Drawing boundaries with MIL

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Allegra

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Since my marriage to my husband, my mother-in-law’s issues have progressively gotten worse and worse. I believe she has a severe drinking problem and some sort of anxiety and/or depression issue that we have no reason to believe she is working on.

However, she lives three states away and naturally, we don’t have a whole lot of contact. We used to have the kids Skype with her, but that has not happened recently. She bailed on the last two times she was supposed to come down, one of which was my daughter’s Baptism. We try to go up and visit at least twice a year but every time we see here there’s some sort of issue.

I’ll be frank. I really don’t care personally. I’ve never really had time to form a relationship with her, I think she dislikes me because I “stole her baby”, and her issues make her exhausting to interact with. I could easily never see her again and feel little more than a light sadness over what “might have been”. But, as you can imagine, my husband gets very upset over all this. She raised him under the theory of “I’m unhappy and it’s your job to fix it!” He knows on an intellectual level that there is nothing he can do to fix her issues for her, but he still feels awful. It’s not like he can to Amazon and order a better mother. She’s what he’s got and if we limit contact with her, then instead of a frequently drunken, hostile mother, he’s got no mother at all.

Anyway, the point is, I have had her on my Facebook so that she can see photos and videos of the kids. I usually don’t hear from her for weeks and even months at a time, but every now and then she “likes” something to prove she’s still alive. However, she gets into snits and starts drinking and decides some random thing I posted makes me a terrible parent and sends me drunken rants. She also sends drunken rants to my mother, thinly veiled as “concern” for the grandkids. These aren’t frequent events but they’ve happened enough times that I don’t believe they are going to stop and even though she apologizes to my husband for them later (never to me or my mother), I don’t really think it’s reasonable to give her access to my facebook page anymore. My husband is afraid that removing her will make her mad and he might be right. Like many to most alcoholics, she becomes belligerent when you complain of or ask her to change her intoxicated behavior or suggest that her anxiety isn’t really realistic to the situation. He also doesn’t want to exclude her from what has basically become her only social tie to the family. Is this a reasonable indulgence for my husband, given that this woman lives three states away and I barely ever have to see her? I would really prefer to have her off of there, but I know he feels terrible about it. I don’t know if she gets anything out of seeing the photos and videos when she’s not ranting and raging or not.
 
I don’t think it is right that you have to be at the receiving end of the rants, logging on and always wondering if today is the day she will have left you a message.

My feeling is that it is wrong for your husband to leave this form of social outreach to you. If he cares so much about his mom, let him get his own Facebook account and let him post pics for her. Then you can delete her and not have to deal with it. And he can deal with her or not.

Perhaps some counseling or Al Anon meetings would help your husband see the futility in trying to keep contact with her through you.

I hope that if she is drunk when you visit her that you leave so that your children never have to experience her that way.
 
Allegra said:
She’s what he’s got and if we limit contact with her, then instead of a frequently drunken, hostile mother, he’s got no mother at all.
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They say it’s better to be single than to live with a significant other who treats you wrongly. Wouldn’t the same apply to a parent-child relationship?
Allegra said:
He also doesn’t want to exclude her from what has basically become her only social tie to the family. Is this a reasonable indulgence for my husband, given that this woman lives three states away and I barely ever have to see her? I would really prefer to have her off of there, but I know he feels terrible about it.
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What @Irishmom2 said. If he simply cannot sever contact, it’s his responsibility to deal with it, not yours. It’s wrong of him to put you in that position. He may need some professional help with his “mommy issues.”
 
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If your MIL is acting disruptively on your facebook, and ranting at you on there or ranting at other people (like your mom) who leave comments on your photos, then I think removing her is the sensible thing to do. Anybody who makes drama on my facebook is removed and blocked immediately.

Have your husband set up his own facebook and put his mother and his other relatives on there, and then share the photos and videos of the kids on that. If your husband doesn’t want to bother with social media, the Facebook could be in his name but you could be the one posting in it. Many couples I know have a jointly named Facebook like “JohnandSandra Smith” where they put their family news. That way, your MIL is not having her tantrums in front of your entire friends list, your mom etc. You can also share the photos and vids on your own facebook so your friends can see them.
 
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Let your husband set up his own FB account and friend her, let him share post and picture. Let him receive the rants if he is unable to set a boundary.

Your mother should block her, why should your mother receive abuse from her? Why should you?

As to you, you can unfriend or mute her, or block her if necessary.

Your husband doesn’t want to be the bad guy, he wants you to take the brunt of her drunken Facebook rants? I don’t think so.

I hope he will get some counseling so he can break out of the role she’s put him in.
 
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Set your default setting to exclude her from seeing your posts.

Occasionally post a pic of the kids and allow her to see those. When she rants, then, delete those comments.
 
TheLittleLady said:
Set your default setting to exclude her from seeing your posts.
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While this is technically possible, I personally find that keeping up with Facebook’s filtering system and “who can see what” (like friends of friends, etc) is a chore. There’s also always the concern that you’ll hit the wrong button. For that reason I have used it extremely sparingly, like twice in the last several years.

If the OP doesn’t find it burdensome to do this, however, it’s another option.
 
If this was my mother, well it wouldn’t be because I wouldn’t have put up with it, but if it was, I would have cut her off my facebook after the first time.
 
I’m not sure they’ve ever experienced her entirely sober, however, we do leave if she gets too out of line.
 
I’ve told my mother to block her but she’s afraid that she might need to reach her in case of an emergency so she usually ignores her.
 
I have been doing this already for most my posts. She only gets the ones about the kids, but she still fabricates reasons to rant.
 
Allegra said:
I’ve told my mother to block her but she’s afraid that she might need to reach her in case of an emergency so she usually ignores her.
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Honestly, is Facebook the way she’d reach someone in an emergency?

She can keep a phone number for your mother somewhere and use it in a true emergency.
 
My mother doesn’t have facebook. My MIL is sending her these rants on her phone, via text.
 
Allegra said:
My mother doesn’t have facebook. My MIL is sending her these rants on her phone, via text.
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Oh I misunderstood. I’d totally block her off my phone and only unblock or use her # in an emergency.
 
It seems to me that the elephant in the room is your MIL’s self medicating her mental issues with alcohol. I’d recommend you and your husband seek guidance on how best to try and get help for your MIL. You and he can’t make her deal with her issues but you can learn how and what to try. And this very well might mean cutting off all contact or something else but your husband needs to learn this, too. No one is helping the MIL by continuing to allow these things to go on. I hope you can find solutions that will actually help the MIL to heal and have a relationship again…all my best to you and your family.
 
I’ve never understood what people mean when they say “get help”. How can one adult “get help” for another lucid adult? No medical professional is going to talk to us about her situation without her consent. We don’t have information on her insurance policy. It is illegal to kidnap a shrink and drag him to someone’s house. This woman doesn’t even want to admit that she might have handled any aspect of any situation differently. She doesn’t want to believe that she has a drinking problem and she won’t accept any evidence to the contrary. It’s everyone else that’s the problem, not her. Until she goes completely senile or they legalize throwing darts filled with anti-anxiety medication at people who don’t want to be treated, I don’t think there’s any “help” that we can get her. She has to get it for herself.
 
I was recommending you get help. Al Anon is specifically for loved ones and how to stop being an enabler or continuing to avoid the problem and what steps you and your husband should do or not do. I realize there is nothing you can do to her! Sorry I wasn’t more clear!
 
Frankly, I’d stop expecting her to change. You seem to have a good relationship with your mother, and, minus his ‘blind spot’ with his mother, your husband. Try not to focus much on mil.

In some communities, the worst thing you can do, ethically, is block someone on Facebook. I hardly use mine; I don’t really post on my own page, and make comments on family and friends pages, only when I feel like it. I know, many people use it as their main cyber communication page, so don’t block mil, unless you are prepared to deal with her at her worst!

From what you’ve written, I’d say that her main problem is alcohol. So, unless and until she’s ready to stop drinking, don’t expect her to change.

Consider it a blessing that she lives a few states away! This way, you don’t have to think of excuses if she wants to be with your children, and even your husband is limited in the time be spends with her. If anyone tries to personalize her problem, remember that you didn’t cause the problem, nor are you responsible, or even able to fix her problem.

Oh, and God Bless!
 
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