agonyaunt | (no subject)

(no subject)

Dear Care and Feeding,

I’ve got yet another “awful in-laws” letter for you, which I’m sure makes your day (sarcasm, sorry). My mother-in-law is a tactless, emotionally manipulative, toxic narcissist; my father-in-law is a browbeaten, passive enabler. My husband, despite having a miserable childhood, has somehow managed to rise above it all. He’s great, and we have a wonderful marriage. Unfortunately, we still have some interaction with his family once every other month or so. I’ll spare you the details, but these visits are vile.

Recently, my own mother was diagnosed with stage 3 uterine cancer, and because I carry the same genetic mutation and multiple risk factors, I’ll be undergoing a full hysterectomy before the end of the year (I’m 34). When my MIL found out, she said—and I quote precisely—“Well, if you’re not giving me more grandchildren, what good are you?” And then she advised my husband that if he wants more kids—which we do not—he should consider his “other options.” This was after saying that her cancer diagnosis last year was exponentially worse (she had a potentially cancerous patch of skin removed) than my mother’s and that “only the strong survive” even though my mom’s health wasn’t great before the cancer, and she knows that. I told her she was being wretched and that until she could learn some empathy, we would not be seeing her, and then we left. But my husband and I got in a huge fight on the drive home because I told him that under no circumstances was he to share any more information with his family about our lives, my health, or my parents’/siblings’ lives and health. He got defensive and said he had only been talking to his dad (but clearly my FIL talks to his wife). Now hubs and I are at an impasse. I want a strict info diet and zero visits until his parents can learn some respect, but with a line of birthdays coming up, odds are he’ll be guilted into visiting them soon (he’s trying to set boundaries but is inconsistent about it, which his family takes advantage of). Telling him to go without me isn’t an option because his parents will demand that he bring our kids and I refuse to allow my children to be around his family if I’m not there. Am I wrong to want to fully cut them out and move on?

—Need an In-law-ectomy

Dear Need,

You’re not wrong to cut off contact with your in-laws. Your mother-in-law does sound horrible. But you’re wrong to expect your husband to cut off contact with them and “move on.” This is his decision to make, and I sincerely hope you won’t pull an “it’s either them or me” on him. It’s not easy to decide to cut one’s parents out of one’s life; it’s a nuclear option that many people don’t want to take (for many reasons, which they needn’t justify to anybody). As to the question of cutting your in-laws out of their grandchildren’s lives, unless they are harming them—and you don’t give any indication that they are—I’m uneasy about your refusal to allow a relationship between the kids and their paternal grandparents. Why can’t they have one that doesn’t include you? They aren’t your possessions: They’re small human beings with needs of their own, and they’re entitled to have all the grandparents available. If you’ve left out details about the in-laws mistreating the kids, or undermining or badmouthing you, that’s another story. In that case, your husband will need to bite the bullet and visit his parents all by himself if he wants to continue—or allows himself to be guilted into continuing—to see them. If that doesn’t suit his parents, it may shove him off the ledge he’s teetering on. But let him get there on his own.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/08/mother-in-law-kids-health-useless-care-and-feeding-advice.html

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WTF did I just read?

If your partner is not willing to just stop talking about you to his parents, then you need to tell him that this is a dealbreaker, and either he stops and goes to couples counseling with you (and likely individual counseling as well, honestly) or you're consulting with a divorce attorney.

And absolutely no freaking way would I be allowing those people access to my kids again, even if it was my *own* parents who said that stuff.

Yeah, this is terrible advice. She needs to go to the Dealing With Inlaws community on babycenter instead.

"All the grandparents available"

This attitude is almost funny - what benefit do people imagine children are getting from a relationship with a narcissistic abuser?

This attitude is almost funny - what benefit do people imagine children are getting from a relationship with a narcissistic abuser?

One who has made it clear she's not even satisfied with her existing grandchildren, but only interested in having more!

Plus, if there were some inherent need for more grandparental figures, "adopt a grandparent" programs exist...

Yep. There is zero chance that Grandma won’t be saying passive-aggressive comments about LW around the kids.

This isn't an in-law problem, it's a husband problem!

The children should not be exposed to these people. Ever.

I sincerely hope you won’t pull an “it’s either them or me” on him.

Except this is a situation that clearly is "either them or me." This is a matter of whether LW can trust her husband to protect her from her MIL. Husband needs to honour her request to stop forwarding important and sensitive information about her (which does include her family including the kids) to his parents. If he can't or won't do that, then yeah, marriage counselling and/or divorce probably is in the cards.

Is it me, or has there been a subtle shift in these advice columns? Lately it seems like the advice is more about maintaining family harmony than establishing/enforcing needed boundaries.

Friend, your husband may not be a high-key enabler like his father, but he's a low-key enabler if he can't agree to the information diet and to protect your (mutual) children from Grandma Backstabber.

As to the question of cutting your in-laws out of their grandchildren’s lives, unless they are harming them—and you don’t give any indication that they are—I’m uneasy about your refusal to allow a relationship between the kids and their paternal grandparents. Why can’t they have one that doesn’t include you? They aren’t your possessions: They’re small human beings with needs of their own, and they’re entitled to have all the grandparents available.

They're small human beings WHO NEED THEIR PARENTS' PROTECTION. How can an advice columnist exist who has never heard "I wish my parents had protected me from X relative"??

If you’ve left out details about the in-laws mistreating the kids, or undermining or badmouthing you, that’s another story.

If LW has accurately described her MIL I would not bet a nickel that MIL doesn't badmouth her to the children any chance she gets, or wouldn't if she hasn't been given chances.

When my formerly little former roommates were both I would never have left them alone with my parents, not because I thought I owned them, but because my parents are emotionally manipulative fundamentalist Christians who would have been trying to convert the children from Judaism any chance they could get.

Also, LW's husband is being ridiculous to refuse to guard his wife's privacy. He can think about what he says, even to his father, whom he knows will tell his mother.

*standing ovation and shouts of "BRAAAAAA-VISSSSSSE!!!!!!!!"*

All of this, all of it, all of it. And WTF is this "entitled to have all the grandparents available" garbage? What does that even mean? If one of those grandparents is someone who will literally tell those children's mother to her face that she is only good for "giving" said grandmother more grandchildren--- as opposed to, you know, parenting the existing ones--- not to mention outright belittling the children's other grandmother as well, I would not put any money on her being any kind of a positive presence in those children's lives either. I mean, on top of everything else, LW's children share genes with LW and LW's mother and depending on their ages and particular developmental stages and areas of interest they may well be aware of how it could affect their own health, on top of any possible upset from the more immediate health and family-logistics-and-stress issues of having their other grandma be dealing with a nasty health issue and their mom undergoing surgery as well.

And even if she managed to have a Grandma Jekyll to her Mother-in-Law Hyde persona with the grandkids, the way she's treating LW as regards serious health issues in her family and related to her own health is just... it's past garden-variety shitty and all the way into something worthy of the toxic waste dump and decontamination procedures. Asking LW's husband her son to think about "other options"? How the fuck many children is this man supposed to sire in his mother's mind? And, again, to the advice columnist's "point" and I use the term loosely about the supposed "value" of this woman's presence in LW's kids' lives, how would it make them feel to hear that they aren't enough in the way of grandchildren for her and that their mother is only worthwhile in this grandmother's eyes to make more grandchildren? (Oh, hell, now I have the line from Wilson Phillips' "Flesh and Blood" earworming me: "Daddy, aren't we enough?" in the world's most heartrending voice and... yeah.)

And, yeah, husband need to respect and protect LW's privacy. I get that he probably does need someone to be his support system while his wife is dealing with some very nasty health stuff (something something Ring Theory of Support here), but it's apparent that his family of origin is not one that he can use without hurting his wife more.

(Um, hi. Most of that probably should have been a top-level comment but once I got started....! Hope you don't mind.)

Heh. *fistbump of agreement*

I will never understand the idea that people who are blatantly abusive to adults will somehow not behave that way toward children. Or, for that matter, that it's okay to expose children to bad behavior aimed at their parents. This is the bullshit that kept family court judges from considering partner abuse in custody cases.

Exactly. Somebody could never harm a hair on their child’s head directly, but if they’re being abusive to others in that child’s family (like the other parent), they’re still absolutely doing psychological harm to that child. (And the reality is that psychological harm is also physical harm, due to the long-term impacts on the body’s functioning from adverse childhood events and stress.)

SECONDED

LW - You don't have an in laws problem, you have an SO problem.

Unpopular opinion apparently, but I like this advice.

My mother has not been formally diagnosed with anything (that would require her to actually go see a therapist), but she very likely has a Cluster B personality disorder - my therapist thinks the stories I tell about her are consistent with narcissistic personality disorder, and my youngest sister's therapist thinks borderline personality disorder. Our father had three sisters and my mother did not get along with them, so starting when I was 8 and lasting the past 30 years, we had very minimal contact with my dad's sisters and their families - like, we saw them at my grandparents' funerals, but that was about it. Because of my mother, my siblings and I had no contact with three aunts and six cousins. My father passed away three years ago and his mother died in December 2021; since then, two of his sisters have reached out about wanting to have relationships with us even though they don't get along with our mother...but it's hard at this point, because we don't know them.

My youngest sister does not talk to our mother. She also does not fault the rest of us for the relationships we do still have with our mother. There still need to be boundaries in place - for example, I recently visited her and I know my mother wants to dig for information, which means that my responses about "How was your trip, how's Sister doing?" have been "The trip was good, we went to a farmers market and got pedicures" without saying anything specific about Sister. When mom says "I don't want to put any of you in the middle of everything with me and Sister" I cut her off and say "okay, then don't. That's not my business." And if she starts to say something negative, I say "We're not going to talk about Sister" and if she presses, I leave.

If what LW reports here is accurate then my god, MIL is awful to her. But that doesn't mean husband should be prevented from having a relationship with his parents. Maybe they need to have a conversation about the boundaries he needs to keep in place on her behalf - for example, not engaging in conversations about her, not allowing negative comments about her to be made, or saying "I support her right to make her own decisions about her health and well-being" or "that topic is private and non of your business." There has to be some kind of middle ground.

Edited (typoes) 2023-08-10 19:12 (UTC)

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