'My MIL is CONVINCED I'm a master manipulator and turning my husband against her.' UPDATED

"MIL is CONVINCED I'm a master manipulator."

Hello! My (30F) husband (39M) and I have been married for almost 2 years. We recently had our first child in July. The first couple months of her life were pretty rough on my mental health. Husband was super supportive and patient. I soon hit my stride and am doing much better. Baby is thriving and a happy chunker.

Background on husband and MIL (62F) (per husband’s account of things): Husband’s dad was a Walter White-type dealer who died in prison. MIL grew up in a very messed up home and continued to make many poor choices during his upbringing. Including smoking around him, smoking during pregnancy. She also, in a figurative sense, abandoned him for a toxic man when he was a kid.

He watched MIL and his step-dad verbally and physically mistreat each other on many occasions. It soon became so bad that he went to live in another state with relatives until he graduated high school. Soon after, she went to prison for nearly ten years (not violent but still pretty egregious), in which he had nearly no contact with her.

My MIL came to live with us a month before the baby was born, and she was incredibly helpful for the first couple months while I physically and mentally recovered. However, it soon became apparent to me that she does not like the way I take care of the baby. It started small with criticisms of her sleep schedule, changing her diaper, and taking her outside.

Then it began to get worse when the baby was 4 months old when we finally got into a screaming match over me telling her an easier way to open a defrosted bag of breastmilk. My husband finally stepped in (I told him to not to until I said it was necessary) and had a conversation with her.

And that was the beginning of her delusions. She was convinced I was going through her clothes and stealing them, her bras specifically. Both my husband and I knew this was absolutely insane.

And it only continued to worse from there. I tried to have a rational, calm conversation with her, and it only devolved to the point where she berated me and called me a narcissist. I continued to try and make her happy, but it seemed like anything I did other than just let her have free reign to criticize me just made her angrier.

I’d always try to include her in dinner, Dr appts for the baby, and going to dinner, but I didn’t realize my efforts were only making her think worse of me. My husband throughout this whole time has been on my side, trying to reason with her.

Things finally came to a head this past weekend/week. The baby woke up in the middle of the night. She’s been fighting an ear infection and she was in the middle of an antibiotics course, which was making her sleep somewhat erratic. I took her downstairs, fed her, and started the process of getting her back down.

She ended up pooping, and while I was in the process of changing her, she ended up “spraying” me with more. It got everywhere. On my hands, my pants, the couch, her pajamas, etc. I was startled and said (pretty loud I will admit), “Oh my god! That’s nasty”.

MIL comes out of her room, comes downstairs, seeing me change her, and starts screaming about how I was yelling at the baby and called me a “fat liar” for saying I didn't yell at the baby (baby didn't even flinch when I was loud, just kicking her legs and waiting for me to wipe her butt).

I had finally had enough of her and went upstairs, woke up my husband, and told him to handle his mother. He came down, but MIL went to her room before there could be anything said between them.

My husband wanted a couple days for all of us to cool down, but he was pretty angry with her. He’s heard her berate me, so he knows exactly what is happening. He told me he wanted to bring up a few points to her but didn’t want to tell me what they were because he knows she’ll try to turn it around on me. A couple days later, she yelled at me for the baby being naked (in a diaper).

When I told her the bottle finished before I was through changing her clothes, she said it doesn’t matter and that she’s sick and she’s cold. It is winter, but our house is always warm, plus the baby likes being naked sometimes. Same thing that evening. I was changing a diaper, unzipped her pajamas, but I didn’t immediately zip her back up.

I was “blowing raspberries” on her belly and she was having a great time smiling and cooing. MIL gets mad again and asks if I’ve had enough time to screw around with her. All I did was look at her with this “Seriously?” look and zipped her up. I swear this woman thinks the baby is going to freeze to death in a 70+ degree house.

My husband went to have what he called the “final” conversation with her after dinner. He’s basically trying to get her to show some accountability in how she scolds me for literally everything I do when she did far worse when he was a child.

In that conversation, she finally came out and said I’m evil, a demon, and a b!tch, that I’m not comforting to the baby when she cries (I am. She always calms down when I sing a Creed song to her) and a terrible mother.

She’s convinced I’ve turned my husband against her and I’m a master manipulator. She thinks any help I offer her, like literally offering to turn over her laundry or do dishes, is me playing mind games and being fake with her. Husband finally had enough and told her she had 30 days to move out.

Husband has been feeling a lot of feelings, and a lot of childhood trauma is resurfacing. He is actively trying to “break the cycle” and give our daughter a much better childhood than he had. He is seriously considering giving her an ultimatum to shape up and apologize or he will cut her off from him (her only child) and her grandchild.

I don't know if there's going to be any update unless there’s yet another blow up from her. Hopefully she realizes how much she’s messed up and learns from this. And though I’m not super petty myself, I’ll probably enjoy listening to the song “Devil Woman” a little more frequently.

This is what people had to say to OP:

Kindly_Jellyfish_451 said:

Um…why did you two have this woman move in with you in the first place?

OP responded:

She had shown a lot of growth in the last few years. We thought it was a good idea at the time. Clearly we were wrong.

GraniteRose067 said:

It sounds like she is using...she is so out of control. She needs to leave. Her behavior has consequences and they are that it is no longer possible to stay in your home... she's a grown up, she can figure out things for herself and use the social services available to stand on her own two feet. Your husband has his own family to worry about now.

Just_Mixture8362 said:

Just throw her out ffs, you don’t need this a$$hole in your home and definitely not anywhere near your child. Why have you put up with this much crap already?

OP responded:

I really wanted to try and be the bigger person. I didn't think it would escalate to this extent.

EllenMoyer said:

Your MIL sounds mentally ill, and unsafe to be around you and your child. I would evict her ASAP.

One month later, OP shared this update:

Well, I didn’t think I would be back to provide an update for this, because things got better, then boiled over and then exploded like a volcano. It’s been confirmed that this is a mental health problem my MIL is suffering from, and I am simply the target of her paranoia and delusions.

After the last post, things cooled down for a couple weeks with my MIL. At my husband’s insistence, he didn’t want us to “prove her right” by withholding the baby from her. But he said that she was to ask first. Fine by me. This seemed to work for a little bit while MIL looked for a new place to live.

Things began going downhill again in late February. MIL kept insisting the baby had an ear infection. I take the baby to the doctor, and SURPRISE, no ear infection. However, she didn’t believe I actually took her to the doctor or the doctor is wrong. It depends what she believes.

That same day, when we were supposed to go out for MIL’s birthday, The baby was being fussy and trying to fight us when we were changing a diaper (The baby was just hangry, teething, and tired). The baby gagged on her Tylenol my husband gave her to relieve her mouth pain.

She came down while this is happening and immediately starts in on scolding me about her crying. Husband came to my defense and said it wasn’t me doing any of this, and she redirected back at me and blamed me. That dinner, surprisingly, still happened, but it was incredibly awkward to say the least.

Then came the following weekend. Husband and I were getting ready for church when MIL decides to come down and ask my husband where her medication was (stuff for whatever issue was going on with her mental health, which I didn’t even know about at the time). When he didn’t know where it was, she lost it and said “well they didn’t grow legs and walk away! I’m so sick and tired of this bullsh*t, etc.).

Husband was mad, told me to take the baby and go to church while he was going to help try and find the meds. I came home later, and he told me she accused me of going into her room, dumping out her purse, and taking/hiding them.

She later apologized for the accusation of this one, but it confirmed for us that I am her target. By this point, husband is on edge every day and afraid of the baby crying because he’s worried MIL will come down and yell at us.

The beginning of the end came a couple days after that. The baby began developing a cold, which immediately made my husband tense because MIL was a nightmare the last time the baby was sick. The baby was up most of the night, would wake up screaming less than an hour after going to sleep.

She asks what’s wrong, we tell her she’s sick, and she insists she knew the baby was sick the last TWO WEEKS (she wasn’t). We just ignored her. Husband said to keep him posted if she acts up again.

I ended taking a half day off work because of the baby being sick. MIL asks to hang out with her a few minutes when I was done with the day. I said okay. Within minutes, she's berating me about not taking her to the doctor, INSISTS she still had an ear infection, and that I don’t care about her health. We went back and forth arguing until I finally said enough, give me the baby. I texted my husband what happened.

My husband sent a SCATHING text about how awful she was behaving and how he’s ashamed of her. She proceeds to tell him I was disrespectful and making her out to be Satan (she did that herself). She says I am like Jekyll and Hyde and he’ll find out one day just how awful I am. To husband’s credit, he stood by me through all of it. She said she was moving out of state and he would never hear from her again.

And just when things couldn’t get any worse… they did. Literally the following day, she comes home from work. She allowed the baby to roll off the bed. Baby was fine, just scared and startled.

After she went to bed, MIL came downstairs for a minute. She was mumbling about “the devil” (me), and not one minute after she went upstairs, she began screaming at husband that I took/stole a white wicker thing she puts her mail in (I didn’t even know this thing existed).

That was the last straw. She verbally attacks me in every way shape and form. She calls me all sorts of names like b*tch, narcissist, that I hate my daughter, am jealous of her, etc. BY this point, I pulled my phone and started recording what she was saying because she was spouting off things like CPS.

Husband and I are just looking at each other the whole time, trying to make sense of what the hell is going on. I call her paranoid and delusional, because frankly she is. She threatened to physically assault me if I called her that again. She said she plans on telling his entire family about this.

Thankfully the baby slept through the entire thing (and we took her to the doctor in the morning because a bruise was forming from rolling off the bed). Husband said he’s going no contact with her, that she lost both him and her granddaughter at once and he never wants to speak to her again. I’ve encouraged him that he should seek some therapy since he’s grieving the end of the relationship.

In time I think we’ll both be fine and stronger for it, but I just wish we didn’t have to experience this crap to make it happen. Good riddance to her.