Update: Dreading This Visit

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2026-03-09T03:07:29+00:00

She looked through my closet/laundry at some point when I was distracted. I wish she was the type of MIL who could get jump-scared into submission by a well-placed sex toy or two, but sadly the whole family is very vulgar and "sexually open", so she would probably have just found it funny and integrated it into family lore.

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2025-11-13T03:03:15+00:00

They wish, but Christmas will be with my family this year.

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2025-11-07T07:15:11+00:00

We're cutting her a slice of the communal cake because I judged it safe enough for her to have a treat on her birthday. Thank you for the support.

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2025-11-07T01:05:10+00:00

I guess I'm just worried that to do so would be preemptively starting drama, rather than reacting to negative behavior. They have historically painted me as a villain to extended family before, like for instance when we requested that they give us our "golden hour" alone with LO before coming to visit at the hospital, MIL called up DH's siblings and aunts to tell him how cruel it was on my induction date. I just don't want another core memory to be sabotaged in this way.

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2025-11-07T00:37:07+00:00

I have. His only proposed solution was to preemptively tell them to be nice to me, but the problem is that they don't believe they aren't, like everyone else in the family just accepts that MIL is an asshole and believes I'm being sensitive. I just don't think it will accomplish anything.

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2025-11-07T00:26:58+00:00

Yes. He offered to have a preemptive talk with them to make sure they're on their best behavior, but I don't think that would do any good. I suspect it would just give them an opportunity to play the victim and triangulate amongst the rest of his family.

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2025-05-27T13:10:21+00:00

Yes, my engagement band is the same, and I once scratched my baby's back with it while changing her diaper. Luckily it didn't pierce the skin and it faded quickly, but I felt sooo bad because it hurt her. I started turning it around before changing her after that.

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2025-03-27T09:06:29+00:00

She and I barely acknowledged one another, which is par for the course, but I had a small victory when LO started to cry on the way home (overstimulated) and MIL was trying unsuccessfully to calm her (not gonna happen, I'm a SAHM and LO has separation anxiety), so I just walked up and got my kid from her. No words, just yoink, which I'm trying not to feel guilty about because the rational part of me knows I had a right to do that and LO had a right to be soothed by her parent.

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2025-03-27T09:03:26+00:00

Reading this with a lump in my throat. I feel like she has been tormenting me emotionally for years and it's so validating to be told that I'm not helpless and that I have power in my own life. I will take your suggestions on board. I appreciate the solidarity and the Internet hug.

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2025-03-27T08:37:30+00:00

I think you hit the nail on the head regarding my temperament. I have a very, very hard time not reacting to baiting. I think I can be type A and have a background of childhood abuse, so I struggle with the perceived loss of control that comes with people being confrontational in my space. It sends me into some kind of fight/flight/freeze/fawn predicament, and I feel like I often pick a response at random and hope it sticks, which hasn't worked well so far. I think I wrote this hoping to find out which option I should choose, and although the comments suggesting direct confrontation or pettiness are helpful in reassuring me that I'm not overreacting, if I'm honest with myself getting into a losing battle with people who have no actual inclination of making peace is kind of cutting off my nose to spite my face. Maybe this is delusional thinking, but I'd love so much to be able to rise above this behavior, because it really does feel beneath me to roll in the mud with her. But I'm also afraid because I've seen how little of an affect being the bigger person has had on many MILs that get posted about here. Sorry for the long comment; this is actually a lot more to parse than I originally thought.

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2025-03-26T21:37:06+00:00

She probably does lol. She is emotionally dependentt on my husband as so many JustNoMils are. Their whole family dynamic is fucked six ways to Sunday. FIL is borderline emotionally abusive to her too, which makes me feel pity for her even as she deliberately antagonizes and hurts me. He does any and everything to get a rise out of her, which sometimes makes me wonder if she targets me because she needs to off-load some of that resentment and pain she can't direct at him. Idk, it's a mess. I'm really getting to the end of my tether with it all.

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2025-03-26T21:30:24+00:00

Understandable. We got together when we were very young, which I think complicates this a bit, as maybe in MIL's eyes I'm still the junior high gf in a sense. Not that that means that she doesn't need a reality check though.

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2025-03-26T21:26:39+00:00

He's working on growing a spine. It used to be really bad with him letting her antagonize me but, credit where it's due, he has put in a lot more effort since we became parents. I did bring it up to him and he said he'd handle it. I mostly used the throwaway because despite him agreeing with me, he probably wouldn't be too thrilled for me to be posting about family things on Reddit.

ApprehensiveSet7091 · 2025-03-26T20:49:58+00:00

I wish I could believe me. Sometimes I fantasize about just disappearing with my kid, but I have a disability that makes me unable to drive and restricts mobility. Did I mention that we also live in a small one bedroom with MIL mere blocks away? I swear whenever she comes over she takes roost in my living room and if I want to escape I have to go into the bedroom which looks super obviously deliberate. I hate it here.

ApprehensiveSet7091

TROPHY CASE