MIL lies all the time - vent

[Anonymous]

MIL lies all the time. She likes to portray herself as either a victim or a hero in her stories. I think that's a way for her to get attention or security. She's not delusional because multiple instances showed she knew she was lying.

Here are just a few stories she created.

One story was how her financial advisor changed the beneficiaries of her investments accounts to the financial adviser himself and tried to con her money. She told this story a few years ago. She's still using the same financial advisor today, which indicates she knows that story wasn't true.

Another story was how her sister and her OBGYN BIL locked her up in a dark room in their estate home for a whole month and did "unspeakable" things to her before she was married. DH told me that MIL and FIL often left DH and DH's sister at their aunt's home and care without parental presence for weeks in their summer vacation when they grew up so that they could have fun on their aunt's property. If the kidnapping thing truly happened, who would trust the offenders with their kids?

MIL graduated from a small college with an education degree but told everyone including FIL and all her children that she graduated from UVA's XYZ school. This false information was even included in her wedding announcement.

When MIL had a surgery in a hospital, FIL went to visit her with us. She told us she was abused by a fellow patient. Several years later, the story changed to she was abused by the doctor and nurses. And another few years later, she told me during a conversation when DH was't around that she was abused by my FIL during the hospital visit. She forgot I visited her with DH and FIL and I was there the whole time. FIL never abused her.

She also told DH that SIL tried to steal the living will and revise it. We later found out she's told SIL similar stories about DH. SIL said to DH it seems MIL had tried her best to make family members hate each other except for herself.

I suspect MIL has a serious personality disorder. It's hard to be around her because of her pathological lying. If you confront her with her lies, she'll start yelling and screaming. FIL argued with her once. An hour later, cops showed up and said she reported abuse by my FIL. Five other relatives happened to be there and none said they witnessed any abuse except for verbal argument. The cops nonetheless requested FIL to leave the house so that MIL and FIL can be separated for the night.

MIL seems to be nice to our kids and sends them gifts for their birthdays and Christmas. My children seem to like her too. Actually, if you don't know her well, she can appear to be a nice and charming lady. But it makes me nervous every time when I think about visiting her.

[Anonymous]

She is clearly mentally ill.

She probably has been abused in the past.

She deserves pity.

Be nice to her face.

Try not to be alone with her or let your kids be alone with her. You don't want her to falsely accuse you or them of anything.

[Anonymous]

My SIL is someone like this. She has dreams about people doing things, and then acts accordingly in real life - which is obviously unfairly impacting those around her. And then spins stories, gossips, based on her dreams and creative imagination. She has a pretty poor grasp on reality in general, and it's put a wedge in my relationship with both her and my brother (her DH).

It's fucked up. You do the best you can do to not involve yourself with them beyond necessary.

[Anonymous]

Of course she's delusional, OP. She's mentally ill. You're not that bright, obviously.

[Anonymous]

You need to limit contact with this person.

And she's ill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course she's delusional, OP.

The definition of delusional is someone actually believes what he/she says. Not all mentionally ill people are delusional. Even if they can't control their lying due to their mental illness or personality disorder, they are not necessarily delusional.

The truly delusional people will act based on what they believe, although the belief is false. For example, they fear those who they falsely believe have abused them. In other words, their actions and their false beliefs are consistent. MIL is not afraid of any of these abusers. She doesn't confront the abusers about the abuses. Actually, she keeps "good" relationships with these alleged abusers. She only tells people how others abused her. It almost seems she's trying to build relationships by making others sympathize her and admire her. She selectively lies based on the audience. If the right audience isn't there, she can also choose not to lie. If she truly believes she's kidnapped and abused by her sister, why would she sent her young children to spend extensive amount of time at her sister's house without parental supervision? Instead, she keeps good relationship with her sister and talks with her every other week. If she truly believes her financial advisor cheated her on her money, why is she still on friendly term with him and using him to manage all her account? She told people who didn't know her during her college years that she graduated from UVA, but didn't tell the lie to those who certainly knew the truth such as her sister and her parents. Her wedding announcement with the false information was published in FIL's hometown only. If some lies were about to be revealed when multiple people were present and talking, she became nervous and switched the topic as fast as she could. She told DH that SIL did this horrible thing and then turned around to tell SIL that DH did this thing. Two versions of the story on the same day. Which version is her delusion?

Based on the countless instances we observed, I don't think she's delusional. Mentally ill, yes. Paranoid, yes. Personality disorder, highly likely. But delusional, no.

[Anonymous]

This is my SIL. It's been really difficult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My SIL is someone like this. She has dreams about people doing things, and then acts accordingly in real life - which is obviously unfairly impacting those around her. And then spins stories, gossips, based on her dreams and creative imagination. She has a pretty poor grasp on reality in general, and it's put a wedge in my relationship with both her and my brother (her DH).

It's fucked up. You do the best you can do to not involve yourself with them beyond necessary.

Did I write this!?

Sorry to hear someone else is going through this.

[Anonymous]

She is either mentally ill or she is a fabulist. However, you can't control her. Expecting her to tell the truth at this point is silly. Simply expect that she is going to tell some whoppers.

[Anonymous]

So much detail here that, OP, I figure MIL your husband's family is fairly communicative with each other about MIL's latest fantasy fictions?

You mention that she "sends" the kids gifts -- is she geographically close by or far enough away you see her pretty seldom? That does matter. If MIL lives in the same area as you, and she wants to visit etc., your husband (his mom, his job) needs to be sure he sets and maintains boundaries (kids are never alone with her, she never babysits or has them to her house without a parent there, etc.). If she's farther away it's actually helpful that there is distance between you so she can't, say, drop in unannounced because "FIL abused me" or "I need to get out of the house because aliens are stalking me" or whatever.

The most troubling thing is that "abuse" keeps coming up in the tales you mention. Whether or not she was abused by FIL, her sister and BIL, patient in hospital, doctor, etc, etc, it sounds as if she very possibly WAS really abused at some point in her life and now, in her mental illness, conflates that with the whole rest of her life, and considers everything that crosses her as abusive. That's very sad and it sounds as if she has never dealt with the reality of whatever abuse did actually happen to her.

But it also puts FIL at risk of being investigated for abuse if she keeps accusing him -- you mention two times that she claims he abused her including one where she told the cops this.

I were your husband, I would be worried that someday the cops are going to believe her and his father will end up in jail and the family has a huge, ugly she said/he said on their hands. If the tales keep on coming and get more intense and frequent, someone needs to consider whether she needs intervention and professional help, before she destroys FIL or accuses other family members of things to the cops. Next time the police might not just say for them to stay apart for the night and might decide to arrest FIL or start an investigation.

That's all another reason never to leave her alone with your children. She could say anything to them about anyone and because she's an adult and a grandparent they likely could believe her.

You are right to be nervous about visits. I feel for you -- my husband's beloved, once gentle aunt has paranoid schizophrenia that is not consistently treated, and at times she is highly unpredictable. She can turn from loving and sweet to raging and accusatory in five minutes flat. It is extremely stressful especially if there are kids around who won't understand what's going on or who may feel they somehow caused the change. You never know if a visit will be fine or if it will end up with having to leave in a rush.

A strategy we use during visits with this aunt is to go to places that are not her home or wherever we're staying (she lives overseas so we see her on our annual visit over there). It helps, with her, to have something to do and see so we're not conversing every second about "what are you doing lately" which tends to upset her for various reasons. Go together to a museum exhibit and get a quick meal afterward, or stroll around a park or garden, that kind of thing. It also helps to focus her on our daughter and talking about our daughter's activities, since if the conversation veers too near other adult relatives, or her own activities, she can get uptight and start talking about how so-and-so did this or that awful thing to her (in her head, not in reality). Kids don't come with that baggage, in her case, and she is better if we just talk and focus on what our daughter is up to these days. I don't know if it helps you to hear all that, OP, but if you must visit MIL, you could think ahead about seeing her while you all do an activity together somewhere neutral that isn't' her home, and keep the focus on how much fun the kids are having....

[Anonymous]

She's a classic narcissist. My mother does the same things.

[Anonymous]

Agree she is mentally ill. Keep your kids away from the crazy person.

[Anonymous]

This is my MIL. I tried to ignore it. Then she began to claim that details of my life were actually details of her life, eg, that she graduated from my college, lived where I lived, etc. She tried to make friends with all my friends. Then she started stealing things of personal importance to me.

If I could go back in time, I would not have let her close to me, limited her stays at our house, and kept a friendly but distant relationship with her. But I didn't, and now I feel like I'm living inside the movie Single White Female.