Toxic Mothers-In-Law and bizarre things they do

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jesus, how do women become like this!!!

Mostly it happens by surrounding themselves with apologists and doormats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Racist. Starts every sentence with "I don't mean to be prejudiced but..."

Will go up to every minority or part minority she meets (including me) and tell them "I don't mean to be prejudiced but...(says something about politics in the country of their ancestors)." Like she'll go up to an African-American and say "I don't mean to be prejudiced, but I think your people in Africa are just awful with their beliefs."

Says things like "My grandchild is gorgeous! I don't think he looks part minority at all!"

PP from this post. She also uses the word 'colored." And once she was so proud of herself when she invited an interracial couple over to dinner that she made everyone (who could have cared less) meet with her before they came and said "Listen, everyone, I just wanted to warn you all that John's wife is COLORED."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH's mother isn't a covert narcissist. Everyone knows it.

She literally dragged me around her house (physically grabbing onto my arm and dragging me with her weight - she weighed 2x me at the time) during the engagement party she threw me and DH and instructing me to touch her friends' feet claiming it was a religious thing. (I found out later from one of their family members that it wasn't).

She ruined the south asian wedding hosted by my parents by: 1) before the ceremony, telling DH to wear some headcovering and of course he went along with it; 2) draping me with some gross gold and red fake silk fabric during the ceremony -- all our wedding pictures are ruined 3) bringing her own priest that grabbed the mic after the ceremony and started chanting in sanskrit that no one understood; 4) at the reception told the DJ that it was her birthday and instructing him to instruct all the guests to sing happy birthday to her during our speeches.

After the wedding, she tried to convince DH to leave some of our gifts with her because they weren't our style. DH went along with it until I made him return them when she sent me a text telling me to write those guests thank you notes.

I could go on and on. .. .

Are you both SA?

[Anonymous]

My MIL openly dislikes me and tells me I am not “really family”, my parents are not family, and etc. Every spring she calls to tell me her BF wants her, DH, and kids visit him at his beach house (out of state, so they’d air travel involved). At some point I asked why am I not invited, and she said he only wants to see her family.

[Anonymous]

My FIL doesn't like his granddaughter's fiance. He says she could do better because she "is trim and fit with a slender figure, and fiance is FAT," (he's maybe a bit overweight, but fit, like the ex college linebacker he is). Also "I don't mind that she's dating a black person because at least his family has fine features. "

Grandpa, stop talking about your granddaughter's"figure." And stop being so judgy and racist.

[Anonymous]

I wonder how all of you will react with your future daughter in laws.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH's mother isn't a covert narcissist. Everyone knows it.

She literally dragged me around her house (physically grabbing onto my arm and dragging me with her weight - she weighed 2x me at the time) during the engagement party she threw me and DH and instructing me to touch her friends' feet claiming it was a religious thing. (I found out later from one of their family members that it wasn't).

She ruined the south asian wedding hosted by my parents by: 1) before the ceremony, telling DH to wear some headcovering and of course he went along with it; 2) draping me with some gross gold and red fake silk fabric during the ceremony -- all our wedding pictures are ruined 3) bringing her own priest that grabbed the mic after the ceremony and started chanting in sanskrit that no one understood; 4) at the reception told the DJ that it was her birthday and instructing him to instruct all the guests to sing happy birthday to her during our speeches.

After the wedding, she tried to convince DH to leave some of our gifts with her because they weren't our style. DH went along with it until I made him return them when she sent me a text telling me to write those guests thank you notes.

I could go on and on. .. .

Are you both SA?

Sounds like they are both south Asian but different types of south Asian -- maybe different regions of the same country. That means MIL wanted things done HER way according to HER culture bc of course it's better than the brides' culture and/or the wedding wouldn't "count" if it wasn't done "correctly" according to MIL's culture. That would explain the groom's head covering, the fabric over the bride, and the priest chanting whatever -- it's probably what they do in MIL's subculture and she was aghast that bride's family wouldn't be doing that. Having guests sing HBD -- IDK -- maybe she's a jealous child who thought the bride and groom were getting too much attention and she wasn't? The gifts -- IDK -- greed or petty toddler jealousy that the bride and groom got gifts and not her?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine loves to insult me to my face by criticizing people who look like me (wear their hair the same way, same aesthetic, etc)

Yes mine has done that. She'll find out which hairdresser I use and then the following week tell me that only stupid people go to that hairdresser.

Mine also does the perfume spray thing. Anything we get from her the plastic bags and items reek of perfume. One day she had something she had just bought and gave it to us and it didn't smell so that's how I came to realise that she was spraying them deliberately. Weird.

She told Dh that I would go back to full time work after the baby was born and she would take care of the baby. She then threw a hissy fit when she was told I wasn't going back to full time work and my mother may want to help as well. I had to shut it down because this was all happening BEFORE I was even pregnant.

She cut me out of our wedding photo's so she just had DH in a photo frame on the wall.

Did the typical re-arranging of furniture in the house when we went on holiday. Came back and she told us she had thrown away all the gross old things in the kitchen and replaced them with new things ie from a cheap $2 store. The things in the kitchen were new and it was my house, I had bought and decorated it myself before DH moved in.

I could go on, this was before the crazy stuff started.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine loves to insult me to my face by criticizing people who look like me (wear their hair the same way, same aesthetic, etc)

Yes mine has done that. She'll find out which hairdresser I use and then the following week tell me that only stupid people go to that hairdresser.

Mine also does the perfume spray thing. Anything we get from her the plastic bags and items reek of perfume. One day she had something she had just bought and gave it to us and it didn't smell so that's how I came to realise that she was spraying them deliberately. Weird.

She told Dh that I would go back to full time work after the baby was born and she would take care of the baby. She then threw a hissy fit when she was told I wasn't going back to full time work and my mother may want to help as well. I had to shut it down because this was all happening BEFORE I was even pregnant.

She cut me out of our wedding photo's so she just had DH in a photo frame on the wall.

Did the typical re-arranging of furniture in the house when we went on holiday. Came back and she told us she had thrown away all the gross old things in the kitchen and replaced them with new things ie from a cheap $2 store. The things in the kitchen were new and it was my house, I had bought and decorated it myself before DH moved in.

I could go on, this was before the crazy stuff started.

Where is your DH in all of this nonsense?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MIL makes family tree books for my kids and includes everyone in her family including random cousins of DH but leaves everyone in my family out of the tree and acts like they don't exist.

To be fair I don't think it would be on MIL to do a family tree for your family. How would she know your family, it's up to you or your mother or grandmother to do that. You may have other examples but I wouldn't think twice about this, if she left you out of the family tree that would be different.

[Anonymous]

Mine is a trifecta of attention seeking/control freak/geriatric toddler.

She is constantly chattering, whispering criticisms of everything, and giving unsolicited instructions for everything and so on. If it comes within her range of vision, she has.a comment on how it should be done differently. In the kitchen and someone opens a drawer? She peers inside and immediately starts suggesting better ways to organize the items or comments that these should be a different drawer closer to stove. Kids wearing footie pajamas? She comments that these really are not practical because if their legs grow faster than the rest of their body then they won't fit anymore while footless PJs would still will fit. We like entertaining and hosting holidays but she really ruins it when we host DH's family. She send lists and lists of instructions as if we are idiots. Some of my favorites have been - make sure to open the door when the bell rings -don't forget to use oven mitts when you take the turkey out of the oven or they include little digs about past years other others -don't use an orange table cloth like Claudia did it looked so tacky or -check the silverware this year, last year I saw a spot on one spoon.

She is one of those people who is 100% certain of whatever she is saying or doing even though she has no idea what she is saying or doing.

This woman delights in over stepping boundaries and delights in it as if its a game. She thinks she is so cute with her little girl giggles and stupid sayings. She will extend invitations on our behalf for other relatives to sleep at our house without telling us. She will volunteer us to do things for other relatives without telling us. The oddest thing was that she gave one of our fake floral arrangements to a cousin who commented on how much she liked it. It was a very large and expensive thing. Cousin just walked out the door with it saying thanks quickly as she left. I was like WTF and MIL piped in "Oh I gave that to Susan. She liked it so much and was too thrilled when I gave it to her she just squealed and then I squealed too! I just can't help being a little elf."

If she doesn't get her away she pretends that she never heard the no. She simply brings it up again only this time as statement. It starts as an invitation that we decline. The next time its when you bring the kids over on the 16th to meet my book club don't forget to dress them in those adorable little outfits that I bought them. We have to say we did not agree to bring the kids to your book club and then she does the pout pout face and literally will stomp her foot. She hates me because I once told her that grown women should not stomp their feet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine loves to insult me to my face by criticizing people who look like me (wear their hair the same way, same aesthetic, etc)

Yes mine has done that. She'll find out which hairdresser I use and then the following week tell me that only stupid people go to that hairdresser.

Mine also does the perfume spray thing. Anything we get from her the plastic bags and items reek of perfume. One day she had something she had just bought and gave it to us and it didn't smell so that's how I came to realise that she was spraying them deliberately. Weird.

She told Dh that I would go back to full time work after the baby was born and she would take care of the baby. She then threw a hissy fit when she was told I wasn't going back to full time work and my mother may want to help as well. I had to shut it down because this was all happening BEFORE I was even pregnant.

She cut me out of our wedding photo's so she just had DH in a photo frame on the wall.

Did the typical re-arranging of furniture in the house when we went on holiday. Came back and she told us she had thrown away all the gross old things in the kitchen and replaced them with new things ie from a cheap $2 store. The things in the kitchen were new and it was my house, I had bought and decorated it myself before DH moved in.

I could go on, this was before the crazy stuff started.

Where is your DH in all of this nonsense?!

Head in the sand, the typical 'she doesn't mean it that way, she's just trying to help". He could have stopped it straight away as she listened to him.

He finally a few years into marriage when we were near divorce, found a back bone and all the nonsense stopped.

[Anonymous]

My MIL has said and done many terrible things. One that actually makes me laugh at the ridiculousness- We’ve been married for ten years and when I finally had our child (2 days later) my MIL told DH that I didn’t love him and was going to take the baby run away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder how all of you will react with your future daughter in laws.

This has been a problem since the start of time. It's not going to stop anytime soon.

With my MIL my DH moved out when we got married so she dealt with empty nest, menopause and her incredibly selfish, entitled attitude all at once. She fractured the family with this nonsense but couldn't seem to help herself. I would be ashamed to treat another person the way she has treated me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH's mother isn't a covert narcissist. Everyone knows it.

She literally dragged me around her house (physically grabbing onto my arm and dragging me with her weight - she weighed 2x me at the time) during the engagement party she threw me and DH and instructing me to touch her friends' feet claiming it was a religious thing. (I found out later from one of their family members that it wasn't).

She ruined the south asian wedding hosted by my parents by: 1) before the ceremony, telling DH to wear some headcovering and of course he went along with it; 2) draping me with some gross gold and red fake silk fabric during the ceremony -- all our wedding pictures are ruined 3) bringing her own priest that grabbed the mic after the ceremony and started chanting in sanskrit that no one understood; 4) at the reception told the DJ that it was her birthday and instructing him to instruct all the guests to sing happy birthday to her during our speeches.

After the wedding, she tried to convince DH to leave some of our gifts with her because they weren't our style. DH went along with it until I made him return them when she sent me a text telling me to write those guests thank you notes.

I could go on and on. .. .

Are you both SA?

Sounds like they are both south Asian but different types of south Asian -- maybe different regions of the same country. That means MIL wanted things done HER way according to HER culture bc of course it's better than the brides' culture and/or the wedding wouldn't "count" if it wasn't done "correctly" according to MIL's culture. That would explain the groom's head covering, the fabric over the bride, and the priest chanting whatever -- it's probably what they do in MIL's subculture and she was aghast that bride's family wouldn't be doing that. Having guests sing HBD -- IDK -- maybe she's a jealous child who thought the bride and groom were getting too much attention and she wasn't? The gifts -- IDK -- greed or petty toddler jealousy that the bride and groom got gifts and not her?

Yes, both south Asian, same country, different regions. All of the wedding stuff happened after I specifically asked if there were any ceremonies that she wanted included. Crickets at the time. So much more narcissistic behavior continued over the years. Thankfully DH finally became aware and started standing up to her, at which point the target got lifted off my back to her own son’s.