To be honest, you _say_ he is an "otherwise good" husband, but IMO the fact that he yells at and shakes you and allows his mother to disrespect you (and in your own home, no less) is a total deal breaker.

Do not allow this woman to stay in your home any longer. If she wants to visit her little idol worshipper twice a year and ignore you and your children, let her stay in a hotel and have her son visit her there where the rest of you won't be around to get in anyone's way.

There are some real red flags. Did you see any of this before marriage? Your husband has a major blind spot with his Mom (or has been beaten down over time). I would suggest two things-go back to counseling with or without your husband and stop trying to have a relationship with your mother in law.

Thanks for your comments. Therapy doesn't change his mind that since his mom is far away and isn't part of our lives, I should just shut up and never bring her up since neither I nor he can change her.

He keeps repeating the statement like a broken record: "I'm not cutting off my family for you". It makes me feel sad because it sounds like he puts me behind his family in priority. i don't ask to cut them off, but I also feel like he allows his mom to treat me with silence for no reason by keeping in touch with her and acting like everything is okay. On the other hand, I realize she is his mom, they have shared memories, and it's natural for him to want to talk to her once a week and email each other. He asked her to call me, but she won't do it. She did send a courteous email with husband on copy stating she's thinking of us all but she's busy. Husband thinks it's a valid reason why she won't have a relationship with me, and believes the email to be nice and reasonable, better than nothing. He also asks: "Why don't you call her yourself?". I don't want to have any relationship with her.

In this situation would you say it's best for husband to have a separate relationship with her, outside our marriage? They talk once a week over the phone, maybe a couple emails and texts, too. They see each other about twice a year for about a week. Now husband started agreeing to use vacation time on kids and us without having to spend with his relatives.

To add: I've been trying to have a relationship with her for 3 years but she's always been busy.

Textbook signs of: denial of an abusive relationship.

You and the kids are his nuclear family, to be given greater priority than the others. He didn't marry his mother and have kids with her. As suggested previously if most of the trouble with her is when she visits then put a stop to the visits. If he insists on having her come to the house then you manage to be always busy elsewhere when she does. You can't get him to talk about it so you are left with taking physical steps like this to try and make him see things in a different way. If he still never budges from his dysfunctional point of view - and esp. if he becomes even more abusive - then you will have to look at making a major change such as divorce. You have married somebody who has what the first responder called "deal breaker" tendencies and if you are unable to identify techniques to get him to reign these in then you need to give up and move on.

My question is... Am I being a completely unreasonable person for mentioning her and taking those shots at my husband?

Should I just let husband and her have a relationship and feel good about it, let go of resentment and accept that she's his mom, and it's ok he has the relationship, while me and kids stay together and only visit staying in a hotel for a short time just to stay cordial but distant?.... I can't get my husband to understand my point of view, but I understand his..... The situation sucks, but maybe it's best to accept it as is....

If he shakes you and shouts at you, he is an abuser. He will only get worse; even if your MIL situation magically fixes itself he will find something else to shake you about. As Ann Landers would say, wake up and smell the coffee.

He shook me when I was yelling too. He starts and I feel like he doesn't listen to me or hear me, I get emotional too... I can't shake him or squeeze him or push him back though. For him it's a deal breaker: either we divorce or I accept the situation as is... Maybe he's right. I just don't know how to deal with resentment.

Your statements where you say he's right and it's all your fault are the classic statements of an emotionally abused person who has been totally ground down by her abuser.

You need to decide: can you maintain this marriage if your husband keeps his relationship with his mother outside your family home? Would he be willing to do that? I suspect not, given his attitude.

Are you willing/able to take the kiddies and retreat to somewhere else if/when MIL comes to visit?

Would your husband be willing for you _not_ to have a relationship with his mother?

Are you prepared to be dissed by this woman until one of you is no longer around?

You are not asking your husband to give up his relationship with his mother, merely that he stand up for you and tell her it's not OK to ignore you and say disrespectful things about you in your own home. If he can't see that, not only is he an ass but he is aiding and abetting the abuse. Are you sure you want to stay with him?

I do, but I'm hoping with time he will side with me... I do feel a lot of resentment to him because no, he won't accept if I say "I can't tolerate you having a relationship with your mom outside the marriage". I probably could tolerate it, if kids were with me to ignore her. She's sneaky and manipulative, and sends gifts to kids to show she cares (but refuses to talk to them on the phone or babysit). Yet, husband will never accept kids not having a relationship with grandma.

You're taking positions and maintaining perspectives that are setting you up for continued outrages. You've made the unpleasant discovery that you married a man with a borderline Oedipal thing going on with his mother, and there may not be any scope for you fixing this probably pathological situation yourself. If you can't get him to respond to professional intervention then again all that may be left for you is to extract yourself and your kids from the marriage. In the meantime you can look forward to continued living in a sitcom, with overbearing and foolish behavior regularly on display - only with nobody laughing.

In short you and your resentment aren't the problem, and you need to stop thinking they are.

Ok. First and most important, you say he shakes you,yells, and calls you names. That should be an absolute deal breaker. That is abuse, and will only escalate. You have children. Do you want your sons to think it's okay to shake a woman, scream at her and call her names? Do you want your daughters to think that's normal for a man to treat them like that? I speak from experience. My very first boyfriend would shake me and yell, and I would just let it go. One day he punched me. Long story short, by the time he regained consciousness, I was gone,never to return.

Second, no,it is not unreasonable for you to expect your husband to put you and your children first. You are his wife. Furthermore, it is absolutely his responsibility to put his mother in her place. When she disrespects you, he should immediately react to that. The fact that he not only allows her behavior,but defends it to the point of physically shaking you shows you where his loyalty is,and always will be. Period.

Third, his steadfastness in this issue with mommy is downright creepy. Really creepy. His name isn't Norman by any chance is it?

That being said, you have a choice to make.

You can take your kids, the house,half his cash and move on.

You can make it clear that while you understand that they will always have a relationship, you want no part in a relationship with her,and that includes her coming to your house,and hope that your husband is willing to enforce that. Only you know if he will,or if he will brush you off.

You can put up with it as it is, because he won't change,trust me, and wait for mommy to kick the bucket,thus resolving the issue with her.

But it appears you two have bigger problems than her. Her being gone from your life won't change him. It won't change the fact that he puts no value on your feelings, or the damage his mother's behavior is likely having on his children.

Just out of curiosity, what are these "rules" she so objects to? (As if she has the right)

Thanks for your comments. There was only one rule in the house that I ignored on the day she arrived, but before she went to bed, I asked husband to ask her to please take shoes off in the house since baby wasn't walking yet. That's it

He does stand up for me. If she does or say anything bad, he will stand up. Yet, her manipulating and ignoring me he doesn't notice that much, and doesn't understand why it bothers me. He believes it might be slightly annoying but not terrible. I should be able to brush it off and go for a walk with him, and forget, not bring up here and there all the time weeks after she's gone or randomly on a Tuesday afternoon. I'm not trying to defend him, but trying to see things from a different perspective.

If I were him, I'd let my parents constantly know they are hurting my spouse and be able to time out them for that. He won't and explicitly says so. That hurts. I have to accept it for our marriage. I am trying to find a way to cope with how I started viewing him in my eyes.

I don't want to make light of this, but it kind of reminds me of am episode of Gilmore Girls entitled "That'll do,pig" I highly recommend it to you.

Brilliant.

Yeah, I wonder now how the events proceeded in the show, lol. Essentially, I just need to let go of past when husband wasn't standing up for me. Thank him for making baby steps to improve for our family. Move on. Let him have a separate relationship with his mom. Kids and I will only see her for him and try to make it cordial and short. It sucks but it's for the better... I fear resentment from my husband too, but he claims he doesn't have any.

Are you from a cultural background where this is normal? Where the MIL reigns supreme? Are you trying to break away from that? That's what this sounds like to me. If so, good for you for acknowledging that you're not open to it.

But - it's very hard to change a native culture. I wish you the very best!

We are both Americans.

Will things look/feel differently to you, if you were your mother in law, your husband is your little son after he grows up, and your son has a wife, then how would you expect the interactions being handled among three of you?

Your plan sounds good AS LONG AS there is nothing physical. All bets would be off for me if this persists. Do you have any family to help you?

Azmom, I would be nice to the daughter in law who is nice and polite and accomodating to me. I'd respect her because she's the mom of my grandkids and understand that the relationship I will have with my grandkids will depend on the relationship I have with the mom. I wouldn't call my almost 40 year old son a "baby" or baby him or smack his ass in his house in front of his family and tell him he has "a sexy walk". I wouldn't avoid his wife and tell my son on the phone he has "a sexy voice". I would treat my son as an adult and his wife as a respectful human being with the same rights to dignity and recognition as I do or anyone else does. I would not pretend like wife doesn't exist and have the same good old relationship with my son outside of his marriage, asking him about kids and wife once a month out of politeness and to please him showing I care. I would be real.

if my daughter in law talked to me nicely and explained how she feels and what she would like from the relationship I would definitely respond and talk to her about it as opposed as turn the back at her. I sent my mil an email outlining how I feel loved and accepted when we talk or email, how it's great to have a wonderful relationship with her and I'd like to go out to lunch with her or talk about kids sometimes. Not saying be best friends. But at least have her involved a bit in our lives. She said no. I told her: but we both want the same thing -- for the husband to be happy. She said Nope. She told my husband in front of me that I stole him from her, and now he's suffering and she has to worry about him. He says it was a joke. Oh well. It'd better be.

azmom, I've asked the question myself a million times, and I always come to the same conclusion. Can't believe what a b*tch mil is and I wouldn't ever be that way to my own kid.

The problem is I have ZERO family here... like after every fight over this issue, husband calmed down in the end and unlike any time before, stopped defending mil and acknowledged my feelings, as well as said that he will do anything that is required, including TO, to make sure mil gets it and to make sure we are happy as a family. He said we are together in this and we both either win or lose, but are not against each other. This made me cry. Maybe he's getting there. This talk just flushed all my resentment out. I will be careful and aware of every single thing I say or do about his mom, and I respect her for giving life and light to him. Hopefully, we will always remain united about this from now on.

Any advice on how to deal with resentment to husband caused by MIL?

This post really resonated with me, although my MIL is a good, kind woman and it sounds like your MIL isn't. As nice as my MIL is, we still have an uneasy relationship.

You and your MIL have very different expectations about what your relationship with one another should/will be. She has made it clear she doesn't want the kind of loving family relationship you want. You cannot change that. It doesn't matter how nice you are, how many texts or pictures of the kids you send or anything else you do, you cannot make her like you, love you or want to be around you. Accept that. Your husband can't change that, either. There is absolutely nothing he can say or do to make her love you, like you, or want to be around you. Accept that, too.

If your family is abroad and you would like to embrace your husband's family as your own, that is not going to happen. Not because of you, but because they are not that kind of family. They aren't going to help you, call you, keep in touch with you, and your husband cannot make them. Accept that. Develop other close family-like friendships so you will have a network of support, but don't look for a support network from your husband's family. There are probably other people in your area who have no family or a dysfunctional family and would love to have close family-like ties with friends.

Stop worrying about what she wants the kids to call her and whether or not she tries to manipulate the kids by sending gifts. Let her send all the gifts she wants. Kids love their moms.

Stop worrying about what your MIL tells the rest of the family about you. Your MIL sounds creepy, selfish and mean and the rest of the family probably knows how she is. If she's been that way toward you, she's been that way toward other people, too.

Stop making little digging comments to your husband about your MIL. If he comes home and tells you she said hi, just let it roll off your back. That doesn't mean you should never discuss your feelings or concerns with him, just don't make a lot of little digging comments. Save your discussion for when it really matters, then sit down sometime when you aren't angry and have a calm discussion.

She is your husband's mom. He loves her very much, regardless of her faults. Trying to get him to include you in their phone calls, emails and texts is a losing battle, I think. If you keep insisting, what you will probably accomplish is that he will talk to her just the two of them anyway and he will stop mentioning it to you. She sounds like a mean and unpleasant person, so really, this works out great for you to not even have to talk to her.

This problem is between you, your husband, and your MIL. Don't drag the kids into it, don't encourage them to ignore your MIL or treat her badly. In time your children will notice things for themselves. It sounds like they won't see her often, anyway, and it sounds like she's not really a kid person, anyway.

Counseling would help you sort out what expectations are reasonable and what aren't.

Having said all that, my husband would never in a million years scream at me, shake me or call me names. Please get some counseling so you can get some perspective on this. Your family is abroad, you sound isolated, make sure you build some ties with friends in the area. Keep your job skills current and make sure you have all the tools you need to become independent if you want to or need to do that.

Best of everything to you and your little family.

Your "husband" is an abuser, & he & his mother are a co-dependent couple.

Abusers control their victims so much that the victims not only think they have to "deal with" mental, emotional, & physical assault because they can't escape, they think they'll be lost if they do escape-they *have* to "make it work".

can't be done, because an abuser will change the rules on a minute-by-minute basis; there's no way you can be miserable enough to satisfy their need to control & humiliate.

The need to make it work, the resistance to taking the reins to our own lives, the craving, the pitiful begging for approval, is like an addiction.

The best way to break an addiction to a man is by going cold turkey & giving yourself space & time to restore your perspective (had he said, on your first date, "Hi, there, I'd like you to be my housekeeper, sex partner & scapegoat, I'd like to humiliate you, scream abuse in your face, & make you my mother's scapegoat as well", would you have gone out with him?) ; since you're both in one house, somebody's got to go, & I'd lay odds it has to be you.

Take your precious children & get away.

I wish you the best.

I agree with you, Daisyin GA. I also think, however, that my husband should not be making me and kids go see his mom because his mom chose the relationship herself. He is free to go and see her alone, and with kids when they are old enough and I feel safe to let them go without me. I also think he should not be making me host her in our house.

SylviaTexas1, thanks for your perspective. According to the two therapists we have been to, husband has been acting like that defensively, in response to what he sees as "attacks on his mother". For a while he used to do it even when I talked about my feelings, but after some therapy he is way more considerate and thoughtful of my feelings and me. He's trying. I see he cares. It's just that it's a losing battle trying to make him less defensive. The question is: will I be able to put up with him having this weird on the side relationship (in my opinion) with his mom, and having her in our house or us in her house with her personality and snide remarks twice a year, and good lord, more often once she retires?... I can't see this happening, but maybe over time I'll get used to it.

y'all remember the thread about the mil bringing her new boyfriend to stay with her son and dil? This sounds an awful lot like the same woman and the same problem. First he doesn't stand up for her, then sometimes he does. He is verbally and physically abusive, but he is a good husband. Good grief. In that thread the husband was called out as an abuser, as in this one. Dear luckyluck34, your husband is an abuser. Listen to SylviaTexas1 .

The couples counsellors did not call him abusive. The last one was a PhD. If I feared he harmed me or if they senses he was dangerous, I'm sure they'd let me know somehow.

This sounds like a round of the Yes But Game.

husband is defensive because he thinks you're attacking his mother?

the woman who didn't want you in your wedding photos?

good grief.

Your MIL is the least of your problems.