'AITA for threatening to leave my husband over my MIL’s social media post?'
"AITA for threatening to leave my husband over my MIL’s social media post?"
Background: my MIL does not like me (37F). It’s been like this since the beginning. To be fair to her, I think I know why. My in laws live about a 3 hour flight away so we really only see them over the holidays.
The first time I met them was a 10 day trip about 10 years ago. My now-husband (38M) was thinking about proposing and told me a lot of his decision relied on how I got along with his family.
The stress of that pressure along with being away from my family at Christmas and the anxiety of being a new place with new patterns and no control over my day-to-day life put me in a bad place and we had a big fight that she likely overheard where I yelled quite a bit.
It’s fair that she wasn’t a fan initially. I think she also wants grandkids and so far my husband and I have not been able to provide that for her. Our entire relationship she’s actively excluded and alienated me.
Examples:
Sitting me at a different table that first Christmas, my husband didn’t even notice. Thankfully his cousin and her family felt bad and sat with me.
She asked my husband what kind of pizza to order and when he informed her I don’t eat mushrooms she only ordered pizza with mushrooms.
My husband and I have been married for 8 years, she’s never visited. Not once. She’s visited some family who live an hour away by car or train and didn’t tell us until the day of.
When other family members and her other daughter in law have accomplishments she posts about them. When I got my PhD she post nothing.
When other family members have a birthday she posts about them. She’s just started doing this with me since my husband asked her to do so after I insisted he say something.
When other family members visit she’ll do activities with them. When my husband and I visit we’ll invite her to do activities with us that we know she’s done with others and she declines.
She just generally ignores me in conversation pretty often.
Recently, I thought things were turning around. She gifted an expensive family trip to everybody and actually included me, which was a delightful surprise. The first few days of the trip were okay, she actually had a few one-on-one conversations with me but then it turned.
She started ignoring me in conversation again, shooting down every idea I had, that kind of thing. So my husband and I had a fight about it and I spent about a day and half in the hotel upset while he and his family did trip stuff. I wasn’t upset about that, I needed the time to reset so it was totally fine that my husband went on to do fun things with his family while I took some alone time.
Every year she posts a photo collage of the year that includes a lot of her friends, all immediate family, and quite a few extended family members. Today she posts the photo collage and I’m not in it … again.
She even had photos from the trip—but only from the day that I didn’t do activities with them. She included a few photos that I’ve sent to the family group chat that included some extended family members. I sent photos that included me and ones that didn’t.
She only included the ones that didn’t include me. I lost it. I angrily showed my husband and his first response was “well, at least she included you in a family photo that she used as a profile photo earlier this year”.
I felt dismissed and I felt like my concern was minimized. I expressed this and he reacted by saying “it’s just a social media post, why do you let this bother you so much?! What do you want me to do?!”. I told him it’s not just a social media post and it’s a 10 year pattern of exclusion and alienation that he doesn’t step in to counteract.
I told him that I don’t feel like he’s treating me as a family member and that this happens every year and every time she pulls BS like this he apologizes for not not intervening and defending me yet when it happens again he still doesn’t intervene. I told him that unless he speaks up, I’m leaving him. I’m sick of him being party to my alienation. Did I overreact? AITA here?
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
NTA. This isn’t about one Facebook collage. Its ten years of your MIL freezing you out while your husband shrugs and hopes it blows over. Being a partner means shutting that stuff down, not staying “neutral.” You’re drawing a boundary because he refuses to. That’s reasonable.
NTA. You definitely have a husband problem. Have you tried couples' therapy?
NTA except maybe to yourself for ever giving this dude the time of day! This, right here: “My now-husband (38M) was thinking about proposing… and told me a lot of his decision relied on how I got along with his family …”?!? 😳🤯 ABSOLUTELY. N-O-T!! Don’t just threaten to leave … I’d love to see an update soon that you FOLLOWED through … choose yourself, Girl!🩷
Why do you care so much? You insisted that she post about your birthday on FB? Why? Who cares? As you stated, you really only see her at the holidays so just be cordial during that time, whether she talks to you or not, and move along. You created the whole mess/drama by being rude and yelling and fighting in her home the first time she met you. Dont keep adding to the drama.
ESH. There's some conflicting information — you said your husband stepped in and asked his mom to include you in birthday posts, but also that he doesn't ever step in. Have you ever had a direct conversation with your MIL about your strained relationship?
In general, I think it's the blood-kid's responsibility to direct these convos, but everything you're describing is a lot of pent up passive aggressiveness and subtle digs. If your husband says "mom, my wife is threatening to leave me because you didn't include her in your latest collage," that is not going to have a positive effect on any of your relationships.
IMO you need to take MIL out to lunch, and have a heart to heart. "I love you. I wish our relationship wasn't strained. I think we got off on the wrong foot and things just spiraled from there, but I want to be closer to you and I don't want there to be tension. What can I do to improve our relationship?"