[Biibii]

My fiance and I have what I consider a perfect relationship, pretty much. There’s nobody else I would rather be with. The only problem is his mother…

Ever since I first met her, years ago, I thought she was confusing. One moment, she’s quite lovely. The next, she’s like a selfish child. She doesn’t seem very able to see anything from anyone else’s perspective. It’s always about what she wants and what’s convenient to her. She’s also manipulative when she doesn’t get her way. I feel bad saying that she’s not terribly bright, but…well.

Since we announced our engagement, she’s been pushing us to get a prenup (despite the fact that nobody really owns much to fight over). My fiance has told her again and again that this is a matter between him and myself and that she needs to stay out of it. She responded by leaving voice mails saying that she was loosing sleep over this, that this was ruining her weekends, and so on and so forth. She was even talking about “in case of divorce” when I let her come with me to try on my wedding dress.

When that didn’t work, she went quiet for a while. We hoped that she’d given up. It’s not that we are against prenups. We have been talking about getting one done and get wills done at the same time.

We’d invited her over for dinner on Sunday, and as we’re sitting down to eat, she pulls a piece of paper out of her handbag. As it turns out, it’s a prenup that she wants us to use. When my fiance says – again – that this doesn’t involve her and that she needs to stay out of it, she starts to talk about how easy it is to be conned when it comes to divorces and prenups. Mind you, she gave the paper to him didn’t try to include me in the conversation at all. Now, I believe that she didn’t actually mean it the way it sounded (“Hey, you better protect yourself from that viper over there!”) but that she wanted us to sign a document that she considered safe, or something along those lines.

However, it clearly illustrates that she gives no thought to what the things she says actually sounds like. She gives no thought to how others might perceive things that she does/says. She has no problem being frikkin rude.

The problem is that she apparently fell off a horse when she was in high school and now has minor brain damage. I have no idea if that’s what’s causing her to behave so strangely. My fiance is wanting to have a serious talk to her about her behavior, but he’s not sure if she’s even capable of seeing it from our point of view. Chances are, she’ll just paint herself the victim of our massive overreaction.

Personally, I feel that she’s gone so far across the line that I don’t even want anything to do with it anymore. The thought of seeing her again and dealing with her just makes me feel sick, right now. I’ve already spoken to him about all of this and he totally has my back. At the same time he loves his mom, of course. He’s the only one out of three siblings that haven’t moved out of the country. She has very little contact with his much older brothers. My finace has always been her favorite, the baby of the bunch.

Which basically leaves me with no idea how to deal with this situation.

Right now, I strongly dislike her and I don’t know how to get over that. Honestly, I don’t even know if I want to.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You’re not going to change her, so any serious “talks” are going to be futile. The best thing you can do is to change your own behavior, and the way to do that is to limit your contact with her, and create useful boundaries. Don’t tell her what you’re doing, just do it quietly, gracefully, and efficiently. If you stop spending so much time with her, she’ll become less important. Don’t return her phone calls the same day. If you do spend time with her, limit it to an hour or less. If that’s too long, try 15 minutes. If you want, you can very politely excuse yourself when she starts talking about prenups. Don’t engage her. It will just make things worse.

I know you don’t like her right now, but it’s important for your fiancé that you love her, and if the only way you can do that is at a distance, then create the distance. In addition, find your sense of humor. Things are funny at a distance, not up front, so when you are able to laugh at her behavior, you’ll know you’ve won the distance you need to keep your relationship with your fiancé healthy, and the relationship you have with his mother, functional.

I hope that helps!

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[Biibii]

That makes a lot of sense. I did tell him that I didn’t think she would understand it if he did bring it up. However, he tried to talk to her yesterday, and – surprise, surprise – she didn’t get what the problem was, at all. According to her, I am just overly sensitive 🙄

I [i]am[/i] overly sensitive at the moment. I’ll admit that. It feels almost like being sunburned and every little poke makes me want to shriek.

I’ve decided to just distance myself from her. We usually see them once a week/every two weeks, on average. However, it’s an hour drive from our house to theirs and they expect us to stay all day long if we are visiting them, so we usually get there around noon and don’t leave until just before midnight. That is way too long for me, but I’m having trouble making my fiance understand that. He doesn’t see the point in driving that long if we’re just staying for a little bit. I have some work to do there.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Take two cars, and you can meet them there, and then leave early. If you stay for an hour or two, every other week, that’s plenty of time. You can also wean the visits back to once a month. If your fiancé wants to visit her weekly, and you join him once a month or every other week, that should be enough. Try to keep things up beat, positive and fun. When YOU become the downer because of the situation, the tables will turn, so be understanding, work on whatever insecurities you have, and use your boundaries as tools until you’re able to visit her more often without any stress. 😀

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