Dealings with Mother in-law

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I have a lot of issues with my mother in-law, chiefly that she acts really odd with me.
She makes fun of my syntax, but if I put in effort to even correct hers, she goes off on me like I'm making fun of her and being cruel. She knows I do not like to be touched, yet insists on hugging and kissing me in greeting or otherwise touching me, which causes twithes in me.
She often talks down to everyone, which just angers the entire family. She acts like because I'm less experienced it means that I don't know how to care for her son. For example, because I don't drive and live several blocks from a grocery store while my husband works long hours and doesn't wish to go grocery shopping, we often go grocery shopping together. During such time, she has told me I am malnourishing my husband on several occasions, criticizing my flexitarian menu and my lack of fresh fruit when it is in season.
My husband can make it look like he's looking someone in the eye, but I can't, and his mother in-law gets after me for it. Mind you, she thinks she's Aspergian, but I honestly don't think that is the case due to the aforementioned non-aspie things she does.
I have tried to confront my husband about this, but he refuses to help me except for the attacks on my malnourishing him and does not like to hear that there is anything wrong with her. Can anyone help me to either tell her to step off or to deal with her?

I'd be more worried about my husband refusing to support me when she's upsetting me. Does he feel that it's partly your fault (and if so, why) or is he just avoiding a conflict (i.e., taking the easy way out)? If you can't communicate this worry to him, then it seems that there is a serious stumbling block in your relationship.

The thing that I would do immediately would be to drastically reduce the amount of time that I spent with my mother-in-law. On occasions when I was forced to see her, I would be polite but nothing more. If she started correcting me, I would leave. If she started touching me, I would politely explain that I feel very uncomfortable touching and ask her not to do so (some people get upset about this, but if you remain utterly calm and just keep repeating it, eventually they get the message). And find a way to grocery shop that is independent of her. If you can't learn to drive, can you have a friend help, get a cab home, walk home, have food delivered? To be honest, I'd rather walk than go with her if this was how she was treating me.

This situation with her is clearly stressing you so you need to remove yourself from it and deal with the lack of communication/support from your husband.

I think he is mostly stressed and doesn't wish to hear any complaints, since he is working sixty hours a week and his routine is disrupted because he doesn't come home at the same time every night and doesn't get to bed at the same time.

I unfortunately live several blocks from a grocer, and live next to a road where the speed limits are 45 MPH, but most go around 50 to 55 MPH. We have horrible public transit, and the bus only goes three blocks north of my house; the nearest grocer is six blocks. We have a cab service, but it mostly just goes downtown and is crazy expensive. Plus at this time of year it gets into the hundreds of degrees. It's also monsoons, so the weather is highly unpredictable.

She knows touching makes me uncomfortable and will often say, "I know you don't like to be touched, but I'm going to hug and kiss you anyway."

Luckily, I am part way through a driving class and we have finally set up scheduling to go practice, so it means that with any luck, I'll be driving within six months.

I would try to avoid her, but we live just nine blocks from them, which means we are always asked to come over. As you can imagine, we are trying to get a house away from both parents, which is an easy thing to do in a spread out city.

My current in-laws live thousands of miles away in another country. My previous in-laws lived 600 miles down the road. In both situations, they hated me for my education (none of then went to college, all but one dropped out of high school). The only way to avoid in-law trouble is to marry an orphan.

I live in the same house as my mother but we don't get along and I only see her once a week. If you really wanted not to see your mother-in-law or to cut back the time that you spend with her, you could. What you are feeling is a sense of obligation to engage in a certain amount of socializing with her, probably out of politeness or habit or the feeling that you ought to because she's family. If you are asked to go over, just say 'no' or put a time limit on how long you can stay. Ditto if they visit you. You can be polite but still cut down on the time spent together quite drastically.

It does sound as if your mother-in-law means well with the whole touchy feelie thing. I've had friends and relatives who did the same. I lived in France for a while and it was a nightmare, even strangers wanted to kiss you constantly. Part of the problem seems to be that they feel that you are somehow 'unable to accept affection' or 'shy', and that they are doing you a favor by forcing themselves on you. They mean well but you do have to explain to them very clearly that it's NOT okay with you, and why.

And just because your husband is working a lot, doesn't mean that he can't be supportive of you in what is obviously an upsetting situation for you. A quick call to his mom to tell her to back off a little would take 5 minutes, hugging you and telling you he's sorry that she made you feel bad would take less time.

Do you have apsergers? If so then it sounds as if your family and your husband's family really don't understand what it means.

What gets me is, sometimes it's like dealing with two different people. Like I had to go analyze an X-ray with my doctor, so I had to be driven since my husband couldn't leave work early. She was perfectly fine then. However, there are some times where she is very critical. I don't know if it is stress induced or what, and confuses me.

Dear God, France would be awful; I forgot about that. My father in-law actually understands the no touch thing because he doesn't like to be touched very often either. My mother in-law is very touchy feely, as you mentioned, and I'm not sure why she does it because I have mentioned to her that I've never liked to be touched. In fact, I mentioned that my not liking to be touched worsened after a case of shingles (it seems to be pretty common for kids in my town to develop it; I know of at least three other people who were under 25 when they got it) because it's almost like I can feel the electricity coming off them. I twitch, and fight off the urge to swear, because it isn't a pleasant feeling.

The trick is, when my husband is at all stressed, he does not want to be touched, where the only times I want to be touched are when I am stressed or sick, and wants to be left alone. He has said that he simply doesn't want to discuss, at which point I drop the subject to avoid a fight.

My husband and several close friends think I do, including my mother in-law, who also thinks she has it. My family, especially my parents, thinks it's attention deficit disorder mixed with a social anxiety disorder, mixed with mild depression, mixed with severe insomnia, mixed with Tourette's. Only one of my sisters, who wanted to work as a forensic psychologist for the FBI before she discovered she has scoliosis that makes it hard to stand for long periods, thinks that my personality is that of an Aspergian.

My exhusband's mother was a horrible person who never cared to hide how much she did not approve of me. I stayed away from social situations with her because she genuinely enjoyed putting down in front of other people and making me out to look stupid. She would talk behind my back and say awful things. There is no tactful point in correcting these horrible things to the people she said them to. Like, "Hey, I'm really not a messy and unclean person. My house is very tidy and I'm obsessive compulsive about my kitchen being spotless all the time. She only says I'm disgusting because I embarrassed her once when I didn't realize it would be rude to clean her stove before I cooked on it." I have been dying to say that for years. My exhusband never said or did a thing to defend me. Not a thing.

You set aside your feelings and reactions and think about this woman's actions specifically. Does she only treat you this way? Is she trying to make you uncomfortable? Does she realize she's hypocritical about the syntax whatever issue? Does the syntax whatever issue matter enough to you to keep it going even if it's annoying that she corrects you? Also involve your husband more. I don't care if he works a lot. I work a lot. Lots of people work a lot. You have to make time for your spouse and things that upset them. So, he takes a moment to hear from you and focus on you. That is not too much to ask. You will have to be realistic about what is going on, even if your ego is damaged and your senses are in overload from hugging, because I assume he loves his mom and does not want to be in the middle of a conflict between two women he loves.

I know she will often treat my father in-law like he's stupid, but knows better than to correct him. She also likes to baby talk to everyone, but my husband assures me that it's a hold-over from when his ret*d nephew was living with them.

I am not sure what it is that goes through her mind with the syntax correction. I know that everyone likes to give me a hard time about it, but when hers is equally off and I reciprocate the hard time with her, she says something like, "You shouldn't do that because you do the same thing." I try to be the bigger person and just nod my head. It's hard because I have to get control over my impulse to yell, but I generally manage.

He has corrected her on the nutritional stuff. Considering I cook professionally, to him I think it's an affront to my skills as well as to my knowledge of nutrition. In fact, he got very upset about that. He knows that since I've had shingles it's gone from uncomfortable to outright painful to touch people and to be touched, so I'm not sure why he doesn't say something. I think a lot of it is that we still see his parents a lot.

This weekend, though, we had a breakthrough. We realized that while we have seen both sets of our parents equally together, I see his mom a lot more than he does and so get more overloaded by her.

I had a friend in college with a sister who had something. I don't remember what "invisible disease" it was but it was something that made her very weak and she could not be touched. She couldn't even cut her own food because holding the knife and applying pressure hurt her hand, wrist, arm and shoulder. I remember she said about hugging, "I know it's going to hurt. I just know it will. So, I just set in my mind that I have to hug this person and it will hurt." I know that was her way of getting by in a world that just does not understand what she's going through but I was really upset when she said this because the whole point of hugging is affection and we shouldn't do it if it's painful.

Can you physically stop her from hugging you? Like put your hands on her upper arms like a hug but you're keeping her distance and say, "Woah, no hugs today, mom. My skin is being fierce with the pain today. It's so irritated it's like on fire. Just a kiss." and then kiss her on the cheek and smile. You might get a better reaction from her if you shift to another form of affection immediately so it's not like you're rejecting her and you've just involved her in something personal about yourself that she can care about. Knowing she's shared her home with a special needs family member gives me the impression that she has a pretty big heart where it matters so I think that if you invite her into your world in ways she can understand (like with the skin problems), she will respond positively to you and accommodate you (probably more than you'd like). If she's in your life so much, it's worth a try, right?

i have issues with my MIL too.
last time she visited i had a maniac episode and lashed out at her.
i prefer not meeting her in person

It isn't the skin so much as the nerves under the skin. They cause hot pains all through my torso, especially when I'm stressed. I refer to it as my body's reminder not to get stressed to the point of shingles coming back.

It is really difficult to, considering she weighs twice as much as I do and insists on doing it. No matter what I've said, she doesn't get it. It's like she would have to experience the pain I go through in order to understand it.

Okay, I thought my problems were over, but they are sadly far from it. Now she is trying to get me to attend some class by a group called Peace Community Church which involves the laying on of hands. As I mentioned before, I cannot stand to be touched or to touch most of the time. When I expressed disinterest in attending, she went off on me, saying if I didn't learn how to feel like a normal person that I will be a cold cruel parent. While I can come off as being unconcerned, I do not think I am cold or unloving. Also, the way she described the class seemed a bit cultish to me. She is also trying to get me to go despite having a family gathering to mourn the loss of a cousin who died of leukemia that went into his bones.

She then went on to say that my job as a parent is to keep my future children from feeling pain as much as possible so I should get them a chicken pox vaccine as soon as they are old enough to avoid the pain I have gone through in the last year with shingles and the resulting nerve pains. However, I find that highly illogical because life itself is painful; if I shield them from every little illness, they will not be strong enough to fight off illness resistant to methods used for prevention and therefore die. Simply put, it makes about as much sense as treating a virus with antibiotics. Also, my job as a parent will be to make sure they can deal with life and the pain that often comes with it as mature adults instead of being terrified that they will go through pain and try to prevent it from happening.

Once again, my husband is telling me that I am being irrational. I love him, but his mother just seems to insist on picking me apart. The food crisis gets solved and now she's decided to pick on me about my trouble with feelings and my ideas on parenting. While I'll admit that I've not yet had any kids, I will admit that my mom exposing us to illness to make sure we got it was smart; his mother has reared one child who is often irresponsible and childlike but also came out slightly better adjusted than myself.

I am currently so stressed by this that my chest actually hurts. I am half tempted to start checking for pustules even though I had no extreme itching on a corresponding point of my back.

Oh just divorce your husband if he isn't going to care about you.

The mind set you should be thinking is "How dare she question my parenting skills?" your mother-in-law has no right to judge your parenting skills nor should she be making your life hell and for that husband of yours, he should bloody grow a pair and stop trying to find the easy way out in life because as far as I can see, he is being very selfish.

So what if he has to work? WE ALL BLOODY WORK! but that is no excuse to neglect your feelings and your troubles you are currently having, all he is caring about at the moment is himself and while you do need time for yourself once in a while, he is in a marriage and should be there to support you, that is what he agreed to when he married you.

At the end of the day its up to you but if I was in your position, I would just walk out on him and give him the middle finger to both his mother and him, you don't deserve this kind of treatment they are putting you through at the moment.

After an argument and an emergency massive disposal of dry goods due to flour beetles (I forgot to quarantine food items that we had stored at his parents' house before we got our apartment; I wound up so neurotic about it that I wouldn't have slept without cleaning it up) we came to an understanding. He saw that I was shaking and asked why it meant so much to me to clean up infested food at two AM, and I told him everything. He now understands why I hate bugs in the house and what the dry goods represented to me. He doesn't entirely agree with it, but at least now he understands where I'm coming from. The weight is off my chest. He even scratched my back until I fell asleep; he never does that.

He agreed that to put pressure on me to miss something with my family was overstepping bounds, especially when it's someone who died under the age of fifty. He also understands that death in my family is pretty much the only way to get everyone in the same area without cursing eachother out. He said that the only way to make her stop is to be really blunt, so I should tell her to F off and die. I will need to grow a pair and say it, but it feels good to have his backing and full support on this.

He says that being a cold parent is bad, but being a clingy parent is just as bad, and that's what she's doing. Once we get a home far away from her, things will be a lot better because we won't be spending every weekend with her and I will get the opportunity to spend more time with my mother, who also has a monster in-law and has gone through a good deal of what I'm dealing with now.

He also said that at the end of the day, it is my choice to do what I feel is right. That was the best thing he could have told me because I often feel out of control of my own existence, let alone my actions. It feels good for the frustration to end for this moment.

Part of our problem is, we don't always consider each other's feelings when upset. Granted, we have only been married about a year, and this is new to both of us. Hopefully with time we will be able to overcome this more easily; for now, it's just something to put effort into.

Ahh good, at least its working now

Well if your only a young married couple then I can understand why it was a bit awkward at first because you two are technically new to all of this, I didn't have enough information regarding your marriage so I thought you two were together for way more then 3 years and he still didn't do anything about it to help you so I was in a way pissed off with him.

Sorry if anything I said in my previous post offended you but I just generally don't like men who don't stand up for their women, same way round for the woman to stand up for her man, really the only thing I hate more then that is abuse within relationships.

Hopefully you two will sort this all out and get it over and done with, I wish all the best for your marriage.

Oh my...

It is your husband's job to grow a spine.

This is a common problem many wives have with their husbands.

Their husbands seem to not notice they grew up, left home, married someone and now have a responsibility to their own family that trumps What Mommy Wants. It can take a few years to sort that out, so some patience on your part will be needed as your husband learns. BUT he needs to be willing to do the work to move in the direction of acting like the adult he is now.

You will need to put this to him in very basic terms, I am sorry to say. It's not something the subtle approach ever seems to solve.

Keep it focused on him. He has a duty to his family that he needs to step up to. It's time he learned to say No to Mommy when she's out of line. He didn't marry her. He married you.

It doesn't require being mean to do that -- it does require being firm and very clear.

At some point if he can't do that he'll find he's lost his own family, kids and all.

What can you do with your mil yourself? Stop entertaining the bullcrap. When she tries to blame you for stuff like "malnourishing" your husband, tell her to take it up with HIM, not you. He isn't your slave and can think for himself and speak up for himself. If you can change the subject, do so, and quickly. If you can't, leave the room, pretense or not.

Sometimes simply letting her rant and then, when she's quite finished, saying with ultra calmness "Are you finished now?" can work. Sometimes a flat-toned "you need to stop now" can help.

If she tries to hug you, put your arm out and calmly state your preference, "Thank you, I do not wish to be hugged." Or turn sideways, or otherwise physically deny a "normal" hug. She is NOT hugging you out of affection. This is about domination, and she means to be the alpha dog in your husband's life.

It depends on what you're able to tolerate and do and also on the character of your mil and the rest of the family. Only you can know details like that. But there are many methods to accomplish the goal of stopping her bad behaviour.

The only way she will stop this behaviour is when she stops being rewarded for it. Remove yourself as a target, however you must. Her reward is that you make yourself available as her punching bag.

Then your husband needs to convince her to stop shooting in the first place, not by persuasion so much as by him being sure she realizes she will not get away with it anymore.

At some point he will need to give his Mom an ultimatum, odds are. He will suggest that she gets to choose between having a son and daughter-in-law, or no son and no daughter-in-law.

Because it really does come down to that, when you have a parent who is out of control on this level.

One last thing: How is your father-in-law? Don't overlook the possibility that he could be an ally in some way. Maybe hubby could ask Dad if he can work with his own wife to stop her. Sometimes the back room deals do work.

My best wishes to you and your husband as you try to work out a united front to protect your marriage and your own family.