My husband and I have been married for five years. He has two children from a previous marriage and I have two children from a previous marriage. We have the normal sibling rivalry and we manage to get through that ok. My
problem is my mother in law. She can not seem to let my husband and I make the decisions about his two children. She has even got to the point of trying to tell us how to treat my two sons.
My husband and I have in the past five years tried to treat the children the same. We have tried to be a family and do away with the step parent syndrome. We fight all the time because I get mad at my husband for not standing up to his
mother and telling her that the kids are OURS and not hers. She has done everything in her power to turn his kids against me, and lately has tried to turn my husband against me.
An incident took place just recently that I will tell you about and then you can maybe figure this one out. My husbands 14 year old daughter did something that was not appropriate. I pointed it out to my husband and he disciplined her for it. His mother found out about it and has since then talked bad about me, accused me of things that I have not done,
and is trying to alienate my husband from me. He feels torn between his mother and me (which is not fair to him). His mother told him that I had no business telling him what I did and that it was none of my business anyway.
He and I both correct each others children. She doesn't see anything wrong with him correcting mine, but she goes balistic when I correct his. I was raised to believe that a parent shows their love by correcting their child when they do wrong. My mother in law seems to think that if I correct something that my husbands children do wrong, I am over stepping my boundaries.
Please help. I don't care if my mother in law doesn't like me. I married her son, not her. I do care that she is trying to come between my husband and me. I love my husband and my two step children and his mother interfering is splitting us right down the middle. She has in the past talked to his two children and told them that I was a bad mother and that I didn't love them.
I have read about triangulation and the situation fits us, I just need to know what to do with it. I am trying to put a stop to it before it gets so far out of hand that my husband and I can no longer live together. I don't want my husband
to feel like he has to choose between his mother and I. I just need to find a way to try to get her to stop interfering without my husband being caught up in the middle.
Thank You Very Much!!
Desperate
There are some truths you have to face before you decide what to do about them. In the first place, since, as you tell me, you fight all the time because you get mad at your husband for not standing up to his mother, that indicates that your marriage has gone about as far as it can go without splitting up.
Fighting all the time is not a good marriage. Also, you say that you married the man, not his mother. Well, I'm sorry you had to find out about this so late, but when you marry a man you DO marry his whole family, and that includes his
mother. The time to decide if you can live with her is before the ceremony, not five years later.
And she goes ballistic! That's sick. Perhaps she is really not well and a doctor could help. When a grown woman regularly loses her temper it could indicate some serious dysfunction. Ask her doctor.
Now, before you get mad at me for pointing these things out, consider another little fact. You feel your husband must choose between you and his mother. Isn't that expecting an awful lot of him? She is interfering in your family life and that's what should be changed. He doesn't have to make a choice. If you and she could be friends and play on the same team, everything would be dandy.
All he needs to do is sit down with his mother and explain that he wants to stay with you, that he is building a family of his own which includes you and your sons, and that she must help him instead of trying to spoil things.
She will say she is only trying to help him because he has married a woman who does everything wrong. That's when your husband must tell her that right or wrong, he has decided to do things your way, not hers.
Meanwhile, she will continue to say bad things about you wherever she goes and you just have to put up with that. Nobody will pay any attention to her, that is to say nobody that matters. If there are some of her close friends who want to play along with her and help her feel good by putting you down, so be it. The world is full of people like that.
Your own friends and the people who are important to you will know that she is just a jealous woman trying to get even with the "girl" who stole her son. Maybe she prefers his first wife - but that's nothing to do with you.
If you can't persuade your husband to speak to his mother about this matter that threatens to split up your marriage, then you will have to do it yourself. When you and she are alone, take a deep breath and just tell her right out that you find it impossible to do a good job with your family when she interferes. Tell her you are not perfect but that there can only be one mother in that family, and it is you. Ask her to talk over family matters with you privately whenever she wants to but not to let them become matters of general discussion.
Tell her that, because of her, you and your husband have been having arguments and you don't think it's fair to him to have to be in the middle like that. Tell her you are trying to do your best, that you dearly love all the children and they love you and that trying to sway them against you could spoil the entire family relationship.
Tell her you want things to work out and you are trying in every way you can to make her son happy, and that her interference is making him very unhappy, that the stress could be bad for his health, and that if the marriage collapses it will be entirely her fault.
I don't imagine you'll get up the nerve to tell her all that, but if you even get half way there it will be better than
letting it simmer and doing nothing.
Writing to me was a huge step in the right direction. Now, speak to your husband about it. And if he can't help, then either do it yourself or get up and leave.
The only possible alternative would be for you to stop fighting against her and let her make the decisions about the children. Do whatever she wants you to do, leave everything up to her judgment, ask her advice when you wonder if she might disapprove, and then get yourself some outside interests to take up your energies, while she is running your family.
I don't like that last idea at all, but lots of people would find it easier than trying to swim upstream all the time. Giving
in isn't always the worst way to go. At least you would not have to leave the marriage, just let her take it over. Is there a far out possibility that her judgment is better than yours? I guess nobody but you could decide that.
Staying in a situation where you are fighting all the time is not good for anyone. You could stay and stop fighting, or you could fight it out until you win. There are seven people involved here. If your family is always in turmoil, nobody
benefits and everyone suffers.
Do what you must to get things onto an even keel.
All the best,
GG
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