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[quote=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 [u]not[/u] 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....[/quote]

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