Problems with my mother in law

I have reacted to her sayings: when she spoke about my family and caste. (my reaction was just that i moved away from her) Good things about mumma: She is caring She has never enjoyed her life and I feel she should now stay happy and relaxed She is a good cook She is loving She seems to be fun loving, depending on her mood. What has she done wid me: She has been v rude to me whether it is my fault or not. Even if it is rahul’s fault, she spoke all the bull shit to me. There is no limit to wat bad and how bad things she has spoken to me. She made me the target of her frustrations. If I did not do anything, she created fuss out of it. If I did she never appreciated. Again spoke bad abt it. She was not happy to send us out. She said I should not go out. Never taught me directly things should be. Always anger never showed love to me. I felt her love wen she put balm on my hand. And wen she bought chips for me after she spoke bad to me. Wat I have done: I have tried to pacify her wenever she was angry. Always heard silently whatever she spoke to me. Howsoever rude she may be. I tried to keep family together. I tried to be wid her whole time if I am at home. I never sit if she is working, I try to give her maximum comfort if I am there. But she never showed satisfaction/appreciation. . Mumma has always been vv self centered. She never showed happiness when I took a major decision to shift from delhi and leave my job just like dat. Her attitude remained the same. 1. Wen rahul shifted to Delhi, the way she got rude wid me. I kept communicating wid her, never left her just like dat. Kept sendig her msgs on watsapp. 2. Holi time : wen she was alone. The way she behaved for 3 days she was extremely rude and spoke vvv badly wid me. 3. Never received our calls if she did never spoke nicely. 4. I kept saying sorry to her without any fault 5. During holi, I was always beside her, even if she said all the rude thing she could have said. 6. Because she was unhappy, I stopped going out anywhere, 7. Because she was unhappy I changed my dressing style. 8. They earlier allowed me to wear night suit, but when I realized she doesn’t like it, I always went down stairs in salwar suits. 9. I have to stealthily go out with my husband so that she doesn’t feel bad. 10. She thinks whatever bad has happened to Rahul , has happened because of me and his involvement with me. My Mistakes: The day wen I moved away while she was speaking harsh to me in the morning,I did not come downstairs. Then she was out whole day. I was worrying about her very much but rahul showed from her call records that she has gone to her friend’s place. Wen she returned back, I sat with her for 5 min but wen she moved away from the roomi went upstairs again. I should have asked her,where she had been for the whole day. Wat she ate or etc…….. just for the sake of formality. I did not do dat.Then after dat, the huge fight happened between rahul and her . I was blamed the villain and the peace breaker and the same ols chudail bahu. Since then we are staying upstairs and she down stairs. Separately in our rooms. I am not allowed to do any work involve in any thing of her house. Just because of a single hing that I did…….. I dnt know whether I am at big fault or small fault. All I want is some personal space and some freedom for myself. I had to react one day as otherwise the same thing would have to continue for lifelong. Someplace, somewhere,the line had to be drawn. She will have to understand that she cannot keep on doing this. This cannot contibue.Somewhere she will have to limit herself.

Come off it, NHGYL0719 - you know as well as I now do that if you were to so much as SNEEZE the wrong way she'd take umbrage. Ooo-er, big deal - you didn't enquire about her day (pff!). I'm not SURPRISED you didn't; I imagine you daren't say a *word* these days in case it just rouses the monster all over again! So don't sit there asking what it is YOU'VE done wrong like there some magic wand somewhere that you could wave if only you knew where it were located. The woman is clearly *determined* not to like you. Why, is the question. And I suspect it's not even personal, I think she'd be behaving like this to ANY woman who had 'taken her baby away from her'. You said it yourself, she's never been happy (or was never allowed to be). I imagine, along with the above resentment, she's jealous of the freedom you have as a young wife - freedom she never got to enjoy. Now add to these facts the further fact that your husband (good for him!!) is clearly showing solidarity with you, not her, and - there you have it. She's dealt her revenge over that fact by making being downstairs with her just too damn uncomfortable for anyone. She's certainly managed to reduce your cushy freedom *now*, hasn't she! Trouble is, it sounds like it's her house, her territory. Yes, you could confront her over what her real problem with you is. But I doubt that'd work because if she were capable of being that honest in the first place, she'd have instigated a talk in the FIRST place rather than set about constantly kicking you 'under the table'. The better solution would be for you and your husband to try your hardest to find your own house, or, if you really can't afford it (although I'd be of the mind that said I couldn't AFFORD not to afford it, given that horridly, psychologically unhealthy environment), see if your husband can ask some other close relative for lodgings. IS it her house?

Current house is her house. And she is 70 yrs old. My husband is not in favour of shifting as in that case there would be noone to take care of her in this old age. He is right too. I tried to pen down all my problems and my feelings in a letter and gave it to her to read as sitting and talking atmosphere does not prevail in the house.. But the results were even worse.....It seems there is no end to it....i will go mad this way. I have developed a phobia for her. I get scared from her, even wen i know i have done nothing wrong. i still feel like a criminal.......is there no escape to this???

YyyyyyyyyyyyUP! I'm with Susie. And the name for your mother-in-law is, VICTIM BULLY. You're *supposed* to feel sorry for her, the pair of you, because it's that very pitiful little victim impression that acts as their veil behind which to LASH OUT, indisciminately or otherwise. Mew-mew, poor me [KICK!]...You *made* me kick you, poor me, boo-hoo [KICK-KICK!]. And so on and so forth. Also agree it's EASY FOR HUSBAND to think it needs tolerating and isn't so hard to do. He's not the one who spends most time around her, is he. Maybe you need to get OUT of their mother-son umbilical-cord issue for a while, go stay with a friend or relative of yours for 2 weeks. One, it would give you back your strength of mind to decide you are NOT STANDING FOR THIS NONSENSE any more, and, two, it would leave your husband as the sole target within her immediate crosshairs, refresh his memory over why he wanted a third person in that house to begin with. Because without even fully realising it, your husband is sacrificing your peace of mind for the sake of his own, using you as his human shield. Thirdly, believing he's close to losing you because of her and the horrid home environment she's created will give him better incentive to get off his mentally-lazy, head-in-sand-burying arse and DO something. And by 'something' I mean MORE than just go blah-whack-blah with his mouth as doesn't even achieve anything in the first place - save for things getting a whole lot WORSE because he didn't actually FINISH the job! Alternatively, you've got two other choices of related action: 1. Become COMPLETELY obsequious and beaten-down as pacifies her (which possibly wouldn't work, anyway, since you're not actually her problem nor anything to do with it and just her emotional punching bag) or 2. Give her better than you get (which goes one giant step further than Susie's advice to cease trying to appease her). Start to be deliberately hostile in every single way you can think of towards HER. I call it, 'I'm FAR crazier than you!' which, like a drunkard who magically sobers up in minutes in the face of some shock or trauma, can't AFFORD to stay drunk, simply because s/he HAS to (a survival mechanism kicking in), can often have the effect of instantly tipping the dynamic (trading places). In other words, were this a zit on your chin which you wanted cleared up asap, you'd either put a topical lotion onto it or you'd fiddle around with it so much that it brought it far quicker to a huge head, whereupon it has nowhere to go but, POP!, with the pus finally out in the open for all to see and no longer deny, so that healing can finally commence. But in the first instance I'd take the staying with someone friendly measure. If that fails, however, then it's act-your-socks-off time. Or as my late dad used to put it, 'Give her something to REALLY cry about!'. Either of these remedies may sound a scary proposition, but it's taking the bull by the horns or getting speared through the gut by them. People treat you only as badly as you LET them. What a test of your adult character life/fate has thrown onto your path for you, eh! I wonder why... I wonder what future situation it has planned for you where putting into use those newly pumped muscles will have you thanking you lucky stars you even FACED this current 'gym work' in the form of an uber-acid mother-in-law? Hopefully, whatever it is will see you raising a glass to the fact she and this challenge existed.

I f I do Anything like that or react agressively to her misbehaviour, then i have a fear to loose the respect and love my husband has for me. He fights for me with my MIL. but no decision after that. Huge fights occur between mother and son with me, my caste, my parents or anything absurd as the main topic. But still i feel satisfied that he understands dat I am not wrong. But now if I react....he might not like it. And like every other house in an Indian household, i will be marked as the devil Daughter in law,who broke the house and took the son away from an old mother, when she need him the most. Ours was a love marriage to which his mother got ready after a lot of stubborness and may be forcibly. But since after marriage my life is hell. I left my job for her and shifted from Delhi to a much smaller place and now working at a lower pay and still she keeps taunting that i do not stay at home.I might become an outcast amongst my in laws. All these 'to do or not to do"are haunting me day and night. She also reacts very very agressively if i go out anywhere wid my husband. WHY?????

Also as a rule i have to ask her for tea....food etc. I dnt want to face her these days. My husbands and parents say I have to do my part of duty anyhow. but i do not want to go in front of her. at least for the time being.....no. But i cant do so. She doesnt even replies me or sees my face but i am asked to be after her............what do i do? shud i ....shud'nt i? The more I ask her, the more faces she makes......why is she acting like dat?

Absolutely! And nor, more to the point since your hands are culturally tied, should your husband allow it. Blah-blah-blah at high volume? What good does THAT do? Clearly NONE OR WORSE. So if your protector is failing to do his job, you are by the laws of humanity - which trumps those of culture - allowed to defend YOURSELF. Or what - does your husband want TWO miserable women under that roof? You have to find a way to get it through his skull that he has to take proper, adult *action* before things become so bad that ALL THREE OF YOU are miserable. Alternatively, you tell US what the solution is? Clearly you believe there IS a solution somewhere or else you wouldn't have made your problem 'public' by coming onto a forum - is that right? Or are you here 'merely' for moral support?

RHLMKHRJ, how are you doing/what are your thoughts? I've had another idea. Since you haven't said anything untruthful, unfair or unkind about your MIL that he could reproach you over - do you think showing your husband this forum thread might help to make him finally appreciate how this is a much bigger deal for you, the victimised target of all her unhappiness and/or emotional ill-health, than he might perhaps have realised?

She is an asshole who wants to peep in every single thing i do. When i am out for my office je goes in peeps in my room. checks my stuff. what things have i purchased and where and how i have kept my stuff. then she complaints my husband for that. if she does not like the way things are kept etc etc. even after 1.5 years of marriage she does not let me go out with my husband for one or the other reason. if i still go she will spoil the rest of the week creating fuss out of one or the other things. for no bloody reason keeps nagging that the one who does wrong gets the same in return and a person who has kept his mother unhappy will never be happy in life and will be punished by god. She complains about me to bloody housemaids.I dont like her and want her to be away from my life.but this does not seem to happen in near future. She is 70 and is still healthy and hearty. i stay away from her and talk to her as less as possible.

Crikey, what happened to you after Nov 4th that it's taken 8 long months for you to return? Anyway... Know what her most recent behaviour sounds like to me? That she is bored with a capital B and you and what you do/don't do are her sole source of stimulation and drama. Here, ask her what god says about a mother who makes her son and his wife constantly stressed and miserable! God's laws do NOT just go one way, tell her! Anyway, 'punished' people are miserable people and miserable people are nasty, small-minded and petty people so considering she's the only one around there always complaining and creating such aggro it'd seem to be Case Closed on that score, wouldn't it. NHGYL, I don't like her either and I've never met the woman. (Met too many types like her, though.) And I'm sure the same must go for those poor, ear-bent and bored-silly maids of hers, they who surely know full well what she's like, take all of that nasty gossiping with a huge pinch of salt (whilst wishing she'd shut up so they could get on with their chores) and probably feel sorry for YOU, not her. Well, I wouldn't like to be in your mother-in-law's shoes, that's for sure. And I'll tell you why: aside from any ethereal come-uppance there is an ENORMOUS difference in how you're sounding today compared to when you first started this thread. I'm getting vibes in this latest post of, 'Aw, shut your beak, you old crow!', not least in the way you say no bloody reason and bloody housemaids and admit far more succinctly and expressly that you simply don't like her. In short, you sound far less like a helpless victim unsure of who the problematic element is. Go read your opening thread and you'll see. That being the case, I give it 6 months for you to go from taking her shennanigans less to heart (now) and reaching the end of your tether and blowing up in the woman's face. Frankly, if you DID dare do that - and properly - I think you'd see the tables instantly turn. Because, here's the thing with bullies: what they're actually doing, even unbeknownst to themselves, is crying out to be CONTROLLED AND TAKEN CHARGE OF. Everybody wants a hero, everybody wants a parent...But some don't know how to JUST ASK NICELY. They provoke you instead. Drip, drip, drip, prod, prod, prod...until you finally relent and blow. Either that or you should continue to avoid her as much as possible but turn that dial up, make it more noticable. Either/Or... just as long as whichever of the two tacks you try you try TO THE HILT. It's things half-done/half-heartedly done that get half-and-half, i.e. wishy-washy, results. In short, you either blank bullies no matter what or 'whack 'em back' harder (twice as). That's it. Anything less either does eff-all or takes so long to achieve that you end up blowing a gasket and going TOO FAR. My advice to you for next time you come across someone like this with whom you have to daily operate is, nip it in the bud, don't wait. You're living with what happens if you allow that bud to develop. It's called a ruddy great thorn bush and a motorized hedge-trimmer for hours on end where once you could have just gone one-second SNIP! with a pair of manual pruners. Right? ("Right!") We live and learn... including that there is no such thing as "a quiet life".