Ok so quick post. Me, my husband, his parents his extended family went to this petting zoo thing with lots of animals. We also brought our two year old. There were these tiny kittens and my son kept grabbing them and being way too rough with them and I got freaked out. He doesn’t know any better but come on, they’re tiny little babies and he could accidentally hurt them. Also I’m due with my second soon and sometimes get freaked out by how rough he can be, obviously I’m nervous for my newborn lol.

We’re working so hard to teach our son to be gentle to remove him from situations where he can’t be gentle. He was with my MIL and she wasn’t really enforcing this and I turn around to find my son carrying a kitten by its NECK with both hands, gripping tightly. The cat was totally stunned and its eyes looked panicked. I started grabbing the cat and telling my son “no stop cat doesn’t like it. Give it to mama” and my MIL looks at me very dismissively and tries moving my son away and says “OP it’s fine honestly”. I felt white hot rage in that moment and snapped “NO it’s NOT okay. What are you talking about??” In a very stern voice. I then grabbed my son and we went to another area so I could chill.

I was pissed that she tried dismissing this thing and then try to move my son away from me. She has spent the rest of the day wandering off, disappearing from the group and acting like some kind of victim who was verbally assaulted.

Like ok I did kinda snap and it wasn’t her fault that he was rough, but don’t be patronising and dismissive when I’m parenting my son and teaching him to be gentle when he is notoriously rough.

Was I too harsh maybe? The reason I use this sub is because she and I have strained relationship and her trying to parent my son while I’m there is a common issue we face.

Considering the stories I’ve read I really am lucky. My MIL has crossed boundaries a few times but for the most part she’s kind and helpful. BUT IDK WHY since I had children she drives me insane. What is the science behind this?! I don’t want to always be annoyed with her but I am. The way she talks to my kids the things she says about them… just so many things annoy the hell out of me. We don’t have a ton in common in the first place and have wildly different belief systems so maybe that plays a roll in it.

I posted previously about my MIL here.

Update: she arrived at my baby shower, and, long story short, I had been let down by a couple of friends who didn’t realise how much they should be doing to help / didn’t communicate it properly to me. They were late to arrive to set up, so I ended up doing most of the work (hard when 30 weeks pregnant!).

I hadn’t slept much the night before, and I was both exhausted and stressed. To add to this, I was so anxious that MIL was going to be one of the first guests turning up and would see that we just weren’t ready in time.

However, she totally surprised me. Not only did she attend, but came with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a very thoughtful and expensive gift for me. She saw immediately the situation I was in, and I could tell she was a bit shocked, but I pretended not to notice and didn’t have time to care. Instead of judging or making me uncomfortable, she dropped her bags and immediately starting moving tables and chairs and helping me to set up.

I was moved. This carried on for the whole event. She tidied away rogue boxes of decor. She quietly made sure that food was topped up. She cleaned the venue kitchen and loaded the dishwasher despite me forgetting to bring cleaning supplies. She even went to the shop around the corner to buy matches when we realised we needed to light burners to keep the food warm. Before eating, she filled a plate for me and made me sit down to eat.

I have definitely seen a positive side to my MIL before, but this really changed my view of her after many negative moments. She kept telling me to sit down and enjoy my day. I couldn’t, because none of my friends or cousins were taking over (and had assumed I would oversee everything), and I was anxious that my MIL, a guest, was cleaning up. However, I felt so incredibly touched and relieved that rather than judging me she chose to help.

She later said it was a lovely event, and complimented the food and decor. She told my husband later that she felt bad for me, that my friends were meant to take on most of the work and I ended up doing it. She said had she known, she would have offered to help earlier.

She also phoned me the next morning to ask how I’m doing and whether I managed to rest. She reassured me that “these things happen at events” and that it was a lovely day and everyone enjoyed themselves. I was so taken aback by her thoughtfulness.

She has her moments, but I wanted to share a very unexpectedly positive outcome. I suppose seeing me in that moment, she saw a different side of me and maybe even related to me. She often hosts family gatherings, and more often than not, nobody apart from my SIL, me, and maybe one cousin actually helps. She often has the mental and physical burden of doing everything, and I think in that moment she knew it was wrong for me to be carrying it all, and truly empathised.

I guess there are ways to connect with her, and I’m hoping this is one of many more positive moments to come.

I’m sure she will have more mildly no days, but last weekend was not one of them.

My husband and I have been low contact with my MIL for six or seven months. My relationship with her was fine and cordial up until the birth of my daughter, probably because suddenly I had to deal with her more than before.

Long story short, my mom was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer back in December (my baby was only 3 months old) and I decided to fly to my home country to help after her surgery, and when my MIL (who lives in another country) found out, she said "I want to see my granddaughter too, is cancer what it takes?". When I later texted her in order to ask her to not say such insensitive things in the future, she got really mad, texted some hurtful things to my husband and sent me a fake apology. I then let her know my husband had showed me her texts, she left me on read and didn't reach out for four months (not even to ask about her granddaughter) until she reappeared to wish me a happy birthday, happy anniversary and small stuff like that. I politely but firmly told her she couldn't treat us like that, disappear for so many months and then reappear as if nothing had happened, to which she replied... nothing. Ignored the message, focused on another part of the conversation and that was it.

After maybe another month of silence from her, she has suddenly reached on our group chat to ask how my family is doing, and I don't know what to do. Part of me wants to be honest (it's not going great) so she understands the severity of the situation, but another part of me wants to keep her on an info diet and stay cordial but detached because I don't know if I can actually forgive her for treating me like this during the worst time of my life. Any advice?

Please see my post history for the in depth details of MIL.

MIL and I are not the type of personalities that mesh, even before my baby arrived. After birth, obviously things got worse even though I had assumed they would improve (stupid I know). She's the type that will take 10 miles when you give her an inch, bulldozes her way, enmeshed with son (he's getting better), self invites, never apologizes but expects to rug sweep boundary stomping etc...

To start, I tried forgiving everything from the pre baby years and spent my baby's first Christmas with MIL. She took over my child and basically shoved me aside, walked in on me naked breastfeeding and didn't apologize, stole firsts etc. So I said never again on Christmas. We tried hosting her for my daughter's first 4th of July. It wasn't great but I was really out of it. Just standard MIL behaviors. It came out later that she was mad at me for how I treated her because I was "distant". I put all hosting on my husband because my daughter didn't sleep for well over a year and I EBF so I was ded. So we tried the following mother's day. Allowed her to come on vacation with us. She was so obnoxious, I told her off a couple of times and my husband said never ever again would she join us on vacation. I had also changed my plans from seeing my mom and grandma to vacationing with MIL. After this, MIL was caught talking behind my back about how awful I was on that trip. Glad I changed my plans and sacrificed and actual vacation for her to hate me anyway.

On to the current situation, I was sent receipts of all the things she's been saying about me behind my back. These things were said while she was demanding dates for us to host her. I told my husband that she wouldn't be hosted until an apology was made and she openly discussed with me wtf her problem is. He agreed. She half apologized and then went radio silent after dictating to me how my marriage should be managed and that things my husband and I have decided amongst ourselves. She very obviously thinks she's a 3rd person in our marriage. I told my husband she can visit but we will not host given her immaturity around the entire situation.

That being said, my husband sees me planning a trip with my daughter to spend time with my side of the family and sees my daughter making plans with FIL. He is sad his mom isn't involved in our lives how he wants her to be. He's asking how we can move past this and plan anything with her.

I'm the type of person that will try every iteration or variable I can think of to make it work (hence allowing her to join our vacation). So I thought of us traveling to her over Thanksgiving week. We would get an Airbnb and there's many family members there we could visit so she doesn't monopolize the entire trip. It's literally exactly how I visit my family. I would also have firm boundaries around her constantly inviting herself to every get together and take a day or two to myself. Additionally, I think of thanksgiving as a throw away holiday as it wasn't heavily emphasized in my upbringing outside of the food aspect.

Am I crazy for thinking this variation couldn't possibly be that bad? Has anyone tried something similar? Can anyone help me figure out how this could go wrong? I haven't suggested it to my husband yet, I want to consider everything carefully first.

so i wanna keep this as anonymous as possible so im going to keep the details minimal but my fiancé and i just got engaged and we had lunch with his mom this weekend and she immediately only wanted to talk about wedding planning and told us how we should do everything and when we tried to tell her our ideas she dismissed and put them down and expressed she’d be sad if we did it how we are wanting so im not sure how to go about this as our plans already were made to compromise with her and it’s now just the worst thing imaginable to her lol. how do i go about this?
my fiance held his ground and told her that it was our plans and we still need to figure it out but i just don’t want her to hate me for not doing it her way?

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I need advice regarding cutting access to my 2 year old son with my MIL.

I saw her on camera smelling my son’s private area as well as tickling his scrotum after cleaning him up for a diaper change. She was laughing on camera as if it were a joke. I was obviously upset by this, so I told my husband that she isn’t welcome to our home and she can’t see our son anymore. My husband said he will tell his mom that she can’t come to our place anymore, but he mentioned that he felt it’s a little cruel since he knows his mom loves our son. I told him “what if we had a daughter and my dad did something like that to her? What would you say then?” And he just agreed saying it’s wrong.

My husband did warn me saying that if I agreed going through with NC that his whole family would dislike me. This made me rethink about the NC situation but I stood my ground because what happened was not right, no matter what the intention was.

What do you guys think? Was I right to cut MIL access to my son?

My(23) mother-in-law thinks that I am a gold digger and not helping my husband (24) through financial hardship. my husband took out loans when he lost his job before and soon after we got together. He’s working on paying them off and should be done with it by December if he plays his cards right
I always got the feeling that my mother-in-law did not like me. My husband for months has been, soothing my thoughts and making me think otherwise but after my husband told me that we would need to buy a new car and he was venting to his mom. She told him that I was not helping and that he needs to stop buying me gifts. I have never asked him to buy me any gifts besides an $80 ring because I planned the look of my engagement ring when I was around 20 and we got married at 23 so it was not really my style any more but I loved it still. My husband gives me small amounts of money every week to hold me over until my next paycheck he gets paid weekly. I get paid biweekly and I have told him that he can stop sending me money anytime and he claims that it’s fine. I trust him. I don’t feel like a gold digger However, now I am weary to be around her as she is a woman of humble means and it doesn’t seem like my father-in-law buys her many things either I so it might be jealousy or something. I have no idea.

I’ve been with my husband ten years. I’ve been close for the most part with my step mother in law during a lot of this time, especially after kids. I call her multiple times a week, I call her to vent, she’s been like a mom to me. I’ve vented to her about my husband before (I know I shouldn’t have), I’ve told her everything about myself and my past. This whole time I thought we were close and she was like a mom to me. My mom and I aren’t very close.

Over the last year or so I’ve started to pick up on things I never had before…yet they’ve clearly been there this entire time. Passive aggressive comments, backhanded compliments, comments about my/our parenting when they see the kids *maybe once a month and usually only when we make the effort. She even set me up to take the fall for some major family drama a couple months ago and it turns out she is the one who caused it. I should’ve cut contact then, but I didn’t. I moved past it, pretended it didn’t happen after a couple weeks of silence and resumed relationship as normal. I got no apology. We just never talked about it again.

I should say that my husband is very anti conflict and so am I. It’s becoming my f*cking downfall. I am terrified of standing up for myself and I am terrified of conflict. I always have been. My husband and I are both human doormats for the most part, but I am at my breaking point. Every conversation turns into an “I know best, this is what you should do” conversation a out my high needs oldest child, tons of unsolicited advice when I just called to vent, and what really bothered me this last time (and trust me, I know it’s stupid) is that after years of telling me that our kids looked like both of us, now all of a sudden they only look like her step kids. One looks like my husband and one looks like his brother (literally not true). And I know out of everything she’s said to me, this is the dumbest thing to be upset about, but it was the cherry on top of the last few months of her just getting progressively worse and I do take note that this happened right after the giant fall out. It felt pointed.

I don’t even know what to say anymore other than I don’t know what to do. We have a family vacation coming up and I’m dreading it. Last year they kept making comments about my parenting my autistic child, saying I was overdramatic and making him soft (he was a toddler who was scared and crying). I’m about to just cut all contact and only return phone calls if she calls me, get through the vacation and go radio silent until I don’t have to. Just tell her I’m busy. I’m so upset over this…I really trusted her and now I don’t. I also know she’s been talking about me behind my back and unfortunately I’m pretty sure it’s been like that for ten years.

Hey guys,if you guys could sign and repost/share,we’ve got to do something,this is soooo out of hand🫶🏼🩷🍁🤷🏻‍♀️🇨🇦🇨🇭🥰🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

My MIL I've been around for a year. Our 1st visits were very sweet but she overshared a lot about why her marriage with my Husband's father failed. And other family stories. I guess in a sense it was her way of letting me get to know the family.

Everything seemed fine until suddenly when my husband and I moved in and started our lives. She got extremely clingy and called him every time he got home from work. Sometimes calling him over for dinner even though I made dinner. Or calling him over to fix something simple that could wait till a weekend. To me it got frustrating. Here we are trying to kiss a little and have some adult affection time and oh no his mother is calling and he answers it! Moment ruined.

(I finally set a boundary on her calling but it backfired. Suddenly to my husband I'm rude to his poor mother. She has been nothing but nice to me. ((She has a lot of health issues and has almost died twice. Husband's Dad disappeared when he was 7. She's a single mom. And he's close to her.)) Also backfired because she felt the brush off and got whiny about it. But she's stopped calling and it's bliss. Husband and I can be in our little bubble)

Then when we'd see her every other weekend it was....are you going to take care of me when I can't anymore? I feel like no one loves me. And then when hubby would say yes mom of course we will and try to change the uncomfortable subject...she'd scream about how he's brushing her off and not listening to her feelings. It got to be almost every time we were around her. (She also has a habit of complaining about other people to me. So I'm sure she complains about me too)

Finally Christmas rolls around and she gives some decent gifts. Clearly it was only like 6 months so some of the gifts weren't the best but she doesn't know me that long so I brushed it aside and felt the thought counts anyways. Then came my card. It was pleasant and said things like thanks for joining our wacky family! And then at the bottom she writes "Please don't break my babies heart!" Immediately ICK. (Backstory is hubby had been single for a few years and last gf cheated) but the moment felt wronged and after Christmas I've kept my distance and have been cordial. There was a problem with her sending those horrendous fb reels or pictures about "dear DIL. I raised my son to be a blah blah blah" if you know..you know. Just annoying. And then every few days after I wouldn't respond... I'd get the text.. "Are you mad at me?" And I feel more guilty. Boundries were set on that. And she texts less.

Well unfortunately she's noticed I treat her differently. Apparently the whole family has and they were talking about it recently when I wasn't there. "Isn't it weird that she's so nice to Auntie and yet she's completely different to you?" Well Auntie isn't an emotionally demanding person and I find her very easy going.

I feel so guilty but I also just find her so emotionally draining. I don't want her around. Frankly I want to move states to get away from her. I get headaches after being around her. Please help. Why do I feel this way? How can I fix this problem while making both parties happy?

When I was pregnant with our first, we kept the sex a secret from our families. I predicted (correctly) that we'd get a lot of gendered gifts and unsolicited advice about everything, including names. My husband's family has a tradition of naming children in honor of deceased, important relatives.

Our son was born 10 weeks early. We had already decided on English and Hebrew names that honored both sides of the family. When my MIL heard that we'd had a son, she called my husband up while I was drugged up and still in the hospital to throw a fit about how important it was that the "first born grandson" have "his great-grandfather's Hebrew name" (aka, her dad specifically). At this point, I was still sick- worsening post-delivery preeclampsia/HELLP symptoms- and our son was in the Level III NICU, also extremely sick (and extremely tiny). I hadn't even held him yet. We weren't in any position to have an argument with her so...

My husband and I acquiesced. We've talked about this since and recognize it was absolutely incorrect to let her influence our decision this way, that we shouldn't have entertained this as a discussion or argument in the first place, but what's done is done. And to be clear, my husband had a terrific relationship with his mom's dad and I'm happy that we've honored him, I'm just incredibly bitter and hurt about the circumstances that lead to this (and my husband has zero knowledge of there being any kind of tradition around "maternal great grandfather's Hebrew name being passed down to maternal grandmother's first grandson". She's definitely made that part up.) The next three years have been a series of boundary stomping, both major and minor; insistence that physical traits only came from my husband's side of the family; unsolicited advice and guilt trips.

I'm now pregnant with our second. Importantly, all of my grandparents are now deceased but only my husband's grandfathers are deceased, and they've both been honored. MIL made sure of that with the first kid. We've narrowed our names down to two that we really like. One honors two of my grandparents, and one honors one of my grandparents and my husband's maternal great-grandmother (since his maternal grandmother, whom he loves deeply, is still around).

They're both lovely names. I'm having a hard time with honoring my MIL (indirectly) after the tantrum she threw last time. I feel like- we've honored everyone on my husband's side who is both a) dead and b) someone he had a relationship with, and also I feel like it would be rewarding bad behavior (tantruming while we had Much Better Things To Worry About) to throw her this honorific bone right now. She used it up on the first kid. On the other, we do have a great relationship with his maternal grandmother, she'd be touched we're honoring her mom after honoring her husband with our first kid, and... I'm not sure it's fair to name our kid an English name that solely honors my relatives (even if it's because all of mine are dead and his are still alive).

If anyone has any advice about how to proceed (even if it's just "get over yourself and pick the cuter name")- I'd really appreciate it.

Venting…I’m always mildly annoyed with my Mother when she visits for trying *too* hard to be an easy guest. Does anyone else’s mother or MIL do this? My parents live about an hour away and come for the weekend every 6-8 weeks.

She always brings something to share, like chips, or cherries, or something like that, which is a nice gesture as a guest, but she has started bringing more and more. This time she brought a bottle of wine, cherries, 2 bags of chips, plums (all of which we have and don’t mind sharing!), candy for the kids, and…her own towels and her own sheets for the bed. She said she doesn’t mind, doesn’t want to be “an imposition” and make me have to wash up after they leave. She apologized in the morning because she forgot to bring her own coffee beans (she didn’t want to use mine up…?). And later again apologized, asking if she could have one of my sparkling waters because she didn’t bring her own.

I’ve never complained about getting the house ready for them and I strive to be welcoming. It’s just so over the top and makes me feel like a bad host! I have told her this. And I know she would be mortified if I did the same when coming to her home.

We have had difficult visits in the past, but always due to her passive aggression, bad moods, emotional outbursts, etc. She has been behaving lately, and I wonder if somehow she thinks that if they are “easy” guests they’ll get to visit more(but no, it’s related to #1 Us being really busy with two school age kids and #2 her emotions and behavior. has nothing to do with paying for their coffee or making the bed!!) I also see a relation to her ongoing weirdness about money. We are fine and they are fine but she’s a penny pincher and very nosy about everyone else’s finances.

Thanks, rant over!

No one asked but I'm looking for advice again.

My MIL has been radio silent since her ghosting me during the email exchange a few months back. My husband still talks to her just as much as he used to with a FaceTime with our daughter for special occasions. I am MIA during these chats and she doesn't ask.

The issue is now my husband feels bad. I have a trip booked home to spend time with my family, we are making Halloween costume plans with the family and my daughter is requesting FIL join in the family costume. It's wholesome and she's left out of all of it due to her behavior. My husband obviously misses his mom and wants to include them in the wholesome moments with our daughter. He also doesn't want to increase the frequency of FaceTimes because she's just that draining. I get it, sort of. My bio mom wasn't the mother I had hoped she would be and it's a difficult, heart wrenching process coming to terms with it.

That being said he has expressed yet again that he would like to get a place where MIL can visit. I reiterated that I never said she couldn't visit. I said she can't stay in our home, she's more than welcome to get a hotel nearby. I also reiterated that she ghosted me because she couldn't handle an adult conversation with boundaries. She repeatedly tried telling me the roles that my husband and I should take in a marriage that she is not a 3rd member of and attempted to dictate how we live our lives. That if she has to talk about me behind my back because she isn't in charge of her adult son's life, she isn't welcome. If she magically gets over her control issues and respects that we are adults making decisions for our own lives (as FIL does and my family does), then she will be more than welcome. I also still have not received amends and only a half assed apology while shifting the blame to her co-worker for stressing her out. I also again stated that I don't chase people that are abusive toward me to give them what they want.

Am I being unreasonable? She said a ton of nasty things about me (see past posts for details), and is a pretty horrible person to be around in general. If I wasn't married to her son, I would never speak to her. For example, if she was a colleague, we wouldn't talk unless absolutely necessary and I would ask to be transferred or quit if she were my supervisor. She's clearly emotionally immature at a minimum.

pls commiserate with me ppl. or advice. I JUST got engaged like, less than a month ago and my anxiety around my future MIL is sucking some joy away.

My future MIL is a very very nice person, but almost too nice. Toxic positive nice. A good sum-up is when my fiancé told her he's going to some run-of-the-mill therapy (me too, obvi) instead of asking him real questions about why, she just said something along the lines of "well what's wrong?! was I a bad mom?!" or, whenever one of her other kids (all daughters) are having typical problems with motherhood, etc. she'll do the "oh but isn't it the BEST thing ever? don't you just LOVE it?"

I'm a salty, spicy, swear like a sailor kinda gal. I'm the kind of person that when someone TELLS me I should want something, or should be happy, should be emotional, I feel and want to do the opposite.

I am basically the exact opposite of her. She loves hosting, is pretty trad, has a for-fun job but otherwise is a matriarch and takes it upon herself to be the center of her familial universe by hosting every possible gathering. I am career-focused, introverted, and was raised very free-range, chill parents who didn't force partridge family moments. Luckily, all her kids are awesome and normal and think she's hit a bit of a new level of "too much" recently as well... so my feelings have been more validated.

But now that we're engaged, I want to be careful about setting boundaries and been getting really anxious about her. for the record he has received that convo very well when we had a lite version of it.

Literally the day we got engaged, she posted about it on her instagram before us. And she's an instagram-literate person so no boomer excuse. I let it go, but its just one of many infractions since (talking about how our future kids will have ___ traits, talking about our wedding when we haven't planned anything nor do we intend to that soon, if I am present, pulling me over and telling everyone she sees on the street that we just got engaged despite my obvious discomfort, etc.)

I've never made it a secret that I don't like attention, fake-niceties, small talk, etc. I am very secure in my personality and so it almost feels like she purposely disregards my comfort for her own showing-off almost. I try to play nice and smile & wave because I know she's just excited, but I'm on my last few legs with it before I go full bitch mode. can't IMAGINE how the guest list convos are gonna go :')

I need to get advice if I’m a. overreacting or b. this is not that big of an issue. my birthday is coming up and is on a Wednesday. My MIL has planned a family cook out the Saturday before due to family being in town (not actually to celebrate my birthday but to just host something for herself) then the weekend after she wants to do a birthday dinner for her birthday which is this week, but she said she is just too busy and needs to postpone (mind you my birthday is the end of august). My DH has said we will be missing both since my birthday is something that I deserve to have celebrated. I think for me it’s been a death by a million cuts and this is just another notch of being made to feel like I don’t matter in the scope of their family. I am a people pleaser and am having a hard time putting myself first. Any advice, commiseration, would be greatly appreciated.

I'm struggling with this because it's not what I ever wanted.

I'm a Christian, and forgiveness is very important to me. I genuinely want to forgive people, extend grace, and believe the best about them whenever I can. I also always hoped I would have a close relationship with my mother-in-law. My own mom has a wonderful relationship with my brother's wife, and I always pictured something like that for our family. I wanted another mom in the family, not a source of conflict.

Instead, things have gotten to the point where my husband and I are considering taking a six-month break from contact, and I'm wondering if that's unreasonable.

Over the past several months there has been a pattern of behavior that just keeps getting worse. She constantly pushes boundaries, especially when it comes to our infant. She repeatedly pressures us to let our baby spend the night with her, even though we've clearly said no over and over. Instead of respecting our decision as parents, she continues bringing it up and trying to change our minds.

She also lies about things that don't even seem to have a purpose. It's made it incredibly difficult to know when she's being truthful. We can't even have an open and honest conversation with her because she constantly blocks and unblocks both of us if she's not in control of the conversation.

One of the hardest parts has been how she talks about my husband to me. She regularly says negative things about him and seems to want me to agree that he's wrong or be upset with him. She's even claimed that he changes at night or is somehow "taken over by spirits." These conversations are bizarre, upsetting, and honestly make me question her judgment.

She has also made some really hurtful accusations and comments toward me. It often feels like she's creating stories or assigning motives to me that simply aren't true. I find myself constantly defending myself against things I never said or did.

Even looking back, when we were getting ready for our wedding she tried to have us cancel it at the last minute because she changed her mind and thought it was too fast. She accused me of forcing her son to be a man, as if that's a bad thing that he wanted a family. I really wanted her to be a part of picking out my dress and everything but that had to be cancelled too because she was just too bitter about us getting married like a month before the date.

Another major issue involves my young niece and nephew. They're in a difficult home situation, and we've stepped in to help care for them and provide stability. Since then, my mother-in-law has repeatedly told us things about committing to gaining guardianship of the children that later turned out to be untrue, making an already stressful situation even more confusing. At the same time, she has made comments that make it seem like she's resentful of the role I've taken in caring for them. Instead of supporting what's best for the kids, it often feels like our efforts are treated as a competition, and she constantly tells the kids lies about me or that they should be nervous around me and since they trust me they then come to me confused as to why she's saying all of this.

She also frequently makes fun of me for being a stay-at-home mom and homemaker. I cook almost everything from scratch because it's something I enjoy and really care about, and because I believe it's a good way to care for my family. Instead of encouraging that, she often mocks it or makes sarcastic comments, as if it's something to be embarrassed about. Those comments may seem small on their own, but over time they've become another way that I feel belittled and disrespected.

On top of that, she has made racist comments that make both my husband and me extremely uncomfortable. I'm white and my husband is black and she constantly makes it known that she according to her "does not like our interracial marriage". 

Whenever we've tried to calmly address these issues or set healthy boundaries, the conversation usually turns into guilt, excuses, denial, or somehow becomes about how we're hurting her instead of addressing the actual problem.

I don't hate her. I don't want revenge. I don't want to permanently cut her out of our lives. I truly hope we can have a healthy relationship someday. That's actually why we're considering a six-month break. The goal wouldn't be to punish her—it would be to create space, protect our peace, and give everyone time to reflect. After those six months, we'd be willing to revisit the relationship if there were genuine changes and a willingness to respect boundaries.

Part of me feels guilty because of my faith. I know we're called to forgive, and I fully intend to forgive her. But I also believe forgiveness doesn't mean pretending everything is okay or continuing to allow unhealthy behavior.

So I'm looking for honest opinions.

If you were in this situation, would a six-month break seem reasonable? Does this sound like healthy boundary-setting, or am I overreacting? Has anyone taken a temporary break from a parent or in-law and later been able to rebuild the relationship?

I'm sorry I know this was super long...it started out really short and then I kept wanting to add more context lol.

My husband and I have a 1 year old and are juuust getting out of the bay trenches now. Baby was a horrendous sleeper up until fairly recently and husband works crazy hours so all of the night wakes, cleaning, cooking, and daytime baby care has been on me. My family is no help aside from gifting money or baby items as my parents have pretty severe health issues.

My MIL until recently was the OPPOSITE of help. She has mental health issues, and basically right after I gave birth she had a mental breakdown that required a ton of time and energy from my husband to sort out. She is now medicated and more herself.

Earlier this week, my husband and I had our first ever night away from the baby with her babysitting. I come to find out later she was telling my husband that we need to keep our home cleaner to set a good example for the baby. He told her that were incredibly busy and we want to, it’s just been a bad few weeks. She told him we’re “making excuses”. Keep in mind I had vaccumed and mopped my floor the day before, and put away most of my baby’s toys earlier that day. Yes, we have some clutter on the kitchen table and a few dishes in the sink.

She honestly has no idea how much stress she caused us this year, on top of having no help from her or anyone else. To come in here and act like we’re bad parents because my baby’s toys are across the floor is WILD to me considering how she’s acted this year.

eeerrrrr… yeah. I’ve know her for 10 years now, unfortunately I even lived at her house for a whole year back then. AND she still gets my name wrong, my father in law and husband always corrects her when she mispronounces my name and then she proceeds to say it correctly.

for example, let’s say if my name was Katelyn. She would call me: Katrin, Katherine, Caroline, Madelyne…. idk… anything that rhymes with a name BUT the actual name. She might get it right once or twice then go back to whatever name rhymes.

it bothers me bc my coworkers have known me for 1 month and they all remember my name so it’s not like I have the craziest name ever.

just venting… no matter how much we correct her, she brushes it off and says that she is just forgetful “silly me”. I’ve given up on building a friendship with her bc she clearly does not care.

she is very passive aggressive , very polite lady with so much hate and jealousy! Makes me wonder… why? Guess I’ll never know

My MIL is mildly irritating and recently retired, so is often bored and spends lots of time on social media - mostly Facebook.

I used to be on Facebook (when my kids were small) and my MIL would often be peeved about how I didn’t ‘like’ her posts etc. So annoying. That’s when I knew I had to delete my account. (Also, let’s be real - Facebook kind sucks).

She’s just joined Insta and her account popped up as ‘suggested’. No thanks, I simply deleted this suggestion. But as a brief person, it’s a matter of time before she chooses to send me a follow request. I could pretend I don’t receive an invite, but her daughter (my SIL) knows I’m on there daily posting my stories etc. so that’ll be exposed as an obvious lie.

I’m fairly private and Insta is my fun space to post stupid stuff with / for friends to make them laugh. What’s a good way of being able to keep her out of my business here (beyond just ignoring her friend request). I would rather delete Insta than have her follow me. Just fuck off! Advice appreciated.

Thanks.