My husband's sister is a drama, sick, druggy. My MIL enables this behavior for fear of being alone. For years it's been crazy and our family relationship has been strained primarily because of the white trash that oozes from this family. I'd be embarrassed to tell anyone how awful it really is. SIL has no boundaries about how far and deep her knife can cut. She has hurt my husband so deep with her lies and drama, it can never be forgiven. MIL was given temporary custody of SIL's kids and one day MIL decided playing martyr was too hard, and decided to forgive her daughter. Mind you SIL is still doing drugs, prostitution but MIL just has decided to stick out her wallet and stick her head in the sand. We were devestated by her decisions not only for the small children who required her care, but for our son as well.
MIL and I had a huge disagreement about boundaries I set because of the decision to forgive her daughter. I told her that if she couldn't be a good grandmother to our son, make good decisions for herself, that in no way, shape or form would she be allowed to visit our son nor would he ever be allowed to visit her. She was enraged and cussed me and called me everything under the sun. Months passed and then she began harrassing my son and husband about his upcomming birthday party. She attempted to try and convince my husband to let her come to our son's very birthday party. I knew her intentions weren't heartfelt, and asked her to pls stay away.
She must have been preparing for months because she blasted me on every single thing I had ever told her in confidence. She used those things as a weapon to HURT me and it really did. My husband stopped talking to her after that. This only enraged her more.
The PROBLEM now is she won't leave our son alone. She text him, FB's him-constantly. Before you couldn't get her to pay attention to him at all. She runs me down to him in her messages and tells everyone in the extended family how I've destroyed her and her son's relationship. I've reported her to FB, my son ignores her text messages, but still she continues. My husband just wants to continue with the ignore and pretend they don't exist in hopes to make it all go away. I am really hurting and need some advice dealing with all this crazy.
She is mentally ill.
You either have to disown her (which is what my friend/Husband did with her MIL), or deal with it constantly.
Because, MIL will not change.
It is entrenched TOXIC behavior and even a Professional Therapist would take a LONG time to "fix" her, if it is even possible.
Or get a restraining order.
She sounds, dangerous, too. And abusive and toxic and mentally unfit.
Change phone numbers and block her on facebook.
If she comes to your home, call the police.
I would also call child protective services if there are children in her care, because clearly, there shouldnt be.
Good luck!
I'm sorry JT, I don't really see how whether your MIL enables your SIL is any of your damn business.
I also don't see how your MIL is now not worthy of a relationship with her Grandson because she enables your SIL.
All *I* see is YOUR need to control every member of your husband's family to your own satisfaction. You're causing a truckload of drama yourself, and yet YOU want support cuz YOU'RE hurting?
Perhaps there is more you haven't shared here, but WHY is it MIL can't come to bday party? You're punishing her? Weird.
Really, please update if I am missing something!
:(
In my opinion you are 100% wrong here. Just because your MIL is allowing her own daughter back into her life does not mean that she should not be able to see her grandson. Of course he shouldnt go over there if the SIL is there but there should be no reason why she cannot see him when she is not around-like coming over to your house. I would act the same way as her if I was kept from my son's child.
I want you to stop and think how you are going to feel when your own son does this to you....because there is a better than not chance that he will as he is learning this from you. Your karma will not be kind to you I have a feeling and you may just end up alone someday yourself. Furthermore----what would you do if YOUR son was into drugs. I really hope you would kick him out and refuse to see him like you are expecting your MIL to do to your SIL. I also hope that your answer is that you would NEVER speak to him again, just like you expect of MIL.
Bottom line is stop tearing your husband's family apart.
Simple...change your numbers and FB accounts. Defriend her and block her numbers....All done.
I can understand not allowing the child to visit her home, but I can see why she is so hurt that you won't even allow her to visit him at your home under your supervision. Is this how you would treat your own mother? or is it easier to write her off because she is only your mil? only your HUSBAND'S MOTHER? Would you yourself forgive your child and try to help them the best you could? Or would you write them off as you think your mil should your sil? Can you imagine how hard your hate is on your husband? These are his blood family. Yes, you need to protect your son, but I think you may need to look at this from his point of view and stop making your husband be in the middle between all the people he loves and try to work with everyone a little.
Get your son a new phone number and don't give it to MIL.
Isn't there a way you can block her from his phone?
She can't hurt you if you don't let her.
You know she's not mentally stable.
Never care what an idiot thinks or says.
http://www.ehow.com/how_###-###-####_stop-cell-phone-hara...
Why is it your business if MIL forgives SIL??? Thats for her to decide--not you. The only thing that you have business in is if your child's safety is compromised in any way by MIL or if she isn't safe to be around. Other than that, you can't control her and who she chooses to forgive and give money to. I am sorry she broke your confidences--that was completely unacceptable and she shouldn't have shared them. I would moving forward allow her to come to your kids bday party and choose not to share anything personal with her anymore. Good luck!
You could change his number, you could try blocking her, but she will just text him from another number. It would be easier just to change his number. If he blocks her on Facebook and sets his account to private, she should not be able to message him. If this continues, you could file a harrasment claim or get a no contact order on her pertaining to your son. Start keeping records of her communications just in case you end up needing to do this. I contacted a family attorney once about something similar with my mom, he suggested that we have him write and send a letter politely requesting that she stop contact and that her contact is unwanted. That is an option, if she continues after the letter, you can take legal action and get a no contact order. The court can even set it up where any communications, such as birthday cards, ect, have to go through them, and then can be sent to your son.
However, I would change your sons number and block her on Facebook, then continue to ignore her. She might get bored eventually and stop. My mother still bothers us, but its down to a few times a year, or she tries to have other family members tell us things for her. We just ignore, ignore, ignore. See how that goes first.
My mother is the same way. We blocked her number on BF's phone and facebook. I did keep her unblocked from my phone but that is it. I see her only when it is an accident and when I do I make it apparent she is not welcome around me or my children. If she tries... I call the cops.
Tell your son to block her and make his profile on facebook private. You can do nothing about what she says but you can do everything about what you do. If you ignore it, it will show that she is just a ranting psychotic.
There are people who would be shocked and some even, who might not believe you. Everything you have said makes me say oh yeah, i know this woman. My story includes a mil who kept most of her behavior under wraps (except her Rx habit and a bit of hoarding)til my fil died. Then all ____ broke out. We had no idea what it was or how to handle it. Since then we came to understand it is a mental illness. I am saying this so calm and collected but believe me it was bad. I went on high blood pressure med and we lots a lot of family from her lies.
Everyone here knows the drill now. Control issues + addictions (or
enabling) + bazaar behavior + smear campaigns = borderline personality disorder. look up BPDFamily.com. They are there for the families of people like this and give you tools and support to deal with this. you can't fix her. You can only limit the damage she does and you are already instinctively protecting yourself. Most people wind up with LC (low contact) or NC (no contact). Facebook is a BPD paradise. Take a deep breath and read up.
Block everything. You will be ok. I will be praying for you. It's kind of become my thing to inform and warn people. There are 9 symptoms and you can check them out. Never tell her. It won't work out. Check out the book "walking on eggshells". May God help you.
Stay off FB and don't read her texts. It's really very simple. Just act like she doesn't exist. She can only get to you because you are allowing her to. It's like you want to see what she's writing/texting because you want more fuel for your fire.
Either ignore her or continue to wallow in the hurt. It is COMPLETELY up to you!
JT, you haven't blocked her access to his FB account? You haven't blocked her from emailing him? Why not? That should have been the first thing to do after the harrassment started.
Your MIL is mentally ill. You and your husband should just accept that and stop worrying about the things she says and does. Since she has aired all your past confidences, there isn't anything left for her to use against you. If anyone faults you for cutting her out of your lives, too bad. If they ask you, tell them why. The worst thing you can do is stay quiet about the way she treats you and your son. People who bully depend on you being quiet about their bullying. (And they call it gossiping when you rat them out - that's more of their bullying, by the way!) Don't be quiet. Tell, tell, tell!
You are in the drivers seat here. If you can identify who tells her what your family plans and does, then stop inviting THEM to your family functions. Good grief - who runs off to the crazy woman who makes the family's lives miserable and tells her "Janey's party is next month!" so that she can start screaming to everyone who will listen that she isn't invited.
You and your husband are doing what every mean and nasty person wants - listening to her ridiculousness. No more reading her emails. Instead, block your email address from her so that anything she sends won't come through. Block her phone number. If she mails something, return it unopened. She knows that she can still get to your family using these other means since her son won't talk to her - plug up those other means.
She seriously has to be cut off so that there is space and time for her to think about the havoc she is wreaking. After a long absense from your lives, THEN if she asks another family member to talk to her son on her behalf and ask for another chance, then possibly what he could do is say that he will agree to ONE meeting. If that meeting ends up with her acting like a shrew, then that will be the only meeting. And let her know the terms of that meeting beforehand. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries.
The reason you are hurting so much is that you are letting her hurt you by giving her an avenue by which to do it. Cut off those avenues. Nasty people HATE being ignored. They poke and prod and fight and show their butts because you LET them. The FB and emails are so easy to stop - why haven't you done it? I'm really shocked at that. Don't be a martyr here, JT. Stand up for your family and just cut the ties, period.
Dawn
EDIT: After your SWH: I see now that your SIL is living with your MIL, and the additional backstory does help. I definitely wouldn't visit there. I would definitely cut the toxicity. If and only if you decide to have any visits, keep them in a neutral public location that you can leave immediately if you want to, or in your home so that you can kick MIL out and/or call the police if your SIL were to ever show up with her.
However, with that additional bit of details, block social media from all of them. Block their e-mails. Line block their phone numbers from all of your phone lines. Use caller ID. You can send one e-mail or text telling them not to contact you any more or else you'll consider it harassment. Then set up the blocks. If they continue with harassment and/or showing up at your house or wherever then you can document it all and file charges for harassment.
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Forgiveness is never a bad thing. I would hope that knowing your SIL's life is ruled by her addiction and that everything she does is The Addiction would mean you would be more forgiving. That's never to say "forget." Forgiveness doesn't wipe out the past. The problem is ignoring past and current behaviors and refusing to acknowledge boundaries.
Forgiveness is healing for the person who does the forgiving. When you forgive someone it doesn't wipe the slate clean. It doesn't mean you go back to Start and pretend nothing happened. It does mean that you let go of bad feelings in a concerted effort and in that effort you try to move forward. It also means that you can keep your guard up because... again... history matters because it's not forgotten.
If you've cut off contact with your MIL and refuse to allow her to see your son because she forgave your SIL, that's unfair to her. If she were to try to force you to spend time with the SIL and used deceit in order to accomplish that, or tried to get SIL to spend time with your children without you there, those would be gross betrayals. Your MIL has every right to be upset with you and your husband right now, the way you've presented this issue.
With your husband's upcoming birthday you should have planned to invite your MIL. Lay down ground rules that the SIL is not welcome and won't be allowed on the property, and if SIL does end up at your house you're prepared to call the police. You don't welcome drugs in your home or people that are impaired around your family. Leave it at that. Make sure that your MIL knows you'll be happy to have SIL back in your lives if she goes through and completes rehab and stays on the wagon.
If MIL makes bad choices, then don't let your son be babysat by her, but I don't understand why all visitation was cut off. I would never let my son be left with my mother, but I don't cut all contact. Not sure if you went too far out of frustration or reaction. Now if hubby feels the same way, that being around her at all is just too toxic, then you need to brainstorm on how to deal. Good luck!
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I'm so sorry that your son has been put in the middle of this. You don't say how hold he is but I'm going to guess a tween or teen.
1. Get Grandma's # blocked from your son's phone #. Other option is to request a new # for your son's phone.
As wrong as this may sound, it may take your son standing up to her and saying enough I don't want to hear it anymore, to get her to stop.
In August, you were moving away. That must have changed, since it would have solved all your problems.
I agree with Molly. Either have your son defriend her or block her on FB, ask to have your phone numbers changed. She is doing this because she can. Once you block her out, then there is no choice but to stop. It has to be a hard line though, and your husband has to be on board because if he softens and gives the new numbers out you are SOL.
It's simple. You don't. You don't feed into it. You don't acknowledge it. It sound like she needs to be cut off, officially. She and SIL are obviously very damaged people not capable of a normal, loving relationship. It's not "borderline personality disorder", which excuses the behavior, some people are just crappy, miserable, dysfunctional beings.
I can handle people messing with me, but when you eff with my kid & involve her in your toxicity, then we have a major problem. I think I would report her for harassment, at this point. Block her phone # from your son's phone, or better yet, change his phone #. Make the FB account undetectable, or get rid of it altogether. Become as invisible as possible.
As far as what she's told family, I wouldn't worry too much about that, I'm sure they all know she's bat sh!t crazy & pity the woman. People aren't stupid. And if they are, then now you know.
It sounds like you are giving her too much power. There is no happy ending, there is no normalcy. History is a good detector of the future. You have allowed these people to hurt you & your family for long enough. Now it's time to take control back & cut them off for good. If that means staying away from the entire family, then so be it.
Good for you!!! I would not have my child in any of that drams either.
If someone was truly harrassing my child, I would immediately call the police (family member or not) and report her. Show them the texts or comments. If anything is in any way threatening she could face legal action. YOU respond on the text to him and tell her you are giving the police her comments. Can you block that number or name from your contacts. If his privacy settings are strick enough and she's not a friend on his FB page, she shouldn't be able to post anything on his page. I would even consider changing his phone number so she couldn't text him, call him, anything.
I would change my numbers, delete Facebook account and stay as clear of her as possible. I come from a family where drama is king .... and I don't get involved.. My biological mother was a trouble maker and would be stir the pot all the time.. the best way to handle those people is to stay clear.. Also know that regardless of what you say, people will believe what they want to believe and if anyone is stupid enough to believe someone who is always a troublemaker, then you needn't be around those people either.
However, angry or not, your referring to someone as "white trash" is racist... so despite your having some valid points, when you say things like that, you aren't putting yourself in a good light either..
good luck
Your son does not need to be around due to those death threats! Drug stuff can turn ugly quick - those tv shows aren't all fiction.
also - google up the teen that fatally shot his gp's for trashing his mom -- maybe MIL needs to see that things won't be in her favor (tho I doubt your son would take it nowhere near that far - but the scare might work)
ps - or study Churchill - he was good at comebacks
Do your self a great thing and ignore her. Let your husband deal with his mother. This is what I had to do and it has made a big change in my life. Has it stopped her form doing what she does no but I don't deal with it. and now that the children are older they know the truth of the matters.
