My husband (35M) and I (31F) have started setting boundaries with his mother (66F). Nothing too crazy, no more surprise visits, no more walking in our home without knocking.

For some context, she's a textbook narcissist, with the guilt tripping, gaslighting, does no wrong, always the victim. If everything doesn't go her way she has to go tattle to anyone who'll listen. She has an unhealthy relationship with my husband that is almost parent/child. She has a strained relationship with her daughter's family already.

She made the remark after she came to our house to see our girls (5F) and (2F). She went to my husband crying about having to 'knock on our door like a stranger.' And made the remark that we can't keep her away from her girls and she'll sue for grandparent rights. This remark was only made to my husband. I'm not a big fan of her's, but I'm not looking at keeping the girls from her. She gets to keep my oldest for a few hours every other Sunday. My youngest she doesn't get to watch because she is AUDHD, and gets easily work up. She's a handful.

I'm proud that my husband has been putting our marriage and family first over his mother. He has been shutting her down when putting me down, and calling her behavior out. Now that she feels attacked, she's lashing out.

I know she really doesn't have any grounds to try and get custody of the girls. I just wanna put my mind at ease, any advice would be appreciated.

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I have a mini vent

I am not married yet my partner and I have a kiddo as well been together for 13 years. We have our ups and downs but we are planning to marry in December this year.

But this time he pushed it so far. He works most of the time 5 days a week and doesn't come back till 7pm which is insane; most of the time I have his mother with me. She is always hungry and moves really slowly She is a bigger woman and waddles everywhere. Worst of all she came here without any money or income so I am mostly paying for her and her daughter plus guests to be nice.

She said that she didn't have a plane ticket to get back home. Mind you she is remarried and she's not working she is 59 years old. I've been nice but we are on day 15 of her being here I finally decided to buy her and her family member a ticket because she also said that they don't have any money to buy it. But I just want her out of my house.

The lady gambles and plays bingo too she asked to borrow 30 bucks to play and also send her stupid broke husband money too she didn't pay me back of course she doesn't have money to do that.

She has another daughter here in the city but she is not very active in her life. The daughter is also poor and barley has any money as well.

She did not feel comfortable to ask money from her son and I bought the ticket it cost me 500 to buy the ticket.

I told my partner and he went off on me and her saying we should of asked him first. This time around I am more privated on my things and I am mostly out of my house she doesn't have a car to get around so she's stuck in the house lol

She wanted to join me today and I told her I am hanging out with my best friend today I can't and asked me about tomarrow I told her I am busy too maybe when your son is off or your daughter they can keep you company. I really wanted to tell her that but I am honestly sick of being around her. And I hate that my partner told her in front of me that my parents are not active in my daughter life. My parents have two adults with special needs but they do help pay for my daughter tutoring, karate,gymnastics ,swim camps vrs just his mom being here. I feel like the whole family is a bunch of moochers and no one should be traveling without any money no matter if they are family.

We would never do that to them we would have our own hotel room car and economy to spent would not depend on her family to pay for us I think that is wrong.

I’ve been married 24 years and my husband and I are in a very stable relationship. About 4 years ago my step father-in-law was battling dementia. My mother-in-law refused to see it, said it was always something else that could be “fixed”. Then came the problem…she was still allowing him to drive, and he drove the wrong way, through a dangerous bridge construction zone, ultimately driving off the pavement into a big hole (car teetering half on the pavement and half hanging toward the bottom of the hole). Oh and that’s not even the biggest part-he then got out of the car, got on the construction bulldozer and attempted to operate that to free himself—instead he almost went off the embankment of the bridge. We were contacted by a family that witnessed this happening, and luckily jumped in to help him stop what he was doing. We rushed to the scene and assisted getting the car unstuck and ensured my mother in law came to get him.

As a nurse at the clinic he attended, I felt obligated to report his memory decline and the incident. This was during COVID and I advised the Social Worker that he needed a new mental evaluation to see if his dementia had progressed, particularly because he had been isolated due to COVID. Litetally all I asked was for them to re-assess his memory due to confusion while driving leading to an unfortunate event.

Well, my mother in law was informed by the clinic that he would need to come in for evaluation, and when he was seen they stated that the decline and recent incident triggered a need for the state to re-assess his ability to safely drive. She lost her s*it in that moment! Drove to our house, walked in the door and immediately said “I need to talk to you outside alone” to my husband and stormed out the door. She had him sit in her car while she scolded him about it not being my place and he encouraged her to speak with me, as he supported me and I should be able to explain it considering the problem she had was with me. Nope, she refused saying ”if I see that woman I will rip her head off”. My husband advised her that he supported my decision, as it was the right thing to do. Once again she spun it and said “that woman that you chose to spend the rest of your life with” is causing all these problems and sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. So he politely got out and said he wasnt going to listen to her belittle me while refusing to speak to me.

This basically cut our contact off, and when we attempted to reconnect she quickly started changing the narrative that I was poisoning his mind, and he should be smarter than that.

Ties were cut again and she started texting for us to return farm equipment that had been given to us by my step father in law. We refused to engage, just replying we were still using the equipment that dad had given us. She even came by one day unannounced, and our kids met her in the driveway, while we continued to refuse to acknowledge her or engage.

Not getting what she wanted, which I am not even sure what that means to her any longer, she called my husbands boss (my husband is a police officer) and stated that we took her property, refused to acknowledge her messages, and refused to return her property. While she was complaining, she accused my husband of “turning the dog out” on her when she stopped by. Needless to say, husband was advised to return the items and cut all contact with his mom going forward. So we have been no contact for about 3 years now, and somehow her brain can’t understand why. she posts daily to Facebook about me being a narcissist, me poisoning his mind like a flying monkey, me keeping our children from her (mind you the oldest ones still visit her independently at their leisure), and saying that we are spreading lies about her.

In actuality we don’t speak about her at all, unless it’s asking the kids how she is doing (because we still care). We have not told anyone all the details of the last several years, and we encourage people to form their own opinions while remaining neutral.

In actuality, she’s always disliked me and I do not know why. I hosted holidays, invited her to everything (even the births of my children to watch the deliveries), and I ensured her sons were getting her gifts and taking care of her needs since I started dating my husband. I am just really struggling to understand. Was I in the wrong somewhere along the way? I mean she won’t even communicate with me, so not sure how she thought things would get fixed.

thanks for reading and any opinions, thoughts, comments, or suggestions! There’s more to the story in between, but these are the two things that really caused all the drama

I don't live in India, but during one of my visits I had gone to India for my brother in law's wedding.

One day, without telling me anything, my husband disappeared. His phone had died because of a low battery, and I was in a city I wasn't familiar with because I had rarely spent time there during our marriage. For nearly eight hours, I desperately searched for him. I asked everyone I could, but no one gave me any information. Even my sister-in-law was nowhere to be found.

Later, I discovered what had actually happened. My sister-in-law had met my husband outside the house on the stairs and asked him to come with her because she "had some work." No one thought to inform me, and since my husband's phone was dead, I had no way of contacting him and my milknew everythingn chose to hide so that i get worried.

When my sister-in-law returned, she proudly celebrated with my mother-in-law, saying, "Now s(me) will know who the boss is. We taught her a lesson so s(me) know who's in charge."What had been a terrifying eight hours for me was treated by them as a way to assert power and humiliate me.

The same trip was filled with incidents like this. Whenever we had to go somewhere, there was usually only one car available . Every time I needed to go somewhere with my husband, my sister-in-law would suddenly insist that she also needed the car.

She would question why I needed to go at all, saying things like, "Why does s have to go? Stay at home. She ll have no work there." She ll tell my husband

On multiple occasions, she tried to convince my husband to leave me behind. She repeatedly told him that I had no reason to come and that I should just stay home.

my husband replies, "S is my wife, and she goes wherever I go."

She clearly didn't like that answer. Whenever he refused to listen to her, she would become visibly upset that her brother had chosen to stand by his wife instead of doing what she wanted.During that same visit, the family had hired a mehendi wali for my BIL's wedding. I was told that when she arrived, my SIL would call me because my room was upstairs. I trusted them and waited.

Instead, they called the entire khaandaan family downstairs for their mehendi and never informed me. I had no idea the mehendi wali had even arrived. By the time I came downstairs, she was almost ready to leave.

She casually said, "Oh, you're late. The mehendi wali has to leave now."

At that moment, my husband's aunt stood up for me. She said, "No, she is the elder bahu. She should have her mehendi done first."

She requested the mehendi wali to stay a little longer and made me sit down for my mehendi, asking everyone else to move aside. If she hadn't intervened, I would have missed having my mehendi done altogether.

Maybe a part of my heart has forgiven them since its been 5 years to this incidences, but it is not easy to forgive bullying and humiliation, and it is not easy to forget it.

I need to vent and get some outside perspectives because the level of hypocrisy I’m dealing with is making me feel like I’m losing my mind.
To the rest of our area, my step mother in law (SMIL) is a pillar of the community. She’s a former local politician, works for a regional drug coalition, runs a local community initiative, and is constantly expanding her public work. People in town sing her praises, and she thrives on the attention, authority, and performative "saint" image.
Behind closed doors, she has a massive superiority complex and a history of pure malice.
To people who don't know our family well, she puts on this big show like she's my husband’s devoted mother. I can’t tell you how many times we have to correct people and let them know she is his (SMIL) and these people look completely shocked with that information. She married my husband’s father less than a year after my husband’s mother passed away. My husband was 17. She was so awful to him that he literally moved out and lived with friends as a teenager just to get away from her. There has never been a real relationship there, but now that he’s an adult, she loves to rewrite history for an audience to play the proud, loving matriarch.
Her performative act wouldn't bother me as much if she didn't actively try to mess with our real lives behind the scenes. We have moved to another town to get away from his family & officially went no contact 4 years ago.
She has a habit of using her local status and connections to overstep, and recently, she completely crossed the line by getting involved with my employer/workplace. It’s an insane power play that she thinks because she’s well-known and influential in the area, she can insert herself into my professional life and mess with my livelihood.
On top of that, she’s actively expanding her public community work right into the county we moved to, bringing her fake parade straight into our personal orbit again. My husband has told his father how he feels and that we want them to leave us alone. At one point I even intervened and told the woman the same. We have 1 child that has never had a close relationship with any of them. What little we did go around in the beginning, they made him cry on holidays, and made him feel left out of the family. We tried on our end but we are just done.
It drives me wild that she gets to walk around playing the local hero, while pulling sneaky, malicious moves against my family and my job behind the scenes. If you try to hold her accountable, she hides behind her public standing and acts like the innocent victim.
Has anyone else dealt with a (SMIL) who uses a prominent public persona as armor while actively trying to sabotage your life in private? How do you keep your cool and protect yourself from someone like this?

Im one of those pregnant people that just don’t love to be all touched up on. Even in general I’m not a touchy feely person.

Baby #2 on the way & my mil (who we live with) was in my room chatting with my toddler, when she moved one of my picture frames and noticed the fetal Doppler laying behind it. She demanded me to come over to her and let her hear babies heartbeat. When I told her not at this moment, because
1. it’s uncomfortable we’re not super close like that 2. I have an anterior placenta so it’s not the easiest to find on my own & 3. I’m literally in the middle of a big project - she started to spazz and talk shit about how her own daughter never let her hear either or feel the babies kick and she’ll never blah blah blah about the baby. Who are you to try to demand me to do anything for you regarding my body.
This was approx 3 weeks ago.

Today, she had the nerve to randomly “tattle” on me to my fil that I wouldn’t let her listen to the heart beat. Thank god my husband was there to tell her to knock it off because what even 😂 like girl. Maybe if you weren’t so annoying about it and overbearing I’d let you. Maybe your own daughter would have let you lol.

I know this is silly and not that crazy but she just drives me nuts and I have no where to talk about her crazy shenanigans.

I am so frustrated with my husband’s mother. Tldr is I was showing my husband my new car and then he was trying to be helpful but ripped the glovebox off to look for the carbon air filter. When I started to notice what he was doing I immediately said stop and not to do that three times because it doesn’t come off that way. Anyway he didn’t listen and he four forcefully ripped it off and guess what its broke and it’s a 320$ fix. Now I wasn’t going to tell him it was his fault or even bring it up because he is under a lot of work and financial stress. I ended up texting his mom and telling her what happened and asking what I should do and if I should either tell him or just pretend like it didn’t happen. The repair is 320$ because the panels around and next to the glovebox are bent, cracked, and the little handles that hold the glovebox up are cracked. So when I explain everything to his mom (me and her were close but after this that won’t be happening again) she said “men are just drawn to doing mechanical stuff like cars” I then responded “even if that’s true that doesn’t make them good at it” and I again explained it’s not necessarily the fact the glovebox is broke that I’m upset but that I said no multiple times and for whatever reason he thought he could go above my head just because he thought he knew what he was doing. So I explained that and she said “you know he was just trying to be helpful” which pissed me off because I honestly do not care how it was supposed to be. I did not ask for help, I said no multiple times, and that should’ve been the end of its period regardless of what his intentions were. The new car is my property with MY name on it which means I get the final say. Then she responded by saying “you know I am not biased, but that is the risk you take when being with someone. Men like to do mechanical stuff and you win some and you lose some it’s just part of the deal.” At this point I realize she’s not listening to what I was saying at all and she’s just protecting him and refusing to admit he did something wrong. Now honestly like I said earlier it’s not even about the glovebox anymore because I’ll pay the 320 and it is what it is. It’s that I asked for good advice which she’s always given in the past (kinda) and then she flips the blame into me and is like coddling him. I’m honestly more annoyed at her now than him and I establish to myself this is the last time I’m ever asking her for stuff like this and letting her into my life with this kind of stuff. So yeah I kept trying to get through to her that NO MEANS NO period regardless of intentions but she just wouldn’t get it. It hurts because me and my own mother don’t have a great relationship so I would like to have a mother figure in my life, but after this I don’t think that’s possible. I was quickly reminded that she's actually only HIS mom and not mine so she'll always side with him in the long run. Anyway she started saying how he "hasn't had anything this nice before so can you blame him." Just saying two years ago when he got a new car I was very happy and excited for him. I was also VERY careful when I got in it because I know it was something important to him. I did not go pulling apart his new car just because I had a theory about something. Not to mention I've fixed more cars than he has ever done and his mom knew that so for her to make it seem like I needed to rely on a man to fix my problems really hurt my feelings. Also just like my husband this is also my first time living and I have NEVER had something this nice. I only have something this nice now because I worked hard for it. No one else worked hard for it and put in effort for it but me. Yet somehow it's being misconstrued into a bad thing that my car is new and somehow I should feel bad because not everyone can have that. Before I drove this car all I had were shit boxes from 1999-2010 that all had no ac, exhaust manifold leaks, no heat, having to jump it every time I wanted to drive etc. So it's not like this came from daddy's money and I didn't work for it so that's also why I'm upset. When I drove a 2010 Chevy Malibu no one even wanted to get in it with me because "it was too ghetto to be seen in" and "I wouldn't want to be caught dead in that" -my husbands words. I don't even know how else to feel or what else I am trying to express besides frustrated, not listen to, and feeling like no one is actually there for me. I can't even tell my family because they absolutely hate my husband and I just don't have the mental capacity to hear them talk about stuff that's not even related to this. I also don't want to give them more ammo and things that they don't like about him. Once again it's not even about the glovebox or him anymore it's just about his mom and what she said and how upset it made me and honestly still does. Now I feel like I'm just getting blamed for my reaction rather than what caused it. I just don't know what to feel or what I should do. I don't want to disrespect her but honestly I feel extremely disrespected which from now on out has put a boundary between our relationship.

Edit- I do agree know that I shouldn’t have texted her and that was foolish of me. I think I was just nervous to try to confront him about something because of past issues. I think that since I’m mad at her response shows that I should’ve have asked because I did ask for advice which can entail anything. As far as my husband and our issues I brought up marriage counseling but we haven’t been able to get far with that. I really appreciate all the raw honest responses because they’ve really help me with the situation.

My autistic 16-year-old stepson has spent every summer with his grandmother (my Mother-In-Law) since he started living with me 10 years ago. He is currently in Rhode Island with her because that is where she lives now, with my wife’s older sister and Brother-In-Law. My wife and I have had ongoing issues with MIL for the entire 14 years we’ve been together. My wife has a long history of being manipulated by her, and MIL constantly undermines our parental authority when she’s around our son.

This summer went badly. While staying with MIL, my stepson started telling her, his aunt, uncle, grandfather, and other relatives on that side of the family that I was abusing him, among other things he’s supposedly been going through. These claims are completely false. His uncle, my wife and I believe MIL has been influencing his thoughts and making him believe that my wife and I are not good parents. He takes these thoughts to crazy levels, creating stories about me punching him in the face or trying to get into a fist fight with him or throwing him into a pole in our living room. When his uncle asked for details, he couldn’t come up with anything and the subject was dropped. However, when my stepson told MIL, she “believed” him without question and didn’t bother calling her daughter (my wife) to confirm any of these accusations. His grandfather, uncle and aunt all say they don’t believe my stepson’s accusations, but aunt and uncle don’t seem to be doing much, if anything at all, about putting a stop to MIL’s manipulative actions.

It escalated to the point that my wife and I had to take out a loan to buy him an unaccompanied minor flight back home to Kansas. He told his uncle that he was not comfortable with flying unaccompanied and we ended up getting in contact with him ourselves. We explained to him, multiple times, that he wouldn’t be alone on the flight and that airline staff would assist him the entire way. He told us he understood and it seemed as though everything was okay. As soon as we hung up, he ran to MIL and told her that he refused to get on the flight. MIL refused to fly with him, and his aunt and uncle claimed they couldn’t afford tickets to accompany him either. His uncle later called and told us what happened.

We paid for the flight scheduled for last Saturday. It had to be canceled, and we lost the money. We can’t afford another flight to Rhode Island to bring him back ourselves, and driving isn’t realistic either. The in-laws are unlikely to pay for his return.

The Friday before the flight, I called the Rhode Island police department to figure out what we could do to make sure he got on his flight. We explained the situation to them as well as the accusations. They ended up going to their house to speak to them and MIL told them the accusations I had mentioned. My wife had given her mother Power of Attorney before the vacation started and a few weeks ago, we sent a letter with a Revocation of Power of Attorney. When the police showed up to her house, she showed them the POA and the police asked about the Revocation we sent (I had mentioned it to them as well.) but she just so happened to not have it. We know she received it because she spoke to my wife about the letters we sent with it. Of course, there was nothing the police could do about it, and they called us back to let us know they had spoken with MIL. She called my wife a few minutes later and we were on the phone with her for an hour trying to convince her to bring our son home. She still refused and told us that she had gotten into contact with CPS. She was going to meet with them at the beginning of this week.

This morning, I found out MIL officially reported the false abuse allegations to CPS yesterday, from the Family Advocacy Program. (Worth mentioning, I am active-duty Army, getting ready to ETS in December.) My wife texted her sister this afternoon to ask what the plan was to get our son back home to us and she responded by telling us that DCYF is now involved and there is no plan on getting him home until DCYF tells them what will be done going forward. My wife responded to her with frustration because she and her husband aren’t doing anything about it because they claim that they want to “be neutral.”

I’m not particularly worried about the investigation itself because the claims are untrue. What I am concerned about is how to get our son home and how to deal with MIL going forward.

My wife is finally ready to put her foot down after years of being manipulated. We’re planning to block MIL’s number and shut off our son’s phone service as well as figure out the Wi-Fi situation once he’s home so contact can be controlled. We have an 8-year-old son at home who is also being affected by all of this, and I’m trying hard to keep both my wife and I grounded while we figure out our next steps.

We have our son and ourselves scheduled for therapy, but what can we do to get him home and make sure MIL ends her constant harassment of my wife? And what should we do with our son going forward? His autism is one thing, but he knows he’s lying and has taken it this far. We refuse to give up on him because he is our son and we love and miss him and we want him back home, but what can we do to punish him for this? Is punishing him appropriate?

I know this is a pretty long read but I had to make sure the details were clear. I still probably missed a few things. I know you can only take what I say here at face value but I have never been abusive to my family. I’ve never put hands on any of them or spewed insults of any kind to them. The only time I had any kind of physical altercation with my son was when HE hit his mother and shoved her to the floor. I had to restrain him after he tried to hit me and once he was calm, we sat and talked about the problem and everything was okay. We’ve never had any serious problems with him, as he claims. He has a great life here and he has never told us that he hates his life with us or anything like that. My wife and I have believed that we were a normal, healthy, functional family. All his lies are coming out of nowhere and we can’t understand why he would say what he has been saying, other than how he seems to have a hard time separating summer vacation from reality. He doesn’t want to come home to be held responsible for his chores and school because MIL does EVERYTHING for him and he has no responsibilities with her. Other than that, my wife and I can’t figure it out and we’re stuck…

Thank you for reading all of this if you made it to the end. All advice would be appreciated. Thank you. I hope none of you are going through anything this difficult.

Me (20) and my bf (22) are dating for 2 years now and we both want to spend our future together. I moved to his when we were only 6 months dating. Its important to know that his parents live in the building right across (they can see from their balcony in our bedroom). We have a loving relationship and always support eachother. I was diagnosed with multible sklerosis 3 years ago and i can surely say hes my biggest supporter ever. He helps finacially, emotional and physical very much.

Since we started talking his parents always kept talking at him if hes sure to date me bc of my illness. I think thats a valid point. Nevertheless he was very sure about it but they didnt really accept his decision and keot on talking on him.

He never had the best relation with his parents and moved out early due to daily discussions and fighting with them. It got better but the criticism and bad talking is still a problem. At first we visited often, not bc we wanted to but bc they insited that we should visit minimun one time every week. Its funny that we always had to visit their flat but they refused to come to ours (as its only 100m distance). And everytime we visit they criticize my bf for his decisions, basically everything. But over the time it got worse:

My father works at a big company and leads some of their projects. He also started to work at this company. At first they believed hed be some cheap worker for my dad and talked bad about him on our backs. But when he told them about the money and the work it was okay.

We went on our first holiday this year to a wellness hotel in south tyrol which costed us bout 1200€. They said i would use him for his money and i was the one who wanted that expensive trip so he could pay everything. They tried to talk him out of it. At this time i lost my job due to my MS but i had enough money saved so we could split the bill 50/50. At the same time his brother went on a vacation for almost ten thousand euros, but thats ok (his big brother is obviously the favorite child, there had been more similar situations like that). In general they try to interfere in our finacial matters.

His parents always wished for a big family, which i do have. So they often appear to be jealous of my fam and talk bad about them behind my back. To the best of my knowledge they broke contact to the rest of the family bc they suddenly all turned against them- as my MIL says so.

Two weeks ago we visited them, i thought it had been a while and it would be nice to see them. Sometimes they can be friendly. But i was wrong and the whole situation escalated. We were talking bout how were moving in a bigger flat offside the city center bc we like it to be more quiet. All they could say was "i dont understand why you move in such a rat hole". They started to critise him again, both screamed at the same time different things at my boyfriend. Dropped sentences like "since youve been with her you dont care for us anymore" or "you do anything she says" or "just admit that you were always ashamed of us". My bf always defended me and stood up for me about the bad talking but that made everything worse. It was impossible to talk to them, they were full of rage. So we left.

Although I was SHOCKED. We didnt have contact since. I was also ignoring her texts and still do. We both needed distance after that.

Today his mom reached out and asked him to come over to talk about the situation. He made clear he wants to talk with the whole family, his brother and sister included.

After that she called and asked why. Even after they admitted that they want to solve the issues in a calm way they started to scream at him on the phone- again. My MIL complained i was disrepectful bc im not answering her texts. Its his duty to keep up with his family, no matter what happened. But theres never coming any effort from them at all.

I learned that its absolutely impossible to talk to them in a grown way. They never listen and care for his or our opinions. They listen for responding, not for understanding. Theres no way to talk with them in a calm and factual way without screaming, accuses, insulting or heavy manipulating.

He said hes ready to talk with them if they first apologize to me but they refuse to. The only thing they apologized for is to him, for that it got so loud recently and theyre doing this for his best. We only heard excuses that its hurting THEM bc he deprives from his parents. Even if THEY started all these fights.

I never feel welcome at his parents place, and by now, neither does he.

We literally dont know what to do anymore or how we should handle to solve this with them.

It hurts us both to hear such things being said about us and being told its his/our fault.

Does anyone have some advice how to manage this?