Does anyone else have a horrible mother in-law? How do you

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Well I did divorce him.

And sorry, but nobody should ever be anybody's doormat, not even to keep a marriage together.

And that has nothing to do with feminism; not being a doormat should be an equal opportunity issue regardless of gender or gender roles. Nothing to do with that. It's to do with being a person who is being expected to just eat sh!t.

If things are that bad that somebody is having to "submit" and be a doormat, that's royally fcked up and should never have been borne to continue. Hence I ended it in my situation.

I agree with you BirdinFlight, and your last two posts were very well said.

Were you brought up in a fundamentalist religion? Submission is NOT hardwired, it is taught, usually in the aforementioned.

He finds a lot of it highly overbearing. He makes fun of it privately because due to his mother's overreaction when he's confronted her in the past, he got a lot of ire from his dad.

I love my husband very much. He is my best friend and the only person who really understands me, as his father loves to alienate me, his brother picks on me because he thinks I'm stupid, and my family chooses to pick on me. I'm pretty good about not using facial expressions; it's keeping my mouth shut that's the problem.

You and me both. It's a complete turnoff when a man actually *wants* to be babied by his mother, or when he sticks to her opinions. For this type of man (or woman) - shun and run.



He sounds like hot stuff!

OP: How do you think you can solve this situation? Any ideas you've thought of? What are you willing to accept or not?

I'very honestly taken to ignoring her as much as possible by bringing homework or a book withme to avoid conversation and to avoid hearing any of it. I also know that anything my husband doesn't like about his parents will be brought up on the way home, so if I grin and bear it for a little bit he'll initiate the subject and start making fun of everything.

I have a feeling that your husband cannot stand his Mama anymore than you can, but is able to tolerate the visits because you act as his buffer. When you are around, their (negative) attention and nastiness is on you, and he's off the hook.

Sorry, but that doesn't sound like something that a "best friend" would do.

If I were you, I'd start having debilitating migraines every single time a visit to his parents is due, causing you to - per force - stay home. Do this over a period of time, and he'll stop visiting them so many times himself. Because you see, without you as his buffer, guess who is going to be at the centre of their attention and the recipient of all that nastiness ?

If he insists on dragging you along, despite your alleged migraines, then it's onto marital counseling. He should have more respect and more consideration for his wife than that.

Actually, they can never say anything bad about him. They think sunshine and rainbows fly out of his rear, and their Facebook pages are plenty of evidence of that. They don't understand that I can't help who I am, and his dad outright believes Michael Savage on the autism front. I've just taken to drawing as little attention to myself as possible.

Nope, they don't. I can guarantee you that if you stopped visiting, and stopped acting as his buffer, then they'd turn on him in the blink of an eye. Try it, sit back and see what happens !

In any case, I would just stop visiting them. I take back that bit of advise about claiming "debilitating migraines" - you don't need a reason to stop visiting abusive jerks. Their mean-spiritedness is reason enough. If they can't respect you and be kind to you, then they don't deserve the pleasure of your company. He can go by himself - his parents, HIS problem.

Actually, my brother in-law reports that all he talks about at work is "his son" meaning my husband. I think it's a psychological thing because he's his father's only cis son, the only one who doesn't look like his ex wife because he has a different mother than his brother and sister, and he's his mother's only child. My husband constantly complains of the blatant favoritism he feels he benefits from and has discussed disobeying some aspects of their will to make things more egalitarian when the time comes.

I divorced my ex-husband because he refused to live in a place without his mommy, and that marriage lasted less than a year because he was way too much of a mamma's boy. He's in one of those churches where young unmarried adults go on a mission, but he refused to go because it meant leaving his mommy. Even then, I'm glad to have gotten out of that situation, as I can say what Princess Di said, that "there were 3 of us in that marriage," but in my case, it was his mommy that was the 3rd person.

Now, I'm with someone who did respect his mother, but he's been living on his own since he started college, so if his mom hadn't died, she would have been a good MIL.

What is a cis son ?

Also, the "MIL" you refer to is your husband's stepmother ?

I think that there are deeper issues here, than just a meddling monster-in-law out to get her daughter-in-law. I think you both need marital counseling. How is his biological mother to you ?

Regarding their will, he can't "disobey" them. The will be executed as written, and your husband can then "give away" some of the assets he inherits to his siblings. But I would ensure that he gets a lawyer to oversee that "giving away" process. Something about this story unsettles me. Just be careful and watch your back, is all I can say.

Cis is short for cisgender. My brother in-law is trans, and my father in-law is highly transphobic; he even calls my brother in-law an amalgamation of the name he chose and the name he was born with. My father in-law was married twice; he had two kids with his first wife, divorced her, and married my mother in-law. They then had my husband. My husband and I have been going to marital counseling for almost two years now. Things have been going better, and we haven't argued as much, but we still do have some tension since his parents love to make fun of my disabilities and embarrass the crap out of me. It sounds like his siblings don't want any of the things his mother owns so much as her money. They way the will is set out is that when his parents both die, he will get everything his mother owns and one third of what his father owns; the remaining two thirds of what his father owns will be divided among the three grandchildren my siblings in-law have, and any more that they may have in the future, which is unlikely. I'll make sure to bring the law up to my husband when the time comes. Knowing the longevity of his family, we won't have to be concerned about this any time soon (thank goodness, since his mom's a hoarder and we can't stand one of their dogs).

Yes. A loud, pushy, drunken, newyorker. I can't stand that woman. When she visits, she moves the furniture around and rearranges dishes in the cupboards and drawers. "I think this just works better" she says. But, I already have things the way I like them. She also buys and puts dumb crap on shelves and walls. I have to put it all back after she leaves. She inturrupts me every time I try to say anything. One morning, I woke up and there was a strange guy walking up the stairs with a bunch of tools. She had paid to recarpet my stairs with this awful pattern because she did not like what I had. She didn't say a word to me about it. This is my house. What the hell is wrong with some people?

I just be patient and respectful. I go walk in the woods when I can't take it anymore. I have considered some extreme meditation involving a shotgun, some gasoline, and a chainsaw but I just do not know how to deal with it. I left town last time she came here. I was thinking about buying her a cockatoo parrot so she can't travel. Some of those birds are worse than kids to take care of. But no, I'd feel bad for the bird. I guess I will just have to wait for her to die. I wouldn't like myself if I did something mean to her.

That's par the course for how I've seen remarried couples with blended families set up their wills. The "estate" is usually divided up into two parts -- the husband's and the wife's. These parts are then, further, divided up into the number of the children each has individually. So, for example, if the husband has four children, whether they are from that marriage or not, his half of the estate is divided into 4. If the wife has two kids, then her half of the marriage is divided into two. So, regardless of who has how many children, jointly or individually, it's all set up to be "fair", although children from a previous marriage or relationship who don't inherit anything from a step-parent might end up being mighty resentful of their half-siblings' inheritances, that would be larger than their own.

That said, it is highly unusual that your FIL skipping over his children, and leaving 2/3rds of his estate to his grandchildren instead. Tells me that he's a vindictive old geezer, and if he can do that to his own children, then a DIL is even fairer game for him.

And, I am sorry but I don't think things will get better unless you stop visiting these abusive people. I am surprised that your marriage counselor hasn't advised that yet.

I didn't realize that was the norm. That is interesting. We thought it was highly unequal.

He is doing it because he has loaned both my siblings in-law large amounts of money that they spent foolishly and is afraid that his grandchildren will not have any of it put aside for their educations. It's not the best reason to do it, but I can also understand as I've witnessed quite a number of their behaviors toward my in-laws.

We have reduced the number of visits we make to them and have actually stood up to say they will not spend every holiday with us. This year, for example, they got Thanksgiving, will get Christmas morning instead of Christmas afternoon, and mother's day, while my parents got black Friday and will get Christmas afternoon and father's day. That alone has improved things, as has the contact between my father in-law and his eldest two grandchildren, who were estranged after my sister in-law had them removed by the state due to mental illness. I expect it will improve further once my niece gets old enough to be able to see him rather than merely talk on the phone for a few minutes.