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No one in my circle of friends, men and women, has this experience. So it does not seem like the "norm." I'm asking people here to see if it's the norm outside of my circle.
I've never heard of anything like this and I've been dancing on this blue rock for many decades.
You sounds like a good wife who, lack of a better words, "puts up with it".
I did tell my husband before we married that the possibility of his mother ever living with us was out of the question, that I would be willing to help pay for round the clock care. (He was in agreement.) At that point it was rather obvious she was jealous that someone else had taken her place as the most important person in her son's life. As it sounds like with you, I gave my husband the respect of never saying anything horrible about his mother. Although he knew she had her evil ways. I did mention somewhere along the way, many years into our marriage that when she died I would not be sad, however I would be sad for him for losing his mother. (I didn't want this coming up when the time happened.)
I find some similarities of things you have written. My mil and sil, before I arrived on the scene had a bit of a puppet on their hands, their son/brother would do lots of things for them, mostly them taking advantage of him. When I came along, young love, his interests changed. He no longer had the desire to be taken advantage of, he had someone else he wanted to spend all his time with. Friction began, his Mother needed him more often. One would think a mother and sister would be happy for their son/brother that he had found someone.
How do you find some peace to not let it affect you? Know that in the end you are the most important person in your husband's life.
Your mil can never take that away from you.
Sounds familiar.
Well, I just avoid her as much as I can. He can go and visit her without me. The thing is, my DH doesn't see his mom as evil like your DH does, since whatever bad behavior she does to me she does without him seeing. Whatever I point out, he thinks maybe it's a misunderstanding. Then the rest is now excused by her being depressed (according to her).
The thing that we have learned over time is to not respond immediately to every call (or in your case text) and to let them go to voicemail and respond to all once per day. If she complains, we just tell her the phone was off or battery dead. Basically we had to train her to speak to us once a day and say everything she needs to say at that time. For a while she was calling us to tell us about "problems" that she could easily resolve herself if we left her alone and let her work it out herself. Maybe your hubby could start by just calling her back once or twice per day. I think that you should be able to deal with a once a day call.
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Originally Posted by Just A Guy
Short messages once or twice a day- no problem.
Multiple ongoing interactions to the point where they interrupt normal family / relationship activities- very weird.
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Originally Posted by Just A Guy
Your husband is the problem here. He doesn't know how to set firm boundaries with her. It sounds like he respects her more than he does you.
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Originally Posted by Just A Guy
Not wanting to hurt her.
Translation: Co-dependent enabler with weak boundaries.
I find it weird and told my DH. But he doesn't think it's kind to tell his mom, perhaps depressed, to not contact him so much. What is there to do? So he doesn't pick up calls in front of me, and talks away from me.
Sounds to me like you have been handling it right so far. You can't make someone like you if they are determined not to. She could be one of those that wasn't going to like who her son married no matter who it would have been. Pretty dumb on her part since it could alienate him.
So it went from just being annoying to really getting between the two of you? If these text and calls are all the time I think it is time to say something to him. Just simply pointing out that you can't ever count on any time with him that isn't interrupted by her and it is now affecting your relationship. I think he already knows this, but if you actually say it to him it may help.
I would try telling him first, but if you are 10 years into this and he still has this much trouble confronting his mother he's a big part of the problem also. You may have to answer one of the calls, tell her yourself and let the whole thing blow up, but it would be out in the open to deal with.
The third option is to live with it and possibly let it ruin your marriage.
It's a bit hard for DH to confront her since she's good at not showing any dislike for me in public.
My mother is great to my partner. However, if she did become critical or behave in disrespectful manner, my mother and I would have a sit down talk about her attitude and how her choice would be to change her attitude and behavior or forget about having contact with us in the future.
I would never tolerate crappy behavior from my family just as I would not expect them to tolerate crappy behavior from me.
Any husband or wife who lets family members treat their partner poorly does not deserve to be married.
What if your mom was too smart to show any disrespect in front of you, and only ignoring your wife when they're alone? Can't really confront her? I told my DH not to say anything as I didn't want his mom to be forced to pretend to like me.
It's a bit hard for DH to confront her since she's good at not showing any dislike for me in public.
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Originally Posted by morepinot
What if your mom was too smart to show any disrespect in front of you, and only ignoring your wife when they're alone? Can't really confront her? I told my DH not to say anything as I didn't want his mom to be forced to pretend to like me.
So what? You're his wife, if he doesn't believe you because he didn't witness it, that's a problem far bigger than his relationship with his mom.
I don't think it's useful to ask or consider if this is 'normal.' Because 'normal' is a product of your environment and often does NOT mean good or ideal.
I would NOT like to have the intelligence, ambition, or work ethic of a normal person. No, thanks. I do not do what most people consider 'normal' with my finances or family relationships because I find normal insufficient and inferior.
I think you need to ask why this bothers you so much.
Is it interfering with your relationship? Is he spending time with her that takes away too much from time with you? These are more concerning than if it's *normal*.
I agree. It sounds like your personal problem, especially since you are making comparisons to your circle of friends. I think it is safe to assume you've vented about this to your friends....tacky to disrespect your spouse, and you may be surprised what your friends really think about you if you have done.
I don't think its un-normal. We only have one son, and I hope some day we have almost daily communication with him and his mom does too. Facebook and texting is pretty non-intrusive. Its not like she comes over every day is it? Who cares about your circle of friends.
Wow, I disagree with most of the posters. I think it's weird that she's texting and emailing your husband/her son multiple times a day.
I had an almost-MIL like that. She definitely tried to break us up and was rude to me when he wasn't around. My BF and I lived together and she'd come visit for weeks and weeks at a time. He'd leave me to entertain her. I'd taxi her around and she'd do nothing but criticize me. He'd never tell her it's time to leave, yet would find any excuse to leave the house and get away from her and leave me to deal with her.
Yep, young and naive.
Finally, on the last trip, I told him and her that she obviously doesn't like me and isn't even kind to me and so they were on their own as far as entertaining each other this time, because it's her son she comes to visit. He still took off and she left early. I just left the house constantly.
Fortunately, I didn't marry that one.
But, I did marry one whose mother was the same way. She did nothing but criticize me and her son could do no wrong and he wouldn't ever tell her not to visit - she was always welcome with minimal notice for however long she wanted to stay. She'd show up for a weekend and announce we were going to steam the wallpaper off the walls in my bathroom and she'd just hijack my home. She'd hold my baby daughter and say things to her like, "Well, looks like your mommy hasn't done the laundry...and other criticisms." I only got away from that evil woman by divorcing her son LOL.
But, I think your MIL is being ridiculous. And it's your DH who has to draw the boundaries with her. And the only way to get him to do that is for you to draw a boundary with him. Tell him that he's got to turn the phone off during meals or for a certain time of the day so you can have quality time together - because it's causing a problem with your marriage. That of course he loves his mom, but she's overstepped reasonable boundaries when a married couple can't have an uninterrupted meal together.
Otherwise, you'll just have to get up from the table if he answers the phone or something like that. He won't stop doing it if you let him keep doing it. You don't have to be a beoch, just matter of fact. Honey, I'm your wife and I deserve a meal with you without anyone interrupting us. If you can't do that, I'm going to go have my meals alone in peace. That otherwise his mother is running your marriage and home 24/7, and that's not right. Hopefully, you'll think of something that will work.
Because it's obviously causing problems with your marriage. You might have to go to a counselor to have some professional objective person tell your husband that he needs to take care of his wife, which includes enforcing some reasonable boundaries with his overbearing mother.
Good luck. Men who are wimps to their overbearing mothers are difficult to cure.
There is a difference between overbearing, and what is described here with some texts and Facebook. Jeeze.
What if your mom was too smart to show any disrespect in front of you, and only ignoring your wife when they're alone? Can't really confront her? I told my DH not to say anything as I didn't want his mom to be forced to pretend to like me.
Why don't you have a serious sit-down talk with her about this?
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