing(minus her paying of course) and if she agrees then we have a plan.  If not then I'm alright with that too.   
I am very nervous though already because I know she's going to bring on the questions. I just have to keep telling myself to keep the answers vague and short and if I'm uncomfortable to change the subject. DH has a harder time with this than I do, he tends to divulge more info then I do because I think he gets nervous(at least more nervous then me). His mother is a very intimidating woman (6' very big boned/husky and is very confrontational).
I do have a question, since both DH and I know how much she dislikes my FOO (based on what she has said about them to DH when I'm not there) if she tries talking about them do i keep the answers as short & as vague as possible and change the subject, do I tell her I don't want to talk about them with her(in a nice way)? How would you want your DIL's to handle this situation with you? Any other suggestions or advice to help me & DH out?

I have been reading this site for a while and I've finally got up the guts to post because I am getting to the point where I want to give up.  A little background: I was previously married to a very wonderful man that tried more than anything to gain his abusive mother's approval but clear up until the end of his life he never gained it. My former MIL would openly say that she had no love to give her son. He very tragically passed away and I still miss him every single day. I saw a therapist a few months after and she advised me to cut these people off and that I didn't have to put up with their toxic manipulation and I have cut them off. From then on I swore to myself that I was going to stand up for myself and my loved ones and not be walked on anymore, however, I am one that hates confrontation so if I am uncomfortable I back away and minimize contact.

I am now remarried to a wonderful man(we went to high school together) that has a lot of compassion and is so kind, but he doesn't allow himself to be walked on either.  My MIL was not really involved while DH and I were dating, it was after we were engaged is when things went downhill. My MIL is a widow herself and has been for 11 years and my DH has been the one taking care of her and her house for the last 8 years by himself and he is her baby(her words, not mine). Later on I noticed that my DF and his mom would frequently get in yelling arguments with each other which made me really uncomfortable because I was raised to respect people (especially my elders). After one of the arguments I pulled DF aside and told him that it bothered me how he yelled at his mom (this had been going on for 7 years on a weekly basis) and that he needed to treat her with respect, but I also said that is wasn't right for her to yell & swear at him the way she did either but we can't change her, so hopefully by his example of not yelling it would show her that he wasn't going to engage in that anymore. He has slipped up 2-3 times in the last 2 years yelling back at her which I think is a great improvement.

My MIL feels the need to press us with her advice and if we don't follow it she gets upset and yells at DH. For example, while engaged we were buying a bed for us and she told my DF(dear fiance) that she had advised her other children to get king sized beds so that their kids could hop into bed with them, but she told my DF to get a queen size bed. Personally I think it's weird for her to be giving her advice on this subject anyway, but my DF is 6'6" and doesn't fit on a queen, so we got a Cali King which is perfect for his height and us. She got so upset about that.

The wedding is a whole other story that involved arguments, hurt feelings, tears, DF's entire side wearing black, and a mistake on my part. I wanted to pay for everything myself so I didn't owe anyone anything and plan it just me and my DF. I didn't get to plan my first wedding so I wanted to plan my second one. I didn't involve MIL enough, but she knew more of what was going on then my own mom because she was in Australia during the engagement.

My MIL and my DH were big into the show 24 and since we have DVR we would invite her over to watch it so we could fast forward the commercials and we'd take turns bringing/making a snack to eat while we watched. One time she told us she couldn't make it so we made other plans and had my sister and her husband over and MIL's plans changed again and she didn't let us know so she was just going to come over and when she saw the unfamiliar car parked in our driveway she went home and yelled at DH about it a few days later and has never been back to my house since.

Since she relied on my DH for pretty much all her needs (since he'd been taking care of her for so long) she would call about 3-4 times a week needing his help and would expect him over within an hour to fix whatever problem she had. A lot of the time it was things like she bumped the remote and it changed something so her TV wasn't working anymore, she needed help burning a cd, she was cooking and was out of a certain food item & it was too heavy for her to carry up the stairs and other times it was mowing the lawn, shoveling snow, finding something in the garage (then yelling at him for moving it where she couldn't find it)and then she would talk to him for a half hour to an hour. The demands from her were getting too much so I started to pointed out to DH that she is far more capable than what she's admitting to. She's only 63 yrs old and she's not by any means fragile. I pointed out to DH that she says she can't carry something up her stairs but she can move her refrigerator around like it's nothing (she would move it in the middle of the kitchen to block DH's path so that's he'd do his share of the dishes before proceeding through the kitchen), she said she couldn't carry her groceries in from the car but she could lift a tire in the back of her car. His eyes were beginning to open up and then MIL hung herself when she told DH that she doesn't mind being a widow when she can reap the benefits of having other people do stuff for her. That's when he stopped answering all of her calls right away and stopped doing those little tasks for her. He would still help her with the lawn but on his own time. She now calls DH her once dependable child. At first it hurt his feelings and he would go over by himself and help do other stuff like fix broken sprinkler lines but she would yell and swear at him every time, and I mean every time, he would go over to help her and she would tell him that I'm controlling him, that my FOO is evil and she gave an excuse to hate every member of my family who she has only met twice for the wedding, and every time they have an argument she would call DH's other siblings (who all live out of state) and tell them how disrespectful her son is being. They would call DH and ask what is going on and when DH would try and explain they would say "I just don't see mom doing that." Since I've been in the family she has never yelled at any of her other children, just her youngest. She also treats the both of us like children, she mutters passive-aggressive comments, and says phrases like "you two won't understand until..." or "You're not old enough to appreciate this..." Also if we tried to express our opinions or feelings on any matter and she didn't agree with us she would laugh at us (this was a major trigger for DH).

The relationship with my MIL was not what I was hoping for and I really wanted to have a good relationship with her so my DH and I decided to narrow our problems with her to 3 main ones and have a talk with her(something I developed an ulcer over because I was so nervous about this confrontation). During the talk we brought up the 3 things we asked of her 1. not be offended if we didn't follow her advice  2. to please not speak ill of my FOO to DH (she competes with my FOO because I have a large family and we ALL live in the same city so we do see each other at least once a week) 3. leave my former IL's out of things (she had this obsession with them too) She thought that I constantly compared my former MIL to her. I went through counseling to get over my her and she was the last thing on my mind. I told my MIL that I didn't compare her and she told me I was a liar. After fighting back the tears I collected myself and asked how I could prove to her that I didn't and she said "I don't know, time I guess." Her proof that I compared her was a quote I had on facebook when I first started my profile 6 years ago that I completely forgot was there, then she yelled at me, and I apologized and told her I would take it down and I did as soon as we got home from talking to her. She never agreed to any of the requests we asked of her. At the end of the talk we asked her if there was anything we could do on our part to improve the relationship and her only request was that we spend more time with her side of the family. Since all of her other kids lived out of state that meant to spend more time with her. So...for the next 2 months we would visit her once a week. If we missed a week we would visit twice the following week. She started calling again needing help for things in the second month so when DH would go over there to help she started up with bashing me and my FOO again. My DH pleaded with his mom to give me a chance and that I was trying and she laughed at his face. My DH would come home to ticked off then I'd spend the next 30-60 min calming him down. It wasn't worth it to us so we cut way back on the communication. We didn't talk to her for 3 months and when dh finally went over again to see where things stood she continued on about me & my FOO. So now we only see her on certain holidays or special occasions, so about once ever 2 months and we live only 5 minutes away from her.

Occasionally we feel sorry for her because she lives alone and gets lonely and we live the closest to her but whenever we try anything it just comes back to bite us in the rear. We don't know what to do. I have never raised my voice to my MIL or disrespected her at all. My thinking is that she's upset that I stole her baby and her helper, but I couldn't stand seeing DH treated like that and how upset he would get.  I personally don't care anymore what she thinks of me, if she wants to hate me she can. My concern is for DH and his relationship with her (which he only wants in small doses) but he wants a relationship with his siblings more and MIL is putting a strain on that. So it seems that if he wants a relationship with his siblings he has to have a relationship with his mother.

When I am around MIL minds herself a little more. She's only yelled twice in front of me and once at me. But she is very fake as well. She will ask question after question and make it seem like she genuinely cares, but then a few days later(since we live in the same small city) we get wind of everything we've told her with her own spin on it. She is a HUGE gossiper and feels the need to tell everyone she can everything she knows. We have a family newsletter each week and in it she has a chatter section at the bottom that she always tells her gossip for the week. Ugh!

I have thought of us taking MIL out to dinner once a month, this way she can spend time with her son but it's in a public place so she can't act out. DH is hesitant about this plan but is willing to try it. What do you think? Is the relationship worth it? Any insight as to why MIL behaves this way and how we can deal with it? I don't know what to do.