I have background floating around here but it's been a long time since I updated it so ill just give a synopsis, but its long, so if you want to just skip down and translate the voicemail, I'm good with that too.
Mil has 2 sons. Dh is the clear favorite. This could be why bil is a huge douche or maybe being a douche is why he isn't the favorite, idk. Dh and I started dating in high school, I am now 29 and dh is 28. I felt guilty if we hid in his room and didn't spend time with his family- it seemed rude so we have always spent time with his family. His mother has always been too involved but we always figured as we got married and bought our own house, she would naturally disengage. Not the case- clinging and guilting ensued. Dh was used to this- it's normal controlling behavior for her and he grew up with it so it has taken some time for him to see the dysfunction and there have been some issues directly related to him not backing me appropriately. He still doesn't always see it.
During my pregnancy, the clinginess got worse, I saw the need for some boundaries and found this board. There were a couple boundary conversations, 1 time out (only about 3 weeks though) and 2 cancelled visits.
The crazy came to a head when LO was born. Fil wouldn't visit at the hospital and didn't want to meet LO because he didn't want to get attached for us to just rip her away. We didn't know this until a particularly uncomfortable visit at our house where Fil was disrespectful and wouldn't speak to me, answer questions, etc when dd was 1 week old. Because of this, we declined mil's invite the following weekend to celebrate dh's birthday at their house (where we had already informed them we would not be going until they secured all their loaded guns lying around to our satisfaction, but they chose to ignore that). Mil went completely nuclear on the phone at dh and they really had it out. Screaming, crying, the works. Cue the flying monkeys coming after me (because a conversation I wasn't even involved in was my fault). Bil made threats (he is now co), the locks were changed and I asked my husband for a to from the inlaws for me and dd. It took awhile to get a true time out. Dh kept telling me everything mil said and I had to block their phone numbers because they just "had to make me understand" despite that I said repeatedly that all I needed was for them to respect that I needed space. FFS, I had a 2 week old at this point and was recovering from delivery still. This was about 2 weeks into September.
Come November, Fil and mil met dh and I at a restaurant. Now let me preface this by saying I had been on dwil for awhile at the time and I KNEW this was a bad idea. I knew I was going to be attacked and dragged over the coals. But I also knew that dh's unicorn thought they had changed and were sorry and that if I didn't have the meeting, he would grow to resent me for not trying. So I went, prepared to get beat on so he could see. And that's what happened. Fil screamed at me and walked out in a matter of minutes. Mil continued to berate me for 2 hours- most of it was delusional accounts of what happened, but the highlights were that
1. We have no right to co bil.
2. I need to always have my door open for faaaamily, I have no right to deny visits. If there are issues, the correct answer is to spend more time together so they can be solved. (Except she never would discuss them, just act like a step ford wife and then say things behind our backs)
3. I deserved everything bil said and did (in addition to the threats, there was also some facebook posts for my friends, dh's friends and my family to see) because he was defending his mom and I was wrong.
4. She has told her version of the truth to essentially everyone she's ever met (the entire family, every single family friend, fil's nutritionist....) and they all agree that she is right.
5. She has every right to bad mouth me all over town because its true.
6. All of her clinginess was acceptable behavior because she could feel us slipping away and she needed to hold on because she wants us to be close and be a big part of our lives. And it's all done out of love, so it's ok.
7. When do I get to keep dd overnight?
Now, I very much stood up for myself. It was made crystal clear that our decisions about bil were none of her business. Her option was a relationship where bil is never mentioned or none at all. She was told she will NEVER have unsupervised time with dd because she couldn't be trusted to not talk shit to our kid. She was also told repeatedly (and by dh many times since) that I was not interested in ever repairing my individual relationship with her. That the best she could hope for was for me to tolerate her as my mil and nothing more.
So, obviously the time out continued. Inappropriate attempts at contact and visit demands continued until Christmas. Dh ignored 98% of her calls and didn't speak to her for weeks after the meeting. She was told even before the meeting that Christmas was not on the table. She refused to hear it. Kept leaving guilt messages to dh about how she will only know he still loves his family if he shows up there Christmas morning (bil still lives there, btw so she was continuing to ignore our co of bil). She also trespassed on our property to leave cookies for us and my parents because we wouldn't answer her calls. When dh didn't show on Christmas, her calls got briefly worse (to dh- not me). Like 8-10 times a day sometimes with only the last one having a message that would sound completely normal had there not been 9 missed calls within the last hour prior to it. Then she relaxed and backed off. Now it's May, she's respected the boundaries, her contact with dh has been normal and she hasn't guilted or made requests. So dh and I have been discussing a short, supervised visit with dd at our house. We have extensively discussed the rules for this visit. I was ready to handle it. He is ready to handle it. There are no plans to include any other il's who have not attempted to make amends themselves.
But then, we found out I'm pregnant. Decided its best not to tell the inlaws until after the visit. She might still go bsc, but we thought it would be easier for her to restrain herself if she had already had a visit and things were progressing. If she pushed or got weird, we'd back off again until she got a grip.
Well, dh had lunch with her on Sunday and she knew. Apparently the 1 inlaw dh talks to and trusts told the grandmother who told Fil. (I had warned him not to tell- I generally find this person fairly trustworthy but this was highly sensitive info). She cried and carried on because she was hurt to have found out this way. Dh feels bad she found out this way. I don't. Fuck her. This is what happens when you treat people like shit, they don't want to share stuff with you.
So, onto the point. Yesterday, I get this voicemail. I think it is simply because she knows I'm pregnant. Dh thinks its unrelated and wants to proceed with our visit plans. I don't. I think that it proves she hasn't changed and it is still only about what she wants. For the record, dh had told mil we may consider a visit soon (this was before she found out) but there are no concrete plans. And in case you want to know, the current level of contact is zero for me since the meeting in November and dh has seen mil maybe 3 times since Christmas and speaks to her as much as weekly but typically every other week. There was about a month break after he didn't show for Christmas. Phone calls are approximately 5 minutes, visits are meeting for lunch, so about an hour or so.
"Hi mommarinny. This is mil. I've been wanting to call you since around Easter when I was so happy to hear that you said you wanted LO to know her grandma. I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart for whatever I did to upset you. I would have never done anything to upset you. I'm speaking from the heart. I miss you. I miss talking to you. Maybe you could give me a call and we could talk about LO for just 5 minutes or so and see how it goes? I don't know, Hun. It's been going on way too long and let me know if there is anything I can do to help or.... Give me a call. Bye."
To clarify, I never said that bs about knowing her grandma. When called out, dh said that he knows I never said that but I was open to it one day however he claims he never told her this. Dh is under strict instruction that I am not to be a subject of conversation unless it is to tell her how she treated me was wrong. He claims he doesn't discuss me.
My instinct is BH, but if she calls dh he won't because he doesn't see anything wrong with the call because it wasn't aggressive or nasty. He will just remind her she isn't to contact me.
Ugh. Thoughts? I need some other translations of this call to know its not just me being BEC.
Mil has 2 sons. Dh is the clear favorite. This could be why bil is a huge douche or maybe being a douche is why he isn't the favorite, idk. Dh and I started dating in high school, I am now 29 and dh is 28. I felt guilty if we hid in his room and didn't spend time with his family- it seemed rude so we have always spent time with his family. His mother has always been too involved but we always figured as we got married and bought our own house, she would naturally disengage. Not the case- clinging and guilting ensued. Dh was used to this- it's normal controlling behavior for her and he grew up with it so it has taken some time for him to see the dysfunction and there have been some issues directly related to him not backing me appropriately. He still doesn't always see it.
During my pregnancy, the clinginess got worse, I saw the need for some boundaries and found this board. There were a couple boundary conversations, 1 time out (only about 3 weeks though) and 2 cancelled visits.
The crazy came to a head when LO was born. Fil wouldn't visit at the hospital and didn't want to meet LO because he didn't want to get attached for us to just rip her away. We didn't know this until a particularly uncomfortable visit at our house where Fil was disrespectful and wouldn't speak to me, answer questions, etc when dd was 1 week old. Because of this, we declined mil's invite the following weekend to celebrate dh's birthday at their house (where we had already informed them we would not be going until they secured all their loaded guns lying around to our satisfaction, but they chose to ignore that). Mil went completely nuclear on the phone at dh and they really had it out. Screaming, crying, the works. Cue the flying monkeys coming after me (because a conversation I wasn't even involved in was my fault). Bil made threats (he is now co), the locks were changed and I asked my husband for a to from the inlaws for me and dd. It took awhile to get a true time out. Dh kept telling me everything mil said and I had to block their phone numbers because they just "had to make me understand" despite that I said repeatedly that all I needed was for them to respect that I needed space. FFS, I had a 2 week old at this point and was recovering from delivery still. This was about 2 weeks into September.
Come November, Fil and mil met dh and I at a restaurant. Now let me preface this by saying I had been on dwil for awhile at the time and I KNEW this was a bad idea. I knew I was going to be attacked and dragged over the coals. But I also knew that dh's unicorn thought they had changed and were sorry and that if I didn't have the meeting, he would grow to resent me for not trying. So I went, prepared to get beat on so he could see. And that's what happened. Fil screamed at me and walked out in a matter of minutes. Mil continued to berate me for 2 hours- most of it was delusional accounts of what happened, but the highlights were that
1. We have no right to co bil.
2. I need to always have my door open for faaaamily, I have no right to deny visits. If there are issues, the correct answer is to spend more time together so they can be solved. (Except she never would discuss them, just act like a step ford wife and then say things behind our backs)
3. I deserved everything bil said and did (in addition to the threats, there was also some facebook posts for my friends, dh's friends and my family to see) because he was defending his mom and I was wrong.
4. She has told her version of the truth to essentially everyone she's ever met (the entire family, every single family friend, fil's nutritionist....) and they all agree that she is right.
5. She has every right to bad mouth me all over town because its true.
6. All of her clinginess was acceptable behavior because she could feel us slipping away and she needed to hold on because she wants us to be close and be a big part of our lives. And it's all done out of love, so it's ok.
7. When do I get to keep dd overnight?
Now, I very much stood up for myself. It was made crystal clear that our decisions about bil were none of her business. Her option was a relationship where bil is never mentioned or none at all. She was told she will NEVER have unsupervised time with dd because she couldn't be trusted to not talk shit to our kid. She was also told repeatedly (and by dh many times since) that I was not interested in ever repairing my individual relationship with her. That the best she could hope for was for me to tolerate her as my mil and nothing more.
So, obviously the time out continued. Inappropriate attempts at contact and visit demands continued until Christmas. Dh ignored 98% of her calls and didn't speak to her for weeks after the meeting. She was told even before the meeting that Christmas was not on the table. She refused to hear it. Kept leaving guilt messages to dh about how she will only know he still loves his family if he shows up there Christmas morning (bil still lives there, btw so she was continuing to ignore our co of bil). She also trespassed on our property to leave cookies for us and my parents because we wouldn't answer her calls. When dh didn't show on Christmas, her calls got briefly worse (to dh- not me). Like 8-10 times a day sometimes with only the last one having a message that would sound completely normal had there not been 9 missed calls within the last hour prior to it. Then she relaxed and backed off. Now it's May, she's respected the boundaries, her contact with dh has been normal and she hasn't guilted or made requests. So dh and I have been discussing a short, supervised visit with dd at our house. We have extensively discussed the rules for this visit. I was ready to handle it. He is ready to handle it. There are no plans to include any other il's who have not attempted to make amends themselves.
But then, we found out I'm pregnant. Decided its best not to tell the inlaws until after the visit. She might still go bsc, but we thought it would be easier for her to restrain herself if she had already had a visit and things were progressing. If she pushed or got weird, we'd back off again until she got a grip.
Well, dh had lunch with her on Sunday and she knew. Apparently the 1 inlaw dh talks to and trusts told the grandmother who told Fil. (I had warned him not to tell- I generally find this person fairly trustworthy but this was highly sensitive info). She cried and carried on because she was hurt to have found out this way. Dh feels bad she found out this way. I don't. Fuck her. This is what happens when you treat people like shit, they don't want to share stuff with you.
So, onto the point. Yesterday, I get this voicemail. I think it is simply because she knows I'm pregnant. Dh thinks its unrelated and wants to proceed with our visit plans. I don't. I think that it proves she hasn't changed and it is still only about what she wants. For the record, dh had told mil we may consider a visit soon (this was before she found out) but there are no concrete plans. And in case you want to know, the current level of contact is zero for me since the meeting in November and dh has seen mil maybe 3 times since Christmas and speaks to her as much as weekly but typically every other week. There was about a month break after he didn't show for Christmas. Phone calls are approximately 5 minutes, visits are meeting for lunch, so about an hour or so.
"Hi mommarinny. This is mil. I've been wanting to call you since around Easter when I was so happy to hear that you said you wanted LO to know her grandma. I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart for whatever I did to upset you. I would have never done anything to upset you. I'm speaking from the heart. I miss you. I miss talking to you. Maybe you could give me a call and we could talk about LO for just 5 minutes or so and see how it goes? I don't know, Hun. It's been going on way too long and let me know if there is anything I can do to help or.... Give me a call. Bye."
To clarify, I never said that bs about knowing her grandma. When called out, dh said that he knows I never said that but I was open to it one day however he claims he never told her this. Dh is under strict instruction that I am not to be a subject of conversation unless it is to tell her how she treated me was wrong. He claims he doesn't discuss me.
My instinct is BH, but if she calls dh he won't because he doesn't see anything wrong with the call because it wasn't aggressive or nasty. He will just remind her she isn't to contact me.
Ugh. Thoughts? I need some other translations of this call to know its not just me being BEC.