How would you politely tell a mother or MIL that you don't appreciate them calling everyday, sometimes multiple times a day?
She is extremely sensitive and takes offense at the smallest perceived slight.
I'll give you some context. She's divorced (by her own doing), lives alone, and only lives 5 blocks down the road. According to my husband she has faked ill her whole life, and she has been "dying" since he can remember. Before we got married, she had my husband manipulated into doing everything for her, including grocery shopping, taking care of her dogs, her yard work, fixing her house, running all of her errands... all of this while neglecting his own house. Now that we're married he's realized his error and we are having a very difficult time getting her off (it's like she stuck on like a tick). We've paid dearly for his years of enabling. She's a compulsive liar, so the situation is even more compounded because everything out of her mouth could be a lie. You never know whether to believe her or not, and this causes a lot of frustration, confusion and anger. She refuses to get out of the house and do things. She is morbidly obese, and eats cupcakes and drinks pepsi all day. Instead of making friends and living a normal life, she wants to stay leeched onto us, dragging us into her horribly unhealthy lifestyle.
The problem is, when we say something she doesn't like, she makes our lives miserable. There is always retaliation. She pretends like she's dying, lays on huge guilt trips, gets all emotional like she wants to kill herself, and on and on. This pulls at her son's heart strings, and makes him worried that if he says x, y or z, he could be guilty of doing something bad to her.
By the grace of God, my husband and I are on the same page- that she is way too involved in our lives, that his relationship to her before was unhealthy, and that things HAVE to change. Knowing it, and carrying it out are two different things. Our approach to dealing with it is very different. As the husband I feel as though it is his responsibility to confront his mother and lay down the law. And he has to a very large extent. Things are better than they used to be, believe it or not, but she's always finding a way to weasel something else in. I think there is a certain amount of guilt there. My husband had a very difficult childhood, and grew up under the yolk of his messed up parents. Once he converted he did a 180. He's abandoned most of the unhealthy habits taught to him by his parents. Getting married was the final straw to abandoning that type of life. His mother wants to persist in it, and therefore feels abandoned by him. Since he enabled his mother for so many years, he doesn't want to hurt her by demanding she stop, when for so long he allowed it. He has someone helping him through this (me, Our Lord, Our Lady, All the holy saints and angels) while his mother is still Godless and completely lost.
I, on the other hand, am very direct. If it were me, I would just tell her, lay down the rules, stick to them, and that's that. If she can't comply then she needs to be cut off. Maybe I am too rigid.
Every time the phone rings my blood pressure rises. 9 out of 10 times it is her, wanting something or telling some sort of lie.
How would you handle a situation like this?
Topic: Problem MIL (Read 2914 times)