Ok, long time lurker created anon account for this. My DH and I have been dealing with my MIL and her drama for too long.
BG: DH and I are newlyweds, but have been together for 7.5 years, lived together for past 4. MIL has had problems with me since day 1, and wasn't afraid to let me or DH know. Basically it all stems from my DH being her first child, first one to get married and leave the nest. He is her "golden boy" and the way she talks to him, posts about him on fb etc is just creepy. Past couple of years have been peaceful for the most part between her and me, but I only think it's because she realized that I wasn't going anywhere. DH let her know long ago that she needed to get on board with our relationship if she wanted a relationship with him. Since then she's never said one cross word to me. But I still get an icy, cold vibe from her, there's no warm fuzzies or any niceness towards me. Even my own family feel the same way about her. Everyone's civil, but my family avoids her as much as possible. IL's consist of: MIL, FIL, and two SILs (1 is 13 years old, 1 is 19 years old).
We live about 30 minutes from ILs. Drama/crazy is only from MIL. We see DH's family about every 4-6 weeks. but leading up to that, there's always multiple days of MIL texting/calling my DH "We miss you, can you come by today?" and her getting upset when he tells her no. so by the time we do plan to all get together, she's already upset. Literally EVERY time my DH speaks to his mom to talk about our next get together, it's an issue. It always winds up with MIL being upset and going all crazy on my DH, and sending "wah wah, you hate me, you never want to see us" texts.
Examples: last time we saw them DH was talking to his mom to set up our next visit with them. We had tentative plans for them to come over and DH checked in with her to see if they were still coming that day. DH texted her something like, "Hey mom, are you guys still going to stop by today?" And MIL immediately texted back, "Yes, but not stop by. We will be staying a long time." DH shut it down and let her know that we could visit, but they couldn't stay more than a couple hours. She texted him back like "DH, we haven't seen you for 2 months and this is how you treat us?" When DH responded we had seen them three weeks ago at a family event, not 2 months (she always blows it out of proportion) she texted him back, "oh, did we even talk then? I don't remember". DH gets so pissed when she pulls this shit, and let her know that she's acting crazy, and why does she always have to start a fight whenever they talk and she responded, "you hate me".
-at said family event three weeks prior, we walked into DH's aunt's house, and MIL ran to DH at the door and she actually said to him, "Oh! DH! Come here you bad boy" as she hugged him. SO DISGUSTING. "bad boy" was in reference to her being upset we hadn't seen them for all of two weeks. When she said that DH had the most disgusted look on his face and said, "don't ever call me that again".
-and here's a good one: MIL got upset and started a fight with DH when he told her we were coming over to THEIR house on Christmas! Yes, you read that right, he told her, "hey mom! we're coming over to your house on Christmas" and she again threw a fit. BG: For the past couple years, DH and I have been alternating the two big holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, between my family and his family. So whoever's family we go to on thanksgiving, we go to the other's on Christmas. So this past year, we were set to have thanksgiving with his family, and christmas with my family. we go to thanksgiving at his family's and it's all good. Then a week or so later he reminds her, "Hey, just to remind you, we spent thanksgiving with you guys so we'll be spending christmas with OP's family" she responded, "Oh DH, any excuse to not spend time with us. ok." Anyway, so two-ish weeks before christmas, plans with family fell through, and we realized it would have been easier to just visit his family on christmas day since we had that day free, rather than try to schedule after-christmas visits with both my family and his. so he texted his mom knowing she'd be thrilled that we would be visiting them christmas day, "Hey mom! OP and I want to come visit you on Christmas day" and she responded, "OMG DH you have no respect for our family! I'm so disappointed! We wanted you to come over Christmas eve!! I can't believe how you treat us!!" You guys, I'm not kidding. This one is burned into the back of our minds, unfortunately. Mind you, MIL NEVER said anything to us about christmas eve ever. no invite, no mention. This is the thing she does, she just assumes we will be where she wants us- sorry, DH. And that's another thing she does to this day, she'll never ask DH to spend time together, she'll just tell him, and it irritates me to no end.
Examples: "DH, we miss you! Plan on spending next weekend with us", "DH, your cousins are coming into town the 28-30, so plan on being with us then", "I wish we saw you on Easter! Plan on spending it with us next year". I HATE that. Sorry everyone, that was way longer than I intended. Basically, DH and I are cycling and living out the same scenario every month or so when it comes time to visit with them. It's basically this: three-four weeks of MIL badgering DH to spend time with them, DH saying no, we can't we're busy. When DH and MIL make plans for family visit, MIL guilts and starts fight with DH. DH never takes her shit, and fires back at her, in sort of a "what are you doing? why do you have to do this?" sort of manner. I know, you're all wondering why do we go through all this bullshit, and it's because of his sisters Older SIL (19) has kind of come to understand her mom is crazy and causes these issues, but younger SIL (12) is still really young and doesn't understand why she doesn't get to see her older brother that much, and I know my DH feels guilty about it. And here's the thing, we've tried to spend time with ONLY his sisters, without PIL, but of course, MIL threw a bitch fit about that too. "DH, why do you want to spend time with your sisters but not me? I'm so sad that you hate me so much". And we have tried to go to their house to pick up only his sisters to spend time with just them, but MIL didn't let it happen. I guess my question is, how do we move forward and how does my DH break this cycle and have healthy conversation with his mom? Whenever she starts throwing fits, he stands up to her and tells her she's being ridiculous and her acting out is why we don't see them that often. He's told her that if she didn't act that way, they'd have a better relationship and talk more. I see what he says to her and to me it really looks like he's putting her in her place. He comes down hard on her, and I think it's because he's so tired of years of her shit he just can't take it anymore. So it seems like he puts her in her place and she shuts up, but then a month or so later, there she goes again. It gives my DH and I anxiety when we know it's coming. we just can't live this way anymore. to state the obvious I'm terrified of having children.