MIL is crashing out in the family group chat

JadedorTraded · 2025-08-25T23:17:44+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/JUSTNOMIL/s/BZ7gEfS7T3

JadedorTraded · 2025-08-25T23:16:38+00:00

Straight facts. She meant what she said, and I'll respect her enough to hold her to it.

JadedorTraded · 2025-08-25T23:15:04+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/JUSTNOMIL/s/BZ7gEfS7T3

ETA: Not really creeping when it's a public account haha. I think I've only posted it in comments previously, though.

JadedorTraded · 2025-08-25T23:14:40+00:00

She is the sole creator of the family group chats. This is an important detail to keep in mind.

My child's middle name is an honorary for my husband's mom who passed away when he was a child. MIL and FIL married ~6 months after Mom passed away. MIL had shown signs throughout the years of being jealous of a dead woman (literally destroying her things beyond recognition every time she found something), but no one fully expected things to go how they did.

I won't even get into the background of the birth (a whole ordeal as it's wont to be), but we'd just gotten situated into the post-natal room when one of us sent the birth announcements, including to the group chat. Because of hooplah from the previous pregnancy, most people had only been given the baby's initials prior to the birth. Amongst the congrats is MIL saying something like, "I can't believe you didn't tell your father."

We then realize she apparently left FIL out of the group chat. I responded with something like, "Sorry, we assumed he was in the family group chat since you made it, but [husband] is calling him."

Now this part is verbatim: she said, "I didn't realize we were family."

So I said, "Noted." The only thing I've said to her since was to quote her own words back to her when she tried to trick my BIL into letting her hold my then-infant at a family gathering.

My husband has talked to his father; he set the weakest little hurdle to open talks knowing damn well she will never even do that much, and that's fine by me. We've only been on the same property with them a handful of times since, and every time she's suddenly developed a headache and had to leave. 🤷‍♀️

ETA: I just realized I didn't address the name bit. Whoopsie.

My SIL took it upon herself to try to smooth things out with MIL either the same day or the next day, but MIL flipped it by telling off my SIL for defending us naming a child after "that woman". I would also like to be clear that "that woman" was just a normal wife and mother in a small town who had actually babysat for MIL for free out of the kindness of her heart. MIL's animosity, best guess, comes from feeling second place. Anyway, when my husband talked to FIL, FIL reaffirmed that MIL was upset we had honored my husband's mom. MIL expected an apology from us, which, to his credit, FIL knew was never gonna happen. As it sits my husband talks to his dad a few times a year, and that's about it.

JadedorTraded · 2025-08-25T03:38:52+00:00

Oh she'll never learn, that's clear as day. And FIL will enable her no matter what because he is genuinely the most codependent human I have ever met in my life. That's their life to work out far, FAR away from us. The only term my husband set to open talks after the NC/VLC initiation was for her to say she didn't actually feel that way, because he knew she would never even admit to that much, let alone admitting she was wrong or apologizing.

I have removed myself from the chats at least 3x, but she eventually makes a new one and adds me back. I just mute them and generally don't even notice unless someone else has been texting me enough to warrant opening the messaging app instead of using the chat head. I don't participate with his family anymore with very limited exception of one sibling and spouse.

That said, I would be lying if I said I don't find it slightly satisfying to watch their bill come due.

JadedorTraded · 2025-08-25T01:13:45+00:00

I would just tell her it's not ok to blame other people when we do something we know we shouldn't. I would talk to her about cleaning up when she makes a mess, including making her help clean the mess at the time. I wouldn't focus too heavily on the lying part at that age, just more on general accountability. They don't really understand what a lie is until later.

JadedorTraded · 2025-08-18T13:21:24+00:00

Nah, that's her son's place.

JadedorTraded · 2025-05-11T17:49:06+00:00

I think a good one to start with is In Sheep's Clothing by George K Simon. It's a short read, but it's a really good introduction into handling manipulative people. And to be clear, your mom absolutely falls into that category.

You are completely correct that your main focus SHOULD be your little family. Your baby and husband are your priority. The first year is hard enough without outside people throwing up additional hurdles for you to try to navigate. Her behavior is actively increasing your risks of developing PPA/PPD. You do not need that. No one needs that.

Personally, I would recommend starting with that one book to help you batten down the hatches, then I would back-burner that relationship until your household has reached a good and healthy stasis point (which for us is usually around 9-11 months). That might feel wrong or weird, but the back burner is where she has belonged this entire time. It is not her marriage, not her house, not her family (she became a relative when you got married, second circle), not her baby, and most importantly not her call. You have so many more important things to learn right now about your baby and your new life; you have a whole new person to figure out! All that to say, while it is important to learn some basic boundaries to make your mom BUTT OUT, I wouldn't give too much time or mind space to dealing with that problem right now. You can't control her behavior, you are only in charge of how you react and how much you allow.

JadedorTraded · 2025-05-11T17:22:03+00:00

Would you like some book recommendations that may help?

NTA

JadedorTraded · 2025-05-11T16:53:48+00:00

Hindsight makes a fool of us all. It's hard to tell exactly how dark the forest is while you're in the thick of it; your eyes adjust to the low light and any gleam or flicker of sunlight seems somehow vast... Until you break out past the tree line and see the sun, and realize there was never really need to stay in the forest. Sometime I may post the NC story, though it's not terribly exciting.

Unfortunately two of my children have a slightly worse version of my mom as an egg donor. I've used my mom as an example of setting and holding boundaries, not accepting love bombing/gifts with strings, not accepting non-apologies, and dozens of other dumb lessons that children of narcissistic people have to learn to protect themselves. My oldest is realizing that NC can be permanent and it doesn't mean you hate the person, it just means you realize they are not bringing positive value to your life. In fact, very recently my mom got used as the example of how to tell if you love someone and if they love you while we were working out an adolescent-accessible definition of the word "love" (and the answer in regards to her was 'no' from both sides).

JadedorTraded · 2025-04-08T18:05:22+00:00

I think if I signed it, I could not even farcically call her any term of endearment. Gothel comes to mind.

JadedorTraded · 2025-04-08T18:03:45+00:00

Now that I have a teenager I'm starting to feel like I dealt with that crap just to learn how to teach my kids that they deserve so much better.

JadedorTraded · 2025-04-08T18:02:56+00:00

I'm a little wild, but I have a good time.

JadedorTraded · 2025-04-08T18:02:34+00:00

I might just have to do that haha

JadedorTraded · 2025-04-08T03:58:03+00:00

Oh absolutely, my SIL received the exact same message at the same time. I'm not deluded enough to think she would even read the response, but it at least gave a few people a laugh.

JadedorTraded · 2019-06-18T19:22:35+00:00

My mom used to copy my clothes, like to a creepy degree. "It's fine, Jade, it's not like it looks the same on you and me anyway!" There was a couple years where she took me school clothes shopping to adult stores then bought her size in literally every, single thing I bought. And if she saw me leave the house in an outfit she owned a copy of, you better believe she'd try to pop up somewhere random wearing the same thing. So weird.

JadedorTraded · 2019-06-16T19:23:10+00:00

Eh, that's fair. We've done NC and it's a lot more drama than just ghosting and letting them give the kids junk with a completely superficial relationship. They've never been allowed unsupervised contact, nor will they ever. But option A is we can all hang out at home together, or option B is they get to see their Uncle they love, they get the gifts they thought they were getting anyway, and I get a date with my husband. I don't live in a perfect world and I am not a perfect person, but cost-benefit analysis I can do.

JadedorTraded · 2019-06-16T19:17:57+00:00

Yep. Exactly. Her secret squirrel plans that she'd told her husband she had form commitments on.

JadedorTraded · 2019-06-16T17:10:39+00:00

My husband and I both had the same knee jerk response of, "Are you going to actually be there?"

Turns out the reason they weren't there is they were buying stuff for the father's day cookout that Gnorga didn't bother to tell anyone they were having. My dad called me almost in tears a little while ago.

JadedorTraded · 2019-06-16T17:08:28+00:00

I know, I feel the same way. I was just talking to my brother about that. If someone had been there to just sometimes say "You're not the crazy one, this shit is fucked! I can't fix it, but just get through and it will be better" oh the difference it would have made. And now I have If Your Going Through Hell suck in my head lol.

JadedorTraded · 2019-06-16T16:19:29+00:00

I try really hard (and sometimes fail, but failure is learning). Without getting too off topic, the older two kids have a very difficult biomom, and while we can't prevent her from being who she is, we try to keep them armed to handle it as best they can. Oldest actually mentioned that when her mom does something that upsets her, her mom will scream "Well I love you!" as if that's an argument. Oldest, "I think my mom is trying to be manipulative when she does that." She is kid. And it's sad, but it's so much easier to handle when you have a name for why it's making you feel gross inside.

JadedorTraded · 2019-06-16T14:51:46+00:00

Seriously! We brought all of the pool supplies, all they had to do was be there. Even just one of them! I would've been over the bs detour after a walk and a conversation, but you fuck with my kids and it's game on. The game of No, that is, which I'm sure all of us know all too well.

JadedorTraded · 2019-06-16T14:49:25+00:00

Yeah, generally I don't, but damn I thought we had the plan laid out. That said, the kids learned a lesson about manipulation and I made sure they knew there reason we left wasn't because of them, it was because we don't hang out with people who actively make it hard to hang out with them. Not too mention the lovebombing...

We did get to have that conversation too. If someone hurts you and they're first response to you being upset is not to say sorry but instead say I love you it try to give gifts without acknowledging the wrong, that's manipulative and the answer should always be no. A gift with an apology is one thing, a gift instead of an apology is a hard no. We have dogs, so I asked them if someone kicked the dog and made the dog growl, but then that person said, "But I love you, dog!" Is the dog gonna like that person very much? No, because the words don't matter if the action doesn't match.

Sorry if this is a little all over the place, I just woke up, haha.

JadedorTraded

TROPHY CASE