How to deal with difficult MIL

222dnallohc wrote: Lameese-  Mabrook!  Congrats on your little girl :)  Unfortunately he has stated a million times to her how our situation has been and she refuses to accept it.  She says if he really cared he would find a way.  And in fact she doesnt believe what he tells her most of the time...she told him she wants to see his offer letter from his new job so she can see what his salary is because she doesnt believe him. Well sisters, my husband doesnt want to sit down and talk to his mother about his feelings because he says she just blows up on him and it makes the problem a million times worse.  But I think this lack of communication is part of the problem...how is she supposed to know how she is making him feel if he never tells her?  He is just trying to ignore things, but I see him suffering.  She just doesnt act like a mother, unfortunately.  The last time he visited with her last fall, she spent a lot of time telling him lies about me...for example when he asked her why she was spending so much on face creams (when she says she doesnt have money), her response was that the last time she and I were shopping together I, his wife, did the same thing.  It is a totally made up story she told him...a complete lie.  She also told him that she bought me a pair of sunglasses and I never thanked her...I bought the sunglasses, she didnt.  She accuses me of taking money from my husband and sending it to my parents..which has never happened.  These kinds of things are just MINOR examples of what she has said to my husband.  Its so shocking!  And its not like shes old and doesnt remember...shes only in her 50's.  She has malicious intentions against me and it makes me feel very sad.  I never did anything bad to her to deserve this...all I did was marry her son and I guess thats enough for her. At this point, my in-laws are not speaking due to their own problems, but my father in law is still supporting his wife even though she doesnt talk to him.  She is putting my husband in the middle and telling him to lie to his father about certain things so that her husband will send her more money.  She has been traveling between the US and middle east and her husband doesnt even know.  My father in law gave her the money to pay off her $5000 credit card (the eye surgery one I mentioned before) and she kept the money and is making her son pay the bill instead (she never told him she got the money for it, he found out from his dad).  Its really horrible.  There is no honesty.  What is my husband to do?  When he refuses to lie or questions anything she does, she goes hysterical and accuses him of abandoning her and tells him what a great sin it is to not stand up with his mother.  She has said some pretty hateful things to him in anger, like she hopes he fails at his job, that she wishes she never had a son because daughters will always be closer to their mother, she has called both of us very bad names during their conversations, etc, etc.  As bad as all this sounds, its actually worse! It will interesting to see if she changes at all when her grand daughter is born.  I am not expecting it.  If I ever see her again, I really want to sit down and talk to her about how she has hurt me, but my husband keeps telling me that she will never understand, so dont bother.  I just dont know what to do...it causes my husband so much stress and I hate seeing him like that.  He is always upset after he speaks to her.  Ive asked him not to talk to me about her because its not my business, but he brings her up anyway because he has no one else to talk to about it.  How do we get out of this dilemma? Thank you sisters for the idea about the registry :) Jazakallahkhair

Thank you!

Your MIL is a bit of a mental case, and I mean that seriously. Your husband is going to have to get hard where she is concerned. She is a master manipulator and has raised him this way. So, in a way he is kind of like her enabler. He needs to start standing up for you and himself. When she said all those lies about you he needs to stand up there and then and tell her that he will not tolerate this. Further, he needs to tell her he is not sending her the money and he is not lying for her again. She knows how to work him because she gave birth to him and raised him. The next thing he needs to do it to tell his father what is happening. He will have more control over her (not in a bad way) to make her stop this. This will show her that there are no "secrets" and that what she is doing is going to be exposed every time she tries to do it. And in reality she needs him more then he needs her. Your husband is the one she is manipulating and the one that cares and listens. He has to break this cycle with her because if not this will continue for the rest of your lives.

Also, she will start to do this with your daughter. Do you want your daughter to hear lies about you? Do you want your daughter manipulated? This woman is childish and selfish and has a skewed view of reality.  If your husband stands his ground, no matter how bad it is going to be, it will change his mothers attitude and behavior towards him and yourself. In the end she is not going to want to loose her son. It is kind of a behavior modification. I know this is his mother and this is going to be hard and awful but it needs to be done. His mother is not going to change her behavior unless he changes his towards her when she gets in her mood and is manipulative. I feel sorry for both of you. But he decided to take a wife and he needs to stand up for you. In the end you will be the one that is by his side and the mother of his children. He is now a father and a dad, not just a husband anymore.........Also, his father needs to know what is happening. It is his dad and he needs to tell him. I bet your husband would learn a lot about his mother from his father.

Take care and get a mailbox! :)

Lameese

Thank you for all the responses :)

MIL= mother in law (although it can also mean monster in law too I guess!)

I feel so sorry for my husband.  He has always stood up for me, and never believes any of the stories she makes up.  He told his mother last night how she is making him feel (about not asking about the baby), and she proceeded to make up additional stories about me, accuse me of not really being a Muslim, told him I ate pork in front of her, and said some pretty nasty words to him that I cant even repeat here.  I told him I dont want to know the bad things she said.  Basically she said she does not accept our marriage (even though we have been married for 10 years almost) and that she doesnt accept her grand daughter either.  Now I know why he didnt want to talk to her about it...because I think he knew what she was going to say and he just didnt want to hear it.

I feel very sorry for this woman...I really do believe now she is a sick person and needs help.  I have to keep remembering that what she does is between her and Allah...she will have to answer for it some day.  Ive decided to give up trying to find a solution, because there is no solution.  I will continue to keep my distance, but encourage my husband to send whatever money he thinks he can afford each month, and continue talking to her.  I think if he just keeps all his conversations with her focused on HER and nothing else, she will be happier and will leave me alone inshAllah.  All I need to know is if she ever makes any threats against me or our baby, she hasnt yet, because if she does I WILL take some kind of legal action to protect us.  I often fear that thats what this may come to eventually....its scary.  My husband did confide in me about a couple of very physically abusive incidents that happened to him when he was a child around 9 or 10, things his mother did.  So I always have that in the back of my mind...she is capable of physically hurting someone.

Our little girl will have a wonderful grandmother, my mom, who is so excited about her arrival.  Shes been more of a mother to my husband lately in all the hard times he has been through...while his own mother wasnt there for him emotionally in any way, even when he was on medical disability for three months last year, and even when he lost his job because of it...she didnt act like she even cared.

I am going to try my very best to put this situation behind me and stop stressing about it, its hard to do, but we are very happy together and our lives will be even more full of joy when our daughter arrives. 

it is sad whenever there are such unnecessary, human made problems and heartaches caused by people! You would think that with al lthe real struggles in life your MIL would focus on doing GOOD. Uggh. Go help the poor and indigent for heavens sake! There a people like that all over, no culture or religion has a monopoly. *My sister's in-laws for example.  

Clearly your MIL has deeper problems than any one can change.

Do let us know about what we can do for your internet baby shower, once you get settled.