Wow! Those 2 paragraphs under Now We Are Six really describes what my dh has said about his childhood with his mother. It's sad.
Thanks for the link.
Well, my m-i-l is so crappy I don't know where to start, but I'll focus on the things that lead me to believe she may have a real disorder.
Her disowning us came out of the blue, we were actually getting ready to go to her home for a visit at her invitation the morning she called to say she was removing herself from our lives. She claims we have brainwashed our kids not to like her and she is not going to worry about it anymore. She also threatened "something might happen" to me in front of my kids if we came over. Whats bewildering is why she thinks the kids don't like her. They certainly never told me anything like that! I think that with her it's all or nothing. Either our kids adore her and beg to be with her all the time or she'd just rather have nothing to do with them.
She claims she wants everyone to be close(to her) and she has this fantasy of everyone in the family coming over and spending all holidays with her, staying the night every weekend, etc..(she lives 30 min. away from us) yet she does nothing to facilitate that.
I dated her son for 3 yrs before we moved in together. He was never been close to her, she rarely spoke to either of us, kicked him out at one point for no specific reason. We were teenagers at that time. I didn't not like her then, just never got to know her. She was outright rude to me sometimes, but then she was nice a few times too. In the meanwhile my dh was just considered part of the family at my house. m-i-l had no pictures on the walls, no photo albums, no knick-knacks, nothing. Her home was completely sterile. Our first xmas together dh's uncle brought a tree over (dh explained his mother never put one up) and she didn't even have ornaments. No, she had not lost everything in a house fire or anything..she just didn't care about that type of stuff. Yet she will tell you she is a very sentimental person. Anyway, I insited my dh take his paycheck and buy little gifts for everyone since we were going to his relatives home to celebrate. Not a single person had a gift for him and it was really awkward. To this day(in 13 yrs) his mother has never bought a gift for us, she only gives cash. She has never even sent us a card, she's just not into it and that's fine. But I've never understood why she attaches so much importance to holidays and expects us to tell dh's father and his family and my family to screw off so we can be with her.
So after 3 yrs we moved in together and her words to us as we were packing up the last of his stuff were "I hope you realize what you've gotten yourself into, cuz when you come runnin' home to mama, mama ain't takin in no wives and no babies!" I should add that she routinely told dh that he was useless, would never amount to anything, etc.. and he has an older brother who can do no wrong. Whats ironic is that his older brother is now on his second marriage, barely scraping buy living in a trailer park with his wifes relatives as neighbors in the same trailer park(not that I care, SHE has always described certain folks as trailer trash) and dh is the one who is doing allright..we own a house and land, he has a good job in a skilled trade, we have a happy life together. She is very bitter that she put so much effort into her relationship with his bro and she doesn't get to basque in his glory.
I found out we were expecting our first baby a few mos. after we moved in together. When we told her she seemed apprehensive. I tried to let her know I wanted her to be involved in the whole experience by calling her after dr. appts (she never called) and keeping her informed on the progress of the new baby, but she never seemed interested and still kept all our conversations short and to the point so I just quit calling after a while and we didn't see or hear much out of her for the duration.
Then all of a sudden she showed up one day close to my due date and informed us she was going to buy a house with a basement so that we could move in with her and live in it. She acted as if her decision to buy the house rested on us agreeing to move in-free of charge-she even offered to pay for storage for whatever wouldn't fit. This was all very bizarre. At that time dh was making enough $$ so that I was able to quit working. We had just finished decorating the nursery, we lived in a 3 story condo in a very affluent area and our rent was more than hers! We were not in need of her assistance and had not asked for it. We told her she should not buy the house if it was dependant on us living with her in it because that was not going to happen. She acted as if she was doing us some favor by offering. We didn't hear from her until the baby, our dd, was born. Then she started coming over literally every day on her way home from work. Unannounced and uninvited. It got to the point where we could set our clocks by her visits. She never had anything to say to us. Not even how's it goin? She would grab the baby, mess with her for 10 or 15 min. and leave. Once we even had a plan to act as if we didn't even notice her. I was cooking spaghetti and when she walked in(w/o knocking) I didn't even look up. My dh was playing a video game and did the same as me and she didn't even notice! Just messed with the baby and left! One day she called me up and announced that she was trying to figure out a way to quit her job so that SHE could keep my baby and I could go back to work! She was dead serious. I have never had any intention of returning to work and never have. We had some light shed on this when we happened to run into an old co-worker of hers a couple yrs. later who told us m-i-l had told everyone at work that we were incapable/unfit to raise a child and that she was going to have to raise it for us. This lady told us m-i-l would say things like "I've already raised my kids and it's not fair that this baby's going to be pawned off on me!"
That explained why she was so insistant on us moving in with her, etc.. she didn't want to look stupid in front of her friends and co-workers. I also want to make clear that there is absolutely no reason for anyone to have believed we would be anything less than devoted parents. This was all so she could play the "Look what a caring, generous person I am" act. I always wondered why dh's family would make comments on what a good mom I was as if they were surprised or something.
She also became scarily obsessed with being alone with our baby. It was constant~ "When will I get to take the baby home?, When will she get to spend the night with me?, If I take time off will you let me keep her for a week or two?" etc..constantly. I'm sure that she would not have hurt our baby or ran off with her, but her behavior was what you might expect from someone who would. I can't emphasize enough how obsessed she was with playing "mommy" to our baby. At this same time though, she did just about everything to ensure our baby would never be alone with her. She handed the baby a prescription pill bottle with pills inside for a rattle. She never remembered to shut the door to the basement stairs once the baby was crawling, if I told her I wanted the baby's shoes off- she put them on, I don't want the baby fed sugary foods- she shoves a spoonful of whipped cream in her mouth, etc.. on and on.. she even went out and bought a high chair and crib for her house! All she ever bought for us for the baby was ONE pack of diapers, ONCE!
Then we got a break when dh's job required us to move 3 hours away for a yr and a half. Things were much better then. We would drive up and visit about once a month and her "good son" and his wife had a baby for her to latch onto. Although she never did in the extreme way she did with ours. When the job was done we needed to move back and started house hunting. She agreed to help us out with the down payment. She offered us a $2000.00 loan *or* if we would move into a delapitated shack walking distance from her she would pay the entire down payment as a gift as well as pay for renovations, appliances etc.. nice huh? We took the $2000!
After that she went back to her mode of not being too interested in us or the kids(we had a baby boy by now). She came to b-days, we saw her at holidays. She still harped on us about dd being alone with her. Many times, right in front of us, she would whisper into our dd's ear "Tell your mama and daddy you want to come and stay with me without your brother" She never seemed concerned about being close to our son. About that time we had a falling out with dh's brother and s-i-l. To make a very long story short their dd contracted an STD from s-i-l during childbirth BUT we were told over and over again that she had an inherited, genetic skin condition that was non-contagious and harmless and nothing for us to worry about. They lied to us and exposed our kids for over a year before the truth could no longer be hidden. Our neice had been going for regular treatments the whole time to remove "bumps" from her skin and when they really took over her body and I knew something was not right about the whole situation and I said I was going to contact the dr. about it, the truth came out. She had a highly- contagious skin disease that she will have for life and will eventually settle on her genitals as an STD, they lied to us and put our kids at risk out of embarassment. Instead of being adult about it and moving on, taking some simple precautions to prevent it from spreading, m-i-l, b-i-l and s-i-l started a smear campaign against us(mainly me) and the rest of the family thinks we just had some little argument with them and we just can't get over it. We refuse to have our kids around b-i-l and s-i-l so m-i-l makes sure they are at every family function so we won't come. The rest of the family is kept in the dark. Once I tried to talk to dh's aunt about it and she flat out told me I was a liar and I just don't want my dh to have a relationship with his family. m-i-l does not invite us to get togethers even when b-i-l's family will not be there. We are also not informed when family members have been hospitalized, deaths, marriages, new baby's..nothing. I have talked to m-i-l, so has dh, about how unfair it is that we are excluded from everything just to protect b-i-l's image and she points out we are welcome to come to everything if we just act like nothing ever happened. Of course, she still expects us to come and visit her at her convienience, which we have. Just this summer we decided to finally let the kids spend the night with her. We figured they are old enough now to look after themselves(ages 5 and 7) and it would be okay. We gave her an inch and sure enough, she told me to "pick a weekend" for them to stay with her shortly after that. The kids heard dh and I discussing it and our dd said she did not want to stay there alone again because m-i-l was weird. The kids told us m-i-l insisted they call her "Grandma" I'll use a fake name, but the kids call her "Grandma Nessa" I guess she told them to call her "Grandma" only and each time they slipped up and added "Nessa" she would correct them and refuse to respond until they re-worded her name. What it is, is the "Nessa" part, in her mind, gives the impression of them not being very close to her(they aren't) and she can't have that. She's not concerned with actually having a close relationship with them, she just wants everyone to think they do. She had invited other family over to witness this fake and forced closeness too.
So I told her that although the kids had a good time and enjoyed the visit, they were not comfortable spending the night and that we would stick to day visits. At first I put it in terms of "well, they don't know your new husband, don't know you that well anymore, have been excluded so long, etc.. they just don't feel comfortable." Then she got shitty so I told her about the "Grandma" only deal and that it was disturbing to us and made the kids feel awkward and she told me my children were making it up! That she never did any such thing and she has no issue with what the kids call her. Whats so absurd about it is before our dd was born she infomed us she would be called "Mamaw" shortly after she was born she changed it to "Grandmama", then it became "Granny". I have b-day cards she gave to my dd signed "Grandma Nessa","Granny N", "Grandmother Nessa" etc.. yet thru her many self imposed name changes our kids have never called her anything other than "Grandma Nessa"!!
She also has an extremely selective memory. It's one thing for her to tell the rest of the family she calls and tells us about everything going on, but she will say the same thing to us! Once when she was blaming me for her lack of a relationship with my dd, I pointed out that during that year we lived out of town she only came to visit twice. She said "Yeah, and if not for those 2 times I would have never seen my grandbaby!" I proceeded to list all the times we came and visited her- not just for the day- overnight visits and at least every month and she just said "No. I have no recollection of that." So I don't know what's wrong with her. I considered talking to her husband about it, afraid she might have some type of early onset alzeimers or something. But I don't think it would do any good. Plus she only forgets things that do not support her "Nothings ever my fault" mentality.
Sorry this has been soo long! It's only the half of it though. Does this sound like a disorder or just plain old not getting along? I have always just tried to go with the flow& be polite. I've never said anything "off" to her until the sleepover. It was her decision to disown us, but I'm sure I will be blamed. I can accept that and I have no intention of talking to anyone else in the family about it. I just hate it that they all believe we are just uncaring and hateful and they all believe m-i-l is just an innocent, poor, loving grandmother. I have always felt that if any of them truly cared for us they would call and ask "Whats going on?" But they don't. We really do feel voiceless.
Thanks for taking the time to read all this, I'm open to any opinions or advice.
~Steph
