Rebecca Meyer
This 32-year-old woman and her future mother-in-law, 54, have had tension over the years. Unfortunately, her mother-in-law hasn’t treated her kindly. She and her now fiancé, 32, who she’s been with for seven years, is her closest friend and means everything to her.
Her fiancé’s father tragically passed away from cancer a year ago, and his mother became cruel and abusive after this loss. She would tell people she was going to hurt herself, put herself in risky situations, claim she wanted to “‘feel something,'” and make outrageous requests.
Finally, her fiancé limited communication with his mother, but he didn’t completely cut off contact with her. He attempted to convince his mom to go to counseling.
She has a history of trauma and PTSD, so she chose to cut off communication with her mother-in-law, but she assured her fiancé that she wouldn’t pressure him to do the same because she accepted that he had the right to continue communicating with his mom.
He explained that he’d contact his mom on his terms when it felt right. The situation became more complicated when his mother was diagnosed with cancer. For half a year, her fiancé has been in counseling to cope with the grief from his father’s death and the problems with his mom.
Two days ago, he talked to his mom on the phone in hopes of setting healthy boundaries with her. As they predicted, the discussion didn’t go smoothly.
“She started in her baby voice, crying at how ‘abusive’ he was being. I was there. He kept his voice calm and steady throughout. She then escalated to abuse/guilt trips,” she said.
Her mother-in-law told her fiancé his dad would be “ashamed” and that she gave up everything to care for him. None of these attacks made her fiancé give in or back down, so his mom escalated her behavior and resorted to yelling at him.
“She started smashing stuff in her home. He hung up the phone. She kept calling, leaving vicious voicemails full of actual threats of harm, something she had never done before,” she explained.
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