Boyfriend’s mentally unwell mother sabotages family events, writes child out of her will. AITA? + UPDATE
"I [31F] cannot stand my boyfriend’s [30M] mom [60F] and I think she might be literally insane."
My boyfriend's mom is easily one of the worst people I’ve ever encountered in my entire life, and it is a miracle that her son, my boyfriend, has turned out to be such an incredible, kind, loving person. She has serious, blatant mental issues that aren’t being treated, and I oscillate between feeling intense sadness for her and pure hatred.
Some examples of her behavior just from this past year:
She filed a restraining order against her own brother over a financial trust dispute. Her father died last year, and he was apparently very wealthy and there was a big trust fund to fight over.
I don’t know what happened between her and her brother, but I watched her behavior at the hospital while her father died and she was an awful witch. Her own mother, who has severe dementia, was beside herself.
Every 30 minutes she had to be reminded we were in the hospital with her husband of 50 years on his death bed. My boyfriend’s mother was seriously nasty to her, and even hospital staff noticed and tried to protect her.
The trust should have gone to the widow, and her brother took it over to provide medical care/living arrangements for her. She fought this tooth and nail, insisting the money was hers. She sued him for the money and lost. She remains extremely bitter about this.
She is very jealous of my boyfriend’s niece’s grandmother (the other grandma) and bad mouths her to this 6-year-old child, saying things like “Grandma Mary is a b-word.” Grandma Mary, by the way, is sweet, timid, and very quiet.
Every Christmas, without fail, she blows up. We hosted her at our home last Christmas and all seemed well until she found out we were going to Vegas the next week to celebrate my birthday.
She stormed out and drove home, then, on Christmas Day, wrote an email stating, “You are no longer my children. Period Like I said I have learned my lesson. I am sure Mary will take you in as that seems to be her MO.” My boyfriend pulled up email records from the past five years and there is always an email like this sent to the entire family on Christmas.
She lives two hours away, but had a dance event where we live this past summer. We agreed to host her for a couple days, but when she informed us it would be nearly five full days and we had evening plans on some of them, we asked if she could stay at my boyfriend’s brother’s house. (She gets violently angry if we're not in the home to entertain her).
This caused the biggest uproar you could ever imagine. She told my boyfriend he was a horrible son, told him to eff himself, and that she hated him. When she finally got to our house a couple days later, she ran into the house SCREAMING and demanding he go get all her stuff out of the car.
He was miserably sick, and when she found this out, she told him she “ought to slap him upside the head” for having her there. (He debated telling her he was sick, but thought she would blow up. Either way, there was no winning).
We were under the impression she would be at her event through the weekend, but instead she sat around our home complaining and being generally awful. We both had important work to do over the weekend that we could not do because she was there.
When she offered to sweep and mop the floors, we didn’t stop her because it gave her a distraction. She later wrote an email stating, “I am trying to get out and meet people but you all curtail any effort.
I don't have ANY friends, my whole life has been condemned to the enslavement of others whether I want to or not. The final straw was giving up the afternoon dance events to mop and clean for [son].” I would have PAID her to leave that day. This is just a mild example of how her mind words, and how she justifies her own behavior.
One of her life long dreams was to drive the Pacific Coast Highway. My boyfriend tried to make that dream a reality for her last month. Together, they planned the cities to stop at, activities they wanted to do, the type of car they wanted to drive.
They agreed about who would pay for what. I was invited on this trip, and reluctantly agreed to go. We all discussed payment, and agreed I would pay for my own food and activities, while they would split car/hotel costs since I didn’t have a say in any of it and it was technically their trip.
After the “dance event incident” she wrote an email stating, “I am only going to Cali at this point because [OP] would be forced to go 50/50 with [Son] even though she makes less than him but it won't be that much fun.” She wrote this email to the entire family for some reason.
We moved forward with the trip, aware of the potential risks. Things blew up WAY beyond what we ever had planned, though. We expected anger and child-like behavior from her, but the justification from my boyfriend is that if it would improve her happiness levels even slightly, it was worth it.
On the last day (she has a tendency to get very upset the day a trip ends), while discussing payments, she just lost it. We were in the car, and she started screaming about how awful we were at the top of her lungs.
She screamed bloody murder at me for things I’ve never even said or thought. She brought up things from YEARS ago, that have since been distorted in her mind. And when my boyfriend said the screaming needed to stop or we would have to just head to the airport early (our flight was about 8 hours from then, and a two-hour drive), she lost it even further.
She called 911 and insisted we were both holding her hostage and about to abandon her. We had to pull over (in a fancy hotel parking lot, no less), and the cops came and questioned all of us. Within five minutes they caught on to her mental issues and hysteria.
They forced her to vacate the car and separate from us. She got hysterical again, begging to not have to leave and that she would “just shut up.” When they said it was a bad idea to stay together, she asked for the police report number so she could file a restraining order against my boyfriend (HER SON). He gave her money for a car and food for the day and drove away in shock.
So why am I writing all this? Partially to vent. Partially because I feel like I am going crazy. My boyfriend said I need to just separate myself from her alternate reality and not let it affect me, but I simply cannot do that no matter how much I try. I think she needs mental help, but my boyfriend just says "that's the way she is."
The thing is, there’s always a summer blow up like this, and then about a month before Christmas she writes an email that says, “So when do you want to celebrate Christmas and whose place am I staying?”
It just cannot happen again this year. I don’t want her in my life, and I especially don’t want her ruining my favorite time of year for the third year in a row. Am I being overly sensitive? Should I just put up with her behavior? How do we move forward in a healthy way?
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's initial post:
AMerrickanGirl
You don't have a MIL problem, you have an SO problem. "That's just the way she is" is a fine attitude when someone over decorates for Christmas or is obsessed with polka music. It does not apply when the person is a psycho lunatic and the police need to be called.
If your BF doesn't start setting some boundaries and continues to enable her crazy, you may want to think seriously about trading him in for a guy who has a spine and can say no to his mother.
BlindPelican
Here's where asserting some healthy boundaries for yourself will help. I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. The hard part of navigating your relationship with your BF and how he copes with the situation. I mean, you said this...
"I don’t want her in my life."
Which means, your BF needs to know that you want nothing to do with her and you need to assert this wish whenever appropriate. That could mean anything from only engaging with her at social events with multiple people, to never speaking to her at all. It's entirely up to your comfort level.
This really falls on him to navigate - if he wants to maintain a relationship with his mother that's more involved, then he'll have to do it without you. My only suggestion for that would be to not make him choose, per se.
If he goes off for a week with his mom, then be ok with that. Encourage him, in fact. Don't put him in position to where he has to defend her to you. Just be clear that you find her toxic and want nothing to do with her.
yensid7
No, you absolutely shouldn't. This is horrible. Maybe not 100% related, but you should check out some subreddits, because this is eerily familiar to other stories I've heard, though I don't know that she's a very successful narcissist.
One month later, the OP returned with an update.
It's been about a month since I last posted and there have been a few small developments.The most notable thing is that my boyfriend and I, along with his family, have had several serious conversations about how to move forward. But first, some more information on how his mother has been behaving over the last month.
She went on an spree of verbally attacking me, both via text to me, and via text to his family members. She threatened to sabotage our recent trip to my hometown to see my family (which I'd been looking forward to for months, as we hadn't all been together in three years).
She also made lots of petty comments and insults about me, not limited to my lack of talent (I am in a creative profession), and my boyfriend's "stupidity" for being with someone like me.
Basically: she's super pissed with her current station in life, and I am the privileged individual who gets the blame. She also contacted my boyfriend's brother to let him know she was writing his 7-year-old daughter out of her will and taking away her college fund (this has been done about two dozen times) because she spent time with me and enjoyed it, versus not being happy when spending time with her.
I have blocked her from every social media platform, email, and phone/text. Boyfriend's brother has taken a placating approach by simply responding with "OK" whenever she texts, versus engaging.
Outside of the verbal aggression, she has backed off. She used to call my boyfriend at a frequency of several times a week, which he admits was a cumbersome, exhausting burden because he felt obligated to listen to her 30-minute angry diatribes about whatever drama was happening in her world. She hasn't called him in two months, and it has been glorious.
Regarding the upcoming holidays, we sat down with his other family members here and decided how to move forward. We are all in agreement that we will not spend Thanksgiving or Christmas with his mother. We have made plans to travel out of town for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we're very much looking forward to the mini excursions.
At this point, his mother would have likely contacted us about Thanksgiving plans, but in her anger since the PCH fiasco she hasn't attempted to do so. I am not sure if she will reach out about Christmas, but if she does then we will relay our current plans and take it as we go.
In addition to family-wide conversations about holidays, we have talked extensively about his mother's mental health and the best ways to move forward. In my state, there is a law that allows you to file a court - ordered mental health evaluation, and it only takes one person to file the application.
That is not an option we have ruled out, especially since she is clearly hurting and mentally unwell, and could benefit greatly from a mental health check and medication. It is my understanding that one has been filed for her previously, and that the court found mental disorder, but that she has ceased taking medication.
If it were up to me, I would file the application yesterday, especially since she mentioned wanting to kill herself in her last angry bout. Ultimately, though, I don't want to sidestep my boyfriend.
In the end, as a family we have agreed that our lives are better when she is not in it, and that ultimately she is happier, too, since everything we do — even planning a life-long dream trip for her — causes her great distress in the end.
We'll just have to take this one day at a time, but things have been calmer, generally, and I am looking forward to the holidays instead of feeling anxious about them for the first time in three years.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's update:
Skippylu
I'm not a doctor or expert but as someone who has an dBDP mother, the examples you have given here and in your previous post sound so similar to my own experiences. I find they seem to blow up at Christmas or Birthdays, especially when the focus is not on them.
I have been present at literally thousands of storm outs! The key really is setting and maintaining boundaries which sounds like you are doing. Best of luck OP and here's hoping you have a better Christmas this year.
CummingInTheNile
MILs gonna find herself under conservatorship and 5150d sooner rather than later.
DamnitGravity
"I think she needs mental help, but my boyfriend just says 'that's the way she is.'"
The problem with people like the mother is that the family starts to see it as 'normal'. Their idea of what 'normal' is becomes so skewed, and you can't explain to them it's not normal.
Even if you show them how a person/family should be together, they still won't be able to admit their family has a problem. Because it's 'normal', and, indeed, the happy family is the one that is 'weird' (though hopefully good weird).
It's really tragic, how quickly such wild, crazy and abusive behaviour can become normalised for people. How so many just accept it as 'this is the way it is' and there's nothing to be done but tolerate it. I wonder if OP and her partner made it, or if he got dragged back into his mother's insanity. If OP stuck with him, or left him because she didn't want that to become 'normal'.
SoapForYourHands
The brother is already grayrocking the mom with OKs. Some people just crave drama, even if it’s at the expense of their own family.
SpyderParlour
My mother is diagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder and I could’ve written this post about her. I am glad OP helped her bf set boundaries with his mom. It was probably something he struggled to do on his own. Saying that’s just “the way she is” says to me he normalized that behavior a long time ago.
Growing up with that volatile of a parent makes you excessively empathetic, drives you to keep the peace whenever possible, and convinces you that you are a “bad child” (because you have been told you are) if you don’t bend to every emotional whim. It takes a lot of therapy, boundaries, and support to get healthy after growing up like that.