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About Laura Giles, MSW
Expertise
I can answer questions about sexual assault, sex offending, domestic violence, substance abuse, acudetox, hypnosis, biofeedback, neurofeedback, ADHD, relationship issues, and run of the mill mental health questions.

Experience
Extensive inpatient, outpatient and criminal justice experience.

Education/Credentials
BS counseling, MSW social work

You are here: Experts > Health/Fitness > Mental Health > Counseling > Difficult Mother-in-Law

Counseling - Difficult Mother-in-Law

Expert: Laura Giles, MSW - 11/4/2009

Question
My fiance and I have been together for 2 years and recently found out we are expecting. We are adults, ages 29 and 30, college-educated with good careers and a nice home. We're extremely happy and have always been able to communicate and reasonably and rationally discuss problems and find solutions that work for both of us. But there is one issue that we cannot seem to work out, his mother.

The problem began almost immediately after we started dating, she says ugly, untrue things about me to other members of his family and also to him. When visiting (they live in another state), she doesn't include me in any plans with her son, she makes rude comments JUST loud enough for me to hear them. But when I ask her to repeat them to her son, she refuses. When she and his father come to visit our home, they stay for weeks on end (usually close to an entire month) and they take over the house. She decides what we are having for dinner, what we watch on tv. These visits occur several times a year. It creates an uncomfortable environment for me, and I quickly start to dread coming home from work to my own home. My fiance and I have had more arguments about the actions and rudeness of his mother than we have had on any other issue. I have pleaded with him to stand up for me to her and to put restrictions on the amount of time they are allowed to stay in our home, but he simply will not. The latest time they came to visit, they waffled on their plans until the last minute, at which point we had already made plans for friends to come visit and use the guest room. The result of this news to her resulted in a very intense argument, where she informed her son and I that because she was family that our home is her home too and that she should never have to ask permission to stay in our home or be given limits on how long she could stay. My fiance and I tried very hard to communicate calmly, but she went into irrational and senseless verbal warfare against both her son and I, establishing our home as her own and even threatening to sue me for 'Grandparents' Rights" if I ever tried to keep her away from our child. Some things she said were so strange and out of the norm that it almost seems she has some kind of romantic obsession with her own son. She called us ugly names, screamed at both of us, and even after the argument continued to act very immaturely towards both of us, and she has stated that she plans to come down for several weeks when the baby is born! Her son and I both agreed that it would not be a good idea for us or for the baby, and she frankly told us there was nothing we could do about it, that because our daughter belongs to her son, that meant our daughter belonged to her too. I know this all sounds so crazy, and I can't believe even now that I have allowed myself to get stuck in this situation. I finally got so tired of him not standing up for me that I stood up for myself and asked her to leave, at which point he gained some confidence himself and did the same. They left the next morning.

I've tried everything I know to establish a civil relationship or at least some common ground with her, to no avail. She's told both her son and I on several occasions that she has no desire or reason to have a civil relationship with me. When asked "why" she has no good reason, or makes up something that is bogus. I do not want to push him to an ultimatum and I do not want our child not to know her grandmother, but I also cannot stomach the idea of his mother behaving around our child the way she has repeatedly behaved around us or having this kind of negative influence. Deep down, I even fear that she will try to take our child.

The fact that we need counseling is a given, and we are currently seeking that. We need time to work on it and unbiased guidance from a neutral source. But what can I do in the meantime? I have a child on the way that she's going to expect to be around and influence!

Answer
Dear Misty,

My advice is for you and your husband to go to a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) group. DBT was developed for people who have borderline personality disorder, act irrationally and ruin other people's lives. Although YOU don't sound like you are borderline, it is also good for people who live with people with borderline personality disorder. The skills taught in this group can help you to maintain your own boundaries and cope with her behavior. It will help you to understand her so that you don't get so upset by her. Maybe in the course of treatment, your husband will learn how destructive all this is and learn to stand up to her.

Sincerely,

Laura Giles, LCSW

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