Okay, so I'm going to try and make my long story a little shorter for you guys.
I was raised in the Deep South, and it shows. At one point, I started washing my hair with dishwashing soap because I couldn't afford shampoo. I also bake my own bread, I make my own handmade laundry detergent, I cook using things like dried beans and canned generic tomatoes, and I grow many of my herbs from seeds in order to save money. Before I met my husband, I lived alone, didn't have any pets, and kept to myself to keep my costs down.
I'm also mentally-ill (bipolar disorder, same as my husband, as well as Avoidant Personality Disorder/PTSD). I identify as bisexual. I was quite promiscuous before meeting my husband, and I've been a practicing neopagan for about five years.
I got pregnant about three months into the relationship. I don't believe in abortion for religious reasons (though I would absolutely not limit anyone else's right to have one), so I pursued adoption, as I was quite certain I didn't want to be a parent at 22. During the last couple of weeks of pregnancy, I wound up being ordered not to do any kind of housework or heavy lifting, so I left the cleaning to my husband, who was... decidedly not prepared for it.
My mother in law came into the apartment to "get some of my stuff" and found that it was in total disarray. She now won't let me forget it. She brings it up whenever she gets the opportunity, despite the fact that I now clean my apartment as well as I can. Unfortunately it's quite tiny, so there's only so much I can do to make it appear "tidy."
I had to have a c-section and required about a year of recovery (some of the issues I developed during and after the pregnancy include PPD, pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, and immune system issues due to the rH factor of the baby).
We've been together for three years, married for two months. I've resented my mother-in-law for more than a year now, but I thought that was tolerable.
She has also:
*Contrived unlikely excuses to peer into my refrigerator, at which point she yelled at me over a malfunctioning refrigerator seal.
*Subsequently told me that the fact that my refrigerator had spoiling food in it made me an unsuitable spouse for my husband, despite the fact that I had been in the hospital for two weeks and was thus not able to clean out the refrigerator.
*Blamed me for my husband's failure to find appropriate cat litter while I was pregnant. (He used litter made from newspaper pellets that did nothing to stop the odor and was tracked around the apartment. I could do nothing to stop it because, again, I WAS PREGNANT AND COULD NOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE CAT LITTER.)
*Made passive-aggressive digs about my religion (she's Christian and strongly disapproves of my Hellenic Polytheism, as well as my husband's atheism).
*Made passive-aggressive digs about my sexual orientation, which I've always been open about and which I'm not about to hide for this bitch. Seriously, if I have to hear one more crack about how she "doesn't understand that lifestyle!!!!!111!!!!!!!one!", I will smack a bitch.
*Asked me intrusive questions about my health, my fertility, my birth control usage, and my history of miscarriages.
*Made straight-up-aggressive remarks about my weight after I had the baby. I was about 80 pounds overweight, in part because I wound up being put on bedrest due to the pre-eclampsia.
*Blamed me for the sympathy weight my husband gained during my pregnancy, which he's having trouble losing.
*Screamed at my husband over the fact that he now has bright, red stretch marks (because he gained and then lost weight).
*Repeatedly stated that she nagged a doctor into giving my husband Lithium while he was in elementary school because lithium is "the gold-standard" of treating bipolar disorder. (For anyone who doesn't know, Lithium is incredibly dangerous if mishandled, and prior doctors refused to give a ten-year-old boy Lithium because it's known to have detrimental effects on a child's body.) This is despite the fact that she's a medical professional.
*Mishandled her son's mental illness so badly that by the time he was seventeen, he was secluded from his peers and was being treated with four different medications, all of which could have killed him if something went wrong. He's now on two medications that aren't dangerous at all; however, his mother believes that his current medication regimen "isn't strong enough" to manage his mental illness and wants him back on that four-medication zombie-machine that he was on during his adolescence.
*Repeatedly nagged me to get rid of all the white sugar in our house, despite the fact that most normal people use white sugar when baking bread.
*Stated that she preferred my husband's prior girlfriend to me. This was during our first meeting. I was five months pregnant.
*Screamed at me that my husband was "her son" when I told him not to ride in a car that was leaking engine fluid and flooding itself with black smoke.
And so, so much more.
She doesn't ever say this to her son, despite the fact that he has arms and legs and could do his part in the house if he so wanted. She says it to me, because, in her words, it's "my job" to take care of her son.
My husband agrees that this is a problem, but is never around when she starts in on one of her tirades (which is totally fucking intentional). She's now become passive-aggressive and actively gaslights me to prevent me from saying anything to her son (see the passive-aggressive comments about my sexuality and my religion). I've cut ties with my own family over less than this, and I'm honestly reaching the end of my rope.
However:
I don't want to damage or sever my husband's relationship with is family. I think there is (or should be) some kind of happy medium here, especially since we don't have children, but I'm having trouble finding it. I can't rely on my family (because they're fucking terrible), and most of my friends are either unmarried or have positive relationships with their mothers-in-law, so I don't have anyone I can really talk to about this.
How do I sever my relationship with my mother-in-law while also supporting my husband in his desire to maintain connections with his family?
tl;dr: My mother in law is homophobic, classist, incredibly intolerant to non-Christian religions, and sexist. She's also intrusive. She's been attempting to undermine our relationship, and I'm looking for a way to separate myself from her entirely. There aren't any kids involved. Please help.
Submitted August 17, 2017 at 09:28PM by bananakjones http://ift.tt/2uMdDeg relationships
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