[thisha]

Hi there, I saw this Forum and thought I can use this platform to get help and advice and some tips and share my inner thoughts.....I am clueless now what to do....

I have been married for three and a half years now and we ( my husband and me) have always stayed away from my in laws. After we got engaged, my husband told me that his mother has occassional modd swings and since she had her uterus removed very early in life, she has these occassional surge of hormones...I didn't think too much and thought with time and when I get to know her she would come around....

I realized as my marriage passed that she is a very difficult person to deal with ( I know u'd tell me all mother in laws are!) She visited us once right after we were married and they started setting rules on how I shud spend my free time, when I sleep and wake up and how many hours I spend on the computer and so on...I found this atrocious but still did most of this as I thought they are staying with us the first time and its important I do all I can to be in the good books of her....There were a lot of arguements that happened ( my husband has stayed away from home for almost 13 years now) and after they left it all was settled and everything was normal....

We now stay in Germany and my mother in law and father in law visited us for one and a half months....She is a person of the traditional world and belongs and still thinks in those times. Her mind is fixed in those days and she refuses to change her thinking and accept that times have changed...She feels the way she had lived in her times were the best and thats the way life shud be lead...In short words, she wants us to live the way she lives....

My husband has stayed away from home for a long time and also abroad so he is a person of today's times and wants me to do things that todays people do like looking for jobs, furthering my career, meeting people rather than cooking four meals a day....But my mother in laws thinks exactly the reverse and she wants us to be cooking 3 times a day....So this time when they came there was a complete clash of opinions and my husband said certain things which made her feel insulted....Fine, they were things he shud not have said may be but all of us are humans and we all don't know at times what we say....

There were big arguements and she kept screaming and yelling that we have called her here just to have fights with her and insult her which is definitely not the case....My husband is a very in your face person and can't tolerate that his mother is telling us how we shud live our lives....

But through this all I kept mum and didn't ay too much for fear of addeing fuel to the fire....I respected them, loved them, gave them time, changed a few of my haits for the time they were there and never said anything against them even though my mother in law never could have enuff of commenting on me or my husband....

Now they have gotten back to India and now its been close to 7 weeks and my mother in law refuses to talk to us...She says we insulted her and we said things to hurt her and now she feels very bad and she does not want to talk to us...I find this so ridiculous and childish....We apologized to her so many times when she was here. I did too even though I had done no wrong....But still she keeps repeating all the mistakes we made and I made...I made just one or two mistakes from what I do...and those were mistakes in the kitchen which all of us make....

We understand that she may have been insulted and we have also apologized but she is stubborn and does not want to talk to us...Aparently she also called my sister in law and screamed at her too for not raising her kids the right way and not devoting time to them blah blah...she seems to be in a total war path now and I am just fed up now....We tried to talk to her...My husband tried to make peace with her but in the one and a half hrs that they spoke all she did was scream, accuse him of the mistakes he did, the things he said which insulted her so much so that she went to the extent of saying that mu husband is not the child she gave irth to...I felt really sad for my husband but he insists its her mood swings and there's nothing one can do about it...All she wants to do is remind us of our misakes and remind us of all the things we said to her that insulted her...we have apologized many times and are ready to even forgive her for all the nonsense she has screamed here and on the phone...but she is stubborn and will not talk a word to us...

And what angers me even more that I am bearing the brunt for no reason of mine and for mistakes committed by my husband...I didn't tell her or for that matter both of them anything that insulted her and my father in law or did something untowardly...but yet I am silently bearing the same punishment metted out simply because I am married to her son....

I understand people make mistakes and that sometimes they say things which hurt others but this kind of reaction just annoys me and is way beyond reasoning....My father in law says she suffers from some complex or depression...no clue what it is...but I can't believe that she says such things to her own child.....

I respected my in laws a lot when they were here and also still do but if she is going to continue behaving this way, how can I expect myself or how can she expect me to be nice to her....There is only such an extent I can keep quiet and I am still staying mum as I don't want to caught on the wrong foot...But I am fed up of her behavior and have no clue why she is behaving so childishly and why she is so bent on reminding us of our mistake when she was here...what does she gain from them?

My father in law also says she is influened negatively from her sister who stays closeby who always comes to speaks negatively to her...( she lost her daughter sometime back who committed suicide).....

My husband tells me she needs to see a pschychiatrist and a counsellor ...I don't know all that but I am clueless what to do and this is really tressing me out...

Can you help me out as to what I can do or what we can do that things return back to normal?

Thank you very much

[Leed]

I don't know what YOU can do but it sounds to me like she needs to be on HORMONES for one thing. If she had a hysterectomy, then it probably sent her into menopause and that's causing the horrible mood swings. She needs to see her doctor about this. He can prescribe the hormones for her.

She also needs to see a therapist. She obviously has some serious issues going on. Whether or not she will see one is another problem. She may not want to admit that she has issues. Many people won't admit it. They THINK that it's an admission that they're crazy, which couldn't be further from the truth! It's my opinion that EVERYONE should see a therapist sometime in their life. People would certainly learn to get along with each other better.

Maybe her husband (she IS married, right?) can get her to go to the doctor for hormone treatment, IF that is called for. The doctor will make that decision of course. It might not even be necessary -- I don't know. Perhaps a mood-stabilizer. Whatever. But she needs a checkup to see what's wrong. And then perhaps he can ask (or DEMAND) that she see a therapist. I don't know how he can STAND her acting like this!! It would drive most people nuts!

So there's really nothing you can do. Just put a bug in your father in laws ear, and that's about it. Best of luck and God bless. I wish you the very best. Hugs, Lee

[gimmeice]

Wow what a difficult situation that you are dealing with here. I have come to realize that not all mother in laws are horrid, mine was a lovely woman though she had her moments as we all do. This behavior is just way out there.

I like the suggestion of speaking to your father in law about getting her some help medically and emotionally but beyond that whether or not they take advice is out of your control. In life you cannot control other peoples behavior only how you allow that behavior to affect you. You could try to explain to your mother in law that you are trying to move on from this experience and do not wish to discuss what she conceives as mistakes you have made any further. If she insists on continuing the discussion, end it by telling her you love her and getting off the phone, eventually she should get the clue that you are tired of discussing it.

I wish you the best of luck

[thisha]

Thank you so much for both your replies...I feel so much better now that I could speak all this out....Well my father in law....everytie he tries to take her to the doc I guess she has gone crazier saying people taking her to the doc have gone crazy....I don't know how he tolerates her behaviour...My husband tells me its been like this a long time and that he pities him...My father in law is a more nicer man and very open and easy going....He does sometimes scold us for our errors but beyond that he genuinely loves us as his children....

And secondly, I don't know what the hell is going in my mother in law's mind but may be she suffers a complex that her son listens to his wife more than her and she feels may be he doesn't need her anymore...I am just guessing...but what happens always is I get stuck between my mother in law and my husband...Both have a clash of opinions....For e.g my husband wants me to something an X way and my mother in law the Y way/....If I do it the X way I please my husband but make my mother in law go wild...If I do the Y way, I please my mother in law but anger my husband...sometimes I feel like a football myself....

My parents tell me not to care too much and that things will settle down and she will change, but is it really possible that may be one day she would indeed come around and start talking normally? I clearly told my husband that even if a situation comes where we have to be in the same country there's no way we are going to stay together...I am sure it did break him a bit but then if people are ging to show this behaviour, then a cordial happy family is just a fantasy....I don't think I can tolerate people sitting in my home and talking 24 by 7 about other people, other lives, other daughter in laws.....And last but not the least, I can't tolerate someone *****ing about me behind me....She has this very nasty habit of *****ng about people ( including me and my husband) behind her back....

When she starts talking about us to my father in law...he actually keeps quiet...he sometimes even doesn't acknowledge her...we don't know if this is because he anyway knows she is talking crap and doesn't heed to it or he nows if he even reacts he is going t anger her further or that he agrees to it...We doubt it is the last one....

Anycase, this has really damm stressed me out that sometimes I have this crazy idea of seeing a counsellor myself on how to deal with such people and how to handle such relationships....because this is constantly on my mind and sometimes also gives me horrid dreams at night...would this be a good idea or am i just over reacting? And that may be I will get used to such things slowly