I'm a regular member going anonymous for privacy reasons. I don't have any background on my other account so you're not missing anything, and I know the drill (if it takes me a while to respond it's because I unfortunately have to work drive home and stuff sometimes, not because I'm a hair flipper).
I'll start with the TLDR- MIL is currently in an ITO that will possibly become a CO. DH and I logically understand that this is the best decision, but both of us still feel guilty about it. I am a reformed unicorn, DH has a rehabbed normal meter. MIL has been diagnosed by us and Dr. Google as having histrionic personality disorder.
Background (and pre-ITO and spine llama-noms, trying to find balance between not being overlong and being complete, yay paragraphs!): We live on opposite coasts from MIL. While we were dating, she visited rarely due to the cost, and I was in looooooove and was raised in a normalish enough family that I didn't really understand that family can suck and was raised with all sorts of awesome, barfy doormat sayings like "take the higher road" "kill them with kindness." Basically, I thought the classy thing to do was be super polite and gracious and tolerate MIL, and appreciated the compliments I got about how I was "such a saint" for dealing with her. So nothing was really on my radar initially.
For my bridal shower, step-MIL and one of DH's aunts threw it for me. MIL got a courtesy invite, and then complained to DH about how insulting it was because it was so rude for step-MIL and DH's aunt to expect her to fly out for that. Okey dokey, no prob. Then the morning of my shower, step-MIL calls us and says, "oh btws, that was apparently a clever ruse to make her presence at the shower an extra special surprise, and she is coming back with you to stay a week." The house was a mess and not guest ready, so I ended up being late to my shower to emergency clean and prepare for her visit (I know, I know). DH told her that she was never to fly out as a surprise again.
For our wedding, we had a 5 minute civil service, backyard ceremony. It was fun, it was casual. My uncle who plays fiddle played the entrance and exit, my brother read a poem, my sister was my maid-of-honor, DH's BF was his best man. Definitely not a big production. At the rehearsal dinner hosted by FIL, stepMIL and MIL, MIL stood up at dessert and said "Since I wasn't invited to sing at MY OWN SON'S wedding, I'm going to give a performance now." and proceeded to give an a cappella, one woman show singing sad Irish drinking songs all up tempo and jazzy (did I mention she's a theater person? oh yeah, she's a theater person). At one point she asked if anyone had any requests and DH shouted "one where the girl DOESN'T die!" We said nothing else, just rolled our eyes when friends were all "uh so what was that all about."
Oh jeez, I'm remembering now that after the wedding she came back and stayed with us for a week because otherwise the flight out wouldn't have been worth it. I went in to a final at school the Monday after our wedding so nbd. It didn't occur to either of us to nix that idea.
A few uneventful years passed. She'd visit very rarely, always telling us in advance now. I would remind him to call his mom because I noticed that he didn't reach out to her a ton and I thought all he needed to do to have a good relationship with her was to just talk to her more (I know, I KNOW). DH finally was like "stop pushing me to call her, it seriously depresses me to talk to her sometimes because she's always depressed and never does anything about it and it's just such a downer to talk to her." So I knocked that off and found DWIL shortly thereafter and realized what an asshole I was being and gave a better apology to DH.
Somewhere in the meantime, I had a baby and DUN DUN DUN things with MIL didn't exactly change, but stuff I brushed off as quirky MIL behavior started to bother me plus I started to consider what sort of message the polite-conditioning sends to girls, and I realized I never want my daughter to feel paralyzed by politeness or fear of being rude in defending her boundaries. Ever. It wasn't a super fast transformation on my part, but that's essentially the root of it, plus DWIL basically blowing my mind.
In roughly chronological order, after DD was born: MIL came out to "help" for 3 weeks. I thought it was a great idea, DH had no clue. My mom was coming first, then FIL, then MIL, and I was expecting several weeks of help and support while getting used to motherhood. I picked MIL up from the airport with a screaming newborn in the backseat, 45 minutes there and back. MIL marched in to my kitchen, made herself a plate of food from stuff that had been prepared for me, and sat down and ate lunch without making anything for me. I stood there gape-jawed and told DH about it later who told his mom that her job was to take care of me, so she had to help out.
I was EPing for DD, she had weight gain issues and feeding issues, so we were on a strict schedule and a strict ounce-per day minimum plus frequent weighings at the pediatrician and the constant threat of a "failure to thrive" admission. MIL would get a bottle for DD, not pay attention to how much she put in it, would overfill it, not be able to tell me exactly how many ounces she'd given DD, and would let DD sleep through feedings which would make it tough to meet her daily goals since she was a bigger eater earlier in the day. I should have fired MIL from feeding duty or been more firm about the feeding rules, but I was really struggling with DD's diagnosis, was being gaslight by MIL and DH that I was being anxious and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was (only to have my concerns confirmed again and again by the doctors) and that I was just a first-time mom. So I fretted and tried not to be a control-freak. DD is a fine and awesome toddler now, shortly after this we found a bottle system that basically cured all of her feeding issues and allowed her to gain weight. I'm still very pissed at myself for failing to listen to my instincts though, to the point where I'm only just starting to feel some anger at MIL for pretending it was too fucking complicated to remember to prepare a bottle properly.
We had friends over to play board games one night while she was here. She kept rolling her eyes and sarcastically reading the fame's instructions that we were planning to play, saying "we don't want to play that, let's play poker instead." Well, we did want to play that, so did. She sad on the computer in the living room playing solitaire on the computer instead of playing with us. Another evening, we had a friend and her older baby over for dinner. Grownups were having a good time, so we offered DD's crib to older baby so he could maybe sleep (heh, we were all new parents, so in theory it was a good idea) and we could hang out more. Friend's LO was crying, but she was in the process of STing so said she was going to see if he'd settle down. She went to peek at him and MIL had gone in and was holding him, saying she didn't like to hear him cry. We apologized profusely to friend and she decided to call it a night. She likes to be the center of attention so when we'd have friends over while she was visiting she was always telling dramatic, borderline inappropriate stories.
DH tells her that 3 weeks is too long for a visit, that next time visits need to be shorter. She went home, and per the rules, told DH when her next visit was and it was for about a week. She'd booked a flight for a week we were supposed to spend with my dad's family. DH had taken time off for that. I was excited. But she'd booked tickets so I didn't feel we could tell her it was a bad time. We canceled our visit to my dad's and I was not happy but still pretty silent. She came and DH told her that from now on she had to ask us if dates were ok first, before booking her trip.
During this visit: DH and I talk to each other throughout the day on google hangouts, and he has the computer set up with his account logged in automatically. NBD, we just would exit it when setting up the computer for his mom to use. One day, DH texted me that he forgot, and apparently our conversation popped up while MIL was using the computer. "Eek, but ok" I thought. I hadn't been complaining about MIL at that specific time, so no worries. Except. She read through SEVERAL DAYS OF CHATTING BETWEEN ME AND DH. SEVERAL DAYS. And then CONFRONTED DH because *I* had told him that MIL had approached me concerned about DH's weight and I had told him and "she thought that was just between the two of us." We were finally pissed. We felt violated. We decided that MIL had lost Hotel OutsideOverThere privileges forEVER.....as soon as her visit was over because you can't just kick someone out of your home! *smacks forehead*
So after this visit, she'd tell DH she wanted to come visit. DH would tell me. I'd tell him to pick a date but make sure she knows she's not staying with us. He'd never give her a date because...I think he didn't want her to visit.
I'm pregnant again. DH tells her and she is so excited she books a visit without running the dates by us first for a month over Christmas but "don't worry, she was going to stay at an air bnb." DH emailed me a "don't be mad, but this happened" email. The month plus the not running visits by us plus the fact that I kinda doubted she'd actually pay for an air bnb for a month (I forgot to mention, on my last visit, she invited me out to dinner on my birthday, took a look at the check when it came, and then told me we'd need to split the check) plus the fact that everything that had happened had happened was finally too much.
I called DH and told him he had to call his mom and tell her to cancel her flight. He balked but then did it and apparently she FLIPPED HER SHIT and started screaming at him that she was done "capitulating."
She put *us* on a TO.
It was awesome and scary at the same time because it was a relief, but it was without a plan or closure. I'd try to talk to DH about what our plan was and he wouldn't want to talk about it. Finally said that when he was ready to talk to her again he was going to fly out to see her in person and lay down the law about what things would look like going forward. I told him I wanted him to talk to a counselor about his childhood first and he was like, eh, when I get around to it.
MIL blocked us on facebook.
MIL decided we'd "had enough" and called to rugsweep and DH BHed. She called again a little while later. He BHed but also had me listen to the message so he wouldn't have to. (Basically just call me, I miss talking to you.). She included him on three mass emails, one saying she'd bought a camper so include her on any summer tailgating trips, one an invite for her birthday party, and one canceling her birthday party (sent a few days after DS was born and DH did not call to tell her).
It's been over a year since we've spoken to her. DH finally got around to going to see a therapist (well, I finally got around to finding a therapist and scheduling him an appointment and telling him when it was- turns out two kids are twice the stress and we've had our ups and downs since DS was born so there were a lot of reasons to go). The therapist was super uninterested in talking to DH about his mom for the first few sessions. They talked about her the time before last and DH came home and told me he was thinking of contacting his mother to see if a relationship was possible and what the therapist had said about how to deal with her (BIFF, brief, informative, friendly, firm, kinda a poor man's JADE?).
I felt a wave of anxiety and confirmed that the kids and I are off the table until *I* am comfortable with a relationship and DH said of course. I asked him why he wanted to talk to his mom and he said it was because he felt guilty and "she's my *mom*." I dropped it after telling him that I didn't want her to hurt him or hurt the kids (he's said that he feels responsible for her happiness, and after one of the visits she held DD and cried at the airport and I could see a future where the kids feel bad because grandma feels soooo saaaaaad she has to leave and I do not want that shit).
DH saw the therapist again, and after told me that since the BIFF session he'd been thinking about whether he really wanted to have a relationship with his mom or if he just wanted to assuage his guilt (good, me too!). And he decided that at this point in time, he didn't see any benefit to resuming a relationship with her other than making that guilty feeling go away, and that the stress of keeping her within boundaries and managed would not be worth it, so for now the ITO for him continues. I felt a huge wave of relief, and then that stupid guilt.
So that is my question: how to you manage and deal with that guilt? Day to day I don't really think about it, and I do not miss the visits, and I do not think the children miss out on having another grandparent. I felt sick to my stomach when I thought DH was going to talk to her again but hugely guilty at the thought of cutting her off forever. How do I get over that?