Are they crossing the boundary?

[engineer31]

Hello! I've been reading through some of the topics for a few weeks and I have found a lot of helpful advice so I decided to sign up and introduce myself.

I have a PDmil that has triangulated my marriage for about 6 years now, almost 7. DH and I started counseling about 2 years ago to work through the trauma from his family and deal with our own communication issues.

Right before Halloween last year we decided to go NC with his family because right before that I tried to address my MIL about how I was hurt and she would gaslight, blame shift and never acknowledged anything (to cut the story short). Anyways, I blocked his entire family on social media, and he agreed that he wouldn't speak to them. He also wrote them a letter, in which it stated that we would not be communicating with them for awhile. My MIL and FIL continued to text him (for his birthday, our anniversary, thanksgiving, and Christmas). We also received a Christmas card that my MIL put together with a collage of photos that included 2 photos of our children. I honestly can't believe it. They know we are not communicating, but included photos of our children?! Not even a photo of us with our kids. Am I being ridiculous that I am angry about this? Are they crossing the boundary that we put in place saying we won't be communicating with them?

[spha6092]

Hi engineer31, welcome! I'm relatively new as well but just thought I'd say hi and that I really relate to your struggle about the triangulation. Sorry it's been so stressful. Christmas was difficult for us because my DH had said he needed space, which basically meant NC, but then both my SIL and MIL contacted him on Christmas Day to abuse him. We are also in counselling and a lot of the discussion is about his family and our communication issues too.

I would be angry if I were you as well, it doesn't strike me as ridiculous at all. They are crossing a clear boundary. But I suppose in this case you just need to feel the anger and acknowledge what they've done, but thankfully you are NC so you don't have to even reply to acknowledge and let them know it got to you. And maybe they do actually miss your kids? That's part of my own struggle as well, because I know they want to have a relationship with my kids but not have to deal with the parents!

[engineer31]

Hi engineer31, welcome! I'm relatively new as well but just thought I'd say hi and that I really relate to your struggle about the triangulation. Sorry it's been so stressful. Christmas was difficult for us because my DH had said he needed space, which basically meant NC, but then both my SIL and MIL contacted him on Christmas Day to abuse him. We are also in counselling and a lot of the discussion is about his family and our communication issues too.

I would be angry if I were you as well, it doesn't strike me as ridiculous at all. They are crossing a clear boundary. But I suppose in this case you just need to feel the anger and acknowledge what they've done, but thankfully you are NC so you don't have to even reply to acknowledge and let them know it got to you. And maybe they do actually miss your kids? That's part of my own struggle as well, because I know they want to have a relationship with my kids but not have to deal with the parents!

spha6092, I remember reading through your posts and thinking how similar my situation sounds to yours. They probably do miss the kids, even though they only see them twice a year, but since I blocked them on social media they haven't seen pictures. That was up until Christmas day when DH started to feel guilty about NC and shared a photo album without telling me. Along with a message that basically said we're still working on things on our end.  I didn't find out until NYE when I asked him if he had ever decided if he was going to send them any pictures of the kids. We had a long talk about how I felt that sounded like we're the ones with the problems even though after a year and a half of marriage counseling and about 6 months of individual counseling I know this is not my fault and me continuing to take the initiative to basically apologize for standing up for myself is getting exhausting. I only continued to apologize because I hated seeing my husband so depressed with the issues that never actually get resolved because MIL won't come to me, only badmouths me to him.

[spha6092]

It is not your fault. I don't know your whole story but the fact is you're allowed to be less than perfect and you are certainly allowed to stand up for yourself as well. My MIL also has refused to come to me until my DH basically issued an ultimatum, but it really gets him depressed as well because he can see the impasse. He knows I'm right and have done nothing wrong, but he still wants to believe that a relationship with his mother is possible. That's why in the other thread I'm trying to work out what to do.

You know, it's really hard for our DHs I think. Even though they're trying, they've been shaped their whole lives by this way of interacting with family. Not sure what role your DH has with his family? My DH is definitely the 'golden child' and the GC is rarely the one who stands up and breaks away so that's why this has been so shocking for my in-laws. The whole foundation of their existence has been shaken by the one email I sent in August plus everything that's happened since. It was a house of cards waiting to fall.

I also told DH to never again mention that we're in marriage counselling as it'll be used to divide and conquer. But also, the in-laws won't accept that the counselling is primarily about them! There is a big part of them that probably want our marriages to fail so that it will be easy to change the narrative so that it was the person who married in who caused all the problems.

Yes with social media they could kind of pretend they had a relationship with the kids, right? My MIL blocked me recently which was a huge relief since I didn't have to do it myself. But even before that happened I had already taken my MIL and SIL off my main Friends list so they didn't get to see some of the recent photos of the kids. Though I have made other news public to drive home the message that I am exactly who I say I am and very consistent in my approach to people and they can pretend I'm a horrible person but the interactions on my FB suggest otherwise!

But sending you hugs because I totally understand how tiring it is. Hope you are doing good things together as well to remind yourself what you're fighting for. We find little weekend trips with the kids really good for us in this way. I actually told my DH today as well that maybe he needs a different individual counsellor because the one he is seeing is not really doing the deep dive into family history that he needs to truly change his understanding of his family history which has been falsified.

[Hilltop]

Hey engineer31 welcome.  I am here mainly for problems with my own FOO however went through the inlaw thing a few years ago.  I recently took some time out from my parents and they also contacted my DH and inlaws for Christmas and New Year.  I ignored it.  Is it crossing a boundary to send communication when you have said you need space, yes however the way I see it is that it is not their boundary.  I suppose I can see that some family types don't want to give up communication, they want to show they are still there, in loving families its loving in PD families its usually controlling.  I did get angry when my mother sent messages to my DH and inlaws however she does that every year and so I chose to ignore it.  This time is for me, it's for my space, so I continued with my silence and didn't get drawn into communications.  You can't control other people, only yourself, so that's why I let it go and didn't dwell on it.  I have blocked them on my phone, email so that has helped a lot.

I see your PDMIL triangulates in your marriage, so did mine.  In the end it was best if I didn't get drawn into it, I eventually found out my MIL was lying to DH about me and telling us both different things, I'm not sure if yours is the same so it was really helpful to stop reacting to MIL.  One thing that helped me was I told DH to tell MIL that if she had any problems or issues about me to come to me, it doesn't matter if she doesn't actually do that, mine never did.  It's simply to put a stop to that badmouthing.  I told Dh that MIL and I were both adults and could handle our relationship ourselves that he shouldn't be in the middle.  I told him to tell her to simply talk to me and that if he listened to anything further she had to say about me which was negative that he was essentially agreeing with her and was being disrespectful of me.  This worked and I think DH was glad for an out.  I told him that any issues between MIL and I were nothing to do with him and that he shouldn't be in the middle and that he should shut down any conversation regarding me and tell MIL to talk to me herself, I reinforced that MIL and I are both adults and can handle our adult relationship on our own.  This could be one way to shut down that triangulation if this is what your MIL is doing.

I also gave up on having a close relationship with MIL.  It gets to the stage where you know you will not be good friends or even like acquaintances so its good to detach and remove yourself from that relationship.  It's good you are no longer on social media. 

I would be extremely hurt by the actions of your DH where he sent pictures without you knowing.  It's good that he is in therapy because I found my DH couldn't believe me as MIL was too much in his ear gaslighting him so at least a therapist is a neutral third party.  The other thing I found useful is when discussing things to leave MIL out of the conversation so if you were to talk to your DH about sending the photo's I would phrase it as "I am hurt you sent the pictures without me knowing.  I am hurt we didn't have an open honest conversation about how you are feeling.  I would like to be able to discuss how we feel and what we want to do" or something similar but keep it about you otherwise I found my DH got defensive and the conversation was lost.

As for you inlaws sending texts etc, you can block them for now if needed so you don't actually see anything.  This is what I have done with my parents however they can still communicate with DH however they don't usually send him too much, just around the holidays.  I guess you can't control what your DH does or wants to do and sometimes it's a long road to see how dysfunctional your own FOO is, baby steps.  Good luck.

[engineer31]

It is not your fault. I don't know your whole story but the fact is you're allowed to be less than perfect and you are certainly allowed to stand up for yourself as well. My MIL also has refused to come to me until my DH basically issued an ultimatum, but it really gets him depressed as well because he can see the impasse. He knows I'm right and have done nothing wrong, but he still wants to believe that a relationship with his mother is possible. That's why in the other thread I'm trying to work out what to do.

You know, it's really hard for our DHs I think. Even though they're trying, they've been shaped their whole lives by this way of interacting with family. Not sure what role your DH has with his family? My DH is definitely the 'golden child' and the GC is rarely the one who stands up and breaks away so that's why this has been so shocking for my in-laws. The whole foundation of their existence has been shaken by the one email I sent in August plus everything that's happened since. It was a house of cards waiting to fall.

I also told DH to never again mention that we're in marriage counselling as it'll be used to divide and conquer. But also, the in-laws won't accept that the counselling is primarily about them! There is a big part of them that probably want our marriages to fail so that it will be easy to change the narrative so that it was the person who married in who caused all the problems.

Yes with social media they could kind of pretend they had a relationship with the kids, right? My MIL blocked me recently which was a huge relief since I didn't have to do it myself. But even before that happened I had already taken my MIL and SIL off my main Friends list so they didn't get to see some of the recent photos of the kids. Though I have made other news public to drive home the message that I am exactly who I say I am and very consistent in my approach to people and they can pretend I'm a horrible person but the interactions on my FB suggest otherwise!

But sending you hugs because I totally understand how tiring it is. Hope you are doing good things together as well to remind yourself what you're fighting for. We find little weekend trips with the kids really good for us in this way. I actually told my DH today as well that maybe he needs a different individual counsellor because the one he is seeing is not really doing the deep dive into family history that he needs to truly change his understanding of his family history which has been falsified.

spha6092, thank you for your kind words. I love the idea of doing weekend trips; this is definitely something I will talk to DH about and see if we can do something even if it's only once a month. I think DH is definitely the GC. He's the oldest of 3, followed in his dad's footsteps in the military, and is now working on his degree (the only one in the family besides his dad). My IL's have badmouthed me to him so much that it was only when we started counseling that he started standing up to them. They expect me to use all my PTO to go see them and throw a fit if I don't. They expect me to send pictures of the kids all the time, even though they were on my social media and could see everything i posted, they still complained to DH about me not sending them pics directly.

@Hilltop, thank you for your response. I'm so sorry you are going through the triangulation as well. About a year ago I called my MIL and told her to please come to me if she has any issues with me and to leave DH out of it. She agreed, but then she did the same thing a few months later. DH stood up for me, but I do think he just needs to not even listen to it anymore. The one that really gets me is back when I gave birth to our son and she came over and pulled my husband into the bedroom, shut the door and they had a secret conversation. Then DH came out of the room and asked me to give him our son and go "do something" because he was worried that when he goes back to work I wouldn't be able to handle our son and daughter and keep up with the household chores.

I like the advice of phrasing it to only involve me and him, not MIL. That seems like it would help because I definitely notice that even if I mention MIL, he gets defensive.