New to this and positively lost

[Daisy]

I could write a book, but I won't get into overwhelming details.

I suspect highly that my MIL has NPD or a varying degree of it.   The things I have seen her done or say astound me sometimes.  Having never dealt with someone so controlling, so manipulative and so secretive I am frequently amazed.

Having her with a MIL was fine when she lived across the country (she in Cali and us in Michigan) and therefore controled my husband only rarely, but using manipulation and lying (long story), she managed to build a home ACROSS THE STREET from my husband and I, and has announced that for now, she's living their permanently.  

My biggest problem is that my husband, god love him, lets himself be manipulated and used beyond belief by his mother.  He realizes she is a problem, but he turns into a pool of almost helplessness to deny her anything.  She has been married 5 times, and is currently single.  She has been using my husband as a surrogate husband and best friend for almost two years now (almost from the point she began building the house).  The amount of time and things she demands from my husband make me want to SCREAM.  She sometimes calls over 10 times a day.  If she can't reach us at home, she calls his cell phone, my cell phone or his pager until she does reach us.

We have an 18 month old daughter and I am currently pregnant with our second and due in four months.

He is a great husband and provider, sensitive, caring and a fantastic father.  The things that I love about him are the very things that drive me nuts too, since he is way too giving and caring to his mother who demands everything, yet gives nothing in return.

He is "trying" to not let her make demands, and "tries" not answer calls, etc., but we are really having a difficult time figuring out how to do this.  He wants her in his life (although I'm not sure why), but this cannot be done if she continues to behave this way (and she will) and my husband continues to pacify her in everything.   Our marriage will fail.

Either that or our brand new house goes up for sale to escape this lunatic.  

Anyone else have a spouse who's parent (MIL or FIL) is making their marriage miserable?  What did you do?

I am beside myself ... not to mention maternally hormonal at the moment.  

[Anonymous]

Welcome Daisy.

Congratulations on your pregnancy.  We have a nice group of pregnant women on board here who I'm sure could relate to your raging hormones.

Sorry to hear that your Mother Outlaw is making life miserable for both you and your husband.  I never had to deal with an overbearing MIL so I don't know what that is like...I can only imagine.

What are the odds that she was able to get a house right across the street from you.  

Unfortunately if she is truly a N she won't be backing down any time soon.  It may just come to selling your house to escape her.  I'm hoping that for your sake that at least you are sitting back on a ten acre property.  

The only other advice I would have to offer is that your husband needs to know that you are his wife and life partner and that your needs are to be met over his Mom's.  Perhaps marriage counseling will be in order if this can't be squashed.

Thanks for posting your story.

Best wishes
Mia

[bunny]

Welcome Daisy,

I had a MIL from hell (thankfully she's deceased). She wanted to move in with us but my H wouldn't go that far. He was enmeshed with her. It wasn't quite as bad a case as your husband but it definitely strained the marriage a lot. We were in couples counseling the whole time she was alive to deal with his ambivalence and inability to put me first in his life.

Any chance your MIL will die soon?    I thought not.  

Here is my experience:

___ INDIVIDUAL THERAPY FOR YOUR HUSBAND. The therapist will advocate to him that he must definitively put his wife/kids first and give them top priority. Boundaries will have to be set with mom. The therapist will help him deal with the guilt and rage against his mother which he can't access.

___ COUPLES THERAPY. The couples therapist will do the same thing. They will point out to your husband that his marriage is at risk.

You can't change him. But you can let him know that the marriage will not survive his mother being a third party. Hopefully he will make the right choice.

bunny

[crookedtree]

you sound like you're in a bad place right now, geographically and otherwise
i wonder if your husband feels as overwhelmed by his mother as you do
he might feel that way but not really realize it or admit it to you- he may be just so used to jumping when she says jump that he is almost programmed to do it now - and he might have bought into the guilt that she may lay on him (i don't know, i am speculating);
my story might help you, because i was in the place of your husband, to a certain extent:  my mom sounds a bit like your mother in law; my partner has recently put a formal no contact 'rule' between herself and my mom and as a consequence, she has little contact with the rest of my family.  the no contact thing came about as a result of a blow up this past summer - i finally realized that by spending every waking moment of family holidays and vacations trying to make everyone happy and like each other, i had so separated myself from my own emotions that i didn't even know what i felt or wanted anymore... i was also attempting to control my partner - telling her what she needed to do to please my mother and guilting her when she didn't; and attempting to control my mother which never worked anyway.  it almost split us up after 7 years together.  my partner finally said that's it, i've had enough of your family and enough of you when you're around them; so that prompted me to really take a look at my relationship with my mom and my priorities.  had my partner not been so insistent and followed through with a no contact rule, i can't say i would have changed.  
i recently remembered what an old flame had told me about my mom - "your mother is not a mother, she is a syndrome!"  
anyway, my mom does not live across the street from us, she lives about an hour away, but comes through here just about every weekend to get to her cabin at the lake; but she is no longer welcome at our home.  we got a call display and my partner does not answer the phone when it is my mom, and i answer it rarely - i choose!  i still see mom but it is not as often, and she spends much of the time attempting to put me on a guilt trip - which i haven't traveled lately.  however, my partner and i have decided to make a move farther away, mainly because of family interference.  we have come together on this with a two year plan - leaving in a year and a half now.  i have supported her decision not to have contact with my family and she supports me in my contact with mom - even though i am often messed up afterwards - she does not try to separate me from my mother - if i do that it will be my choice and i won't resent her for it and i may even be proud of my ability to do it (my choice, my reward or consequence)- my partner is becoming more supportive of my choices and feelings and i am becoming more supportive of her choices and feelings.
i hope that you and your husband can both come to a place (perhaps geographically and emotionally) where extended family is not a syndrome that affects your own family in such a bad way.  to begin with, i think it is really important that you have your own physical space that you feel safe in.  i will be thinking of you and hoping that you are able to attain that.

[longtire]

Welcome Daisy, you're definitely not alone here.

I can relate somewhat to your situation.  My wife has been emotionally enmeshed with her mom throughout our marriage.  Thank God, my MIL never tried to move in, though! I second bunny's suggestion for therapy.  A good therapist can help your husband get to the underlying issues and deal with them, instead of continuing to be enmeshed.

You know your husband, and can probably figure out the best way to approach him on this.  I'll offer some suggestions, take whatever is useful to you.  Tell your husband you love him, what you like about him and what he means to you. Tell him how afraid you are that his mother will get between the two of you and hurt your marriage.  It sounds like he is aware that something is wrong here, but may not know what to do about it.  If he won't do therapy, try books.  Books on boundaries or co-dependency might be a good place for him to start.  These can help develop coping skills and might lead to a willingness on his part for therapy in the future.

Honestly though, you can't change your husband if he's not willing to make those changes.  YOU can read up on boundaries and make sure that you protect yourself and your children.  Even if your husband had not been willing to take steps previously, he may see that you are able to do it and want to follow your lead.  Beware that MIL will most likely try to use your firm boundaries as "proof" that you hate her and try to get your hubby to "protect" her from you.  Let you hubby know what you are doing and that you are not setting boundaries to punish anyone, but to take care of yourself and your children.  Ask (not demand) for his help.

I've started developing my boundary skills recently and it makes a hugh difference.  Not just in handling each incident, but in giving me more confidence and removing fear.  Good luck and keep us posted.

[promqueencasualty]

Welcome, Daisy,

I, too, am a newbie to this site, and I can definitely relate to how you must be feeling right now, except for the pregnant part!   ; )
I just lost my mother-in-law, who was a wonderful woman----but my mother is the MIL-From-Hell(and the bane of my existence), and I have witnessed firsthand what my poor brother and SIL have had to endure at the hands of my mother and Nsiblings.

If you would be interested in knowing more about my "story," you can go back to the index and look for the heading "Narcissistic Relatives." My first posting(with all of the details) is on the second page of that particular thread. But, suffice to say, I know what you're going through.

The other folks on this site have wonderful insight and suggestions, and I would most definitely concur that this HAS to come from your husband. I think that seeking counseling would go a long way in helping to fortify him for the battle that he will face if he decides to stand-up to her. If your hubby is a "self-starter" type who likes to read(as I am), there are a myriad of helpful books out there(which is a good start). Before I had even heard of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I started my journey by reading the books "Toxic Parents"(by Susan Forward), "If You Had Controlling Parents," "Children of the Self-Absorbed" and a book written by Alice Miller whose title I forget(it may have something to do with the "Gifted Child," but it refers to children who learn early-on how to read the climate of their home life in order to appease unreasonable parents). I don't know if the other "posters" on this thread agree with my choice of literature, but there is a vast wealth of it out there. I just ordered the book "The Narcissistic Family"(I think that the author's last name is Pressman), as it came highly recommended.

One caveat: because your husband has spent a lifetime capitulating to this woman, she is used to getting her way, and if your H finds his "voice" to stand-up to her, she probably won't take him seriously right away. Worse yet, she will most likely pull-out all of the stops to try and preserve the status quo. In my experience, the more my poor brother dug his heels in(in the face of my Nparents and Nsiblings), the more desperate my family members have become to try and regain control, therefore, the more outrageous their behavior has become. So, in a nutshell, things in your situation may get a bit worse before they get better.

It would be wonderful if your MIL saw the error of her ways and did an about-face, but your husband has to "steel" himself to face the possibility that the only "solution" to this problem may be to sever all ties with his mother. She'll resist this, too, as that is what is happening in my family. Maybe my case is the absolute extreme(a lot of the more "veteran" post-ers on this site have told me that my family is off-the-charts psychotic), but I just returned from meeting with an attorney whose services I have decided to retain(my Nparents and Nsiblings' conduct  has started to border on criminal).

I know that you have special needs to consider re: your health right now, but I would say that your husband is going to need you to be strong for him if he decides to slay this particular "dragon." I would put money on the fact that his Nmother will go ballistic if he decides to set more harsh boundaries, so he is going to need to have in you a very strong source of support, love, encouragement and(most importantly!) stability.

I don't know if you and your husband embrace any type of faith or spirituality, but I personally believe in a spiritual life after death, and a very wise woman told me to remember that my mother is/was nothing more than a channel through which I was brought into this world. I think about that when I am feeling down or inappropriately guilty about the situation in my family, and it puts my mother in better perspective where the "large picture" is concerned(she's not a deity, for crying out loud!). It might be something that you can share with your husband when Mommie Dearest starts pushing all of the familiar buttons.

I hope that this helps--either way, you're in a good place here. The other folks who post here are very supportive and insightful, so keep on posting---good luck!

promqueencasualty(pretty self-explanatory username!)

[vunil]

These replies were really beautiful, and I really got a lot out of reading them.  I'm not sure what I can add, since I don't have a MIL, but I am pregnant  And my mother is one of those MILs who would like to have her son to herself.  And she has decided that my sister in law is the devil.

I agree with Longtire that if you put your foot down, your MIL will have all sorts of fun denigrating you to the rest of the family.  My mother does that to me about my sister in law.   The good thing is, the N way of deciding someone is GOOD or TERRIBLE in all ways will get you banished from her kingdom.  Which will be more comfortable for you.

As for your husband, what I would do is figure out what you are missing from him that is caused by this MIL relationship.  And then I  would try to fix that.  That's what my very well-adjusted SIL does.  She just stays out of the way of my brother's relationship with my mom, but doesn't get caught up in it herself.  The only times she really "misses" I think is when she tries to keep my brother from seeing my mom, because then she lets her MIL become the martyr.  And boy do N's love being a martyr.

I also agree that you might have to move away.   What made her think she could move so close?  Grrrrrrr!  It's pretty darned annoying.

[vunil]

The only times she really "misses" I think is when she tries to keep my brother from seeing my mom, because then she lets her MIL become the martyr.

Oh, one clarification-- one thing that they do manage really well is to not be "able" to come to family functions or spend a lot of time with family because of other obligations, the kids are sick, etc.  This used to bother me until I realized it's because my SIL is onto my mother and has figured out how to avoid her without being direct about it (thus making it harder to activate the martyr stuff).  

I also used to wish that the two of them would just talk it through.  After my amazingly unsuccessful attempts at communication with my family in the last six months (trying to talk deeply with an N is like trying to swim through oil) I realize that my SIL is wise.

All of this subterfuge is easier if you live farther away, of course.

[vunil]

These replies were really beautiful, and I really got a lot out of reading them.  I'm not sure what I can add, since I don't have a MIL, but I am pregnant  And my mother is one of those MILs who would like to have her son to herself.  And she has decided that my sister in law is the devil.

I agree with Longtire that if you put your foot down, your MIL will have all sorts of fun denigrating you to the rest of the family.  My mother does that to me about my sister in law.   The good thing is, the N way of deciding someone is GOOD or TERRIBLE in all ways will get you banished from her kingdom.  Which will be more comfortable for you.

As for your husband, what I would do is figure out what you are missing from him that is caused by this MIL relationship.  And then I  would try to fix that.  That's what my very well-adjusted SIL does.  She just stays out of the way of my brother's relationship with my mom, but doesn't get caught up in it herself.  The only times she really "misses" I think is when she tries to keep my brother from seeing my mom, because then she lets her MIL become the martyr.  And boy do N's love being a martyr.

I also agree that you might have to move away.   What made her think she could move so close?  Grrrrrrr!  It's pretty darned annoying.

[P as guest]

Daisy

How about showing your H your post here and the replies?

Does he realise that this is hurting you this much?

You're talking about the end of your marriage! He should know that and consider his actions.

You have to stand up for your needs and wants. He has to decide between his mother and you (and you can't make that decision for him). What do you think?

take care, portia

[bunny]

Hi Vunil,

I avoided my MIL as much as I could. (But Daisy's MIL lives across the street! and there are grandchildren  )  My MIL got angry with my H since she rarely saw me. Then he got mad at me. So it still caused problems. I stayed out of their  relationship and I am with your SIL on that. However a therapist can certainly confront the mother-son relationship on behalf of the marriage. I leave that minefield to the professionals!

bunny

[Anonymous]

I think Portia is on the money. He may not even realize how much placating his mommy is affecting you or the marriage.
And, while I have nothing against therapy, I don't think it should take a therapist to make a husband see that. If your husband is a rational sensible person it should take nothing more than a nice cold pitcher of water in the shorts   to wake him up to what is at stake, especially with little ones in the mix. And who is better at delivering a nice cold pitcher of water to her husbands shorts than an exasperated wife?

Have you ever told him you think your marriage will fail if he does not do something about her manipulation?
If that doesn't wake him up then he does need therapy, or maybe a good stiff clout to the cranium with a stick.

mudpup

[longtire]

Daisy, I agree with Portia and mudpup on this.  If it all possible, let your husband know in a non-judgmental way how much this is hurting and scaring you.  If he has any sense, he will want to do anything to help keep this from hurting your marriage.  If the woman I loved came and told me this was going on, I would re-evaluate a lot of things, starting with why wasn't I already aware of how much she was hurting.  Good luck.

[Anonymous]

With due respect mud, you may not realize how powerful a hold a mother can have on an adult child. It can be seriously counterproductive for a wife to get in the middle, or even to criticize the MIL. The H will often choose his mother over his wife if the hold/attachment is extremely powerful and addictive. This isn't about logic. Sometimes it really helps if an "authority figure" can do the battle. When the wife gets involved it often backfires big time. She would have to be absolutely certain he would choose her. That choice is not so certain. The H can be absolutely torn and in agony. It's not really about a logical "decision." It's about dealing with massive guilt and rage. The wife can't deal with that on her own.

bunny

[Anonymous]

bunny,
I agree to this extent. I had thought about recommending she not put this to the test unless she was certain of what his answer would be, but got side tracked and forgot about it by the time I finished the post.
I may have read more into her description than was there. I deduced her hubby is sensible and recognizes his mom is pretty batty. Maybe his attachment is stronger than that. That's also why I said if her concern over their marriage didn't wake him up then he needs therapy. I didn't mean that to sound facetious, he may very well need therapy if he won't get off the fence. Maybe he needs a stick and therapy.   Or maybe they need some counseling together if he is unwilling to put his wife, kids and marriage first. It just sounded to me like Daisy and her hubby had the kind of relationship where that type of honesty is possible.

One thing is certain, if his wife is talking about mommy killing their marriage he will have to choose, probably sooner than he thinks.

Bunny, you probably have a better grasp of this than I do. My experience is with my brother, which was undoubtedly an easier choice to make.
I just know when my wife pointed out to me how much of my life was being consumed by my brother and his demands and how I was straddling the fence, it was a no brainer. Maybe its not such a no brainer if narcmom is in your brain.

mudpuppy