Hello, this is my first post, I would appreciate any advice anyone has!
It all started with nasty little comments and inconsiderate behavior. Often when staying in our vacation home (either while we are there or when we generously let her have the place to herself with her husband and their dog)
Here are few examples just to get the gist of her behavior:
She helped herself to a gift basket that WE hadn’t even opened yet! She took our clothes out of the dryer left them in a crumpled pile so she could dry her clothes, she brought a group of friends to stay at our vacation home and did nothing to thank us, not even a thank you note from any of them! My favorite: she left dog pee on our carpet, when I called to find out if she had tried to clean it she said “that’s what dogs do! you take your eye off of them and they run off and pee on things!” She has not apologized, offered to pay for carpet cleaning or even mentioned the problem and months have gone by! She lost one of my belongings and said ” I looked everywhere, I simply don’t have it, sorry” It was such a fake “sorry” and she never offered to replace what she lost or even express remorse for losing it! She accused us of not doing anything for her for mothers day and after spending a few minutes reminding her of the details and that we DID in fact celebrate mother’s day she replied “well, it wasn’t ON mothers day” (my husband was out of town mothers day weekend)
She makes insulting commentary on topics such as how little I eat, my lack of cooking skills and the nice gifts my husband has given me. Once, I called her out on it and said “that was a really nasty thing to say” she replied “Good! I’m glad you caught it!”
For the first 3 years, I smiled and put up with it and kept it to myself. I finally told my husband, he was very upset with her and had a long discussion about her behavior. She claimed she understood and would try to be better. The comments and rude behavior kept coming and my husband was tired of being in the middle so he suggested I talk with her. It took a lot of courage to tell her about all of the ways she had upset me and hurt my feelings and she ended up yelling at me, telling me I will never be satisfied and I just want someone to complain about. So here we are. In my opinion, she has a lot of apologizing and repairing to do. She refuses to change. I refuse to continue to let her get away with her behavior. My husband agrees she is difficult, but feels his hands are tied because she is his mother. Do I really need to just let her behavior go? Thank you for your advice!
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Advice
10 Responses to “Refuses to apologize or fix mistakes”
Hi Sarah!
OK first of all . NO YOU DON’T NEED TO TALK TO HER. That is your husbands MOTHER! Not yours. He needs to handle her. You are his wife and if she is disrespecting you, then he needs to put her in her place. I just don’t freaking get these men sometimes. Like WTF? It’s evident she doesn’t like you. ( Sorry hun) didn’t mean to say it like that, but from what I am reading she doesn’t have an inch of respect for you. Your husbands place is here is to sit her down and find out wtf is the problem? You have been with him long enough and she needs to get over it, YOU ARE HIS WIFE…. if he doesn’t do this and she doesn’t comply, well then my friend. You need to BITCH up!!!! Let them know you are the wife, the head woman of the house!! not her! Seriously…. be civil. Hi , bye. That’s it. Don’t let this woman have any power in your marriage…. Your husband needs a reality check too!!! someone needs a good dose ” I am not the one to play with”… Sarah you need to stand up for yourself. The first step is get that husband of yours to start defending you !!!!!!! SERIOUSLY… if not , you will be miserable!
Read my blog,…. so you can feel better ! =)
Cut your ties with her. She is not worth it!!! Plain and simple.
Advise to all of you newlywed daughter-in-law’s or daughter-inlaw’s to be-STAND OP FOR YOURSELF! or she will treat you like crap for the rest of your marraige to her son. If you don’t you are looking at the worst stress you will ever and eternally have to live with. If you do stand up to her, you will cut the crap with the Bitch now and believe it or not your husband will respect you for it. This does not mean that you have to be a Bitch yourself but have you ever heard the expression ‘GET THEM BEFORE THEY GET YOU” it is a matter of survival of the fitist. Only advise to those of you whom can see that the Monster-in-Law has got it out for you. (P.S. Remember she is just jealous-you got her son)
NO, you don’t have to let her behavior go! Stop letting her use your vacation home and any other items she gets her hands on. Evict her from your presence, home, work place or any close orbit she shows up in. Inform you DH, that he can go see MOMMA at her place whenever he likes to talk to her. She is verboten to cross into your space.
Do not expect any mea culpas. Do not listen to her whining or b*tchy comments. Walk out on her mid-rant. She has let you know, FULL WELL, she would like you to be gone from her and her son’s life. Place her in the twilight zone area in your mind and do not give her the time of day.
Good luck with your nasty MIL retraining.
Has your dolt of a husband ever heard: HIS MOTHER, HIS PROBLEM?
You should not feel the least bit sorry hubbs being “in the middle” of this. It is his JOB to protect you from this witch and to shut her down. Every time she makes a rude or inappropriate comment either get up and leave, if you are out with her or at her house, or show her to the door if she is on your property. You do not have to put up with this crap, nor should you. If you overlook this behavior all she will do is continue it.
You made a huge mistake telling her what she does that offends you. Now she knows exactly what buttons to push. True, a normal person would have taken your words to heart, but you are dealing with a nutter. Same goes with any apologies or damage control. She has neither the desire or the capacity to do either. So forget about it. Dwelling on it will only make you angry, and that is exactly what she wants.
You have a lot of power that you do not realize you have. First, that vacation home should be off limits to that hag. And you tell your husband that since YOU are taking care of the “problem” THIS is HOW you are taking care of it. He had his chance, he did not want to step up to the plate so YOU take over and put her in her place.
The next time you go over to this troll’s house for dinner, YOU can wreck havoc. Go to the bathroom and accidently miss the toilet. Oops! Oh well, those things happen! And spend dinnertime tossing bits of this and that from your dish right under the table. If she has a dog or dogs in the house, toss big chunks so the mongrels can drag their food booty all over her nice clean house. If she complains that you are “feeding her dogs” just quip that “dogs are just that way — constantly begging for a handout and WHO ARE YOU to DENY them!”
You can play this woman’s own game with her, you just have to get a little creative. And for next Mother’s Day, send hubby over to her house by himself — as YOUR gift to her.And mail her a card thanking HER for the wonderful gift she gave you: instead of a Mother’s Day gift, YOU replaced the item SHE lost. Thank you SOOO much dearie, for doing that for me!
She will soon get the message that you can’t be pushed around. And institute NO speaking or communication with the old biddy either. That will work wonders for your “relationship” with her! Good luck!
Yes! Great advice from the previous ladies! I wish I had said it!
All I can add is that it is really fun to just piss off the MIL big-time!
I noticed that after I started turning the tables on my evil MIL and having fun being sassy, she developed stomach problems and chronic diarrea!
I really hope it was because of me!! She would visit and play her usual nasty games, but instead of getting hurt feelings, I would be cheerful during her visit, saying the occasional sassy remark and pretending to be dense, and I could see the pressure starting to build, until I said something that really pissed her off, and BOOM! Attack of the POOPIES!!! After a few months of this, she gradually got really wrung out from visiting me and cut way back on the nasty games and the frequent needy visits. The taste of Victory is so sweet! (but it may smell like poop!)
Azul Water is right on! I pretend to be “dense” all of the time, which makes my troll MIL furious — because she knows I am smart (one of the things she does not like about me because she cannot intimidate me with facts or lies). Once you play their games and turn the tables, they suddenly find their meddlesome, intrusive visits and rude comments (and advice-giving) MUCH less fun! And if you can give MIL the runs to boot, that is an EXTRA bonus!
Thank you everyone for your advice. I am definitely going to try and stick up for myself more aggressively and hope that my husband will support me.
When you deal with a poison-tounged b*tch like this,who disrespects you and tries to ruin things that belong to you and cost you money, you need to blast her back with both barrels and don’t hold back.
First of all DON’T invite her to the vacation house ever again.If she asks why,tell her that you insist that she respect your house and your things and clean up after herself and since she didn’t do that last time there will not be another visit to your vacation house.
Go over to her house and try to spill red winemotor oil,melted chocolate, or something in her carpet and when she freaks out tell her that it is a tradition of good luck to stain other people’s carpets and let the homeowner clean up the mess.Tell her you thought she already knew that becasue she didn’t clean up the dog p*ss at your vacation house.Another good trick is to bring a lot of pig ears (dried dog treats)over and feed a lot of them to their dogs.I have heard these will give a dog the runs becasue they are so delicious they can’t stop eating them.Think about what the dog will do to her carpet!!!!!!!
Or you could bring over a great big plate of meat and brown gravy for the dogs and set it on her living room floor and let them walk through it and tear it all up all over the house which would be nice.:-)
Keep things with her very short…hi and Bye and you will be happier.
That is how I handle my FMIL.
Azul Water your post was hilarious…actually I started doing the same last week after a few co-workers told me I should beat my MIL at her own game! After another forced dinner at her house….which I refuse to do anymore, I got up went to the bathroom, actually both bathrooms and messed up all the towels (knowing it would drive her crazy). I think next will be putting her on mailing lists…funny ones though…so she can go nuts by wondering where all this stuff is coming from…at least I can giggle to myself every time I see the troll…..Sara, I advise you do the same!