My wife is constantly made extremely upset by her mother’s behaviour, which has always been difficult but has progressed to new levels. My mother-in-law is a solitary person with no friends, although she has been married to my wife’s dad for many years. She spends entire days alone looking at rightwing websites while he is at work. The opinions she hears exacerbate her racist, homophobic views.
My wife and I are both women in our mid-30s, together for 10 years. We have good jobs, my wife in particular, and I believe lots of her mother’s anger is directed specifically towards her.
We live away and visit a few times a year. While visits seems cordial initially, her mother never fails to cause upset. She seems consumed by resentment of her daughter, much of it homophobic, and fails to acknowledge our relationship or my wife’s adult life. Visits fill me with anxiety as she shouts and says vile things. The anger is now also directed at my wife’s brother, who is also a high achiever. She often refers to them as being nothing without her.
Recently we stayed with them as my brother-in-law was graduating. My mother-in-law ended up overdosing on alcohol and painkillers. Both parents have been abusing painkillers for years. Her dad remains disengaged from admitting there is a problem.
We have discussed cutting them off but my wife is not ready. My mother-in-law also insists on long phone calls each week.
How can my wife protect herself from this?
What an incredibly difficult situation, and one which I’m sure many people will have viewpoints on.
Given your in-laws’ lives are such a car crash, and they seem unwilling to change, there’s little you can do without you both also being sucked into their vortex of doom. So it’s about minimising their impact.
I spoke to the family and AFT-registered psychotherapist Hannah Sherbersky. Her first, core reaction to the way forward was you putting your relationship first and having a united front: “It seems you have a strong relationship with your wife and there’s a unifying strength you can get from each other.” Sherbersky also recommends having a “practical plan and a contingency plan about what’s tolerable and what’s not. That would be quite containing.”
So if your mother-in-law starts ranting you could both decide to walk away and cauterise the bile. You could choose not to engage in her diatribes. Hard to do, but with practice it gets easier.
This unification is really important because often with in-law problems the person caught in the middle – here your wife – feels split between loyalties to family and partner.
We weren’t completely sure what your wife wants, other than not to break it off. “A good thing to be clear on is who needs protecting from what,” suggests Sherbersky. “Is this about your feelings, your wife’s, or both?”
It’s perfectly OK for you to be upset by your in-laws, but you may have to make space for your wife to be upset but still want to see them, however illogical that may be. It may be more beneficial for you not to go with her on these visits. I wonder what support she could get from her brother?
When people go back to dysfunctional situations it’s often because something tethers them: love, money, or a need to have a different outcome. “Your wife seems to have a deep sense of loyalty, but she may also have a deep desire for her mum to approve.” We often also equate approval with love.
Practically, I would suggest never staying in a toxic person’s house if you can help it. As for the weekly phone calls, a fairly simple but effective “trick” is for your wife to initiate them. That way she chooses the time and place, which is more empowering than sitting waiting for the call. Over time she can make them shorter, a few minutes a week. At all other times she should ignore the calls.
This isn’t easy. When I started this column I used to think “family at all costs” but some people are too toxic to be exposed to for too long. Just like radiation.
• Every week, Annalisa Barbieri addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Annalisa, please send your problem to ask.annalisa@theguardian.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.
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