Problems with In-laws

[nana3]

I can’t go into the long story, but my dh and his mother had an argument and as a result, my dh “unfriended” his mother on facebook. He did this to get her attention and let her know how hurt he was over the matter they were arguing about. But he is dealing with an mentally unstable mother. Anyway, his mother is friends on FB with our daughter and we allowed it for she is her grandmother. Well, one day our dd comes to us and say, “Oh, you will not like what grandmother wrote about daddy on FB.” I read the post and she mentioned how sad it was when your children grow up and they disagree with you that they unfriend you on facebook and what a pity that was. She knew that the only way her son would read that is through our daughter. Many of her friends responded and said that her son would come back to her on hands and knees when he needed her again. Others posted the Ten Commandments and how he was not honoring his mother and they hope that his child would treat him as he is treating his mother. My dd is reading all this. So I deleted this from my dd FB page for I have access to her password, that was the agreement, and than I went under her grandmother’s name and unchecked the part that says, “show in news feed always” which means whatever she posts will not show up in my dd news feed. She does not need to be reading negative things about her dad on FB and what everyone else is writing. I prayed and prayed and decided I had to say something. My dh already tried talking to her and it was of no use. They don’t respect each other. I wrote three emails for I don’t want to lose her friendship and deleted them. I finally wrote one today that I did not think would offend her and her family for I sent them a copy for she sends them a copy of everything we send her so I just saved her the step. I received an angry email written in only two sentences from one of my dh’s cousin saying that I am still dragging this “****” on so long and she did not want to be part of the “mega drama.” I was so surprised by it for I have no voiced my opinion in this whole matter and in fact her own mother was curious of my opinion of the whole matter, but I just responded at the time that I was angry about it all. I did not say that in my email. I just asked my MIL not to post anything on FB about my dd’s father that is negative that she would read. I told her that I had to get involve because her son tried talking to her and she just dismissed him and said my dd should know what he did was wrong. I told her to keep our dd out of their fight. I have not heard from my MIL, but if the response of my dh’s cousin is going to be an example of how his aunt and uncle will response and his mother, I did tell his cousin that I might have to make a tough decision for myself and our daughter. What I mean by that is cut off relationship from her grandmother for this is not the first time something like this has happened.

I would like to know if you were in this situation and your MIL knowing that you unfriended her, used your dd or ds to get to you, would you have said something to her and kept quiet. All I did was ask her not to use our dd like that again. Was I so wrong?

 

[admonsta]

Okay, this is my random thinking on this matter:

• Your husband should probably have thought of another way to get her attention besides unfriending her - he has given her more ammunition rather than showing her he’s hurt.
• Copying the email to relatives is annoying for them - my uncle does it, and although I agree with him, it’s a little uncomfortable to watch two relatives duelling.
• I think that silence is probably (maybe) the best option in this case, because there’s very little you could say that can help.
• Talk to your daughter, do nothing to ruin her relationship with her grandmother, don’t use her as a tool in your quarrel, but talk about what’s going on. I assume your DD is 13 or older because that’s the minimum age for a facebook account. She’s old enough to realise that adults behave badly. Use this as a learning experience for her, and show her that even though she’s in the middle of it, she doesn’t need to do anything about it, and she doesn’t need to choose between her dad and her grandmother, unless a major line gets crossed.
• A lot of this depends on the detail in this situation, but you’re not winning anything at the moment, I suggest you rethink your approach, because believe me, you can’t change HER approach.

 

[EasterJoy]

My thinking is that Facebook is the work of the devil. It gives so many opportunities for foolishness and causes so many hurt feelings.

In your situation, I’d encourage you to encourage your daughter to talk to you about how she’s taking this, so you can reassure her. Otherwise, you and she can do all the ignoring of the situation that you can gracefully do together. There are times when rushing in is what you want to do and staying out is what you need to do, and this is one of them. The farther one can stay out of public feuds, especially cyber-broadcast feuds and feuds between relatives, the better. The closer the relatives, the more you don’t want to be in the middle. I don’t think all the wonders of the future will ever change that.

Don’t beat yourself up about what is done. You did the best you knew at the time, you acted with no malice towards anyone, but having tried that, I think we know better than to think you can interfere for good. No further good deeds on your part or on your daughter’s part will go unpunished. Take a step back and let the parties to this feud work it out on their own, or not, as they see fit. They are grown-ups; they can accept the consequences they are choosing.

 

[chaela_may]

something very similar happened to me recently. my mil harassed us, not only on facebook, but via email and phone and even threatened to make a scene at church. she started posting on my wall and i think that arguments are best kept private. i deleted the post, but i couldn’t do anything to prevent her from posting more of them. there’s no mechanism on facebook for keeping friends from posting on your wall, so the only way to prevent further posts was to unfriend her. i did it with every intention of friending her again when she had cooled off. sure enough, as soon as she realized that i’d unfriended her, she posted on her own wall about how mean i was and made a blatant attempt to get people to side with her against me. most of them did. then, after she apologized (in private, where all these people who sided against me wouldn’t hear of it) and i refriended her, i saw that thread and commented that none of them knew the whole story (because she only told the parts that made her look victimized) and that they shouldn’t judge me. she deleted the thread and never apologized for the slander (you could call it libel). in fact, she justified what she did and yelled at me all over again for being mean to her.

i agree with easterjoy, to an extent. although facebook is a wonderful way to keep in touch with loved ones, it is also a tool that can be used against you. however, people are just capable of being mean through any channel of communication.

i just do my best to keep things private, for her sake. in my particular situation (i don’t know if this will work for you), i just do my best to move on and forget about the things that she’s done to me because experience has taught me that she can’t be reasoned with. i do this because i want our children to have the best possible relationship with her and because i want to foster the relationship between her and my husband. it means an awful lot of apologizing for things that you didn’t do and an awful lot of keeping your mouth shut and not even attempting rational discussions, but it has worked better than trying to stand up for myself. i just pity her. she’s a lonely person and i really think that she lacks the emotional control and empathy to relate well with certain people. i see it as a disability because she’s hurting herself more than she’s hurting me and don’t mind the sacrifices that i make for her.

 

[agnes_therese]

The last sentence of your first paragraph says that you may cut off the relationship with your MIL because of what the cousin said. That wouldn’t be right. This is not between you/your husband/your daughter and the cousin, the disagreement is with your MIL. Since she hasn’t responded, I would just leave it there and wait to see what happens. Just because she brings others into it doesn’t mean that you should.

 

[1ke]

my opinion is that this entire thing is junior high. Fighting by facebook and sending emails to relatives. All of that is childish, frankly.

You are adults. You talk to people face to face or on the phone.

 

[maryjk]

my opinion is that this entire thing is junior high. Fighting by facebook and sending emails to relatives. All of that is childish, frankly.

You are adults. You talk to people face to face or on the phone.

If you are a grown up and have a problem, you deal with it like a grown up.

 

[Kelfa28]

my opinion is that this entire thing is junior high. Fighting by facebook and sending emails to relatives. All of that is childish, frankly.

You are adults. You talk to people face to face or on the phone.

seconded

Seriously…this is exactly why my husband and I don’t have Facebook. It amazes me how easily grown adults can erase 30 some-odd years of adulthood and end up in high school all over again because of one awful website.

Facebook at the very least is seriously annoying and at it’s worst, brings out evil in people that would never have been imagined before.

Dump Facebook…no excuses and talk to people/family the way they should be spoken to. Also, explain at the next family gathering that you are not on Facebook because of how childish it can be.

 

[EasterJoy]

seconded

Seriously…this is exactly why my husband and I don’t have Facebook. It amazes me how easily grown adults can erase 30 some-odd years of adulthood and end up in high school all over again because of one awful website.

Facebook at the very least is seriously annoying and at it’s worst, brings out evil in people that would never have been imagined before.

Dump Facebook…no excuses and talk to people/family the way they should be spoken to. Also, explain at the next family gathering that you are not on Facebook because of how childish it can be.

Maybe just say you’ve quit Facebook, and leave it at that: “oh, we just quit. I don’t need to give you the whole run-down; the pros didn’t outweight the cons, that’s all”.

Giving a blanket condemnation of Facebook as an entirely sorry enterprise may be just in your case, but I’d argue that it is not prudent. At some point you have to accept what kind of family you have, and just live accordingly. In my experience, the fewer dramatic announcements you make about that, the better. Wars with people you hope to keep as allies are best conducted with absolute discretion. Besides, if you get lucky, they may even make their own decisions about you without any dramatic announcements aimed at* you*! (We should all be so lucky, but one can always dream. )

 

[Kelfa28]

Maybe just say you’ve quit Facebook, and leave it at that: “oh, we just quit. I don’t need to give you the whole run-down; the pros didn’t outweight the cons, that’s all”.

Giving a blanket condemnation of Facebook as an entirely sorry enterprise may be just in your case, but I’d argue that it is not prudent. At some point you have to accept what kind of family you have, and just live accordingly. In my experience, the fewer dramatic announcements you make about that, the better. Wars with people you hope to keep as allies are best conducted with absolute discretion. Besides, if you get lucky, they may even make their own decisions about you without any dramatic announcements aimed at* you*! (We should all be so lucky, but one can always dream. )

True…but I tend to be a blunt person. So, I tend to speak my mind regardless. My family is well aware of this anyway.

Yeah, this tactic isn’t prudent or recommended for everyone.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

Oh gee. I think it is perfectly appropriate to ask her to leave your children out of it. And there would be nothing wrong with explaining that by badmouthing him on your dd’s news feed, you may be forced to unfriend her, just to protect her from being stuck in the middle. It’s also appropriate to just block her from the news feed without telling her. After all, my experience with facebook is that it merely accentuates personalities, so I’m guessing that she probably has some boundary problems in real life as well, and what is one little admonishment really going to do. Not to say you shouldn’t call her out on it, but that either is acceptable.

I do believe though, that it wasn’t right (if I’ve read your post correctly), to send an email to her that was copied to other family members. That’s pretty much doing the same thing. If she wants to forward everything to other people, that’s her problem, but I would stay above that level myself.

One other more immediate option, which certainly wouldn’t have made peace, but might have created some social pressure to stop airing grievances inappropriately, would’ve been to comment on the post from your dd’s account: “Yikes! That’s quite a thing for a girl to read about her dad from her Grandma. Maybe this could be discussed in private instead?” or “__'s Mom here - probably not nicest thing to badmouth her father, since she is your FB friend too.” Like I said, this is a bit of a nuclear option, because it will probably cause even stronger emotions, but in some situations, calling out behavior immediately, even if it causes embarrassment, is the best way to stop it.

 

[EasterJoy]

True…but I tend to be a blunt person. So, I tend to speak my mind regardless. My family is well aware of this anyway.

Yeah, this tactic isn’t prudent or recommended for everyone.

‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.’

–from Death of the Hired Man, Robert Frost

 

[nana3]

Oh gee. I think it is perfectly appropriate to ask her to leave your children out of it. And there would be nothing wrong with explaining that by badmouthing him on your dd’s news feed, you may be forced to unfriend her, just to protect her from being stuck in the middle. It’s also appropriate to just block her from the news feed without telling her. After all, my experience with facebook is that it merely accentuates personalities, so I’m guessing that she probably has some boundary problems in real life as well, and what is one little admonishment really going to do. Not to say you shouldn’t call her out on it, but that either is acceptable.

I do believe though, that it wasn’t right (if I’ve read your post correctly), to send an email to her that was copied to other family members. That’s pretty much doing the same thing. If she wants to forward everything to other people, that’s her problem, but I would stay above that level myself.

One other more immediate option, which certainly wouldn’t have made peace, but might have created some social pressure to stop airing grievances inappropriately, would’ve been to comment on the post from your dd’s account: “Yikes! That’s quite a thing for a girl to read about her dad from her Grandma. Maybe this could be discussed in private instead?” or “__'s Mom here - probably not nicest thing to badmouth her father, since she is your FB friend too.” Like I said, this is a bit of a nuclear option, because it will probably cause even stronger emotions, but in some situations, calling out behavior immediately, even if it causes embarrassment, is the best way to stop it.

I don’t remember if I included it or not in my first post, but we did try talking to her about this whole matter, or my husband did since she was his mother and she just does what she always does and that is plays the victim and said we were the ones that unfriended her and our dd should know what he did wrong. It is interesting though that she did respond to my email and in it she denies that the post was about my dh and is now saying it is about her other son. I heard her on the phone with my dh and she admits it was about my dh and how he unfriended her and she was angry and all her friends were siding with her and she looked like the poor victim and how my dh was not following the Commandment of God to honor his mother.

Thank you for supporting me about my decision in defending my dd. The only reason I did send a copy to my MIL"s sister and my dh’s cousin is because they commented so negatively on FB about the situation and wanted them to know as well that putting things that should be talked about in private should not be put on FB. Mind you I will agree that this whole thing, except the fact my MIL used our dd using FB to get to her son, is all childish, but that is my dh’s family and my dh at times. His brother and himself wanted to post a response on FB because my dh’s brother thought it was about him. I told him not to go down to their level of immaturity and if they wanted to to call their mother, but both said the same thing and this is why I chose to email and not talk in person or over the phone, they said she is overpowering and does not allow you to talk. She is right and you are wrong and she yells like a child and won’t let you get two words in and when you do, she hangs up on you. So please don’t judge me, for those who say I should have called or talked face to face, when I felt I had to email her. No matter what I said to this woman, she was going to misunderstand it anyway. I already knew that. She is sick. I believe she has bipolar or some other personality disorder and so does her sister, but I won’t tell her this. I did talk to both of her ex-husbands and both said she will put all the blame on others and will never give any apologies. This is who she is. She is toxic for our marriage.
By the way, we have tried in the past to talk to her face to face as well on issues she does not want to talk about and she will just walk away and get into her car.

 

[nana3]

Unfortunately, I have tried to reason with my MIL and she again said things I did not say. I said that her son loves her more than she will ever know and she understood that I said she does not love her son and emailed me a nasty email. I received another nasty and unnecessary email from my dh’s uncle that had the most hurtful words for he admires him and his aunt so much. He use to talk hours with them on the phone for they live out of State.

The uncle emailed us and attacked my husband’s integrity. Not necessary. He attacked our parenting which had nothing to do with anything we were discussing. It came up because they said we are harming our dd in homeschooling her and she needs to go to public school. He even attacked our dd and how horribly she behaves because they heard her yell back at her dad when she was 7 years old and she was having a tantrum. He even attacked the pope at the very end which I don’t know why. I don’t know why he made any statement against the pope or about the Pope. The most hurtful thing he wrote was about my husband’s disabilities. My dh and I have chronic pain and live in pain daily. We are both on disability pension. My dh would rather work than have the pain he has. It has caused him depression and he has gained so much weight over the years. No one understands his pain just I no one can understand mine. This uncle wrote in his email that his nephew is making things irrational because he is not employed and useless to society. I can’t possibly tell you what that statement did to him. He can’t work, but he offers so much of his time to the Church. He is also involved in politics and going far in that area as well and he does it all in pain. To call a disabled person “useless to society” just did it for me and I felt that they did not need to be part of our life. When I tried to explain this to his mother, she misunderstood what I said and accused me of saying I accused her of not loving her son. By now, listening to both of these people, I just had it and told my husband that they were all toxic people. I told him that his mother complained how he lived with her and was useless for years and ate her food without paying for it. That really hurt him for he was not working but a student. She was even jealous of the woman my dh calls his second mother who died because he went to her funeral. I could not believe it all, it is not normal. I don’t want my dd to be thinking that this is all normal thinking. She heard her grandma’s jealousy and even thought it was weird. I tried to explain but I am having to explain a lot lately.

I am tired of it all. I have talked to a priest and he feels that it is best to cut off all relationship with my MIL and her family. There is only one cousin that will now speak to my dh, or at least we hope so, we have yet to hear from her, but she has not unfriended us as the others have on FB.

Please pray for us all. I hope this is all over and we can more on now. I told my MIL to be happy and just enjoy her life with her boyfriend and her adopted granddaughter/daughter. God help that little girl. Oh yes, the uncle said unkind things about her too, she is “not normal” which she is, but to say it like that is unkind, but mentally challenge is better.

I am sorry that I may not have handled this the way some of you may have, but I did it the best I knew how with who I was dealing with. I would never have a chance speaking to my MIL in person. I am shy and she would just tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about like she did once before.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

Nana3, I just wanted to let you know I didn’t mean that you shouldn’t have emailed her. I just wouldn’t have sent a copy to the family. I understand what your intent was - honest mistake, in my opinion.

It makes sense that you emailed your mil. Sometimes writing really is the better way to do it. But it sounds like she is being dishonest - you can’t really get anywhere with that. And the other communications sound pretty un-reasoned. So reason is not going to work. Which means they are not going to change with reasoned arguments, but with changes of heart - that is not something you can do.

In these situations, it is usually best to just decide not to argue. Sometimes that requires reducing the conversations to more shallow topics, and other times it requires reducing or ending contact. If you trust your priest, follow his advice. I’ll say a prayer for your family.

 

[agnes_therese]

I have talked to a priest and he feels that it is best to cut off all relationship with my MIL and her family.

That is the best advice when someone in the family is toxic to others. No matter how much damage they’ve caused, it’s not easy – you’ll probably feel badly about cutting them off because they are family, and others will criticize you for it. But, speaking from experience, it is still the best course.

 

[nana3]

HI everyone and if anyone is going to be critical please don’t today. I am very sad. I feel bad for my dh and I feel bad myself of this whole mess. I remembered what the priest said when I read what someone posted after my recent reply, sorry I don’t remember now who, that “you can’t reason with unreasonable people.” This is my dh’s family. This was my dh when I married him. Our marriage has not been easy and still isn’t. We have to work hard to keep it going and happy. I know he fights the demons of his past. Well, he was fine last night with not communication with his mother or anyone on his side of his family. He read all my emails and said that I did not say anything offensive, but only defended him and ourselves, our parenting and etc to an extent because I didn’t feel I needed to defend myself totally to unreasonable people. He was actually okay with it all. He was releaved it was over, than the phone rings and it was one of his cousins, the only one speaking to him but after today maybe not even her. I could hear her yell at him on the phone. I was in the kitchen and my dh was in the family room. I could hear what she was saying. She said so many negative things about me. I waited to see if my dh would defend me on what I did and all he said was, “I know.” She told him that he needed to make amends with his mother because she is calling her parents up and they are crying and they are sick and don’t need this stress. I was so angry when he got off the phone for she only wanted him to make up with his mom for selfish reasons. She even cried on the phone saying if she lost one of her parents she would not know what she would do. As if I myself killed her parents. The person causing them stress and she admitted it several times on the phone was my dh’s mother and that is why she begged him to make up with her. I talked to this same cousin just three weeks ago and she told me that my dh may have to cut his mother out of his life forever since they were not agreeing on anything. I told her at that time that would mean that her parents would get mad at my dh for doing so and she said, well if it has to be it has to be. So now that she sees and hears how upset they are, she is scared they will die of a heart attack and wants my dh to fix it. They all hate me and they were the ones to write the most hurtful and hateful words. I showed my emails to some people that are not related to our families just to see if I might have been wrong in responsing for I will agree I was angry in one of them, and they said no that for what was written about my family, I responded appropriately. My dh did realize how upset I was this morning because he just sat there and took all of what his cousin said and never once defended me, so he cried and apologized to me. He said this is all hurting him and I can understand all that. I know I would be hurt too. He said his family is so messed up. He has a sense of humor that I love in him and he said, “Now you know why I am so messed up.” and smiled. We just held each other for some time. He said I came first before his wacky family and our daughter. He did not want to lose me. He is going to stay in contact with his mother but he said it would be a shallow relationship. She had made all this worse by complaining to everyone about things that should have stayed between her and her son.

I believe the drama is finally over, but I am sad over it all and so is my dh. Our dd is doing well by it all. She is upset that her daddy’s family is not “being nice.” She doesn’t know all the details. Please pray for us, thanks. Thanks for listening. God Bless you all.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

Sometimes you have to grieve the loss of a relationship. Even though no one has died, and even though you might still have contact, the relationship is not what you had hoped it would be. That is a loss, and can take time to come to terms with. :hug1:

 

[Mayita30]

Nana

I feel sorry for what you are going through right now. Please do avoid any form of communication with your husband’s family including the cousin. You are not obliged to communicate with them. That is your husband’s job. Your priority is your daughter and your husband.

 

[chaela_may]

It makes sense that you emailed your mil. Sometimes writing really is the better way to do it. But it sounds like she is being dishonest - you can’t really get anywhere with that. And the other communications sound pretty un-reasoned. So reason is not going to work. Which means they are not going to change with reasoned arguments, but with changes of heart - that is not something you can do.

yes, this is what i was saying. i rushed in saying what i said and i probably said too much, but the message is the same. there are some battles not worth fighting. just say that you’re sorry and move on. don’t expect an apology in return. most importantly: pray for her.