I really want to explore something with the help of the very wise posters here. I don't post much and much of what I do post is pretty negative stuff about my marriage. I read here constantly and it has helped me and my marriage so much (even if I don't post the triumphant stuff). I also have read and read the books and my H and I have done a chunk of the home study course; we will start back up in the fall. In the mean-time we do get our 15+ hours of UA time and do a pretty good job of using POJA etc. There has been no infidelity.

I'll dive right in and put the background and long-winded explanations at the end for those who would rather skip them

My MIL is controlling, bullying and needs an enormous amount of admiration. Her way is the right way and she is disrespectful of people who do or think differently than she does. She disrespects me and our parenting decisions constantly. This is done through dismissive comments, eye-rolling etc. She is constantly pointing out things she thinks are unsafe (making me feel like I am not a good and cautious wife and mom, almost without exception my choices are NOT unsafe). She believes that only her nuclear family are worthy and puts down and treats poorly my Husband's older half-brothers as well as my family. We had been doing holidays and birthdays with my family and DH's family together but after the last we will no longer be doing that. She is openly hostile, mean and vicious toward my mom and bad mouths my mom TO ME constantly. She complains to my H that I am nicer to my mom than I am to her, that I compliment my mom more and spend more time with my mom etc. She complains to my husband if my friends seem closer to my mom than they are to her (they are). She makes snide comments about my friends etc. Now, I have to emphasize that this is how she operates generally. It is not reserved for me and my friends and family. She is passive aggressive and controlling. ILs are extremely wealthy. Our family decided to rent a vacation home for the summer and they rented one within walking distance. They have made it clear that we have "no choice" and they will always live close to us. We bought a fixer upper 25 minutes away from our current home and within 10 days they had an offer on a house less than a mile away. This bummed me out because I would have enjoyed thinking and dreaming about our new neighborhood etc. with my husband for a little while before having to talk to my MIL about OUR new neighborhood. The list really does go on. She is warm, generous, outgoing and funny. People that don't know her very well think she is WONDERFUL!

What I have done and want to do to improve the situations:
-We will no longer do holidays and birthdays with both families. My DH told her this after a disastrous Mother's Day this past May when I announced my pregnancy and she was overtly rude and mean to my mom.
-I finally was able to POJA with DH that my sister could baby sit our son. Previously he was only comfortable with my mom, his mom or his mom's assistant babysitting and since MIL makes snide, aggressive, disrespectful or controlling comments almost every time I see her having my sister babysit for more of our UA time has been a huge improvement!
-MIL's assistant no longer babysits for us (this was fraught with problems including MIL telling her to go against my wishes and using her for info etc.)
-I have been better about letting my H know when I am not enthusiastic about hanging out with ILs while not complaining about them or being negative about them and it has been working well!

*I really need help with talking to her about her mean, hurtful and controlling comments as they come up and working through conversations about the new way of doing holidays*

It is going to come up that I do not want to be with her and my mom in the same room as much as humanly possible. Even when she is polite to my mom she is nitpicking and will criticize everything my mom does and she will express these thoughts to me or my husband so I always know how she feels. It causes me enormous stress and I want to be able to calmly explain that I can't handle the dynamic. How do I do that? It's the conversations that I am struggling to figure out.

What EXACTLY do I say when she makes a little snide comment or disrespects my family or my parenting ideas or me?
I am losing sleep over this!!

And yes, I want exact words. Words matter. Saying "how would you feel about blahblahblah" during POJA is like magic. I need more tried-and-true magic phrases in my life...

She is defensive and vicious and will not take a "that hurts my feelings" or "please don't say negative things about my mom" without lashing back in a big way. It has been MY desire to avoid this lashing out (conflict avoidance!!) that has caused much of the mess we are in today. I am responsible for how far this has gone and how damaged our relationship is. Instead of calmly saying something I say nothing but withhold the love, friendship, affection and admiration she so desperately wants from me. I "get her back" with comments of my own etc. I have no friends, zero, that make snide or passive aggressive comments. I am not quick-witted and I have trouble doing anything in the moment but I feel hurt and stew about it later. The few times I have stood up to her effectively have been INSANE and resulted in her saying horrible brutal things to me and when I calmly stand my ground and leave/go home her pretty much saying "I don't know why I said that" It hasn't made things better and I know that MIL genuinely feels like she walks on eggshells around me. I respond to only a fraction of her comments and that is still more than anyone else stands up to her...she often has NO IDEA what went wrong when I avoid her and distance myself. At the very least I would like to give her the opportunity to understand. I do know she may not be capable or willing to understand...but my conflict avoidance is not entirely fair to her either.

Any words of wisdom on how to deal with a dynamic like this?


Why I am posting about this here:
The biggest thing I have learned reading here constantly and reading the often broken-record responses from the vets here is: I can only control myself. I can control my emotions, I can draw boundaries, I can choose not to fight, I can be honest about what bothers me and I can be proactive about getting my needs met etc. My relationship with my MIL does have an enormous effect on my marriage but is not strictly a Marriage 101 issue.

The way I understand it is: in a true MB marriage I could decide, for no good reason, that I wanted to sever ties with my MIL and my husband (if he wants to have a successful marriage) would need to accept and support that. We could also POJA our level of involvement with his parents etc. Well, I feel decently good about how we are dealing with MIL within our marriage. Not great, but good. I think that if I can do a better job of dealing with MIL our POJA etc. will improve dramatically.

I am going to attempt to dramatically change the way I deal with MIL and I would love your help, if you are willing. For the last 10 years she has caused me great distress and pain. I have spoken to a therapist about it and confided in trusted friends who are willing and able to tell me when I am in the wrong. But no one can give me advice on how to deal with her other than avoid her. My Dear Husband has no trouble telling my what I do wrong in my relationship with MIL. It is one of the only things he criticizes me for. To his credit, I sometimes behave badly in my relationship with MIL, which is very out of character for me. The second someone is aggressive or passive aggressive with me or bullies me etc. I end or limit my contact with them. I do not thrive on drama. That just isn't as easy with family. My father is mentally ill and I maintain my relationship with him by having clear and enforced boundaries. Other than that I don't have much practice dealing with very difficult people. I have had a tough time in my marriage, but my H isn't difficult, we just did not know at all how to have a good marriage!

The reasons I want to attempt to have a better relationship with my MIL are:
-she supports our marriage and has an MB marriage
-she desperately wants to have a closer relationship with me
-my DH works closely with his father in the family business
-DH's family is unusually close, it is not a typical family dynamic (can explain more later)
-I want to use some of what I learned here to attempt to improve my relationship with MIL
-I have behaved badly and if I have to tell my husband I want to sever ties with his family I want to do it from a place of having done all I could and I actually gave his mom a chance and guidance as to how treat me well. (a la, stating needs and working on a marriage before calling it quits or having an affair)
-I need to hone all the skills I need to have a good marriage. I find that I control my anger with my H best if I control it everywhere, always. I do better at not avoiding conflict with my H if I get into the habit of not avoiding conflict, etc.

Here are some clips on in-laws. Tell us what you think.
Radio clip on in-laws
Radio clip on in-laws

This is how it has worked for me...

I'm a broken record with phrases like, "if you are going to speak to me disrespectfully, I would like you to leave." Or "I would appreciate it if you didn't say.... I find it offensive."

I have the same type of mother in law. I have found the only way to deal with her is drive by honesty in a non emotional tone. I just state it as a matter of fact, I do not argue with her, and just say how you feel and move on.

The first few times I started doing this, I must have said it a hundred times.

I am not sure why you would WANT to ever be around her? I sure wouldn't! The solution is to keep her away. Stay away from her. She is a toxic, obnoxious B who doesn't deserve your company. I would accept that you can't change a grown woman and start from that premise. It is dysfunctional to imagine that if you are just more __fill in the blank__ that she will behave like a normal person.

Lol @ Melody. I guess I should have added that at one point I was so irritated at my mother in law that I quit answering her phone calls for a couple months and told my wife that if she continued to act the way she did, and I didn't want her around the house and that I would leave if she did come over.

That is what got my MIL to change more than anything.

I didn't speak to my FIL for a couple of years after I got fed up with his BS. I still don't speak to him much, thank goodness. And have not physically seen him in three or four years.

I love it!

With you MIL's snide comments about your mother, I would say, "Wow, she never says such vile things about you! I highly doubt she even thinks about you at all, even. Huh, funny the things we focus on. Would you like a cookie?" <<only if you insist on seeing her.

You could also take out a restraining order if she insists that you have no choice but to have her nearby. She would have to stay outside of 500ft!

Is this more about her wealth and your H's future inheritance than anything else?

I totally missed the part about her talking about your mother. I'm sorry but I wouldn't stand for that. I would say something there and then. I remember my MIL said something about me to my mom that my mom didn't care for and my mom told her right there exactly how she felt about people bad mouthing me.

Have you POJA'd this with your H?

This is the part that concerns me the most. This is very disrespectful for him to do to you, and your MIL is driving this wedge between you and your husband.

If you are going to have a relationship with this woman, SHE must change. I would write her a letter, explaining what she has done that is offensive, and what she will need to change in order to have a relationship with you. If she will not change how she treats you, there is no hope of a relationship.

Dr. Harley told me and markos that they treat their daughter-in-law and son-in-law as royalty. You should expect to be treated no less than that.

I will try to answer all your questions
I listened to the radio clips. They were somewhat relevant but they dealt mostly with POJA and I have a pretty clear understanding of that. H and I have seen a great improvement in our ability to POJA this. I will try to delve into the issues we have as I answer the other questions.

-My H was home schooled and his mom has always been this way. For him it is just normal and manageable. He said that until he met me he thought that he and his family were perfect. That is how he was raised. He and his brother, father and mother are perfect and all others are deeply flawed, including his mom's family and his father's other sons. Since he was home schooled and lived in a really insular environment his mom had a big influence on him. He doesn't think he and his family are perfect anymore and it has been a blow that he has never recovered from. He used to be a really happy person and now he is not according to him.

-I have gone periods of time when I did not take her phone calls or see her. We did a sort of plan B over a year ago after I felt she had egregiously undermined and went against our parenting wishes. It didn't really change all her other behaviors much, but she is scared of pissing me off...

-You can't take out restraining orders just because people move close to you, can you? Also, My H is resigned and fine with his parents moving close all the time. It is all he has ever known and feels that it is "just the way it is" Also he works at his parents house.

-My FIl is self-made and has his own business. He is getting older and my husband feels he is the only person who can help guide the family business or oversee someone else doing it. The main business was sold a few years ago so the current business is real estate and investments. My husband went back to school to get an advanced degree so that he would be qualified to do the job. He was one of the only students to receive a scholarship and he graduated in the top 10 percent of his class. He is highly qualified and employable....

-DH has the point of view that while he could get another job in his field it would not be conducive to an MB marriage. He would be working 60-70 hours a week etc. instead of the current 40-50 he works now. He has the point of view that his parents living close allows him to have no commute which would cut into our family and UA time as well.

-ILs provide a chunk of our UA time childcare. They are also eager and willing to babysit for several days which is difficult to arrange.

SOO... when we POJA this stuff his points are pretty convincing and I agree that staying the course would be the best thing for our marriage. That is why I want to try to improve the situation with MIL. If I do it correctly and she is still a huge problem I will no longer be enthusiastic about our current situation. I think her bad behavior will be even clearer to my H and he will be able to help me stand up to her. (He already tries, but he sees many situations where it seems like she and I are in conflict rather than it being just her being offensive, if that makes sense)

-We do not have an inheritance hanging over our head. DH's oldest half-brother (or second-class brothers as MIL refers to them) is drug addicted and has been in prison over a decade and he will still see some inheritance. FIL does not see inheritance as a prize for being good. DH is educated and employable and does not depend on his inheritance. BUT he is not enthusiastic on living within his means if he "doesn't have to" I would often rather live in a shack that ever have to see MIL again, but again, that has to be POJAd.

-My H did speak to his MIL after Mother's Day and took her to task for talking about my mom. I am pretty sure she will keep negative thoughts to herself from now on, but I still don't want my mom exposed to her and I don't want to have to worry that MIL is judging my mom if we are all together.

-I have used something along the lines of what CWMI said but that adds fuel to the fire because MIL is so sensitive that I think my mom is better than her (she is right, I do!!) I want to try "please don't say negative things about my family" like a broken record if she does it again.

This is what I am anxious about:

MIL says something snide or hurtful, so I respond: "That was disrespectful"
She says: "you are always disrespectful"
I plan to say: "I would be willing to discuss that with you but I don't want to talk to you when you are being disrespectful"
MIL then continues to rant, so I remove myself from the situation. What words do I use when I decide to leave?

Am I on the right track? What if my H does not enthusiastically agree to my plan? Do I have the "right" to unilaterally decide how to handle this?

Have you read HNHN for parents?

Its got a great section on how to deal with inlaws! I have an abrasive SMIL who we have to often distance our selves from. We love her .. but we can only cope with her in small doses.

Here is some links to the in laws articles on this site.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5027_qa.html - THe mother in law letter 1

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5027b_qa.html - The Mother in Law letter 2

MNG

Prisca-
You make good points. One of the big problems is that my MIL thinks she treats me like royalty! Her snide comments and disrespect are second nature to her and I am not sure she even realizes every time she does it. The letters and such is what I have done before and it seems she thinks I am reacting to things that never happened or are just in my head. I feel like it may help to point out each and every time she does it in the moment. That way if I have to write another letter she will know exactly what I am talking about (even if she doesn't agree)

DH is genuinely bothered when I am unpleasant. I would like to eliminate my unpleasant behavior and see where it gets me both with DH and MIL. Once my unpleasant behavior is eliminated I can figure out where to go next with MIL and DH. I have lots of ideas about what DH "should" do! But I can only control myself, so I would like to try that first...

If your H can work from their home, can he telecommute from your home instead?

This was before I found MB, but my situation with my FIL was very toxic and I tried to get my H to remedy it because I didn't feel right getting in conflict with his family...I thought it was his job to deal with. So when he left a gun that he was told to lock in his car on my 2yo's daughter's shelf with her toys, I gingerly pointed it at him and told him to get it and himself out of my house before someone got killed. Lol. I know that's a bit more than you're dealing with, but I like the story.

CWMI-
H could absolutely do any number of things but IL will still live 3/4 of a mile from us; the new house is a done deal. I can still limit my time with them or sever ties if it comes to that...

There are other employees at the home office as well.