I'm not sure where to even begin. I have, for years now, read different forums and books on toxic in laws so I know I'm not alone in this. But it sure feels like it at times. My mother in law is a bitch. No two ways about it. I guess I'll start from as close to the beginning as I can and go from there. My mother in law grew up in an extremely wealthy home. She and her 2 siblings were raised by a governess and lived in a home that employed several live in servants. Her sense of entitlement most likely came from this environment. She has always been given everything she has ever wanted and money has never been an issue for her. That is, until she married and her husband, also from a very wealthy family, decided that she was spending too much on stupid crap and took the majority of the money away from her. He had bank accounts in his name only and only meted out to her to pay the bills and have some left, but not a lot. Her left over portion would be probably more than most make in a month, but for her level of spending, it wasn't much. She was even forbidden from having credit cards in her name, but she still got them and then hid them from her husband. When he would find out, they would fight and she would walk away with extreme indignity and leave her husband fuming. But he stayed with her nonetheless.
My husband is an only child and he also was given everything he wanted. He, and I hate to say this, truly has no sense of money or responsibility. He started using drugs when he was 15 and did so for many years. Even though he has been sober for quite some time, he still seems to have that 15 year old mentality at times.
Well, my father in law died a few years ago of a heart attack. Now my mother in law has carte blanche to the money and in about 3 years time has blown over 350k. And when I say blown, I do mean blown. She shops at QVC like nobody's business, often ordering multiples of one item. Like one time, she sent us 16 hard plastic boxes to hold CD's. Each box would hold 100 CD's. 16 of these things! And we have 3 patio umbrellas but we don't have a patio to use them on. And we have 10 computers in this house. This is the kind of spending she does on a regular basis. I have 3 purses that cost over 300 dollars each. Why? Because they are "big" and look better on someone who is "big". They just don't go with her little petite frame. Okay, I am 5' 10" and I weigh about 190. Yes I am bigger than I want to be and I try to lose the weight. Could I try harder? Sure I could. Who couldn't, right? But she always has to make a negative remark about my weight. Like the 400 dollar patio chairs she sent. They are the extra large and hold heavier people. She didn't want the other ones to break. (sigh)
And gifts are nice, don't get me wrong, but they are nice when you can use them. And when they don't have "strings" attached. See, my mother in law is one of the nastiest people I have ever met. She insults both my husband and I on a regular basis. Saying things like he is a loser and isn't handsome. She blames everything from Obamacare and the failing economy on people like us. Not sure what that means because we aren't on any kind of public assistance but whatever. And she is a liar. She will tell you one thing and then explicitly deny it.
Her family gives the family gas credit cards in the company name. Every single person in the family has their gas paid for. They have credit cards from Shell, Exxon, Phillips, and one other I can't think of right now. Every one but me and my husband. We are kind of the outsiders I guess you could say. But it is because of her lies that this is so. Once, she gave my husband her gas credit card to use on the long drive home after visiting her. I was there and I saw her give it to him with the instruction of sending it back once we got home. Well, she didn't tell the office that and when they saw that there were gas purchases in different areas, they called her to inquire about them. What did she say? That my husband must have stolen the card from her purse and used it without her permission. Wow. Instead of admitting that she had given him the card, she completely threw him under the bus. But that is how she is all the time. She lives in a world where she is perfect and everything around her is perfect. She is a narcissist to the fullest.
I think I need to stop for now. Talking about her is starting to stir up anger in me. I am hoping that this blog will be therapeutic for me in a way. It gives me a chance to get it out because I have no one to talk to about this. After all the years of verbal abuse by his mother, my husband still defends her. It is maddening and it is ripping us apart. I get blamed for being ungrateful and I need to be more supportive of him. This support he is demanding from me may very well be the death nail in our matrimonial coffin. I can only give so much and he offers me no such support in return. I am seeing that he himself is more than a little like her.
