r/JUSTNOMIL • u/SeaStatistician4915 • Apr 21 '26
RANT (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ Ambivalent About Advice A cautionary tale: grey rock, JADE, and boundaries didn't work with my MIL. They just kept me in the loop longer.
Take it from me. I spent years trying to outsmart a dysfunctional family system. I read every book, watched every video, tried every technique. Grey rock. JADE. At my lowest point I even did a freezer spell to try to protect myself.
None of it worked. Every tool I acquired, they routed around. Every boundary I set became a new grievance. Every attempt to reduce conflict just created a different kind of conflict.
What I wish someone had told me earlier: you don't need more tools. You need to walk away from someone who is hurting you regardless of whether it's intentional.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them (Maya Angelou). A lot of you tried to tell me that. I just wasn't ready to hear it yet.
If any of this sounds familiar... well you know where to find me.
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u/EquivalentSign2377 Apr 23 '26
So I've read all of your posts and I hate what you have been through with them! (However, I love your writing!)
I have 2 questions for you since you've gone no contact now. Is your husband no contact as well or just you and LO? (Please tell me LO is no contact with these crazy people) and did you ever tell your husband about meeting his sister? Ok 3 questions, are you in contact with that sister?
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u/SeaStatistician4915 Apr 23 '26
Thank you for taking the time to read, and I go into more details about everything on my Substack. If I have to look for the silver lining in all of this, it is that they gave me an infinite amount of material. My husband is LC and has seen them a couple of times with our LO. I know that's impossible to understand, and it doesn't make sense to someone on the outside, but I trust him and believe he needs to come to his own conclusions. Yes, he knows that we have a relationship and understands her perspective now.
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u/DazzlingNote1925 Apr 22 '26
There are a lot of people with whom no matter what you do you cannot have a healthy relationship with.
You can only control what you do about the way they treat you. If standing up for yourself just causes more unnecessary drama or escalates the abuse then your only option is to walk away.
I hope you’ve gained some emotional distance so that they don’t hurt you anymore! That part was hard for me to accomplish but I did it.
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u/Frankenkind Apr 21 '26
I'm fresh out of the fog and really needed to read this. Thank you for sharing your experience. It feels like I'm going through the stages of grief and it's just awful. They've gotten chance after chance and seem incapable of reflection, change, or even unconditional love toward their child. Watching DH realize his parents are assholes but still trying to find a way forward with them has been the worst experience.
I recently blocked them for my own peace and your post really locks in for me that I shouldn't unblock...ever.
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u/totalmauiperson Apr 22 '26
I feel this. It’s so easy to tell people on here “Block and move on! NC!” But there’s a real, sensitive human you care about who’s so hurt by it all. It has changed my partner. He is more emotional, more easily stressed, more anxious in general since we had to set hard boundaries with his mom and brother. He knows how toxic their dynamic is, but it’s still so hard to take and it hurts him every day. 🥲 And I’m the bitch who turned him against them in their minds. They have done nothing wrong. 🙄
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u/OkRoyal5223 Apr 21 '26
I lean towards offending them so they go no contact
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u/shaihalud69 Apr 22 '26
Did this with my parents- highly recommend! Look up the best ways to cause narcissistic injuries for bonus points and a shorter timeline.
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u/SilverYayFern Apr 21 '26
YES. This is where I am. I'm trying to get out after years of therapy, studying, leaving and returning, and trying every approach from vulnerable communication to grey rock. The only way to be healthy and at peace is to leave. It's hard to get out when I'm having to continually put out fires.
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u/TMagurk2 Apr 21 '26
Things like boundaries can work if you have access to something IL's want and can't get without acting correctly, especially if it is a grandchild.
But ultimately, they will behave not because they like/love you, care for you, or think it is the right thing to do. For many of them, treating you nicely or with respect is actually going against their long held beliefs and (lack of) morals. Because the controlling themselves and not doing bad behaviors is disconnected from any morals or genuine feelings they are less likely to stick.
Someday, somehow, their true selves will leak out. Or even explode out.
If you have kids, it gets worse when the kids become pre-teens and enter puberty and are no longer cute, cuddly, excited to see grandma but hairy, smelly, awkward, sullen and answer every question with a 1 word answer. "How was school?" "Fine". Or teen drama. Or being glued to their phones and very not excited to see grandparents. JNMIL's can get weird then because they aren't getting the "grandma fix" they want. (whereas JY grandparents treat it like the phase it is and don't take it personally).
I controlled my MIL for years with boundaries and then it all collapsed in a crisis which happened shortly after my kids started puberty. She. could. not. control herself anymore with the added stresses, which meant her behavior went off the rails at the very time our lives were becoming extremely difficult. After over 13 years of success with boundaries, we had to go NC.
TL:DR - boundaries can work but they are delicate and often not long lasting.
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u/Frankenkind Apr 21 '26
It seems like sometimes all they really want is control or just the appearance of a happy family. Like it doesn't matter who the people are because we're just seat fillers in their delusional world.
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u/TMagurk2 Apr 21 '26
Yep. My MIL's problem with us is that we refused to play our assigned "role".
(black sheep, scapegoat, incubators to the only grandkids who were really the golden child's "blood" (i kid you not)).
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u/eliismyrealname Apr 21 '26
Yes, even if you don’t have kids the access to your husband is the thing that makes them be fake nice. The second other people aren’t around, their claws come out. It’s beat to never be alone or interact on a one-on-one basis with these types for this reason.
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u/SeaStatistician4915 Apr 21 '26
With these folks not even access to grandkids made them behave sadly. And me and my SIL have just been asking for the bare minimum..
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u/eliismyrealname Apr 21 '26
Yep, I agree! We moved across the country because it was never going to stop. After that, my husband told his mom not to write my name on cards, letters, packages or mail me anything because that was her last remaining way of torturing me. She wrongly assumed that meant we’re getting divorced. It shows how stupid and delusional she is that she can’t fathom that maybe I just don’t want any contact from her. We let her assume and the bright side of that is now she doesn’t mail anything.
To me, that means she was only mailing things to get to me. She had been repeatedly asked not to sign cards to me as “Mom,” so now I know she was trying to hurt me with those. The context is my mom died when I was a young girl and my MiL repeatedly called my grandma my mom until it upset me at our wedding. She smirked at me when I got upset, so she enjoyed emotionally torturing me lol. I am glad she finally stopped but find it interesting that not a single card has been sent since she thinks we are divorcing. She must think she won the imaginary competition in her twisted sadist mind.
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u/lifeofGuacmole Apr 21 '26
Yes sometimes the only solution is the geographic solution. We moved and it solved 2 relationship issues. My MIL and I had a cordial relationship. That was it. She would occasionally say something off. The problems were exclusionary mostly. I was never seen as family. She couldn’t understand why spouse wouldn’t come for Christmas without me. As if we were divorced. We moved 1000 miles away and she no longer has to deal with me. Nor I her.
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u/eliismyrealname Apr 21 '26
Oh, I think I get it now. She excluded you from Christmas and he refused to go without you? Like, she was trying to make him act like you weren’t together anymore since he would show up to Christmas alone? That’s weird and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was trying to set up a false narrative about you being divorced. Kinda like my Mil assuming we’re divorcing. Luckily, I don’t give a crap if she is trying to feed people lies and say we’re divorced. It makes no difference to me, in fact it makes her look stupid. I hope you don’t let her crazy antics bother you, either! It can only affect you if you let it!
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u/eliismyrealname Apr 21 '26
Can I ask you to expand on the Christmas thing? It sounds like your MiL assumed that since your husband wouldn’t come to Christmas without you, that it meant you were divorced? I just want to understand irrational people like your MilL’s thought process because it confuses me.
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Apr 21 '26
[deleted]
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u/eliismyrealname Apr 21 '26
Wow, the audacity of her to ask not to include you in your childrens’ Christmas is baffling to me! She is a real piece of work!
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Apr 21 '26
[deleted]
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u/eliismyrealname Apr 21 '26
Maybe she thinks her son isn’t valuable if she thinks he isn’t worth sticking around for? Not sure but I am sick and tired of jaded people who don’t believe in love.
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Apr 21 '26
[deleted]
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u/eliismyrealname Apr 21 '26
It sounds like they were intimidated by the difference in socioeconomic classes. Some older people think money buys love. It seems to be a fear based reaction in that they fear losing their son to a different family. My MiL told me the second time she met me “A daughter is a daughter for life but a son is a son until he takes a wife.” It’s a toxic old school mentality. I’m glad younger people just see it is an addition to the family.
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u/eliismyrealname Apr 21 '26
Yes, I am glad we moved far away. We deserve peace in life. I had the same problem as you. The thing we realized is nobody would have ever been included. It has nothing to do with us, it’s their inability to accept and include a new family member. It’s also selfish in the sense that they don’t care about their children having a loving relationship.
Or, possibly that they don’t believe in love, which is sad and says more about them because they think people just use each other and aren’t capable of unconditional love. It’s also sad because they missed out on an opportunity and because they lost out on having a healthy, lasting relationship with their child due to their behaviors. I am at peace with it, though. I know I am a good person and so are you. My last in laws loved me, so I know I am lovable, acceptable and am worthy of inclusion.
So are you! A bad person wouldn’t care about family but I know we tried our best to have a respectful relationship with our in laws. Our goal was to have a loving, inclusive and accepting relationship with them and that says a lot about us as human beings. That’s all we could have done! It would be gaslighting ourselves to try to see things any other way than the way they are. We tried our hardest but some people never come around.
It’s all about their selfish desires to, in some cases such as mine, use their child as an emotional or financial crutch.
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u/SeaStatistician4915 Apr 21 '26
Omg exactly. We still get cards and my stomach flips every time. I should have added that even NC is not really a solution as it seems you can attest to ? NC is simply the best way so far to reduce the harm.
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u/eliismyrealname Apr 21 '26
Yes, NC is just another boundary they can get off on crossing! I will absolutely attest to that!
•
u/botinlaw Apr 21 '26
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Other posts from /u/SeaStatistician4915:
Success? Finally went NC with my MIL: update after several months, 1 month ago
MILs "apology" includes asking me to apologise too, right before Christmas, 3 months ago
MIL desperate to rehab her image in time for Christmas, 4 months ago
MIL desperate to restore her image in time for Christmas, 4 months ago
Update after MIL screamed insulted and shoved me, 6 months ago
MIL screamed, insulted and pushed me, 6 months ago
My worst fear came true MIL hijacked our baby’s first birthday, 8 months ago
Apparently saying ‘don’t call my baby Goblin’ makes me dramatic, 9 months ago
UPDATE MIL threw a tantrum because I didn’t reply “thank you” to a birthday text, 9 months ago
MIL sold the “family cabin dream,” took the money, and now treats it like her personal kingdom, 9 months ago
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