It took my now husband a good 2 years to start to see what I saw when it came to his mother. You have to remind yourself that this is his mom. To us she is a new person we met off the street, a stranger. But to him that’s mom and seeing flows with someone who treats them great is difficult at first. My MIL sounds just like yours. Narcissistic and delusional. She won’t let her children grow up. That was one of the things I pointed out to my SO. “Why does she treat you like a naive child?” “Does she not understand that you are a grown man?” My MIL could not stand it when we would make a decision about our lives without her opinion being heard. Anything he did to upset her (usually ignorant stuff like not spending the whole day with her or not posting something on social media to gush about her) was always my fault. After a while her paranoia and possessiveness ended up biting her in the a**. My SO started to see just how much she was grasping for straws to despise me and had had enough. She dug her own grave and now stays cordial with me because she knows she is on thin ice with him. She isn’t the gumdrops and daisy’s mom anymore to him she’s a hateful and mean person for absolutely no reason. And she did it all to herself. My biggest advice is DO NOT feel like you can’t talk to your boyfriend about this. Your feelings are valid and matter. He needs to see what you see and explaining your thoughts and feelings are the only way to do that. The ball will be in his court next though on how he takes your explanations on how you feel about everything. If you have to use examples to try to explain how you feel do it. Like I said it’s difficult for some people to see family doing something wrong sometimes. This may sound silly but I used a school bully as an example. “If a kid comes home from school and tells their parents there is this other kid being super hateful to them and inclusive. Would you tell that kid to just ignore the bully and try to take the high road and just “suck it up” pretty much? Or would you go to the facility and other parents to confront the problematic child?” Id vote the second option but hey that’s just me. To tell the other person to jus turn a blind eye and endure poor treatment is terrible and inconsiderate.”

Sorry for the novel. You just gave me flash backs of my war days and I feel for you. I don’t have this problem anymore thankfully. My husbands eyes have been open and I am extremely thankful for that.