Drawing boundaries with MIL

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Allegra said:
Is this a reasonable indulgence for my husband, given that this woman lives three states away and I barely ever have to see her?
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In my humble opinion, no it’s not reasonable for your husband to expect this of you. In complete, 100% honesty, if this were my husband, he’d be sleeping on the couch.

But that’s just my opinion. You know what the fall out is going to be if you remove her from your Facebook. You will have to decide which is worse: your current situation or the situation that will arise when you block her. Most of all, you will have to decide what you can live with and what you can’t, and what is safe for your children.

I have a very, very low tolerance for husbands who can’t cut the apron strings with their mommies and cater to mama’s every whim at the expense of their wives and children. So this post may come off as more emotional than I intend. I guess it just sends a lot of red flags that he’s expecting you to put up with this. What exactly is stopping him from getting his own Facebook and dealing with her himself?
 
I don’t feel I can offer much suggestion to your situation, but I just hoped to add that I feel like some other posters that marrying mumma’s boy can come with challenges.
I think the key to marrying a mumma’s boy is to help the mother to feel that she has not lost a son but has now also gained a daughter.

Block etc can only contribute to more bad feelings and negativity.

As your husbands mother already has negative opinion towards you due to her insecurity, my opinion would be to not interact through Facebook currently but work on the relationship with her.
Meanwhile your husband can create his own Facebook page to share photo etc.
You could say you decided to take a break from social media. It doesn’t even need to be made up story:)
 
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I also recommend Al-Anon, and your husband may benefit from Adult Children of Alcoholics also. I have heard anecdotally that Al-Anon teaches you the “three Cs” - you didn’t Cause it, you can’t Change it, you can’t Control it.

One thing to keep in mind: she can throw as big of a fit as she likes. Neither you, your husband, nor your mother is obliged to give her an audience. You aren’t obliged to listen to her rants, or to read them. Your mother isn’t, either. One option is that there are some blocking apps and things that will allow you to send someone’s messages to another folder, or their calls to voicemail, so that you can decide whether to access them or not. I am not sure specifically which apps/functionalities allow for this, but it might be something for you and your mother to consider.
 
As the saying goes, “If Mama ain’t happy, then nobody is happy.” And I am referring to the OP. When my MIL was living, she would call me while DH was at work and get info from me because I didn’t have the skills to evade her questions. Then she would spin what I said and my husband’s youngest brother would be calling and blaming me for upsetting her. My husband hated drama, so he ignored how hurt I was. Finally, I drug him with me to my counselor’s appointment, and he said it was DH’s responsibility to stop the nonsense. You have gotten a lot of great advice here. Good luck and God bless.
 
Thanks for the replies. For right now, I’m going to quietly remove her and hope she doesn’t notice for a while. My husband does have an account that he barely uses, so I can make him a co-contributor on the photo albums I don’t mind her seeing and then she can direct her rage at his page, which he probably won’t get for a week or so after the fact. I don’t really have time to devote a weeknight to attending a meeting for a woman I see once or twice a year at most. I think that’s kind of like giving her even more control of my life. Husband isn’t too worked up over my decision to cut her off, though he wishes I wouldn’t.
 
Same thing. I wouldn’t want her belittling him. Though the thought of that scenario kind of illustrates how asinine it is that he requires me to maintain his relationship with his mother through facebook. That would not be happening with my mother.
 
Allegra said:
Though the thought of that scenario kind of illustrates how asinine it is that he requires me to maintain his relationship with his mother through facebook.
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Two words: man up.

Maybe not all the boundary issues are with your MIL. Sounds like you haven’t established good boundaries and expectations in your own household.

Will probably be slightly painful but it’s a good time to set those boundaries and expectations with your husband. His mother, his responsibility.
 
I’m a little late with this reply, but I saw the thread and wanted to say a few things.

My own MIL and I haven’t ever gotten along. My husband and I have been married for over 25 years. He is an only child and we didn’t get married until he was 28.

She, my MIL, has always treated me as though I took him away from her. Rather than he grew up and did what most young men do.

After many trials and tribulations, we decided that HE had to deal with her, not me. He had to make the Christmas phone call, he had to call her on her birthday, and he needed to let her know about anything we wanted her to know about.

Thankfully, she decided to cut off all contact. She stopped speaking to us, and it lasted 11 years. Just recently, she reached out to chew out my husband and our adult son. My husband handled it and now they have spoken a couple of time. But again, HE deals with her. not me.

I really believe that should be the first step. It is his mother, he deals with her. Not you.
 
To be fair, it’s not a very frequent problem, since she’s three states away and usually doesn’t even respond. Her behavior has gotten worse as the years have gone by too. She didn’t used to be this, well, drunk.
 
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